National Truckers Programme - Eyes OK Please- Unveiled by Sightsavers

Sightsavers, a leading global development organization working in over 30 countries to combat avoidable blindness and promote equal opportunities for visually impaired, unveiled “Eyes OK Please”, a report on National Truckers Programme, named RAAHI – Road Safety and Assurance By Healthy Eyes, in the presence of its honorary brand ambassador and internationally acclaimed actor, Shri Kabir Bedi. The programme will reach out to 500,000 truck drivers and helpers of the laborious 9 million truck drivers and transporters community present in India. This 9 million-truck driver community transports 65% of national cargo by road.    

With an aim to understand the situation of refractive errors and spectacle usage among truckers and transporters who were part of Sightsavers’ interventions, the study spanned across 3 years analyzed vision for thousands of truckers, including a 360-degree testing of all normal visual faculties. Drawing from the research-backed insight that good vision accounts for as much as 95% of all sensory requirements to drive safely, the National Truckers Programme detects visual problems, provides spectacles or other service/ referrals. This intervention is an attempt to pre-empt visual problems among drivers, since road travel accidents have an annual death toll of 1.2 million worldwide and up to 50 million injuries. The findings corroborate an earlier study by road safety experts CSRI-CRRI and IDTR that states that drivers operating trucks have undetected eye problems and live and drive for long periods of time with these problems. The intervention for truckers is as necessary as it is missing, in the country’s road safety discourse.

The data in this report comes from 235 outreach camps that Sightsavers India and its partners conducted over 10 cities in India. From April to December 2016, these eye camps screened 17,546 people. A total of 324 respondents – 268 drivers and 56 staff (including Conductors and Helpers) – from 10 cities were interviewed for this study. The average age of the drivers interviewed was found to be 44.6 years. Among the 268 drivers, 81% were truck drivers, 11.6% were bus drivers, and 7.5% drove other vehicles such as autos, private vehicles or tempos.

The findings of the report states that a very high number of respondents knew that there is a problem. Nearly half, i.e., 48.5% of the respondents said they felt the need to attend the eye camp because of an eye-related problem. Of these, as many as 42.2% said they faced a problem in driving or working. It also states that the respondents have been living and driving with eye problems for as long as 8+ months, with 64.2% of the respondents saying that they were not doing anything about their eye problems. Of the 324 respondents, each one required professional eye care; with 96.6% required spectacles and 3.4% were referred for further treatment.

Unveiling the report, Dr. S.Y. Quraishi, former chief election commissioner (CEC) of India and Honorary Chair of Sightsavers in India said, “I feel proud to be part of this great organization that is undertaking such important studies for the betterment of the country and the citizens. The Eyes OK Please! report on National Truckers Programme brings out that eye conditions such as refractive errors are quite common among truckers and transporters. The effort by Sightsavers in this direction is commendable. The mission that was started more than five decades ago is forging ahead to bring sight to many and lighten up their lives with hope. I pay my respect to Sir John Wilson whose vision had set a course to change the eye health scenario of not only India but globally.”

RN Mohanty, CEO Sightsavers (India) said at the event, “We envisage a world where no one is blind from avoidable causes and where visually impaired people participate equally in society. From this experience, Sightsavers India can confidently state that community-based eye testing, provision of spectacles and referral services for the trucking community have a huge potential for scaling up in India. Sightsavers India will relentlessly work for the betterment of its people and also contribute significantly to Sustainable Development Goal number three (SDGs), especially 3.6 which says that by 2020, 50 percent of the deaths from road accidents will be reduced.”

Declaring the programme open, Kabir Bedi, honorary brand ambassador, Sightsavers India and internationally acclaimed actor said, “Not many in the past have paid heed to such a significant need of having an eye health programme for our truck driver community. It is clearly a welcome intervention by Sightsavers to enhance road safety in India by reaching out to this laborious truck driving community.”

SonicWall and SentinelOne Join Forces to Provide Automated Real-Time Breach Detection, Prevention and Remediation

SonicWall, the trusted security partner protecting more than one million networks worldwide, and SentinelOne, the company transforming endpoint protection, today announced a new agreement to bring together SentinelOne’s next-generation endpoint protection with SonicWall’s next-generation firewall (NGFW) solution. By combining the two powerful offerings, SonicWall and SentinelOne will not only automate the distribution and enforcement of SentinelOne’s Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP), but also ensure automatic remediation of malicious attacks such as ransomware in the event of infection by reversing system and file modifications.

“The outbreak of global high-profile attacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya have established that once ransomware penetrates a network, the damage can spread in a matter of minutes,” said Vikram Phatak, Chief Executive Officer of NSS Labs. “This combined solution has demonstrated that it will detect existing and new threats and automatically respond quickly, all while allowing users to simplify ongoing enforcement of endpoint protection.”

By combining the two solutions, SonicWall and SentinelOne will allow administrators to not only create policies to determine which individuals must run the endpoint solution on their devices, but also add controls to ensure that devices are running the endpoint client, if required.  Through the partnership, SentinelOne and SonicWall will also offer threat intelligence sharing – combining the industry’s fastest conversion from unknown to known malware via the SonicWall Capture Threat Network with the addition of threat intelligence from SentinelOne endpoint data. Additionally, the combined solution brings key features including:

·         Policy-based enforcement, compliance, quarantine and remediation

·         Cloud-based centralized management and analytics

·         Dynamic detection with behavioral models and machine learning

·         Automatic remediation of ransomware and other advanced threats

“Combining our offerings eliminates the need for organizations to purchase separate endpoint solutions and employ specialists to install and maintain endpoint protection. We’re proud to partner with SonicWall to amplify our SMB market coverage, jointly delivering what we believe is the most effective, holistic, and consumable next-generation endpoint protection solution available.” said Tomer Weingarten, Chief Executive Officer of SentinelOne. “Together, we are removing complexity for users and addressing the reality of our users’ business environments while still continuing to stop the most advanced as well as never seen before cyber threats.”

SentinelOne was listed as ‘most visionary’ in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant, received a “recommended” rating for Advanced Endpoint Protection from NSS Labs, and is consistently rated the top EPP product by leading AV testing organizations. For five straight years, SonicWall has excelled in NSS’s Next Generation Firewall testing, the industry's most comprehensive, real-world testing of NGFWs.

“Today’s partnership agreement with SentinelOne marks the beginning of another important chapter in SonicWall’s story, as we offer our customers a new, enhanced level of protection,” said Bill Conner, President and CEO of SonicWall. “Our two powerful solutions bring enterprise-level security enforcement, as well as automated detection, prevention, remediation and compliance, to small and medium sized organizations around the world. The combined offering takes automated real-time breach detection and prevention to the next level, enabling our customers to focus on their core businesses and fear less.”

The combined offering from SonicWall and SentinelOne provides protection to users operating Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and VDI. It will be available for purchase in early 2018.

Register for India’s Largest Vistara Aviation Hackathon Opens Sept 25

Vistara, India’s finest full service carrier, has launched ‘Vistara Hackathon’, the country’s largest of its kind in aviation. The ‘Vistara Hackathon’ is aimed at encouraging the young minds and draw participation from across the country to create innovative solutions that will disrupt the industry in line with the airline’s vision of transforming the flying experience for travellers in India. The all-India ‘Vistara Hackathon’ will be held in Delhi/NCR and Bengaluru from October 7, 2017 to October 8, 2017, the registration for which is open until September 25, 2017.

Organised in partnership with IncubateIND, the ‘Vistara Hackathon’ will involve 20 teams from each city that will compete with each other to create new applications and tools to address aviation-related challenges in areas such as, tracking traveller behaviour, personalisation of air travel, intelligent crowd monitoring at airports, system integration with third-party APIs and software, inflight entertainment and intelligent customer targeting, amongst other challenging aspects. The solutions submitted at the ‘Vistara Hackathon’ will be reviewed by a panel of technology and aviation experts who will hand-pick winners, based on originality, potential for scalability and successful execution.

Phee Teik Yeoh, CEO, Vistara, said, “At Vistara, innovation is at the forefront of everything we do, from design to delivery of our products and service, and in so doing, delighting our customers. Information Technology is our backbone, which helps us stay ahead of the curve and do the right things at the right time and in the most effective way. The ‘Vistara Hackathon’ is a reflection of our innovative approach to leverage on technology in our effort to change the way people travel in India, and therefore, bring them the ‘new feeling of flying’ with Vistara.”

Elaborating the airline’s focus on technology, Ravinder Pal Singh, Chief Information & Innovation Officer, Vistara, said, “Vistara is the first Indian airline to have built an end-to-end IT infrastructure on Cloud. We’re adopting the latest technologies to drive innovation across avenues – from maximising convenience for travellers across customer touchpoints to simplifying internal processes that lead to increased productivity and cost-saving. Technology will help bring about disruptive changes in the aviation industry, some of which we hope to discover at the ‘Vistara Hackathon’.”

Vistara continues to invest in cutting-edge business software, mobility, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, big-data impacting and improving people & quality of its workplace – all with the purpose of delivering an unmatched experience across all touchpoints as well as to optimize processes and operations. In a short span of less than three years, Vistara has developed a robust technological framework to support its growth and to ensure a seamless experience for millions of travellers.

UM Motorcycles Rides in Renegade Commando Mojave & Commando Classic in Bengaluru

UM Lohia Two Wheelers, the Indian arm of the American motorcycle maker, UM International LLC, along with Lohia Auto is all set to ignite the passion for its riders by taking their biking experience to a completely different level with the introduction of brand new Renegade Commando Classic and Renegade Commando Mojave. The new revolutionary Renegade Commando Mojave and Renegade Commando Classic are powered by the liquid cooled, Single Cylinder, 4 strokes, 4 valves and Spark Ignition making it a perfect blend of Practicality and Versatility.

Speaking at the launch, Jose Villegas, Director, UM India said, “There is a latent demand for such bikes with varied customer needs emerging in India. The customers are aware, ready to experiment and follow their gut. With the launch of Renegade Commando Classic and Mojave, we are looking forward to attract young leaders. We are committed in setting a new benchmark in providing excellence not only in our products but also in service experience. Renegade Commando Classic and Renegade Commando Mojave will surely capture up-country customers with a progressive mindset.”

The Renegade Commando Classic was much appreciated when it was showcased at the 2016 Auto Expo. It is a USA originated cruiser powered by a 279.5 cc single-cylinder Liquid-cooled EFI engine with responsive 4stroke 4 valve, spark ignition developing 25.15PS at 8500 RPM and 23 NM of torque at 7000 RPM, mated to a six-speed transmission with overdrive for vibration free rides. The motorcycle turn heads and stand out with high gloss metallic 2 tone paint job and more than 3430 square inches of sparkling chrome. It is a complete touring package which includes premium saddlebag and tank cover, polycarbonate windshield, highway engine guards and alloy back rest. The Renegade Classic will be available at Rs 193,630 (ex-showroom- Bengaluru).  The stylish cruiser will be available in the market in unique two tone metallic candy paint with shades of Copper Cream & Candy Metallic Glossy Black.

UM also introduces it’s all new Renegade Commando Mojave which is inspired from The Mojave desert, North America’s largest and driest desert. Mojave will also share the same engine as the Renegade Commando Classic but will feature new style and colour. Mojave will be introduced in the market in a unique desert coloured matte paint, Mojave Desert logos and fuel tank cell phone pad. The Renegade Commando Mojave and its sibling Renegade Classic come with an electric start and have an air filter with paper element innovation. Six-speed synchronized mesh Overdrive has been added for easy cruising. The front wheel has telescopic suspension while the rear wheel has dual shock absorbers. These motorcycles have a fuel tank of 18 liters with a kerb weight of 179kg. The Renegade Commando Mojave is available at Rs 185,171 (ex-showroom, Bengaluru).

Vaishnavi Group Adjudged One of India’s Most Promising Brands

World Consulting & Research Corporation (WCRC) Asia’s leading multi-dimensional consulting & media company has selected Vaishnavi Group as one of the top 100 India’s Most Promising Brands 2017, in recognition of its contribution to the real estate sector. The selection was based on a number of criteria, chief amongst them being quality and consistency in performance eliciting repeat customers.

Vaishnavi Group has constantly adopted a customer centric approach in its operations and this has created 40 per cent repeat sales involving either existing customers making another investment in their projects or giving referrals to their projects. The Group has consistently logged in high level of customer retention and satisfaction as borne out by multiple testimonials.

Commenting on this prestigious selection, Cyriac Joseph, Senior Vice President - Marketing, Vaishnavi Group said “We consider being featured amongst India’s Most Promising Brands 2017 as an acknowledgement and recognition of our contribution to the real estate sector. Recognition is not just a mark of great prestige, excellence and consistent customer loyalty and trust, it is also a tremendous boost to all of us at Vaishnavi to continue to excel and aim for even bigger accomplishments.”

According to Joseph, not only the customer centric application and customer retention but also the unique nature of each project prompted their selection. “Each project is a landmark, designed with a specific brief that brings in a unique value and differential approach. This makes the projects distinctive. Coupled with this are our uncompromising quality controls and customer oriented approach which have been instrumental in the Group being selected amongst the top 100 most promising brands.”

India’s Most Promising Brands showcases the journey of brands that started from scratch and climbed to the pedestal of future industry leaders. The exercise features brands across 15 industries comprising 50 sub-categories. The research process of India’s Most Promising Brands 2017 has been advised and evaluated by ibrands 360.

The jury for this year’s award includes Rajesh Sinha, Founder and CEO of Fulcrum Worldwide, Paresh Chaudhry, CEO of Madison Public Relations. Bobby Pawar, Managing Director, Chief Creative Officer Public South Asia, Ajai Jhala CEO BBDO INDIA, Suhel Seth Indian entrepreneur, Author, Columnist and Socialite.

The list of winners include GSP Crop, HPM Chemicals, Mahindra Tractors, Honda Brezza, Honda Creta, TMTL (Tafe Motors), Orient Flight Philips Airfryer, Kotak Mahindra Bank, amongst others.

India’s Most Promising Brands is the largest multi-platform brand credibility project with an intention to bring these brands to the fore and mark them for bigger accomplishments in the short to medium term.

Get My Parking Secures $3 Million in Series A Funding Round

Get My Parking, a 2-year-old smart parking IoT platform, has secured Series A funding of $3 million (Rs. 19.20 crores) to advance their product transformation and business impact. The participating investors include IAN Fund, BEENEXT, and Indian Angel Network. Previously, the startup had raised $1.1 million (Rs.7.35 crores) as pre-series A and $376k (Rs. 2.5 crores) as angel investment.

Since its inception, this ingenious startup has made an unmatchable mark in the industry and is clearly the market leader. With a team size of 60, their platform currently processes 1.7 million tickets per month.

Commenting on the development, Chirag Jain, Co-founder and CEO, Get My Parking said, “Existing parking experience tends to take a big chunk of time and fuel; this is where Get My Parking delivers a hassle-free parking experience to every automobile owner. Our dedicated team works towards digitization, integration, and automation of the parking industry while simultaneously catering to the global mobility trends.”

Get My Parking digitizes all types of unorganized parking to create an efficient parking ecosystem. They are associated with a broad spectrum of partners, varying from large scale system integrators and consultants to individual parking operators. Their platform benefits both ways by offering a piece for everyone’s requirement. Having successfully deployed their technology across 300 locations in Delhi and executed parking at mega events like Kumbh Mela and IPL, the startup is experiencing unprecedented growth. In lieu of smart urban mobility, this new fundraise would be utilized towards upgrading their IoT platform to serve a wider range of stakeholders in the parking ecosystem.

Get My Parking has been awarded the ‘Travel app of the year- Emerging’ at the reputed AWS Mobility Awards 2017, hence cementing their industry leader position. Using their pioneering innovation, GMP can connect and digitize any type of unorganized parking to make it go online and consumer facing, all within 10 minutes.

Saurabh Srivastava, Co-founder of IAN & Architect and Mentor of IAN Fund, said, “A truly ‘Made in India’ company, Get My Parking is set to revolutionize an untouched part of urban mobility - parking. With several smart city projects on board, Get My Parking is perfectly poised to leverage this huge opportunity with their sharp focus on execution.”

Get My Parking provides city dashboards and enforcement applications for government authorities, cashless parking management system with revenue analytics for contractors, APIs for mobility providers, and integrations with hardware manufacturers. They also have mobile applications for both, the consumers and suppliers of parking space. All this requires coming together of all the stakeholders. This is where Get My Parking has stepped in and built a completely integrated IOT platform that connects all these solutions and their stakeholders effortlessly.

"The GMP technology platform crossing 20 Million transactions in 20 months exhibits the biology of scale and relevance. Having established its dominant role in its home market the company is at an exciting stage of making itself relevant globally in mature developed markets and as stakeholders we are delighted”, said Sudhir Rao, an existing investor and board director of Get My Parking.

Initially, it was perceived that their products are best suited only for developing countries but surprisingly, they saw huge interest coming from the developed countries also. This is because their platform works like magic when bridging disconnected parking lots to digital mobility solutions at the fraction of other alternatives’ price and time.

“We are excited about how cities are changing in the future. Parking plays a crucial role here and we couldn't find a better team globally than the folks at GMP”, said Dirk Van Quaquebeke, Managing Partner, BEENEXT.

Get My Parking is now poised for international growth with contractual partners in 15 countries to cater to the needs of global parking solution. They recently put their foot in Taiwan where a pilot of their technology with on-street sensors is taking place.

With Get My Parking transforming into the industry’s default smart parking platform from a mere idea in just 2 years, they are well poised to make parking a subconscious experience for millions of motorists, globally.

NPCI Hosts Financial Literacy Through ‘Campus Connect’ for Students

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in the country, is conducting pan-India series of financial literacy campaigns under its ‘Campus Connect’ initiative.  

Nishith Chaturvedi, VP & Head, Human Resources, NPCI said, “The objective is to create awareness about significance of having a less-cash society to celebrate World Literacy Day. It also serves the purpose of pre-placement talk at the campuses before NPCI visits the institute for campus hiring.

The financial literacy workshops led by NPCI’s Human Resource vertical have been initiated from August to integrate digital payments in campuses across the country. Reputed management institutes of Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai will host over 3000 students from about 35 universities where they will be familiarised with financial products like Unified Payments Interface (UPI) / Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM).

Bangalore’s renowned institutes such as IIIT, MS Ramaiah Institute of Management, SIT Siddaganga, Thiagarajan College of Engineering, PES University and Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering are among the first few to participate in Campus Connect initiative.

The participants are also encouraged to participate in ‘NPCI Ideathon’ - brainstorming sessions for presenting fresh ideas to improvise on UPI / BHIM Apps.

Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) is a smart mobile phone based app based on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) that allows simple, easy and quick payment transactions using UPI. One can easily make direct bank to bank payments instantly and collect money using Mobile number or Payment address. It is a unique payment solution which empowers an individual with immediate send and collect request.