Enterprise Collaboration App DingTalk Introduces English Version Aimed at Improving Workforce Productivity for SMEs

DingTalk, a professional office application for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has unveiled an English version of the app. A product by the Alibaba Group, the app aims to enhance communication and redefine organisational collaboration for small and medium-sized enterprises that prefer to correspond in English. Over 5 million enterprises and organizations in China are already using the Chinese version. 

Equipped with cutting edge technology, DingTalk is a revolutionary platform providing SMEs with a simple, efficient and secure platform for collaboration. Currently available on iOS, Android, Mac and Windows operating systems, DingTalk offers organizational-centric functions and features aimed at improving business-to-bu

siness communication and collaboration:

•       Unified Communications – supports audio, video and/or conference calls for up to 3,000 parties in a single call; integrated emails, chats and message reminder features; voice and video services are currently only available via VoIP for users outside of China

•       Office Automation – allows businesses to manage attendance, make approvals, maintain business reports, send files of up to 700MB in size;

•       Internal and External Collaboration – businesses can book and host meetings, manage CRM information, create tasks and service tickets, set up private chat and more;

•       Open Platform – allows third party SaaS applications and services to be integrated with DingTalk and provide an enterprise service ecosystem for SMEs.

•       ISO security certification – Dingtalk is one of the first Chinese apps to have obtained the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 standard, a globally recognized data security benchmark. That means data is encrypted at SSL/TLS security standards to provide high-level communications protection.

Speaking on the launch of the English version of DingTalk at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Chris Wang, Head of Global Business Development for DingTalk said, “Our endeavour is to empower SMEs so they can scale and become part of the global marketplace. Technology is a powerful tool to help businesses enhance operations, and function smoothly. With DingTalk, we will enable organizations to seamlessly communicate and collaborate across locations, thereby increasing productivity. We believe that this is the future of the workplace, and we see immense potential in helping businesses redefine their organizational connectivity.”

Currently, DingTalk serves businesses across sectors such as e-commerce, manufacturing, education and finance, providing them with a growing slate of business-centric functions. The goal is to create an effective platform which is mobile-optimized while offering cloud-based corporate solutions and freeing companies from the costs of building or buying software and maintaining their own servers for business communications, workflow management, and data storage.

Singapore-Based Kaira Global Enters the Indian IT Distribution Market

Kaira Global, a leading IT distribution house in Singapore, today announced its entry into the Indian IT distribution market. With more than 13 years of expertise in IT supply chain, spread across 6 countries, Kaira Global caters to a wide range of end-users from SME, Education and Government agencies, to online and large format retailers.

“Regular availability of stocks across a broad range of consumer and corporate products, efficiency in logistics, and value added services for our channel and retail partners, has given us a unique position in IT supply chains of the countries we operate in.  The IT distribution market in India has consolidated and GST implementation has opened up tremendous opportunities for us to scale-up operations. We will start with a focus on retail products, adapting, learning & improvising as we expand our teams as well as our reach,” said Manoj Attal, Director at Kaira Global.

Kaira Global has come a long way in a relatively short timeframe. Since inception in Singapore in 2003, Kaira Global has evolved from basic IT distribution to being an IT specialist & consultant for its customer base. Prior to its debut in India, Kaira Global has grown organically across markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa to name a few. This exposure to a variety of international markets, gives Kaira Global a unique edge in bringing their acquired experience and brand connections to India.

“Our expertise will enable our partners to create what we call an ‘experiential shopping’ experience.  I am sure channel partners & brands are also looking for focused distributors, a connection which most of the large players do not provide. Kaira Global will be their one-stop destination,” he further added.

Kaira Global is committed to bring the best brands, provide effective marketing and provide technical support to their customers. They focus on micro distribution and serve as a vital link between the brands and customers. Though they remain international in their outlook, the focus will always be on local teams to serve customers in India.

OMRON, Indian Medical Association and Heart Care Foundation of India Partner to Address Hypertension

Moving ahead with its vision “Healthcare @ Home”, Omron Healthcare India, the leader in digital BP monitoring segment, has joined hands with Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI) to create awareness among the masses and healthcare professions about the need for regular monitoring of blood pressure at home.

According to various studies, one-third of India’s population suffers from Hypertension and more than 60 % of them are still unaware of it. “Indicated as one of the key lifestyle diseases, it is well evident that Hypertension leads to life-threatening cardio-vascular disorders if not treated well. Despite the whopping numbers, very few Hypertensive patients use BP monitors for regular monitoring at home which is a grim and scary picture. Omron aims to contribute to the challenge by partnering with the right stakeholders who are looked upon as trustworthy associates by the masses as well as medical practitioners to propagate the importance of blood pressure monitoring as a key part of the overall management of the malady” says Kazunori Tokura, Managing Director, Omron Healthcare India.

The initiative has already started working in this regard by rolling-out many joint activities pan India such as organising health camps providing a platform for holding dialogues with the medical fraternity, on the myths prevailing around home BP monitoring, and free check-ups; disseminating mass communication on the importance of managing blood pressure as one of key vitals for almost all non-communicable diseases and substantiating the utility and efficacy of digital home BP monitors, etc.

Giving more insights, Dr. Ravi Wankhedkar, National President, IMA and Dr KK Aggarwal, President, Heart Care Foundation of India reiterated that Hypertension is one of the most significant silent killer amongst Indians. “The association with Omron is another significant step which IMA and HCFI have taken as the only representative voluntary organizations of Doctors of Modern Scientific System of Medicine to contribute towards the well-being of the community by promoting the utility of advanced medical and allied sciences/ technologies.”

Expected to rise at the rate of 20-40%, the number of hypertensive people is expected to touch 214 million by 2030 or so. Another red flag is that this number comprises of only the detected patients; however there is huge number of subjects which go undetected. Studies conducted globally and in India also convey that home blood pressure monitoring has helped reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, in fact monitoring at home is just as accurate as in the doctor’s clinic.

IMA & HCFI suggest that blood pressure taken at home gives a more reliable representation of the blood pressure over time. By monitoring blood pressure, heart rate and heart rhythm at home regularly, in conjunction with regular doctor visits, one can consistently get an accurate picture of heart’s health.

Vodafone’s Cloud-Based End-Point Security Suite Now Partners with Trend Micro in India

Vodafone Super Shield is a complete end-point security suite that protects critical business data from a multitude of threats including malware attacks, ransom ware, spyware, phishing websites and data thefts etc. Super Shield is equipped with advanced enterprise grade features including USB port blocking, URL filtering and full disk encryption on Windows. Backed by Trend Micro’s Cloud based Global Smart Protection Network, it proactively identifies and blocks new and existing threats before they impact the devices.

Users of Vodafone Super Shield can receive updates real-time on the cloud platform, thus eliminating the need for servers or complex IT infrastructure to manage the deployment. Its admin management feature is accessible anytime, anywhere from the URL-based admin console.

Super Shield is designed to protect devices across platforms and devices including Windows PCs, MacBooks, Windows Servers as well as Android and iOS mobile platforms. It lets customers manage their users and licenses online, grant and revoke access, and generate reports and dashboards.

Anil Philip, Senior Vice President, Vodafone Business Services said, “With businesses getting exponentially digital and online, data and information security is of critical importance. Vodafone Super Shield is designed to make enterprise grade data security in a simple, affordable and worry free way.”

Nilesh Jain, Country Manager India & SAARC, Trend Micro commented on the partnership,“With ever-growing security risks and a complex IT environment, it is important to find a flexible, customizable, easy-to-manage solution suitable for businesses. We are glad to partner and collaborate with Vodafone in helping secure Enterprises and SMB customers that are looking for flexible security deployment options. Our end point security offering will greatly help achieve that. It would offer a multi-dimensional advanced threat protection, and consolidated view across all layers of security and all deployment models.”

Vodafone Super Shield is available on its completely online automated marketplace Vodafone CloudStore (www.cloud.vodafone.in) at an affordable price of Rs. 99 per user per month or Rs. 999 per user for 12 months. Customers  can buy it online and opt for simple, flexible payment options and manage their users and licenses online. Vodafone also extends dedicated Account management, Relationship management and Cloud Support infrastructure that helps with  onboarding and in-life support.

Hitachi Vantara Wins IoT Breakthrough Award for IoT Innovation

Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., has announced that Hitachi’s Lumada IoT platform has been awarded a 2018 IoT Innovation Award for Enterprise Solution of the Year by IoT Breakthrough.

The IoT Breakthrough Awards program recognizes innovative technologies and exemplary companies that are driving innovation in the internet of things (IoT) market. This year’s program attracted more than 3,000 nominations globally in a broad range of categories, including industrial and enterprise IoT, smart city, connected home and home automation, connected car and more. All award nominations were reviewed and evaluated by an independent panel of IoT industry experts, with the highest scored nominee being named the winner in each category.

Data is now generated faster than ever before as increasing numbers of devices and purpose-built business and industrial machinery are connected to the internet. Many enterprises face a formidable, three-pronged challenge: they must manage and analyze the volume, variety and complexity of data generated from disparate sources, both at the edge and in the core, and then extract insight and generate business value. It was with these challenges in mind that Hitachi developed Lumada.

“At the core of the explosive growth of IoT technology across the globe is a mountain of data that manifests a prime opportunity for businesses to access critical information to improve their services and products,” said James Johnson, managing director, IoT Breakthrough. “Hitachi’s Lumada IoT platform provides a comprehensive solution that helps enterprises address the challenge of managing and analyzing IoT data and their connected assets. We are thrilled to recognize the success of Hitachi’s efforts with the 2018 IoT Breakthrough Award for Enterprise IoT Solution of the Year.”

Lumada helps enterprise and industrial customers blend human, machine and IT data to gain a 360-degree view of their operations and connected assets and support more intelligent decision-making and better business outcomes. It can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud or in hybrid environments. Its modular and highly adaptable architecture enables it to easily complement customers’ existing data infrastructure investments and IT environments. Lumada provides a simple way to help enterprise and industrial customers to more rapidly put their business and operational data to work, achieve deeper insights and realize the full potential of IoT solutions.

“Hitachi is honored to be recognized by IoT Breakthrough with the IoT Innovation Award for Enterprise Solution of the Year and we congratulate our fellow winners,” said Brad Surak, chief product and strategy officer at Hitachi Vantara. “The many breakthrough capabilities of the Lumada platform wouldn’t be possible without the learnings and insights gained in co-creating IoT solutions with our customers. They are the true trailblazers of the IoT era and we are privileged to be partnering with them to develop data-driven solutions that are changing the way their businesses – and the world – works.”

YES FOUNDATION Announces Rs 7.5 Crore Grant and Accelerator Support for NGOs and Social Enterprises

YES FOUNDATION, the social development arm of YES BANK, will launch the 5^th edition of YES! i am the CHANGE (YIAC), a nationwide mindset transformation program to inculcate the spirit of responsible youth citizenship and drive positive social action through the impactful medium of films.

YES FOUNDATION will provide Youth, NGOs/Social Enterprises with a platform to use films as a storytelling medium to drive social impact. The Foundation invites Youth/ Filmmakers/ NGOs/Social Enterprises to participate in the YIAC Social Filmmaking Challenge, to depict stories of change in a 3-minute film

Through this process, the Foundation hopes to identify 25 deserving NGOs/ Social Enterprises who operate in areas of Climate Change/ Natural Capital, Livelihood Generation, Gender equality etc. YES Foundation would support these NGOs with Grant of Rs 7.5 Cr, towards scale up & capacity building. The grantee organizations will also receive 3-year mentoring to ensure onground tangible social impact.

Additionally, to encourage mainstreaming of India’s youth in social development aspects, YIAC has lined up awards, and all-expenses paid scholarships to acclaimed documentary film festivals such as IDFA (Amsterdam), Docedge Kolkata. As part of the Open Challenge (Youth/Individuals/Filmmakers), the top 20 winning film entries will be eligible for the same.

The program will also identify Everyday Heroes, discovered through YES! i am the CHANGE film entries, to be felicitated across 1000 locations across India for their exceptional attitude towards community service.

Commenting on the launch, Rana Kapoor, Chief Mentor & Co-Chairman, YES FOUNDATION and Managing Director & CEO, YES BANK said, “YES FOUNDATION follows a differentiated approach innovatively harnessing media to channel high octane energy and stimulate entrepreneurship for an empowered and equitable India. This year, through YES! i am the CHANGE, we will continue to inspire individuals and nurture development sector organisations, enhancing their contribution to nation building.”

“India is in a revolutionary phase with the nation’s youth driving social impact by developing innovative solutions to social challenges. Through YES! i am the CHANGE, we are keen to provide a platform to young changemakers and development sector organisations to accelerate and maximize their social impact.” said Prerana Langa, CEO, YES FOUNDATION

Interested Youth and NGOs/Social Enterprises can register online at www.yesfoundation.in

Important dates:

	Event	Date
1	Applications open for film entry acceptance(Round 1)	January 11, 2018
2	Closure of film entry acceptance	February 28, 2018
3	Call for written applications from top 500 NGOs(Round 2)	March 28, 2018
4	Live pitches by 50 NGOs to jury panel – Mumbai (Round 3)	May 24-25, 2018
5	Result announcement – top 25 NGOs and top 20 Youth	May 28, 2018
6	Awards ceremony/Kick-off capacity building program	June 15-20, 2018

Fourteen Startups Graduated From the 11th Cohort at the ThinkNext 2018 in Bangalore

Banking and Fintech 

I-exceed: I-exceed is a fintech company that is powering the digital transformation of financial institutions worldwide including some of the largest tier I global banks. Appzillon, the flagship product of i-exceed, consists of a unique combination of Appzillon Digital Banking and Appzillon Digital Platform.

Appzillon digital banking is a suite of pre-built omnichannel digital solutions that offer customers and employees of banks a transformative yet unified user experience across all customer touch points.

Appzillon digital banking solutions are powered by Appzillon digital platform; an award-winning low-code development platform that facilitates rapid app development while ensuring future readiness at all times.

With offices in India, Singapore, the UAE, and the US, i-exceed serves over 55 customers worldwide.

Clonect: Clonect Solutions is an IT solutions company incorporated in 2014 with an aim to provide innovative solutions for the GRC challenges faced in the organizations by simplifying and automating the processes. It helps organisations to leverage technology optimally and innovatively, addressing GRC, GST as well as other finance IT solution needs.

Within a short span of three years of its existence, Clonect had rolled out three major products in the GRC segment, in the previous year it also entered the GST segment with a roll out of its GST Compliance Software. Currently, Clonect in its portfolio has 70+ reputed enterprise clients with each of them having multiple group companies ranging from five to 120 in number.

The flagship product for Clonect happens to be the first product rolled out by it – the Compliance Management Software (CMS) for which it aims to improve both technologically as well as through its content and be a market leader in the GRC and GST segment.

KrypC: KrypC is a differentiated blockchain platform and solutions company which aims to accelerate the adoption of blockchain-based applications for enterprises. KrypCore, KrypC’s platform, abstracts the complexities and nuances of blockchain protocols; and its studio enables non-technical folks to configure their business process and workflows which are transformed into relevant Blockchain code, smart contracts, node deployment etc.

KrypCore is a protocol agnostic platform and supports HyperLedger, Ethereum and Multichain. The team, with its presence globally in the US, the Netherlands and India, enables blockchain adoption across various industries and has enabled enterprises with production level blockchain solution adoption in the areas of insurance, microfinance and banking and looks forward to implementing more such solutions.

Retail Tech

Ace Turtle: Ace Turtle is a technology-driven platform company that provides direct-to-consumer web commerce solutions for leading retail brands. Its proprietary platform integrates online and offline retail channels to automate and optimize omnichannel fulfilment and provides brands with a single view of inventory and a single view of customers.

The startup helps reduce the cost and complexity of omnichannel transformation for brands by using their existing framework and systems. Ace Turtle solutions are currently used by brands such as Fossil, Puma. Ray-Ban, Max, Arrow, Flying Machine, Ed Hardy and US Polo amongst others. Ace Turtle omnichannel platform comprises of technology, logistics and customer support and enables brands to improve the web commerce experience for their customer.

The startup is backed by Singapore-based Vertex Ventures the venture arm of Temasek Holdings and C31 Ventures, the venture arm of CaptaLand. We have offices located in India and Singapore.

MintM: MintM is a robotic platform which helps create frictionless customer experience by empowering ordinary devices like signage, kiosks and cameras. Driven by AI, MintM BOTs can recognize customers and objects to make things frictionless such as visitor management, customer loyalty, product discovery and personalized promotions.

Started in 2014, MintM has been funded and accelerated by Microsoft. MintM has won several awards including London Business School, Tie Silicon Valley and Nasscom Emerge 50. The startup is working with several large companies with its BOTs deployed in more than six countries, claims the company.

Emerging Tech: Language Processing

Kata.ai: Kata.ai is the first and leading AI startup in Indonesia that builds natural language understanding of Bahasa Indonesia. The startup has been founded by ex-Silicon Valley engineers who used to work at Google Deepmind, IBM Watson, VMware, Airbus and tech companies in Hamburg, Tokyo, London and Paris. Kata.ai’s Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology powers multi-purpose chatbots (virtual customer service / virtual friend) for major corporations in Indonesia across a different kind of industries such as, Unilever (FMCG), Telkomsel (Telco), Bank BRI (Financial Services), and Alfamart (Retail).

The company’s proprietary Kata Bot Platform can be leveraged to create feature-rich chatbots on top of Kata.ai’s robust and scalable AI technology platform, ensuring company of any size can easily build their own chatbot on any messaging platform. With this platform, it is now possible for the business to focus on designing engaging interaction for their customers, while Kata.ai handles all the technical aspects of the chatbots.

Established in 2015, the company has become a trusted partner for major corporations such as Microsoft, Accenture, and Line. In 2017, the company also received Series-A funding led by Trans-Pacific Technology Fund.

Liv.ai: Liv.ai is a deep learning and artificial intelligence based speech recognition and natural language tool for Indian languages. Liv.ai’s aims to enable a billion Indians to communicate with their devices, businesses and government in their own language. The startup has developed breakthrough speech recognition technology in nine Indian languages besides English.

This speech recognition technology picks up most accents and is adept at cutting out background noise as well. Liv.ai’s Speech APIs are being used by hundreds of developers and the company has found success with enterprise clients across multiple domains.

VideoKen: Videoken is a AI-based continuous learning platform that helps organizations effectively utilize freely available videos on virtually any topic, and curate quality engaging learning content. 

With its paented solution, VideoKen’s customers have been able to put together learning content over three times faster, with higher quality and lower costs, claims the startup. The startup enables self-learning and peer-to-peer learning, leading to greater learner engagement and increased productivity. VideoKen’s customers include large global enterprise, small and medium organizations and educational institutions.

VideoKen was founded in January 2017 by Dr. Manish Gupta, the former VP and Director at Xerox Research India, Ashish Vikram, a former VP at Flipkart and subsequently joined by Vishnu Raned, former VP of Asia-Pacific & Japan at Zend Technologies. VideoKen is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, with a R&D lab in Bangalore, India. VideoKen has raised seed funding from a consortium of angel investors including LG Chandrasekhar, chairman of Sutures India, Sashi Reddi, partner at US based SRI Capital LLC, and some former and current executives of Flipkart.

Deep Tech: Enabling Business Productivity

Docswallet: Docswallet (formerly MyEasydocs) web application is a digital document vault, wherein digitally certified documents can be stored and shared for visa applications, employment, higher studies, trade application etc.

Docwallet eliminates the exchange of paper and creates trust on digital documents between organisations and individuals. A large number of universities and other organizations in India have already adopted DocsWallet. Docswallet uses blockchain technology to provide digital locker services.

MegDap: Megdap Innovation Labs has been founded by two ex-Microsofties Meghashyam Karanam and Pradeep Parappil with an aim to bridge the digital divide by creating an ecosystem for business that blends local relevance with a sustainable business model for all stakeholders.

The focus is to bring the collective power of technology, language & business to a global non-English speaking audience. Megdap is a part of Barclays, Microsoft and Reliance GenNext Accelerator program. The startup is also a part of Kerala Startup Mission. MegDap has built a highly scalable cloud based AI Platform for Languages – TexLang, Through the use of technology, TexLang is addressing the language technology demands of large enterprise customers.

GIEOM: GIEOM is an award winning software product company providing solutions to banks for change management, regulatory compliance and knowledge management. Catering to 38 banks across Africa, Middle east, Europe, USA and India, the company offers a unique business visualization technology with Intelligent linking that monitors, controls and optimizes Operations while reducing risk and increasing compliance. Additional benefits include better Customer service and increased employee satisfaction.

Simplilearn: Simplilearn aims is to help professionals around the world acquire the skills they need to succeed in today’s digital economy. The company provides online training in disciplines such as Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, Project Management, Digital Marketing, Data Science and other emerging technologies. Based in San Francisco, California and Bangalore, India, 

Simplilearn has helped more than 500K professionals and companies across 150+ countries get trained, acquire certifications and upskill employees.

Simplilearn provides outcome-centric training courses relevant for the digital economy in domains such as Digital Marketing, Big Data and Data Science, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Mobile App Development,  IT Services and Architecture, Agile & Scrum, and more. The courses are delivered through online self-learning and instructor-led virtual classrooms and are supplemented with live projects and global teaching assistance.