Persistent Systems Granted Development Rights by USAA Services

Persistent Systems has announced an agreement with USAA for development rights to a number of patented innovations currently in use by USAA related to security in financial services.

 USAA, a FORTUNE 500 financial services provider that serves members of the military and their families, has been an innovator in securing authentication and financial transactions through a process that extends beyond user passwords and security questions. The development and intellectual property rights granted to Persistent stem from innovations that USAA uses to identify and verify members, while also protecting their privacy. 

Through this agreement, Persistent will extend these technologies and address a growing market opportunity for digital security products and solutions in the financial services industry. Persistent will focus on authentication and security solutions based on concepts such as micro-trust, risk-aware, contextual, and personalization in conjunction with technologies related to biometrics, risk modeling, and dynamic proofing.

Sudhir Kulkarni, President Digital at Persistent Systems says, “Digital transactions in financial services are growing at a rapid pace. This agreement is at the intersection of security and digital transformation in financial services, and it brings together USAA’s patented security technologies with our product engineering DNA to strengthen our focus on the how of digital.”

Gary McAlum, USAA’s Chief Security Officer says, “The financial services industry is highly connected, and we want every link in the chain to be strong from a security perspective. That’s why we’re excited to work with Persistent Systems to see patented innovations we use today developed into products that can benefit others in the financial sector. Just like we say to our members, we are stronger together than we are apart.” 

Eminent Architects, Designers Win WB Honours at Gnosis Sixth Edition of Design and Dialogues

Gnosis Services Pvt Ltd held the Sixth edition of Design and Dialogues and WB Honours at the JW Marriott – Bangalore on February 28,^, 2017.

 Sheital Shetty – Founder and editor of Design Dialogues and Washrooms and Beyond  welcomed all the guests . The session started with Benjamin Beller of Bao Architects, Beijing talking about Luxury Washrooms and Technology in Washrooms. He was joined by Lipika Sud of Lipika Sud Interiors,  Ponni Concessao – Principal Architect – OCI Architects,  Smitha Zachariah of SZ Designs and Behzad Kharas – BNK Realty Limited.

This was followed by a session on Joys and Perils of Open Kitchen – moderated by Leena Kumar – Chairperson – The Indian Institute of Archtiects – panellists were Kanan Modi – Principal Architect, ELPLUSD, Kalpak Bhandrai – Principal Architect, Veekas Studio, Sunitha Kondur, Director – Hundred Hands and Dinesh Verma.

Materials and Designs in Washroom – was moderated by Milind Nulkar – panellists for which were Kayur Patel – Founder and Creative Director – SCG for Glass Fusion, Nitin Saolapurkar – President IIID, Dr Sujit Kumar, and Shyamala prabhu.

Waste Water Reuse was moderated by S. Vishwanath – Director – Biome Environmental Solutions Pvt Ltd, Panellist for which were Anil Sharma, Principal Architect, ASA Architectural Consultancy  Amol Prabhu, Co-founder, Shashi Prabhu and Associates, Oscar Concessao, Principal Architect, OCI Architects, Nejeeb Khan, Managing Director, AIA and RIBA

Challenge in Public Washroom Designs was moderated by Gayathri Shetty, Principal Architect, Gayathri & Namith Associates, panellists were Sharukh Mistry, Principal Architect, Mistry Architects and Kavita Sastry, Architect, Interiors and Landscape Design Services.

Dr Chandrashekar Hariharan, Chairperson, Biodiversity Conservation India

Kiran Venkatesh, Co-founder, InFORM Architects and Sandeep Jadhav, Founder, Architecture Paradigm

Designers Wishlist  was moderated by  Sheital Shetty, Editor/Publisher,  Washroooms and Beyond and Kitchen Ideas for which panellists were  Kumar Ravindra, Principal Architect, PRAGRUP - Pratap Jadhav, President, IIIDS. Gopakumar, Managing Partner, Kumar Group Total Designers Vivin Agarwal, Chief Mentor, BIO Design Farm.

The event coverage will be telecasted on NDTV Goodtimes over the next new weeks.

Evening lit up with WB Honours where the following people were honoured in their respective fields –

Ø  Pune Municipal Corporation – Development of Model Public Washrooms by State Government Body

Ø  Agasti – Mumbai – Innovation in Public Washroom design – restroom for women.

Ø  Atmantan Wellness Resort – Light Design in Spa

Ø  Mr BSA Narayan – Special Contribution to Plumbing Design and development.

Ø  JW Marriott – Chandigarh – Technology Driven Washrooms

Ø  Dharampura Haveli, Delhi – Washroom restoration in Heritage Building

Ø  Architect Sarukh Mistry - WB Lifetime Achievement Honour

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Launches Public Sanitation Projects in North Karnataka

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has announced the launch of Public sanitation facilities in North Karnataka at Haliyala and Joida, as a continuation to its active efforts towards “Swacch Bharat Campaign” The event marked the handover of two sanitation facilities to the local administration at Haliyala and Joida in North Karnataka. Under this project, TKM constructs seven public sanitation facilities across Haliyala, Dandeli, Joida and Ramnagara regions in the State of Karnataka, thus contributing towards upliftment of Sanitation facilities in rural Karnataka.

Present at the occasion were dignitaries like  R. V. Deshpande, Minister for Large and Medium Industries and Infrastructure Development - Government of Karnataka,  Umesh Bolshetty, President Town - Municipal Corporation along with senior management of TKM including  Akito Tachibana, Managing Director - Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Naveen Soni, Vice President - Toyota Kirloskar Motor and Rajender Hegde, General Manager, Toyota Kirloskar Motor.

Open defecation is a serious social challenge in India. According to UNICEF Reports, one in 10 individuals’ practices open defecation, posing serious threat by making people susceptible to infectious diseases like Cholera, Typhoid, Hepatitis, Ascariasis and other Infections. Around 1,000 children below the age of five die every day in India from diarrhoea, hepatitis-causing pathogens and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the report of United Nations Children’s Fund. According to Unicef, only five of the 30 districts in the state have satisfactory access to toilets while another three are average in the usage programme. The rest are below the minimum stated standards of toilet access and usage.Toyota Kirloskar Motor has pledged its active support under “Swacch Bharat Abhiyan” by building toilets in Schools, household, public places and educating community to use the toilets and not defecate in open. Additionally TKM has also initiated Project ABCD (A Behavioral Change Demonstration) to create awareness on importance of basic hygiene. More than 30,000 school children and 1 lakh village population have been trained on sanitation through this program and motivated to construct household toilets.

The sanitation units established by Toyota Kirloskar are located in 7 areas with 89 upscale toilets catering to public use including the physically challenged members of our society. Toyota has partnered with local government authority (Town Municipal Corporation) to construct, operate and maintain these sanitation units. The Karnataka State Government has aided this project by providing land, water & power to these sanitation units. These complexes are manned by trained attendants and have separate enclosures for men and women with necessary sanitary kits.

“Speaking at the event R.V Deshpande, Minister for Large and Medium Industries and Infrastructure Development - Government of Karnataka said “We appreciate the consistent efforts by Toyota Kirloskar Motor to enhance the sanitation facilities in Karnataka through their unique CSR initiatives across villages. About 85% of our population in Karnataka have toilet facility and we urge more such corporates to come forward to support this campaign. Proper sanitation facilities are imperative for the health and hygiene of the community.  In addition to the construction of sanitation projects, we also need to work towards changing the mindset of public by educating them on the importance of basics of sanitation and toilet hygiene where community leaders and village groups have a larger role to play. We will extend all required support to corporates for their dedicated and sustained programs to contribute towards Swacch Bharat.”

Speaking at the occasion and about the program 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. We are happy today to launch the Public sanitation facilities in North Karnataka. Good Sanitation facilities plays a great role in the socio- economic development of the country.  According to Unicef, only five of the 30 district in Karnataka have satisfactory access to toilets.”

As a responsible citizen, Toyota Kirloskar has been contributing to the cause of education, health, hygiene, road safety, environment and skill development across the country.

Till date, TKM has constructed more than 650 units of sanitation facilities in 206 government schools across India, of which 125 units are located in Varanasi, 426 units in Ramnagara district in Karnataka and 125 units in Vaishali in Bihar. In addition, TKM initiated the ABCD project with a focus on bringing in a behavioral change among school children. The project which mainly drives consciousness towards the use of toilets, begins from the grass root level by identifying gaps that exists in the sanitation facilities in rural Karnataka and tries to bridge the gap with a widespread awareness drive. Through unique children to parent approach the project has been able to create demand for household toilets through the children. More than 2300 household toilets constructed through this project. Toyota also installed incinerators (Napkin destroyers) in 15 government High schools in Ramanagara district. The project has also tremendously contributed in reduction of school hour missing cases (earlier condition- adult girl children used to go to their home for toilet usage and miss the classes (1-2 hours). Owing to the TKM’s girl child sanitation initiatives and ABCD project implementation school missing hours have reduced to zero.

By the year 2016-17, TKM has set a target of 40 villages to become open defecation free in Karnataka and has been already successful in ensuring 100% sanitation in 32 villages in Karnataka.

Over 250 Trade Partners Across Aircel Circles Awarded Super Achievers of Lakshya 2.0

Aircel, one of the leading innovative mobile service providers in India, successfully executed 'Lakshya 2.0' program for the year 2016 to reward its top performing trade partners in India. Under this trade partner engagement program, 256 channel partners across circles were flown/taken for a 3 days fully-paid trip to 'land of beaches' Goa. 'Lakshya 2.0 was aimed to acknowledge partners such as Sales Employees, Distributors and FOS, who achieved over 100% target in a period of 3 months.  

The program offers its winners comprehensive line up of benefits including International Travel, Domestic trip, Gold/Silver Coins & Laptops among other things, while maintaining strong relationships with retailers and distributors.

Commenting on the program, Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer, Aircel said, “We ensure that we maintain strong bonds with our trade partners by spending considerable time with our retailers and distributors in motivating, educating, training and addressing their queries as they are a vital link between us and the consumers. In order to establish and build relationships with the channel and partner community, we organize a variety of programs and offers, one such initiative is Lakshya2.0”.

He further added that, “We are pleased with the results of Lakshya 2.0 and would like to thank our trade partners for their endless support. We value the relationship we share with them and appreciate their commitment towards the Aircel family. We are happy that the program was welcomed with a lot of enthusiasm by our trade partners”.

Aircel has always strived to engage and bond with its trade partners through different measures. The program was aimed to connect with the trade partners and inspire them to work hard and achieve their targets. It was one of the most appealing initiatives of Aircel which motivated the trade partners to outperform themselves and raise the bar for quality performance. Aircel is committed to the growth of its partners by empowering the trade community to provide customer rich experience.

Games2win Successfully Debuts “Game Commerce” With Limeroad

Games2win – a leading Casual Games Company with over 100 million games downloads and 1+ Billion annual engagement minutes announced its success with “Game Commerce” – a brand new engagement concept that gamifies Fashion E-Commerce with Dress Up Games

Alok Kejriwal – CEO and Co-Founder of Games2win said, “Dress Up Mobile Games are one of the most played games in the world, by girls across all age groups. Globally, Dress Up games enjoy over 300 million downloads a year. While developing these games, our Product Managers conduct deep research about fashion trends, concepts and what’s hot and what’s not. A few months ago, it occurred to us to approach some of the most popular online fashion brands in India and proposed featuring their best products in our games.  Many progressive brands loved the inventiveness of our idea and signed up to be featured!

We launched ‘Indian Fashion Stylist’ on the Android and iTunes stores featuring stylish garments from leading brands such as Limeroad.com. Within the game, when consumers play with branded products, we highlight the brand and link the product to the brand’s Mobile website where consumers can spend more time mobile shopping, exploring shopping options. We believe that this blend of deep engagement with fashion, brands and game play is a massive leap forward in mobile experiential marketing and delivers 100 times more engagement vs. static or video mobile ads. In ‘Game Commerce’, consumers play with the brand. They connect at a personal level vs. just watching an ad. This makes them remember the brand and even buy it”.

 Suchi Mukherjee – CEO and Co- founder, Limeroad.com said, “As one of India’s largest fashion, lifestyle and accessory companies, we at Limeroad are very open and receptive to innovation and ideas that further expand our brand footprint and create a deeper level of engagement with our audience. The Games2win idea does just this splendidly and promotes our brand amongst the teen and tween audiences who are harder to influence and target. We are keenly watching this game and hope it grows bigger!”

Within a week of launch, the game has recorded 20,000 downloads and over 170,000 game plays. While playing the game, a stunning 40% of consumers have clicked on the live links to visit the mobile pages of the fashion brands and explore more options.

Tech Mahindra Adds Metaswitch to Its VNF-Exchange Program

Tech Mahindra, a specialist in digital transformation, consulting and business engineering today announced that cloud native communications leader Metaswitch has been selected to join its VNF-Exchange program. By joining the VNF-Exchange program, Metaswitch will provide key cloud native virtual network functions as part of Tech Mahindra’s validated end-to-end solutions for converged and mobile operators, including Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi).

“Tech Mahindra and Metaswitch share a vision for telco transformation through NFV and SDN, and are working closely to provide the next generation of solutions to accelerate provider success,” said Ian Maclean, CMO of Metaswitch. “This work builds on Metaswitch’s commitment to cloud native communications, moving our companies and our mutual customers more rapidly into an era of software-centric service deployment and the revenue growth that it enables.”

Launched in November 2016, VNF-Xchange is a vendor-neutral platform that provides a reference environment for Virtual Network Function (VNF) design, VNF stack and VNF performance validation. Designed to accelerate the communications industry’s adoption of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networks (SDN), it provides a platform to validate VNFs, the components of the NFV reference architecture, and the end-to-end solutions, use cases and network services that they enable. VNF-Xchange continuously incorporates industry input on validation and certification of virtualized solutions, in addition to broader inputs derived from Tech Mahindra’s experience out of its interactions and engagements with customers globally.

“Metaswitch’s cloud native vIMS (virtualized IP multimedia subsystem) product suite is geared to accelerate delivery of virtualized VoLTE and VoWiFi services, and we are very excited to have Metaswitch join our VNF-Exchange program,” said Manish Vyas, President, Communications Business, Tech Mahindra. “Metaswitch’s commitment to innovation is strategically aligned with our objective to accelerate communication service providers’ network transformation with SDN and NFV.”

Sasken to Showcase Full Phone Development of Satellite Mobile Handset at Satellite 2017

Sasken Technologies Ltd., (formerly Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd.), a leading product engineering and digital transformation solutions provider, is participating in the Satellite 2017 to be held from March 6  to 9, 2017 at the Walter E, Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C, USA. At the event, Sasken will showcase a handheld satellite terminal developed end-to-end for the world’s leading satellite service provider in a record 18 months.

Sasken provides extensive expertise to global satellite communication leaders in developing terminals, virtualizing networks, and enabling telecommunication with satellites. At Satellite 2017, Sasken, along with its partner, Pensa Networks, will present case studies on supporting some of the world’s leading satellite service providers in areas such as sustenance, SDN, and virtualization.

Sasken’s strong track record in the satellite communications domain has been particularly symbolic in developing and delivering a complete satellite phone – the IsatPhone 2 – in 18 months for Inmarsat. The IsatPhone 2 complies with GSM and GSMR2+ specifications and delivers the longest battery life in competition with exceptional voice quality, low cost rugged design (IP54 rating), and low foot print modem and application framework. In addition, Sasken has executed a full product program RnD for 15 mobile handset products with conceptualization, integration, productization, and production ramp up.

Speaking about Sasken’s participation at the event, Srinivas Prasad, VP and Head – Communications & Devices Business Unit, said, “The field of satellite communications is growing multifold in terms of breakthrough technologies being integrated to develop new generations of satellite terminals. With over two decades of terrestrial communication experience from ADSL technologies to the latest LTE technologies, Sasken has been at the helm of providing value-added technologies that have enabled leading global satellite enterprises to build cutting-edge solutions which have created breakthroughs in their respective markets. We are confident that this event, being solely focused on satellite technologies, will serve as the perfect forum to interact with our peers and customers alike, while we showcase our major contributions in this emerging domain.”