NXP India Organises TechStreams Panel Discussion on 5G Tech and Future of Secure Connectivity

NXP India, a world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, recently organized a Panel Discussion as a part of its TechStreams initiative to encourage knowledge sharing and the spirit of innovation. In its essence, TechStreams is an amalgamation of four technological streams – Security, New Semiconductor Process Technologies, Emerging Domains and High Performance Analog Signals and RF Designs. The TechStream initiative was led by Sarat Vetcha, Director, Digital Networking Software Development, NXP India.

The recent Panel discussion was a part of the Emerging Domains stream and focused on ‘5G Technology: What to expect and the challenges’. Some of India’s most valued dignitaries attended the discussion that aimed at deliberating on 5G Technology and its key challenges. The Panel Discussion, chaired by Kumaran Venkatesh, Senior Director, ARM, witnessed participation from industry experts, such as Alok Bardiya, Sr. Executive, IOT, Tata Communications, Subodh Gajare, Sr. Solutions Architect, Cisco R&D, Krishna Sirohi, President, Technology Innovations and Standardization, i2TB, and Dr. Navin Kumar, Associate Professor, Amrita University.

Further, the panel discussed how 5G technology carries high expectations with its potential benefits and capabilities. Basic expectations include better battery life, high network reliability as well as guaranteed quality. To accentuate the capability of 5G, the discussion bore out 5G’s capacity of providing everything real time, reducing latency, having a larger bandwidth enabling support on heavy days and enabling massive machine-to-machine communication.

Speaking of the initiative, Sanjay Gupta, Vice President & India Country Manager, NXP India said, “India has large technological talent pool and NXP India has perpetually worked towards connecting this pool with similar skills and expertise. TechStreams is one such initiative that has helped broaden NXP India’s horizons of industry knowledge and synergise with fierce thoughts and minds toemerge as a motivator of next generation innovation.”

Adding to the discussion, Gupta said, “This decade will prove to be yet another turning point for engineers as Artificial Intelligence and big data bring in the next wave of innovation. The advent of 5G technologies and ICT networks signify this next wave of a globally connected Digital Society. To create such digital giants of intelligence in India, operators need to address the issues surrounding 5G infrastructure readiness and deployment, regulatory policies and investments. Once these issues are addressed, India is going to witness a massive increase in data consumption, increasing digitalized life and services, growth of smart cities and the need to have a network infrastructure that can utilize all the available spectrum band rather than replace the existing networks.”

Discussing about the expectations from 5G, Subodh Gajare, said, “5G systems will have Network Slicing as a key innovative technique to embrace the programmable era. Network Slicing will carve out a single physical infrastructure into multiple virtual networks that would allow service providers to customize services for customers, drawing from a pool of virtual and physical resources. 5G systems are tailor made for slicing model, enabling operators to offer XaaS (anything – as a Service) and meet the demands of the various used cases. Automation Provisioning and interworking of physical and virtual resources will be the new normal for 5G networks and services for mass adoption.”

Talking about the challenges and solutions of the 5G Technology, Krishna Sirohi, said, “Infrastructure and services are the major challenges in achieving a 5G enabled India in its entirety. National goals of digital India can only be achieved by establishing sustainable 4G and 5G access networks. Millimetre Wave technology (5G) based terrestrial and satellite backhaul solutions are needed to extend the spread of high data rate network to every village and agricultural land and achieve a digitised agricultural and rural life.”

Anurag Garg, Founder & CEO, nivesh.com Received Rs 2 Crore Funding at New Superstar Startup 2018 Contest

Franchise India, Asia's largest integrated franchise and retail solution company in conjunction with upcoming bollywood film ‘Padman’ starring veteran actor Akshay Kumar have come together to empower aspiring Startups in the country. ‘Padman’ along with the company has given prize money worth Rs 2Cr to Anurag Garg, Founder & CEO, nivesh.com.

As a runway to Startup 2018 the company organized a 10 city Startup Superhero hunt to meet and hear from leading startup founders about their business ideas and potential to make it a big business case. The auditions for the same kicked off from Kolkata on January 6th and will go up to January 21st encompassing cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad & Chandigarh covering all zones. The grand finale have held at IIT Delhi on January 22, 2018 in front of Investors & Actor Akshay Kumar along with Shri Giriraj Singh, Minister MSME; Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder, Info edge; Rahul Sharma, Micromax co-founder as chief guests. They have asked to share a short pitch about their startup on the Main Stage and it have followed by Q&A with a panel of judges.

“I feel happy to be with the Startup 2018 contest by Franchise India. Similar to my upcoming film ‘Padman’ we are providing an opportunity to aspiring startups to showcase their products and ideas. This has an opportunity for them to demonstrate the innovative solutions that they can bring to the table.  ‘Superstar Startup Hunt’ have provide an opportunity for all small entrepreneurs across India to make their dreams come true. This contest has encouraged the innovative ideas that will bring change with unique pathway in India,” said Veteran Actor, Akshay Kumar, from ‘Padman’ fame.

“At Franchise India, it has been our endeavor to enable and support budding entrepreneurs and startups with great ideas and solutions. We foresee that Startup 2018 will be the biggest startup carnival in India that have attended by over 1500 young entrepreneurs, innovators, designers, professionals, investors, media and collegiate community looking to take up entrepreneurship as a career mission.  This contest hunt have revolutionize the Indian business sector by giving the people the opportunity to showcase their entrepreneur qualities especially business women who wish to make their mark in industry,” said Chairman, Franchise India, Gaurav Marya.

He further added, “We are delighted to bring in Akshay Kumar who is an Icon known for movies carrying social messages as part of this contest. We are positive that young entrepreneurs have encouraged with his presence.”

Startup Awards have recognized the brilliant work done by 40 top Startups, Individual Entrepreneurs who have impacted Indian entrepreneurship through exemplary activities and their leadership of their startup companies.

JetSynthesys Hosts mSports Finals of Sachin Saga Cricket Champions at the India Gaming Show

Going beyond the digital realm, JetSynthesys, a leading digital entertainment and gaming company introduced mSports in India from January 19 to 21, 2018 at CIIs India Gaming Show in Bangalore.

The mobile e-Sports platform for Sachin Saga witnessed over twenty thousand mobile gamers compete against the best across India to qualify for the real-life tournament at the show and win prizes worth Rs.1 Lakh, gold coins, trophies and be crowned as the JetSynthesys mSports Champion. 

The JetSynthesys mSports arena also witnessed real-life competitions played by the best players across the top mobile games in the country like Sachin Saga, Ludo King, Asphalt 8 Airborne and Doodle Army 2 with qualifiers and finals for each games.

Online Micro-Delivery Platform MilkBasket Secures Financing from Unilever Ventures

Milkbasket, a micro delivery platform for groceries, has announced today that it has secured a $3m investment in a Pre-Series A Round.  Unilever Ventures, the venture capital and private equity arm of Unilever has also participated in the round. 

Founded in 2015, Milkbasket operating in the city of Gurugram is a micro-delivery service with an innovative top-up model. The company started with catering for the unique Indian habit of getting fresh milk delivered at home every morning, and today has grown to become one of the leading grocery delivery platform in Gurugram. Designed to provide extreme convenience, MilkBasket can fulfil orders received from its customers on a wide selection of grocery products before midnightand get these delivered to their doorstep before 7:00am every day. To enable frequent and frictionless buying, Milkbasket has introduced flexi ordering and contactless delivery - both a first in the ecommerce industry - and favourites of Milkbasket customers. 

Announcing the association, Anant Goel, CEO of Milkbasket, said “We have always believed that Milkbasket’ s unique model will find its play in the large online grocery market. The endorsement from Unilever Ventures is an important mark of confidence in our potential. At present, Milkbasket is growing exponentially and has become a popular brand in the city of Gurugram. Our vision is to become a strong player in online top-up groceries platform in India within the next five years, and we strongly believe that this is an important milestone in our journey,” Anant added

Olivier Garel, Head of Unilever Ventures said “Unilever Ventures aims to support some of the most disruptive emerging commerce models and Milkbasket’s approach, leveraging Indian consumers habits and preferences, bringing convenience and attractive unit economics is definitely one of them.” 

This investment and Unilever’s expertise will be deployed to strengthen technology at the back end as well as front end, expanding their assortment & customer base and monetising other streams of revenues. 

U Sports Launches India’s First Multi-Platform Multi-Game E-Sports Championship - U Cypher with MTV

The Indian E-Sports scenario is all set for a major revamp as U Sports, one of India’s biggest sports business companies in association with India’s No. 1 Youth Brand, MTV, announces the premiere of their all new month-long championship, U Cypher with MTV. Premiered on January 19, the show will air every day from 10pm to 11pm on MTV.

Backed by Ronnie Screwvala (Founder, U Sports) and Supratik Sen (Co-Founder & CEO, U Sports),the Indian E-Sports scenario is all set for a major revamp with U Cypher with MTV. The league is a first of its kind, multi-platform, multi-game E-Sports championship which comprises of 35 episodes. In its first season, U Cypher with MTV will have 6 teams with 14 members in each team. Each episode will have two teams face off across titles like DOTA 2 and CS: GO on PC, Real Cricket 2017 on mobile and Tekken 7 on PS4 with a prize pool of a whooping INR 51 Lakhs. The final four will play knockouts to determine the winners.  

Ronnie Screwvala, Founder, U Sports said, “There has been an enthusiasm for E-Sports sparkling under the surface in the country for far longer than what is known. U Cypher with MTV provides a platform for talented gamers to achieve their maximum potential and build their career in E-sports. The players have been meticulously picked from the Top E-sport Tournaments and teams from Pan India. The digital and broadband revolution has changed the game for this sport. CS and DOTA have had 20 million downloads in the past 10 years in India. And that’s a huge number for something that’s only starting to fully surface.”

Commenting on the association with U Sports, Raj Nayak, COO, Viacom18 said, “E-Sports is growing fast worldwide. Not only that but the annual consumption of E-Sports content stands at almost over 3.7 billion hours across various platforms which are largely digital. Closer to home, in India the gaming market is estimated to be over USD 600 million. Given the potential one can see, we at MTV are excited to be the first and only media network in the country to showcase an E-Sports League on television! We are delighted to partner with U Sports to craft a new tomorrow today through the launch of our exciting and one of a kind new property – U Cypher - only on MTV!”

Supratik Sen, Co-Founder & CEO, U Sports said, “We are all set to showcase the biggest E-Sports championship on television with U Cypher with MTV. This will be the rise of a new batch of athletes and U Sports will look to give thde best E-Sports athletes a chance to showcase their abilities. E-Sports is growing at a rapid pace and has been announced as a medal event in the 2022 Asian Games. E-Sports is moving from being a hobby to an actual career option and its high time we saw the potential in it.”

Ferzad Palia, Head - Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18 said, “E-Sports has found immense number of takers in India thanks to it being home to the world’s largest youth population and the world’s second largest internet user base. Keeping this in mind, it was thus a natural step for us at MTV, the brand with the ultimate word on the youth in India, to invest in a one-of-a-kind show ‘U Cypher’ that takes e-sports out of bedrooms of gamers & gaming arcades and into living rooms through television.

A truly unique concept, U Cypher will see gamers - who have hitherto been known only in select circles – taking on other gamers across multiplatform, multiplayer games in a specially designed arena. At MTV, we have always taken pride in being trendsetters for the youth and thus are thoroughly excited to bring a brand-new concept which will allow viewers to witness the creation of completely new kind of superstars!”

E-Sports and the gaming market is estimated to be over USD 500-600 million with more than 2000 teams consistently participating in tournaments across India and abroad. U Cypher delves into the culture of E-Sport and finds a world of intense competition and massive opportunities.

The episodes and gameplay will also be available digitally on Usports.in, MTV, Voot, YouTube, YouTube Gaming and Twitch. MTV has also planned an extensive digital plan to promote the show in addition to promotions across the Viacom18 network channels.

Bentley Tech Applied in Innovative Projects to Address the Challenges of Aging T&D Infrastructure Globally

Faced with aging transmission and distribution infrastructure and limited O&M budgets, utilities strive to maximize the lifespan of their current equipment by making optimal decisions on infrastructure replacement and maintenance while reducing costs and improving customer service. Here are three examples of how Bentley solutions addressed the unique and daunting challenges of aging T&D infrastructure. 

Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL) began to collect substation indicator data in AssetWise for critical assets in 2011. In response to several publicly noticeable manhole events, IPL also began collecting data for the downtown underground network distribution system for indicators for manholes, vaults, network transformers, and network protectors. The goal was to use data to reduce the number of substation failures, improve proactive maintenance practices, and minimize the number of incidents in the downtown network system. Additionally, IPL wanted to improve the overall efficiency of the inspections and create an objective scoring method for asset health, criticality, risk, and follow-up work order priorities. 

Business logic was built in to step the inspector through the inspection process to ensure a complete and thorough inspection. A calculated indicator was configured to take the inspection data and calculate an overall health score for that asset. Management and field personnel were kept fully informed via automatic notifications of the health and status of critical assets and maintenance programs through an internal website. 

The sophistication of the inspection process (20,000 assets), automation of the data (300,000 indicators), and prioritization and follow-up work processes resulted in proactive maintenance practices that have reduced the number of equipment failures in the downtown network from 49 in 2011 to 15 in 2016. Similarly, substation transformer failures have been reduced to 0.2 percent, and the number of circuit breakers failing to close/open is trending down.

Energex determined via a condition-based risk management analysis that the 57-year-old Zillmere substation in Brisbane, Australia needed refurbishment. Existing in-service equipment had deteriorated requiring excessive maintenance on some of the 33-kilovolt circuit breakers and isolators. Aurecon was engaged to undertake the primary design for equipment that had reached retirement age – including the replacement of 5 x 33 kilovolt outdoor circuit breakers (including the foundations), the replacement of 6 x 33 kilovolt bus disconnectors (including the supporting structures), lightning masts, the replacement of the AC board, and installation of a new marshalling box for cutover of existing circuit breaker control circuits in the switchyard. 

Aurecon completed the designs in Bentley Substation so Energex would get the benefit of accurate drawings and bills of materials and to ensure that the design integrated with any existing substation equipment not earmarked for replacement. Aurecon used LiDAR to scan the target area of the substation to develop an as-built 3D rendered representation. This model was brought into Bentley Substation and subsequently into their virtual reality facility in Cape Town, South Africa, enabling Aurecon to do a follow-up virtual site visit, walking through the substation and discussing the site, close to 12,000 kilometers away from Brisbane.

This strategy provided significant insight into how to approach the integration of the new equipment into the substation and ensure new and replacement equipment was designed and fabricated to work with existing equipment. The model was shared with civil services to design the plinths for the substation equipment footings. All the services models were incorporated into one design model and the project was registered in ProjectWise. Weekly meetings were held between South Africa- and Australia-based project engineers and project managers.

Riaan Dippenaar, project engineer, Aurecon Cape Town, said, “Bentley Substation allowed us the opportunity to be proactive, accurate, innovative, and collaborative on a common design base between South Africa and Australia with a feeling of accomplishment.”

In Sofia, Bulgaria, infrastructure is managed for the metropolitan region by the Transport Infrastructure Department. A comprehensive inventory of available public lighting facilities for the Transport Infrastructure Department was necessary after an analysis of current street lighting information proved it to be incomplete and insufficient. The inventory focused on the quantity of street lighting and the current condition of the infrastructure. The government also sought to reduce spending public funds on maintenance, improve infrastructure overall, and lessen the duration of repairs. 

Sofia Municipality retained DAVID Holding Company to develop a geographic information system (GIS) to oversee and organize the infrastructure. DAVID Holding used Bentley OpenUtilities to manage the street lighting infrastructure and collected condition data. The project team used OpenUtilities’ pre-configured electric data model as the foundation for the customized street lighting data model, which lowered deployment costs and allowed DAVID Holding to meet the project deadline by cutting a significant amount of design time.

OpenUtilities provides a single source of information for Sofia planners, engineers, and operations professionals to understand the current physical state of the public lighting facilities and make better decisions about maintenance, improving customer service processes while reducing operational costs. The GIS also improved budget planning for the municipality. Upgrading the street lighting where needed, making requisite repairs swiftly, and lowering environmental impact will serve to benefit the nearly 1.3 million residents of the expansive Sofia Municipality.

Petya Todorova, senior expert, DAVID Holding, said, “Bentley OpenUtilities gave us the freedom to define a complex data model that best fits our needs. Moreover, OpenUtilities technology enables every participant in the management of the infrastructure to use a single source of information, which significantly improves our work.”

Avoiding Cyber-Security Threats Through Timely Up-Gradation of ERP Systems

By Suryanarayan Kasichainula, EVP & Business Head for ERP, 3i Infotech

Cyber security threats and the ever evolving threat landscape is increasingly becoming a bugbear for most of the enterprises in India, whether they are government or private organisations. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) stated that until June 2017 alone, India witnessed more than 27,000 cyber security threats, which is alarming and raises many concerns. While the attacks are far more complicated and nuanced now than ever before, and require constant intervention with the latest technologies, many of the enterprises do not have adequate cyber security checks and measures in place.  

With the security of the cloud, IoT and big data all taking centre stage, one of the often overlooked vector from an organisation’s security standpoint would be protection of their ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, despite it presenting significant vulnerabilities. ERP systems work with large volumes of vital company, client and employee data. Even a minor security setback in ERP systems can disrupt the fine balance between processes and expose sensitive data to malware and ransomware attacks. Latest cloud-enabled ERP systems handle data from multiple devices and are accessed by multiple users across multiple platforms. This increases the vulnerability of the system and its processes. Clearly, security should be a priority for ERP ecosystems considering recent cyber-attacks such as WannaCry, Petya that have disrupted organisations globally.

In a recent ERP Cybersecurity survey 2017 of more than 1,900 cybersecurity experts, nearly 89% of them expect to see a surge in attacks on ERP systems. 33% opine that “significant increase” in attacks and a majority of respondents said they are largely unaware that upgrading the ERP software can help avoid major security issues.

The situation might seem alarming but its solution is fairly simple. Timely upgrades to your legacy or recent ERP systems can enhance your system’s credibility and efficiency.

Benefits of timely upgradation of ERP software –

-          Outdated ERP software has incompatibility issues:

Outdated software won’t support new features. Technical support and desktop troubleshooting options are also limited for redundant ERP applications. Incompatible software is bound to crash and cause irrevocable financial loss to the enterprise. In the rapidly-evolving ERP world, the need of the hour is to update software to the latest version and benefit from latest features and services and ample backend support.

-          Legacy ERP software is prone to vulnerabilities:

Just as ERP developers are constantly looking for better ERP functionalities, software hackers are devising innovative means to intercept sensitive systems. If your ERP system houses confidential data on sales, accounting, finance or personal data of employees and customers, its security should be watertight. Legacy ERP systems are not competent enough to counter new-age security threats. The recent credit card theft in the US done by hijacking the Point of Sale (PoS) device powered by a weak ERP system is a classic example of how vulnerable outdated ERP systems are. A timely upgrade by a secure ERP system helps avoid data breach.

We are aware of the importance of security for ERP and our offering which is a cloud-enabled ERP system, has been designed using industry best practices and encompasses end-to-end security management and maintenance features to ensure highest standards of security and safety. What enterprises need to ensure is to protect their confidential data using multi-layered security parameters, which is almost impossible to intrude or breech.

With the threat landscape getting more and more complex, it should be a top priority for CTOs and CIOs to remain vigilant and educate themselves on ERP security, to ensure their organisation remain operational during a cyber-attack.