Healthcare Provider Qyura Aims to Bridge the Gap between Patients & Medical Service Providers

Qyura, from the Spanish word ‘Cure’ aims to educate users on and about the available healthcare solutions around them, enabling them to make informed decisions in case of any medical requirement. Unlike any other e-healthcare provider in the market, Qyura is not just about doctor bookings or medicine delivery, but covers nearly every aspect of healthcare ranging from getting an X-ray done from the nearest diagnostic centre to calling for an ambulance in case of an emergency. Qyura is also the first and only provider in the category which networks hospitals and enables the users to make the right choice.

It is a platform that is designed to enhance revenues, reputation and operational efficiency as well as reduce expenditure for the healthcare service providers. The mobile application has been launched in three cities - Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore. Over more, users can avail all the services offered by Qyura through the website.

In a span of 60 days, Qyura has been successful in partnering with 2000+ medical service providers and boasts of names like SRL, Manipal Hospital, Apollo Spectra Hospitals amongst others.

Additionally, to expand fast and penetrate multiple markets quickly, Qyura will be entering into a Franchisee model. It will support its franchisees by offering them 360° marketing, tech and operational support. The emphasis would be on the philosophy of building up entrepreneurship and corporations through their designed network infused with the company culture.

Commenting on the launch, Siddhant Jatia, Founder and Director, Qyura said, “Healthcare in India is still a severely unorganized sector. Patients are subjected to indefinite queues, bad customer service, unequal pricing and most importantly, severe neglect in times of dire need. Moreover, critical information with regards to medical institutions, doctors, blood banks, emergency services - is fragmented, unclear and sometimes entirely unavailable. Qyura aims to organize the medical sector to allow patients to make informed decisions by becoming both a discovery platform as well as an opinion generating medium. Be it preventive healthcare, a person’s day today medical requirement or assistance at the time of emergencies, Qyura is the go-to place for everyone.”

The platform aims to offer booking assistance, reminders before appointments, letting the patient know if the doctor cancels and a gamut of impromptu calls-to- action which demonstrates the extra-mile to its users. The back-end team is extensively trained to offer solutions and assistance, and most importantly, to Dare to CARE.

The company will also be launching a pharmacy module, where medicines will be delivered at the user’s doorstep.

Keypoint Technologies Adds Intenticons Features to Xploree Keyboard

Keypoint Technologies has added a new feature -Intenticons to the Xploree keyboard gallery.

The company announced the roll out of this new feature addition to Xploree, its revolutionary keyboard. The feature is available for users from September 2016.With Intenticons, Xploree promises to deliver a novel mobile discovery experience to its users. This new age feature merges users’ conversational context with predictive imagery. These images – Intenticons –are predictive visual manifestation of users’needs even as the latter gesture, converse or type on the keyboard.

The images have been pieced together on the guiding principle of making information discovery on mobile more purposeful, sorted, and self-explanatory during the conversation. All research & development at Keypoint Technologies revolves around human reasoning and linguistics. Hence, the name for the new feature - ‘Intenticons’.

The Intenticons illustrate the combination of intents and imaginative icons through pre-defined images. They are intuitive and indicative, capable of guiding users towards relevant content, offers and services– in the same frame, at the tap of a key. The Intenticons will help and guide the Xploree user in multiple ways. To explain with some examples:

-         Even as the user types “Flight” – a pop-up image of Tour operator Intenticoncan suggest flight deals

-     As the user chats about food – Grocery Intenticoncan help him/her find nearby grocery options.

-    the Art & Entertainment Intenticon can keep user updated with reviews of the latest Bollywood movie.

As of now KeyPoint has introduced Intenticons across 150categories covering food, restaurant, grocery, fashion and travel. The company sees endless possibilities for delivering useful content to its users with the help of these images. Sunil Motaparti, CEO KeyPoint Technologies says,“With Intenticons, we have introduced a novel visual trigger to assess and consume information at the tap of a finger. At that very precise moment within a conversation, which we call mobile interlude, it becomes utmost important to be able to switch to the information you need and come back to where you original are. With increasing usage of imagery language comprising of emojis and stickers, we see ‘Intenticons’ serving this very purpose for the Xploree consumers.”

Idea Cuts Pack Rates by Upto 62% Across Karnataka Circle

In its efforts to provide its customers with superior and affordable wireless services, Idea Cellular; India’s fastest growing telecom operator, announced upto 62% reduction in the MRP of various recharge packs available in Karnataka. Idea customers in the region can now avail same benefits at a much reduced cost.

The Idea pack priced at Rs. 84 with Idea to Idea local call benefit of 10 paisa/minute is now available at just Rs. 32 (62% reduction) and Rs. 65 pack that provided the benefit of local mobile calls at 30 paisa/minute is now priced at Rs. 29 only (55% reduction). Another pack with STD call benefit at 25 paisa/minute can now be availed at Rs. 28, this pack was earlier priced at Rs. 67 (58% reduction).

All these packs are available at your local retail store with 28 days validity and there will be no 1^st min charging applicable on any of these. Idea has also reduced the prices of other such tariff packs and the details are as follows:

Talking about the newly announced offers for Karnataka,  Siva Ganapathi, Chief Operating Officer, Karnataka, Idea Cellular, said, “In Karnataka, the major portion of this population uses voice as the primary way of communication. Our revised prices for local and STD call packs are aimed at providing the new and existing customers with superior wireless experience at an affordable rate. We hope our customers will make best use of this opportunity and will derive maximum benefit.”

Idea is one of the leading operator in Karnataka serving 8.5 million customers. The company provides 2G services on superior 900MHz, high speed 4G services on 1800Mhz and 3G services through ICR.

Talking about the newly announced offers for Karnataka,  Siva Ganapathi, Chief Operating Officer, Karnataka, Idea Cellular, said, “In Karnataka, the major portion of this population uses voice as the primary way of communication. Our revised prices for local and STD call packs are aimed at providing the new and existing customers with superior wireless experience at an affordable rate. We hope our customers will make best use of this opportunity and will derive maximum benefit.”

Idea is one of the leading operator in Karnataka serving 8.5 million customers. The company provides 2G services on superior 900MHz, high speed 4G services on 1800Mhz and 3G services through ICR.

NestAway to Provide Verifies Rental Assistance for Brigade Residences

Brigade Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NestAway, a premier rental solutions provider to become the first builder in India to address the commonly-faced rental concerns of its customers on exclusive basis. 

Through this collaboration, Brigade Group will offer comprehensive rental assistance to all its existing customers as well as 10000 apartments in different stages of construction that are currently in the process of being readied for handover. Brigade customers will now be able to avail of a rental default guarantee that assures them timely rent. 

Brigade Group is one of the India’s leading Real Estate player headquartered in Bangalore has over the past 29 years created many landmarks and innovative projects across South India. It offers property development, property management services, hospitality and education services. The firm develops luxury apartments, integrated enclaves, software and retail facilities, serviced residences, resorts, clubs, schools, hotels, a convention centre and hospitals.

“We have over 22 properties in South India and many residential on the verge of occupation. We have many existing customers looking for quality rental assistance. Assuring clients of an organised rental and maintenance service is a value-addition that we are offering as a first in the building industry," said Om Ahuja, CEO, Residential at Brigade Group.

Jitendra Jagadev, Co-founder and Managing Director of NestAway says, “There is a need for rental assistance for residential houses and apartments in India as well. We have a database of over 18,000 verified customers across India and have provided assistance to about 4,500 home owners so far. Assured rentals and maintenance handling are additional bonuses which help the current and future needs of Indian home buyers.”  

BT & Microsoft Join Forces To Simplify Hybrid Cloud Customers

 

BT has announces BT Compute for Microsoft Azure, a new service that allows BT customers to order Microsoft Azure alongside BT’s own cloud services through its award winning Compute Management System (CMS) online management tool. The service enables customers to build hybrid cloud infrastructure with a single service wrap, contract and on a single bill.

BT customers already use private and public cloud services – also known as hybrid cloud - hosted in BT Compute’s 48 data centres globally. With BT acting as their cloud services integrator, and by using CMS, customers can manage their cloud services end-to-end from datacentre to network, maximising the benefits and minimising the complexity, risk and costs of moving to the cloud. Using local delivery with global scale allows BT to meet the evolving needs of organisations for cloud services and at the same time address the complexity of regulatory requirements.

Integration of Microsoft Azure into the CMS expands the choice for BT customers. They gain access to Microsoft’s rapidly growing collection of integrated cloud services, including leading Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) computing capabilities.

Neil Lock, vice president of BT Compute at Global Services, BT, said: “Hybrid cloud has become a major focus for many large enterprises as they choose a variety of cloud solutions to suit their complex business needs. In fact, BT research suggests that 90 per cent of its largest customers expect to be using a combination of public and private cloud in the next few years. Through our relationship with Microsoft, customers can build their own hybrid cloud environment and enjoy the benefits of Azure whilst removing costly management concerns from the equation. Our Cloud of Clouds portfolio strategy is all about empowering our customers take advantage of the choice, flexibility and control of cloud without concerns about the complexity and security.”

Aziz Benmalek, vice president, Worldwide Cloud and Hosting Services, Microsoft Corp, said: “BT is a natural fit to provide managed cloud services on Azure. Through our relationship with BT, we're able to help customers with their infrastructure management and give them the ability to scale their business in a consistent hybrid cloud environment."

The service will be available during the final quarter of 2016, adding further value to Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute available through BT Cloud Connect Direct. 

Bill Thies from Microsoft Research India Awarded MacArthur Fellowship

Bill Thies, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research India, has been awarded the MacArthur Fellowship or as popularly known a ‘genius grant’, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, one of the largest private philanthropies based in the United States. 

According to the MacArthur Foundation the fellowships, are awarded to“talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction”. The award recognizes Bill for his contributions to the socio-economic development of underserved communities. With a deep understanding of the real-world constraints, Bill’s socio-economic research projects bring life-needs like education and healthcare to the less empowered by leveraging the power of the mobile in the rural areas of India.

His recent work includes the 99DOTS initiative; a new model of delivering tuberculosis medications and ensuring adherence to the full treatment regimen, which is crucial for preventing the spread of drug-resistant strains of the disease. Currently being scaled up across all states of India, the initiative utilizes basic mobile phones and augmented blister packaging to provide real-time adherence monitoring of the disease.

In addition to his contributions to the field of healthcare, Bill has been instrumental in driving CGNet Swara, a voice portal for citizen journalism across physically and socially isolated tribal communities in India. In collaboration with the India journalists, Bill and his team developed an interactive voice response (IVR) system that allows users to report or record events of notice via mobile phones. As part of the initiative, a team of moderators review the audio messages received via the IVR and, if warranted, bring the recorded concerns to the attention of government officials.

Bill is also a co-inventor of several low-cost technologies for education, including a mobile application that automatically detects and aggregates student responses using computer vision, as well as an interactive tool that helps translate educational videos into local languages. 

PayPal Extends Refund Period from 60 to 180 Days for Indian Merchants

In a bid to facilitate refunds for customers and merchants, PayPal, one of the world's leading payment platforms, extended the time limit from 60 to 180 days for filing a refund claim, a company official said on Thursday.

The extended refund period will be applicable for all its users covering both goods and services. "The extended refund period is another step towards improving the user experience and enabling them to manage refunds effectively. An extended refund window is a manifestation of our vision of being a customer centric organisation and an enabler of smoother digital payments," said the company's managing director Anupam Pahuja.

With the extension, merchants will get more time to elevate customer concerns and process refunds in a smooth and efficient manner. This will allow them to manage queries independently and in turn reduce the number of escalations thereby helping them to control their fund flow, said the company statement.