Kotak Mahindra Bank, NASSCOM Announce Winners of its Maiden Payment Co-creation Programme

Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak) and NASSCOM announced the winners of its maiden payment co-creation programme for start-ups and fintechs. Of the 133 entries received for the programme, 12 fintechs were shortlisted after a rigorous evaluation process. The jury has finalised 6 winners – Automaxis, Dairy Plus, Nukkad Shops Technology, MyCarIQ, Highway Delight and FTL Technology.

The twin objectives of the Kotak Payment Co-creation Programme are to provide an impetus to fintech-bank partnerships and build an ecosystem of collaboration and innovation for start-ups and fintechs in the digital payments space.

Deepak Sharma, Chief Digital Officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “With the Kotak Payment Co-creation Programme, our aim is to create a robust platform for fintech-bank collaboration. We have concluded the first edition of the programme focused on digital payments and are delighted to have found some unique, best-in-class ideas. The winners will receive mentorship, and also an opportunity to work closely with our innovation lab and pilot launch their offering with us. We look forward to deepening our engagement with the start-up community and unlocking fresh, new ideas with similar programmes in the future.” 

KS Viswanathan, Vice President - Industry Initiatives, NASSCOM said, “It was a great learning experience to be a part of this selection process. We indeed believe that India has all it takes to emerge as the global fintech capital over the next decade. This initiative with Kotak will lead to redefining the payment ecosystem in the country.”

Details of Winners:

Automaxis: A micro-automation platform that reduces operational time and error, Automaxis provides solutions related to GST filing, from making the invoice to the last stage, connecting different ERP players.

Dairy Plus: This Hyderabad-based fintech provides solutions to enable the last mile visibility and payment digitalization for dairy distribution businesses.

Nukkad Shops Technology: This fintech offers retail business solutions to small kirana shops with cloud POS, billing system etc.

MyCarIQ: MyCarIQ is a Pune-based fintech that works on IoT for car tracking, booking services etc. through an integrated device in the car along with a companion mobile app.

Highway Delight: This Bangalore-based fintech provides data-driven integrated highway services platform for smart roads of the future.

FTL Technology: FTL Technology works in the area of driving retail loans for banks along with a price comparison engine in the e-commerce segment.

The next leg of the Kotak Co-creation Programme in partnership with NASSCOM will be announced soon.

*Jury members: Deepak Sharma, Chief Digital Officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank; Venkat Kumar, Vice President – Digital Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank; Bertram Dsouza, Vice President – Digital Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Priya Sankar, Associate Vice President – Digital Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank         

N/Core and Cisco Partner to Support Tech-Based Nonprofits in India, Calls for Applications

N/Core, an incubator exclusively for nonprofit startups, today announced its partnership with Cisco, a global leader in IT and Networking, to launch N/Core tech - an exclusive track focused on incubating early-stage nonprofits that leverage digital technology to positively impact society and solve some of the world’s most pressing social and economic problems. 

The exclusive N/Core and Cisco tech track will primarily focus on incubating nonprofits that are trying to address critical human needs like water or food security, healthcare, financial inclusion, education, accessibility, and the environment.  The Track will support up to 20 organizations during the first year in cohorts of 10 organizations each. N/Core tech’s first cohort is open for applications. 

Each selected nonprofit will receive an innovation grant of Rs 10 Lakhs. In addition to the innovation grant, the non-profits will have access to a set of mentors and technology experts from Cisco along with renowned N/Core Partners namely, Sanjay Purohit, ex-Chairman of Infosys Consulting; Maneesh Dhir, former MD of Apple India and current Partner of Social Venture Partners; K R Lakshminarayan (LAN), Chief Endowment Officer of Azim Premji Foundation, and Ujwal Thakar, ex CEO of Pratham and GiveIndia. Each Partner will invest their time and expertise to provide in-depth support to the startups throughout the six months of incubation, and beyond.

N/Core, founded by Atul Satija in early 2017, recently graduated its first cohort with 9 early stage nonprofits selected from a pool of 1032 applicants from 19 countries across the world, showcasing an increasing inflow of highly talented and motivated entrepreneurs to solve for poverty in India. These entrepreneurs come from diverse sectors such as education, employability, healthcare, water and menstrual hygiene and collectively raised more than 5 times the innovation grant during a short period of 6 months.

“Cisco is committed to positively impacting 1 billion people by 2025. Through this partnership with N/core, we seek to inspire and empower a generation of global problem solvers who can combine tech know-how, ingenuity, and social consciousness to solve some of the most pressing social challenges. N/Core has attracted some of the best young innovators entering the social sector, and we are excited to discover such talent and support their aspirations,” said VC Gopalratnam, Senior Vice-President for IT and Executive Sponsor – Cisco India CSR.

Technology has a significant role to play in enabling meaningful impact in the development sector, given the massive scale of problems in this sector.  However, adoption of technology in this sector has lagged behind other sectors of the economy, due to various bottlenecks. Talking about the need to address this, N/Core CEO Sudha Srinivasan said, “This collaboration between N/Core and Cisco aspires to elevate the development sector in its adoption of technology to solve problems at large scale. We believe that our support for innovation leveraging technology will change the norm of the development sector in pace, scale, and efficiency.”

Svarochi Smart LED Lights Launches in Bangalore; Simultaneously Launches Mobile App that Controls the Lights

iBahn Illumination, India’s first company specialising only in Smart LED lights, officially announced the launch of its product range today in Bangalore.

Launched under the brand ‘Svarochi’, the products are Smart LED Lights that can be wirelessly operated with a mobile app. Consumers can switch the lights on and off, set the lights to the colour temperature of their choice (get the correct shade of white or yellow), adjust intensity and set the lights to any colour (from among 16 million available). The setup and operations are simple - consumers need to only know how to operate a smartphone.

Speaking at the launch, Rajeev Chopra, Founder & CEO, iBahn Illumination said “Our goal is to disrupt the market by offering a range of smart LEDs based on Bluetooth mesh technology, which will enable users to control the intensity and colour of their lights through our easy to use Smartphone app. We believe ‘Smart LEDs’ will be a ₹40,000 m ($600m) market by 2022. Our brand ‘Svarochi’ offers innovative products that are high on functionality, easy to use, locally relevant and affordable.”

Speaking on the market scenario, Arjun Shahani, Co-Founder & COO, iBahn Illumination said “We envision that Smart LED Home Lights in India will replace ‘standard’ LEDs in the next 10 years. We have interacted with numerous architects, interior designers, home specialists, etc. in the Mumbai market and the response to our products have been phenomenal. They love the fact that with Svarochi smart lights, a user has the ability to create the perfect light settings for every room and every occasion.”

iBahn Illumination, recently launched country’s first app-operated chip-on-board (COB) lighting solutions; its PRIMA and ELITE Series of spotlights. Compatible with Android and iOS, the spotlights provide exceptional indoor lighting and can be applied in spaces such as the living room, bedrooms, in POP ceilings for home, corridors, showrooms, cafeteria, restaurant, hotel lobbies, reception areas and in recessed gypsum ceilings.

Svarochi is a brainchild of the team that pioneered LED Lighting in India and aims to disrupt the market with its ‘Smart LED Home Lights’ branded ‘Svarochi.’ Rajeev Chopra (former Philips India CEO and Global CEO, Business Group Home, Philips Lighting BV) had recently announced the launch of the company, after raising its first institutional round of funding from leading Private Equity company. The company was formed along with the core leadership team that includes Arjun Shahani, Kunal Chaudhuri, and Sudeshna Mukhopadhyay

Prior to iBahn, Arjun was Business Head, Luminaires, Philips Lighting Division and Managing Director at Armstrong World Industries, Kunal was the R&D Head of the Professional Luminaires Business Philips Lighting India, while Sudeshna led Philips Lighting Design Centre and Lighting Academy in India.

iBahn aspires to make spaces beautiful with Svarochi Smart Lights, and become a ₹5,000 million company in 6 years. “Svarochi” is a Sanskrit word which means “brilliant appearance” and “own ray”. All products, right from their software to design and technology are designed, developed and manufactured in India. The company has rolled out its offerings pan India in a phased manner.

iBahn currently has its products under 3 categories, viz ‘lamps’, ‘downlighters’ and ‘spotlights’. These lights will be controllable with an app that will be available on Android and iOS. Svarochi Smart Lights make spaces beautiful, by enabling consumers to create the perfect lighting effect for every room and every occasion using their smartphones.

Kotak Mahindra Bank’s Ketan Patel Joins CASHe as its New CEO

Aeries Financial Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a fintech company promoted by serial entrepreneur and private equity investor V. Raman Kumar, today announced the appointment of Mr. Ketan Patel as the Executive Director and CEO of CASHe. Patel has also been appointed as the Managing Director of Bhanix Finance & Investment Ltd., the NBFC arm of the company. In his new role as CEO, Mr. Patel will focus on the company’s next level strategies that will focus on actions centered around accelerating CASHe’s organic growth momentum as well as its strategy of becoming India’s largest digital lending company to the salaried and professional millennial. He will also be focused towards driving its technology innovation, accelerate its operational excellence as well as delivering superior customer experiences. 

Speaking on the appointment, Chairman of Aeries Financial Technologies, V. Raman Kumar, said: “It is my pleasure to welcome Ketan to lead the CASHe team as CEO. I am very pleased that we have been successful in attracting a talented and experienced banker who intimately understands E-commerce and fin-tech businesses in India. Our decision to appoint Ketan is a clear reflection of the company’s avowed desire to accelerate the pace of growth by attracting India’s best of breed technologists and financial and banking professionals. Ketan is a long-time career banker at Kotak with over 18 years of outstanding experience heading key portfolios ranging from retail assets, wealth management and more recently as Business Head of E-commerce and Composite Banking Solutions (CBS) at Kotak.  He is a seasoned leader with a proven track record of bringing in operational excellence, accelerating innovation and achieving revenue and profitability in business. Ketan has a broad and deep banking experience across businesses and functions and has a clear understanding of the opportunities and priorities that lie ahead of us. I am happy that we will be working closely to build a hugely successful business at CASHe,” he concluded.

Speaking about his appointment as the CEO and Executive Director of CASHe, Ketan Patel said: “I look forward to leading the team at CASHe at such an exciting time. I am encouraged by the growth and potential CASHe has to offer and I am committed to building upon the excellent groundwork which has been undertaken by Raman since the launch of CASHe. My focus will be to strengthen CASHe’s growth and operational performance and making CASHe as a true leader in alternative lending for millennial in India.  I look forward to working with Raman, CASHe’s senior management team and all my colleagues as we carry on with the execution of our strategic plans.” 

 

Ketan Patel joins CASHe after an 18- year stint with Kotak Mahindra bank where he until recently held the position of a Business Head - CBS and E-commerce & Corporate Banking. In his role as Head of E-Commerce at Kotak Mahindra Bank, Ketan oversaw setting up a dedicated vertical for the fast-growing E-Commerce business out of the bank’s Corporate Banking Vertical. Throughout his successful career at Kotak and Kotak Mahindra bank, Mr. Patel led key business units including Kotak Securities, Mortgages, Kotak Wealth Management and headed its division focusing on NRI business. From 2010 until 2015, he helped setting up the Private Banking Business for the Kotak Group in the UK. Patel holds a Master’s Degree in Management Studies from Mumbai University.

‘Aadhaar Authenticated Online Elections’ Idea Declared Winner of Mojo Networks WiFi Think Fest 2.0

After a meticulous examination of entries received from over 500 students and professionals across India, Mojo Networks, providers of massively scalable carrier-class WiFi, announced the winners of its ‘WiFi Think Fest 2.0.’ Soham Sengupta, B.Tech student from Vellore Institute of Technology Chennai was announced winner of this contest. The second and third prizes were grabbed by Aditya Datar & Apurva Ravetkar from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Ian Noronha from IIT Roorkee respectively. 

 The awards ceremony for this contest was held at the 5^th Wi-Fi Knowledge Summit, an initiative which brings together WiFi practitioners and enthusiasts to develop best practices for WiFi planning, deployment and optimization. 

The entries were reviewed by Dr. Kaustubh Phanse, VP, Content and Product Design, Mojo Networks; Raghunandan G, Entrepreneur, Investor and Co-founder of Taxi4Sure; Jayalakshmi Umadikar, Senior Manager - Academic Liaison, IITMIC & RTBI; Devadas Pai, CEO, Nanocell Networks; Osama Manzar, Founder, Digital Empowerment Foundation and Suresh Chintada, Sr. Director, ARRIS Group, Inc.

Expressing his joy, Soham Sengupta from Vellore Institute of Technology Chennai said “I think the WiFi Think Fest competition is an outstanding platform because it values an individual's own ideas. I would definitely like to work to see these ideas implemented for the betterment of the country.”

Commenting on WiFi Think Fest 2.0 Rajesh Gandhi, VP, Carrier WiFi Solution, Mojo Networks said, “Purpose of WiFi Think Fest contest is to get innovative solutions and services by leveraging the power of BharatNet infrastructure. This has been our second year in organizing this contest, and there has been tremendous response from WiFi practitioners, students across India. This is a first of its kind forum that provides a platform for sharing creativity and generating newer ideas which are vetted by seasoned professionals.”

Prominent moderator who was part of the reviewing panel of WiFi Think Fest 2.0 entries, Osama Manzar, Founder, Digital Empowerment Foundation said “WiFi Think Fest is a great initiative to find enthusiasm around and how hungry minds provide innovative solutions to connect the unconnected.”