'Acadmix' - World-Class Academic e-Bookstore for Learners in India

In keeping with its commitment to offer high-quality learning material to students, Pearson, the world’s leading learning company today launched a world-class academic ebookstore - Acadmix - for Indian learners.

Having a comprehensive repository of over 10,000 national and international academic e-books, Acadmix offers world-class multi-publisher content to address the requirements of learners in the classroom. The integrated platform offers a one-stop solution to learners for all their academic needs including content from Pearson and other top publishers such as Arihant, Laxmi Publications, Nirali, IB Library among others.

The platform provides learning content across various subject areas, such as K-12, Engineering, Business and Economics, Competitive Examinations, Computer Science, Medical Sciences, Professional & Trade, Nursing & Healthcare and Sciences.

In addition to providing perfect fidelity to the printed text books, Acadmix provides ‘Learning on the Go’ by enabling access through desktops, laptops and smartphones (IOS/Android/ Windows).  Acadmix offers multiple features for the ease of learners, such as:

-        Personalised login with features like bookmarks, highlights and notes

-        Personal bookshelf display for each user, which contains all the subscribed eBooks in an easy-to-find thumbnail view

-        Ease of readability through analogous layout and design, intuitive navigation,enhanced searchability and personalised two-color highlighting among others

-        Cross-references and hotspot links to easily locate the various elements of the text

-        Online and offline reading to enable continues learning even without an internet connection

Announcing the launch of Acadmix, Vikas Singh, Business Head and Vice President, Pearson India said, “With technological advancements and globalisation, the world has become a connected classroom today.  Learners from around the world are increasingly embracing the use of digital platforms, particularly e-books to acquire learning. Being the world’s largest learning organisation, Pearson understands the evolving needs of learners and accordingly has introduced an innovative learning model that brings world-class content from renowned national and international publishers to a common integrated platform. We are confident that Acadmix will ensure continuous learning even beyond the four walls of the classroom.”

The potential of the platform is reflective in the phenomenal response received from top-league institutes during the pilot phase. Some of those are IIM Rachi, IIM Lucknow, IIM Calcutta, IIM Shilong, IIM Kozikote, Xavier School of Management, National Institute of Technology and Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning among others.

Commenting on the usefulness of the platform, Ajith Kumar J, Professor (Production, Operation and Decision Sciences), XLRI Xavier School of Management, said, “Pearson's eBooks are really valuable resources for anyone looking to get instant access to courseware power-packed with features that facilitate teaching and learning.”

“Pearson's e-Book gives students a handy alternative of carrying a print book, as they can be downloaded in devices. As a faculty, I am able to recommend an international edition & it was made available instantly. Pearson's initiative of e-book is truly commendable.” said Arindam Mukherjee, IIM-Ranchi.

As per the "Nielsen India Book Market Report 2015: Understanding the India Book Market", the Indian book market is expected to touch Rs 739 billion by 2020. An increase in internet penetration and reach of electronic devices is expected to significantly contribute towards the growth of digital publishing market as well. This is reflective of tremendous growth opportunities in the segment. 

A New Ray of Hope for Obesity Related Diabetic Patients Across India

India’s population is the third most obese in the world and obesity is the number one cause of type-II diabetes in India. There are more than 300 million people suffering from obesity in India and type-II diabetes affects more than 63 million people in the country today. Over 80% of adult diabetics in India are clinically overweight. One of the reasons for this is that Asian Indians have a ethnic and genetic predisposition for developing diabetes at a younger age and at lower body mass index than the Caucasian population.

90 percent of patients with diabetes have type 2 diabetes and almost 90% have some grade of obesity. This joint syndrome is called diabesity. Such individuals need to lose weight and control diabetes, if they want to save themselves from life threatening repercussions of both these diseases. So far medical treatment which is medication and lifestyle modification has seen to have major limitations hence we see the mortality and hospital admissions due to these diseases on the rise in the recent past.

For patients who have undergone traditional lifestyle modification including exercise, diet control and medication and still not see any impact on the weight and or control on their diabetes have a ray of hope to look forward too. There is a growing body of evidence for surgery as an effective treatment for obesity and related diabetes. Recently, at the American Diabetes Association’s 76th Scientific Session, data from study titled COSMID was presented that demonstrates ‘bariatric surgery is a better treatment option than medical therapy and lifestyle management alone for obese Asian Indian patients with inadequately controlled type 2 diabetes’. The COSMID (Comparison of Surgery vs. Medicine for Indian Diabetes) Trial is the first randomized controlled study that specifically addresses the Asian Indian population, which develops type 2 diabetes at an earlier age and a lower BMI than Caucasians. 

One of the patient’ who underwent gastric bypass surgery in this trial was a 42 year old lady suffering from diabetes for the past 7 years. She weighed 82 kgs and was on insulin. Being a teacher, she had challenges in travelling and working for 8 hours. Frequent hypoglycemia and giddiness was about to make her lose her job. She already had started neuropathy and kidney disease. After Gastric Bypass she is completely off all treatment for diabetes, she now feels much more energetic and has normal kidney function. She says, “In this era of advanced medicine, I was extremely worried about my kids and was feeling helpless because of my increasing diabetic complications. Gastric Bypass has saved not just me but my family”

Bariatric Surgery recognized as a permanent weight loss solution for people with high BMI or Body Mass Index or those categorized as obese. Over the years, globally it has been seen that Bariatric Surgery was used only on severely obese patients, however this treatment specifically for Indian patients who have weight related diabetes could be used effectively to manage their health and control diabetes.

COSMID was the first ever study worldwide where gastric bypass was used purely for treatment of diabetes, the two-year study, following 80 subjects, found gastric bypass to be superior to medical management alone in treating patients with type 2 diabetes. This is a path breaking and the first of its kind, evidence which may change the guidelines for treatment for patients with type-II diabetes which cannot be controlled by medication.

By Dr Shashank Shah, well known Bariatric Surgeon 

Free your Voice Campaign To Save Internet Telephony Kicks Off In India

The capital saw the launch of “Free Your Voice”, a national campaign aimed at freeing the voice of the people of India by serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia and supported by iSPIRIT in an effort to encourage fair laws to enable the launch of Internet Telephony in India, permanently.

The Free Your Voice campaign counters the stand taken by several incumbent players including, but not limited to, Vodafone, Idea and Airtel, in their response to TRAI’s consultation paper dated 22nd June 2016, with an intent to introduce prospective policies, recommendations and clarifications concerning Internet Telephony in India. 34 companies have submitted their comments and 6 companies have submitted counter comments to TRAI in this regard.

Commenting on the state of Internet Telephony, Bhavin Turakhia, Co-Founder and CEO, Directi said, “Internet telephony in India is under threat from major telecom players. Incumbent providers like Vodafone, Airtel, Idea, etc. are reluctant to reduce costs and drive innovation. Allegedly incumbent operators are claiming that only the Telecom Carrier that provides a data connection to a subscriber should be allowed to offer Internet Telephony to that subscriber over their Internet connection. This means for example, that a Vodafone 4G subscriber can only get Internet Telephony from Vodafone and no other provider.”

Sudhir Singh, Fellow iSPIRT, said, “A truly ‘Digital’ India demands VoIP to open immediately. Government should now remove all shackles. Leaving ‘internet telephony’ only to the incumbent large Telcos will not be in the interest of consumer. Regulator should fit in the entry of number of small and medium size players, also. This will help innovation, micro and small businesses and availability of variety of niche services.”

Internet Telephony enables customers to make calls to any phone number in the country, over the Internet, at 1/3rd the current calling rates and provides numerous benefits such as the ability to make calls over Wi-Fi in bad signal areas, 90% cheaper international calling, HD voice, and innovations like simultaneous data transmission, video calls, and many more. The comments made by the incumbents in response to the TRAI paper make inaccurate claims and representations.

“This proposition is anti-competitive and will make India the only country in the world to not have fair Internet Telephony laws. This puts our nation in a disadvantageous position compared to the rest of the world in terms of being a digitally empowered nation,” added Bhavin.

In spite of provisions being there in the laws, India has not seen any internet telephony services being launched by the incumbent operators in the last 8 years. This fact underlines the kind of apathy being shown towards the Indian consumer.

“TRAI and DoT are progressive organizations who have always issued policies, guidelines and recommendations that enable the latest technology advancements for the country,” concluded Bhavin. “This is one of those instances where the government’s policies have been almost a decade ahead of their time, and yet the private sector has not launched Internet Telephony for the masses.”

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella to Democratize Artificial Intelligence Globally

”As we think about the future of technology, it resides in the notion of intelligence. Microsoft has an approach that’s both ambitious and broad, an approach that seeks to democratize Artificial Intelligence (AI), to take it from the ivory towers and make it accessible for all.“ At Ignite 2016 - Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella outlined the company’s vision of building intelligence across capabilities that span agents, applications, services and infrastructure transform what’s possible for people and organizations.

“Core to our mission to empower every person and organization on the planet is democratizing AI for every person and organization to help solve society’s most pressing challenges,” said Nadella. “To do this, we’re infusing intelligence into everything we deliver — from the agent to applications, services and infrastructure.”

With the growth in the number of mobile and digital devices, and the amount of data generated every day, society is undergoing a digital shift our society is undergoing.  This is also having an acute impact on the business world. Every company in every industry around the world is now being challenged to transform from being an organization that uses digital technology, to being a digital organization.

The announcements at Ignite, spanning security, productivity, intelligence and the cloud, will make it easier for IT professionals to drive digital transformation throughout their organizations. These include:

Democratizing AI - For every person and every organization

Microsoft’s four-pronged approach on AI and how it is pursuing this bold ambition to democratize AI for all.

Partnership with Adobe

In addition, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced that Adobe is bringing its Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure and making it the preferred digital marketing solution for Dynamics 365 Enterprise. Together, the two companies will enable businesses to dramatically strengthen their brands through solutions with Microsoft Azure, Adobe Marketing Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

5 Industries Being Transformed by Big Data and Machine Learning in the Cloud

A year into its release, Cortana Intelligence has had big impact on customers across healthcare, retail, manufacturing, financial services and government and other industries. The range of creative solutions that Microsoft customers have come up with, to address their business needs, has been very impressive.

 Applying intelligence to security and compliance in Office 365

Given the explosive growth in data production, IT is tasked with securing a volume of corporate data that is growing exponentially. To stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape, companies need the ability to analyze and learn from that data in order to identify, intercept and respond to threats. Office 365 now provides unmatched security intelligence to help customers protect, detect and respond to threats. 

TKM Delivering Clean Water to Over 96,000 Villagers Covering 111 Villages Across India.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor recently announced the inauguration of its 10^th Community based Water Purification Unit in Bidadi at Bychohalli as a continuation to the efforts of providing safe drinking water to the villages in Bidadi. With this, Toyota Kirloskar Motor has installed a total of 12 units at Byramangala, Ramanahalli, Bidadi, Manchanayakana halli, and Harohalli Grama Panchayats and one each in Varanasi and Vaishali to cater to the drinking water requirement of villages in Bidadi.

All the water purification units have a 1000 liter per hour capacity accompanied with a minimum 6-stage purification system has been benefitting over 96,000 villagers, covering 111 villages across India. Water analysis study conducted by Government authorized agencies had alarming revelations indicating that the TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) level of the water used for day-to-day activities are way above the normal limit of 500. Similarly the calcium and magnesium levels in these waters were also found to be above the desired limit.

This high level of contaminated water undergoes six step filtration processes with reverse osmosis technology and UV rays in the Water Purification Units established by Toyota Kirloskar Motor to deliver IS10500 standard potable water. Furthermore, TKM has also signed an agreement with Prajwala Karnataka Social Welfare Trust, a local non-profit that will maintain the unit for a period of 15 years. The NGO will carry out the day to day operations of the unit and comply with the IS10500 water standard. The users will be charged a nominal fee of Rs. 5 for 20 liters of purified water, thus creating a sustainable model.

The inauguration ceremony witnessed the presence of H. Balakrishna, MLA Magadi, Mrs. Sunanda Venkatesh President MN halli Grama panchayat,  Shiva Kumar PDO MN halli Grama Panchayat and Akito Tachibana, Managing Director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor.

Commenting on the occasion Akito Tachibana Managing Director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said “Wherever we do business, it is our endeavor to strengthen the community we exist in. Our aim is to enrich the society with our CSR initiatives understanding and catering to the critical needs of the neighboring community. Water is one of the core essential and basic necessities. The increasing pollution level of the Byramangala lake and high contamination of the underwater, created serious threat to the access to safe and pure drinking water resulting in a high occurrence of skin diseases, arthritis, cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, etc.. As a good corporate citizen, ensuring the health, safety and hygiene of the neighboring villages through our CSR initiatives is of utmost importance to us.  With the establishment of the water purification units, there has been a drastic reduction in the water borne diseases in these areas”.

“As a part of planning for the sustainable CSR program, we conduct need assessment study as a regular process building consensus with local community, involving all stakeholders and continuously monitoring the sustenance model established in the community.”

TKM believes that education is the most powerful weapon that will change the world. In line with this philosophy, TKM has been consistently contributing towards reconstructing and renovating government schools in the Bidadi region. Further to the emphasis on importance of quality education infrastructure, The day also marked a ground breaking ceremony of construction of government school at Thalaguppe village in the presence of  MLA H. Balakrishna, MLA, Magadi and local Gram Panchayat President Sunanda Venkatesh.

As a responsible corporate citizen, Toyota Kirloskar Motor is constantly working towards the development of people, communities, and the earth at large. The company’s efforts over the years include rebuilding a local residential school, construction of water tanks in rural Bangalore that benefitting Ramanagara people; setting up water purification units across the country which is benefitting over 96000 people; construction of more than 500 toilets for households in villages around Bidadi, awareness on environmental conservation for local schools; distribution of school materials like bags, books, computers, and chairs to under-privileged student.

In addition, TKM has also pledged its support to the ‘Swachh Bharat campaign’. In the wake of the growing concerns around insufficient sanitation facilities in government schools and lack of adequate toilet training among school children, Recognizing the need for a new approach, TKM initiated the ABCD project with a focus on bringing in a behavioral change,  The Project ABCD (A Behavioral Change Demonstration) not only aims at achieving 100% school sanitation by increasing awareness, it also promoters dignity and privacy for the girl child by upgrading existing unhygienic school toilets to usable condition as well as to promote learning and retention among school children, teachers as well as the community members.

Additionally, the company constructed more than 600 units of girl child sanitation facilities in Varanasi, Vaishali and Ramanagara. Overall through its CSR projects TKM has touched over 9, 50,000 lives.

Accenture to Acquire DayNine, Expanding Workday Capabilities to Transform Employee Experience

Accenture has entered into an agreement to acquire DayNine, a leading global Workday consulting and deployment services provider with vast expertise in helping organizations transform their employee experience and financial management systems to better navigate change and drive growth. The acquisition will extend Accenture’s already strong position in Workday and provide new value for clients.

“Our clients are increasingly choosing Workday to drive their cloud transformations, so we are taking this important step to meet the growing demand,” said Paul Daugherty, chief technology officer, Accenture. “DayNine is a leading exclusive Workday partner and will bring an enviable track record and impressive team that will provide our clients even greater value and business results as they transform their organizations using Workday. I look forward to welcoming the leadership and talented professionals of DayNine to Accenture.”

Upon completion of the acquisition, approximately 400 DayNine professionals with 1,250 Workday certifications will join the existing Accenture Workday group working within the Accenture Cloud First Applications team. The combined group, which will be led by DayNine CEO and co-founder Tim Ramos, will become the largest certified workforce in the Workday ecosystem and will work across all phases of Workday deployment.

“The breadth of Accenture’s industry expertise brings incredible opportunities to customers looking to leverage the cloud for their financial management and HR transformations,” said Tim Ramos, chief executive officer and co-founder, DayNine. “We pride ourselves on delivering an industry leading customer experience helping our customers connect their people to their strategy and we are excited to join forces with Accenture to deliver a full range of transformational and deployment services for Workday customers. Our combined teams and capabilities will be able to deliver unparalleled value for customers around the globe.”

“We’re excited to see that Accenture is deepening its commitment as customer demand for Workday continues to grow,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and chief executive officer, Workday. “DayNine has already built a very strong Workday practice, and we look forward to seeing how the combined capabilities of Accenture and DayNine will enable Workday customers to take full advantage of what the cloud can offer.”

DayNine, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA and with 14 additional offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia, was founded in 2009 with an exclusive focus on Workday. Since then, it has grown to be a leading global Workday Services Partner. DayNine serves clients across a wide range of industries including consumer goods, healthcare providers, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and communications, media and technology.

With the intent to acquire DayNine, Accenture continues to strengthen its position as a leading enterprise cloud services provider. The move is part of Accenture’s acquisition strategy that focuses on expanding its cloud services to bolster its Cloud First agenda, and includes the past acquisitions of Cloud Sherpas, New Energy Group, CRMWaypoint, Tquila UK and ClientHouse.
 
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Completion of the acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Next Gen ATLAS Managed Services Platform Provides Operation Insights & Transparency

Mindtree has announced the availability of the next generation of ATLAS, its output-based managed services framework.  Adding to the existing rich functionality, this new generation allows users to have greater transparency and a holistic view into the interworking of their application infrastructure, including performance metrics, optimization and analytics.

In its original incarnation, ATLAS is a managed services framework that consists of a set of processes, tools, accelerators and dashboards that have helped more than 100 large enterprises more efficiently run their technology operations. The individual tools that make up this framework can be used across all application managed services (AMS) engagements, or bundled together in a connected managed services arrangement. 

With this enhancement, ATLAS is now an end-to-end workflow driven platform. It consists of toolkits that help analyze complex application portfolios, design transition plans, implement solution models, and develop a detailed transformation roadmap to take Mindtree’s customers from the current state to best-in-class. ATLAS also provides metrics and dashboards to measure, track and report the state of the engagement, and the business value delivered. This provides real-time access to view issues and check progress.

Subramanyan Ananthanarayanan, Mindtree’s Vice President for Application Managed Services, noted that the enhancements to ATLAS indicate a significant shift in how organizations view their application infrastructure.

“Application managed services has always been a bit of a black box. Clients would hire a vendor who would manage it and often even internal IT staff didn’t really have a clear picture of their landscape, or have access to any analytics around the data their backend contains. This new enhancement of ATLAS opens the windows and creates transparency and actionable insights for Mindtree clients,” he said.

The combination of the power of the available tools, such as ATLAS, with Mindtree’s proven expertise in infrastructure, application and testing platforms, demonstrates the company’s continued commitment to run-your-business, managed services-style engagements, said Mindtree President, Americas, Scott Staples. 

“At Mindtree, we believe the truly transformative work of the future will combine all pieces of information technology into a seamless platform. Of course, the digital front-end is critical, but without a solid, connective, accessible infrastructure, no amount of elegance on the front end is going to matter,” he said.