India’s Fastest Growing Social Media App ShareChat Now in Kannada

India’s fastest growing social media app, ShareChat, is now available in Kannada. ShareChat is a first-of-its-kind regional language social networking platform, focused completely on India with 1.5 crore registered users and available in 10 languages of Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Odia and Kannada.

A report by KPMG and Google states that nine out of 10 new internet users will be using internet in their native language. Though this is a very positive sign, one drawback is that there are still no world-class products available which can deliver a truly Indian experience digitally. In this background, ShareChat was started by a team of IIT alumni in 2015 to address this need gap.

Recently, ShareChat has developed a Kannada only interface, using the locally prevalent words and phrases. All the technical terms in the product have been recreated in Kannada, so that a person who is not well conversant with English can also use the product with ease. ShareChat has been made keeping in view the first-time internet users and is thus very simple and intuitive by design. The app promises to host special categories and tags for festivals celebrated locally, encompassing culture and literature, education, locally trending news, Sandalwood (Kannada cinema) along with fun, entertainment, devotion and sports.

If the user finds the content interesting he or she can even share it on WhatsApp to his or her friends, thus maximizing the reach. This eventually will result in digitization of a lot of specialised areas including literature, thus preserving and further developing the varied cultural heritage in these times of fast paced technology.

The existing users have been really excited about the launch in Kannada. As of now many users knowing Kannada were using the app in other languages such as Telugu and Tamil.  The persistent demand from the users was one of the primary inspiration to launch the language soon. Ravi Kumar, a ShareChat user from Mandya commented, “One of my friends recommended ShareChat to me, as he was accessing the app in Telugu. I was eager to install the app in Kannada, but unfortunately it was not available at that time. I am now looking forward to be on the Kannada version.”

Another user, Shankar from Hubballi said, “It is wonderful to have a social networking app in Kannada. Now I will be able to access interesting content such as jokes, news and updates from here in Kannada which I can send to my friends and family through WhatsApp.”

Commenting on the launch, Farid Ahsan, CEO of ShareChat said, "ShareChat has always focused on providing a culturally relevant and truly Indian social media platform for the internet consumers of India. We at ShareChat feel proud in launching another two languages, Odia and Kannada today. It is one of the many steps taken by our team to promote the digitization of Indian languages. We are determined to make the vision of Digital India a reality and our efforts are a big leap forward in that direction."

Voylla Celebrates Launch of‘The Bangalore Edit’, Inspired by the Spirit of the Global City

India’s largest omni-channel fashion jewellery brand Voylla has presented its most stylish selection of hand-crafted jewellery ‘The Bangalore Edition was held at BBQ’d- Global grill & brewery in Bangalore.  Inspired by traditional dance forms and the architecture of spectacular palaces, imposing temples as well as the cosmopolitan spirit of Namma Bengaluru, Voylla is bringing a curation of their most refined, rooted and contemporary collection of hand-crafted jewellery.

‘The Bangalore Edit’ features Voylla’s finest and bestselling collections presented for the discerning and evolved global city. The Brandbelieves in enabling women to #LookThePart. From occasions and family affairs to more private intimate dates, to school functions to a trip to the mall, or simply a day on your own, there is a piece of Voylla for every moment of your life.

According to. Vishwas Shringi, Founder & CEO-Voylla.com, "We are extremely excited to launch the very special ‘The Bangalore Edit’. This has been one of the most gratifying projects at Voylla, featuring a selection of our modern and classic designs with high craftsmanship”

He further added, “With 13 retail points in the city and many more to come, an average ticket size of Rs 1200, Bangalore has been a major contributor to the Voylla growth story. 

Voylla has been doing pioneering work with traditional arts and crafts, reimagining tradition for the contemporary Indian woman. Whether it is the dance form of Kathakali or the royal palaces of Rajasthan, the majestic temples of Madurai or the rich embroidery of Kashmir, we have travelled the length and breadth of the country to draw inspiration for our drawing board.”

The event saw an eclectic bunch of guests - beauty pageant winners, writers, editors, classical dancers, musicians and social workers and home makers besides a smattering of fashion bloggers and celebrities.

Voylla was the first fashion jewellery brand to drive ecommerce in the omni channel experience with almost 250 offline retail touch pointsand a robust online presence, Voylla has now emerged as the category leader, defining it for all other brands that are yet to catch up - both in terms of range of products, quality on offer and price points. 

Jagrati Shringi, CTO & CMO- Voylla.com adds, “As with every other category, Bangalore, has responded to Voylla with significant enthusiasm, living up to its well deserved tag of 'Early adaptor.' Right from the time we launched our first off-line touch point in the Global City, to this day, Voylla has managed to strike a chord with consumers who have responded well to its offering. Especially with the brand ethos of #lookthepart that resonates well with the receptive, aware, empowered professional women who define the city's cosmopolitan culture.”

Voylla plans to launch 300 stores in India by end of this year and has recently launched its most romantic collection inspired by the TAJ MAHAL in New Delhi. The brand also recently tied up with Rannvijay Singha as a brand ambassador of its exclusive men’s collection “DARE” and launched its first offline store dedicated to men's accessories in Kochi.

ThinkTac’s Experiential Science Programmes Aims at Standard V-VIII Students Across India

ThinkTac, a social enterprise platform for children today announced the launch of Experiential Science Programmes aimed at students in the V-VIII standards of CBSE, ICSE and Karnataka State Board Schools today at the Maker Faire, Bangalore.

                

The ThinkTac annual programmes are aligned with the curriculum of a child, designed to cover up to 80% of all topics in the science curriculum. These programmes consist of a series of 20-60 Tactile Activities (TACtivities) for each standard, delivered over the academic year.

Each programme, is curated from a well-researched set of over 300 TACtivities that use a range of simple materials and resources to create, experiment, tinker and innovate and inculcate a better understanding of scientific phenomena and improve cognitive life skills.

While TACtivities (Tactile Activities) form the core of the programme, multiple modalities are employed for sustained learning outcomes. Engaging, topic-specific games are designed to create deeper engagement with topics. A Learning Management System (LMS) offers easy access to Videos and Guides covering the TACtivities as well as the theory behind them. Children have access to forums, enabling collaboration within the cohort and the ability to upload media of their work and seek feedback from educators. Regular Virtual Classrooms answer queries and provide guidance for further exploration.

Ravi Rangan, CEO, ThinkTac commented on the launch “Our mission is to empower every child to engage, enjoy and innovate with science as they learn. Though our Experimential Science Programmes we would like to make science fun and engaging to children, enhancing their creative thinking skills, thereby broader and life-long benefits, even outside the sciences. WE are excited about our venture and we look forward to building confidence and capability of children at each step.”

The programmes are available for individual learners and schools to suit every budget. Our starter programmes with Four TACtivities retail at Rs. 600 and the Explore Plus programmes, that include the intense exploration of one topic with 65 TACtivities retail at Rs. 8,500. With technology-enabled features, the programme can be availed from anywhere in India from the comfort of homes.

The platform also gives access for the parents to the guides available to each TACtivity and points out their role in the child’s learning process.

Cisco Announces $1 Billion Program for Smart Cities in India

So-called "smart cities" have less pollution, safer streets, and better quality of life for citizens. But many finance officers struggle to fund the upgrades that will make their cities smart. To help, Cisco today introduced the City Infrastructure Financing Acceleration Program. It is a $1 billion program aimed to make it easier, faster, and more affordable for cities around the world to fund and adopt technologies that will transform their communities.

The funding will be provided through Cisco Capital® in partnership with private equity firm Digital Alpha Advisors and pension fund investors APG Asset Management (APG) and Whitehelm Capital.  

"Funding is a major stumbling block for municipalities beginning their smart city transformation," said Anil Menon, Global President of Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities. "With our partners, Cisco will bring the capital and expertise it takes to make smart city projects a reality. Digital Alpha, APG, and Whitehelm Capital bring a fresh perspective on investment in an area that has previously been perceived as too new and, therefore, too difficult to finance."

The program helps cities assemble the right type or suite of finance instruments to fund and deploy innovative technology with minimal initial investment. Whether a city is looking to reduce energy usage, ease traffic and parking, or boost public transportation ridership and revenues, the program will help cities with solutions. Revenue-share financing, for instance, even allows a city to tie financing to desired outcomes and extend future operating budgets through revenue streams from the new services that a digitized infrastructure makes possible.

Additionally, today at the Smart City Expo World Congress, Cisco is announcing added functionality to its newly renamed connected digital platform, Cisco® Kinetic for Cities, which integrated with the Cisco Kinetic IoT data platform. The new features provide enhanced support for public safety. From the new full-policy automation options to an improved dashboard with integrated video, updates to the platform put citizen safety first. Real-time notification of emergency information now draws on additional IoT data sources and Cisco Spark™ Collaboration, enabling faster emergency response.

Cisco has also announced new purchasing options for Cisco Kinetic for Cities, including prepackaged starter solutions, which combine the Cisco IoT data platform, solution, and services with those from our ecosystem partners into ready-to-roll-out, end-to-end solution suites.

Cisco has added a number of new Cisco Kinetic for Cities customers. The Town of Cary, North Carolina, for instance, has created a "Living Lab" providing smart city technologies to improve the lives of citizens. Using the Cisco Kinetic for Cities platform, town officials can actively monitor the number of available parking spots—particularly spots for the handicapped—to gauge use and help with planning. "The Cisco Kinetic for Cities platform provides us the tools we need to positively affect our citizens' lives," said Terry Yates, Infrastructure and Network Manager, Town of Cary, North Carolina. 

Samsung Innovation Awards 2017 Held at IIT-Kanpur to Recognize Young with Path-breaking Ideas

Samsung India conducted the 7th edition of the annual Samsung Innovation Awards at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur in association with Entrepreneurship Cell. Samsung Innovation Awards aim to recognize and reward innovations that have the potential to revolutionize everyday living and enable students to take their ideas to the next level.

The first prize went to the team that included Kshitij Jaggi, Kumar Shivang and Rishabh Sahu who worked on a peer to peer financial transaction app using Blockchain technology in a distributed environment. The vision of the team is to enable financial inclusion of chit fund subscribers with Circle, a mobile first solution for organisers to easily manage the members, bringing in transparency in the whole process and creating credit history for all Indians.

Insomniatec, comprising students Kaustubh Mundra and Sankalp Rastogi, won the second prize for proposing a project that uses an infra-red camera coupled with computer vision technology to detect drowsiness in a vehicle driver while in motion and provides in-time alerts.

One of the projects, Muskan Solid Waste, consisting Hari Shankar and co-founder Mewa Lal found a special mention at the awards. This is a start-up that converts organic waste into high yielding compost. The technique used reduces time for composting and produces more efficient manure compared to artificial fertilizers.

The awards were presented by Dr Aloknath De, Chief Technology Officer, Samsung R&D Institute, India – Bangalore (SRI-B). The winners were given cash prizes worth INR 2.5 lakh while the five finalists received merit recognition from Samsung.

Samsung Innovation Awards 2017 saw an overwhelming response, with eight teams getting an opportunity to present their ideas to the jury comprising Dr. Aloknath De from SRI-B and professors from IIT-Kanpur—Dr. Amitabha Bandyopadhyay from the Department of Biological Sciences & Bioengineering (BSBE), Prof. Sandeep Shukla from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kanpur.

Samsung R&D Institute – Bangalore will engage with the award winners to further develop their innovations.

“Through the platform of Samsung Innovation Awards, we want to encourage students to work on innovative ideas in evolving areas of artificial intelligence, computer vision and IOT. When we see diverse and quality projects in these emerging technology areas, we can sense the pulse of our youth. Novelty of ideas, comprehensiveness in execution and impact of solution are yardsticks in selecting the winners. Samsung has been supporting deep-tech innovation at large and this year’s event in IIT-Kanpur is one such initiative,” said Dr. Aloknath De, Chief Technology Officer, Samsung R&D Institute, India – Bangalore.

Cutting-edge innovations were showcased at the competition. The innovative product ideas and solutions presented this year ranged from a cloud-based healthcare data management system to an intelligence platform for law enforcement and defence agencies.

“Innovation and entrepreneurship ought to become an integral part of institutions of academic and higher technical learnings. We must quickly transform into an innovation driven society where young minds understand societal needs, carve out opportunities and take calculated risks to become job creators and leaders. We are happy that corporates such as Samsung are coming forward to help us create the desired ecosystem at IIT Kanpur,” said Sameer Khandekar, Associate Dean, Innovation and Incubation, IIT Kanpur.

The 2017 edition of the Samsung Innovation Awards was initiated at IIT-Kanpur campus six months ago through an open entry process, where students submitted their innovative ideas. The shortlisting process was led by professors from IIT-Kanpur and researchers from SRI-B, who also selected the eight finalists.

The final teams presented their ideas to the jury at the IIT-Kanpur campus. The winning project was selected based on the degree of innovation, feasibility, usability, relevance and overall impact on masses.

Conceptualised in 2011, the Samsung Innovation Awards seek to support and encourage young talent who have an innovative approach and look to improvise different systems and processes. Further, it aims to develop indigenous products and services for fulfilling mass needs thereby transforming lives and creating sustainable solutions for the benefit of the society at large.

Over the years, Samsung Innovation Awards have become one of the most eagerly awaited ideation contests at IIT’s due to enthusiastic participation from the student community. The first edition was conducted at IIT Delhi and since then Samsung Innovation Awards have been held at other major IITs. The last edition in 2016 was held at IIT Bombay and had witnessed great interest and enthusiasm from students. Samsung continues to provide the next generation of Indian innovators and entrepreneurs an avenue to showcase and advance their engineering skill sets.

Nasscom’s New Centres of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence, Data Science in Bengaluru

The software industry lobby Nasscom is setting up centres of excellence on artificial intelligence (AI) and data sciences for a better understanding on the emerging technologies, a top official has said.

With the tech world getting divided between whether or not to regulate AI, the body feels that technologies should be freely allowed to mature first before any regulation comes in, President R Chandrasekhar announced at the ongoing Bengaluru Tech Summit 2017.

“We are setting up a centre of excellence on AI and data sciences in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. They will look at mapping the resources available in the country, promoting start-ups in that area and also best practices globally, including regulatory aspects,” he told the media recently.

He, however, did not offer the investment that will go into these proposed centres nor a timeline as to when the first centre of excellence will be functional.

When sought his views on regulation of technologies, he said, “in the new-age technologies, regulation is important but it need not always precede the advent of technology as technology is evolving so quickly that regulation has only to keep pace with that.”

It can be noted that the tech world has been vertically divided over the aspect of regulation, with Tesla founder Elon Musk pitching for regulation, while Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg opposing it.

“Whichever side you are on, the time has not come to make laws which will guide behaviour of robots and create an IPC (Indian Penal Code) for robots,” Chandrashekhar quipped.

He said we have been too pessimistic because of the advent of new technologies and its impact on the sector, which gets US revenues of upwards of $150 billion and creates 4 million direct jobs.

Huawei’s India Campus Awarded Green Building Standard Certification by Indian Green Building Council

Huawei Technologies India announced that its software development campus in Bengaluru has been awarded Green Building Standard Silver Rating under the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) by Indian Green Building Council (IGBC).

The assessment was conducted by IGBC covering five environmental categories which include sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

The one million sq. ft. campus built on 20 acres land in Whitefield, Bengaluru with an investment of USD 150 million was launched in 2015.

In line with Huawei’s corporate philosophy of protecting the environment, the Bengaluru campus was designed and built as a green building, adopting eco-friendly design and practices. Some of the highlights of the campus are:

·         Fully cloud-computing based environment to reduce energy consumption.

·         Solar power and natural lighting

·         Rainwater harvesting, sewage treatment plant, waste management

·         Eco-friendly glazing to reduce air-conditioning

·         Energy efficient motors, DG sets, Chillers

·         65% open space

As a leading global ICT solutions provider, Huawei follows a strategy of "Green Pipe, Green Operations, Green Partner, Green World". We explore innovative ways to maximize products' energy utilization efficiency and operating efficiency, and at the same time minimize our carbon footprint and negative environmental impacts. In addition, we invest in innovative green initiatives to provide energy-saving products and green ICT technologies that empower all industries – and even society as a whole – to decrease carbon emissions. Huawei Technologies India is engaged in developing software products and platforms in the areas of IP based data transmission networks, intelligent networks, BSS, OSS, terminal devices and future-oriented technologies including SDN, big data, cloud, mobile internet, digital services etc.