TCS iON, a strategic unit of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today announced the launch of ‘Life Long Learning’- a series of digital learning products to foster a culture of continuous learning across age groups. The aim is to inculcate a continuous learning mind-set amongst students and professionals by augmenting their knowledge with clear, impactful analytics. TCS iON in association with schools, higher education institutions and industry experts will empower learners with access to these learning products on the cloud. (https://learning.tcsionhub.in/LLL)
TCS iON ‘Life Long Learning’s’ digital products will help students from K-12 and higher education as well as working professionals to consume content in a self-paced, engaging, multi-dimensional format with deep focus on the outcome delivery. The personalized diagnostic analytics provides feedback on specific areas for improvement. This one-stop platform eliminates all traditional boundaries by enabling learners’ to remotely access this network of subject matter experts, peers, faculty and mentors.
These learning products are designed with a series of community based learning content and assessments facilitated by assisted analytics. The integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine helps to deliver contextual analytics for continuous self-improvement. The industry SME participation makes the entire process of learning more relevant.
Speaking on the digital launch event, Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head of TCS iON said, TCS iON’s ‘Life Long Learning’ will help learners to revitalize and reinvent every phase of their life and shape their future. Our intent is to make learning addictive. These innovatively structured learning products opens up new possibilities and also augments new age practices to the current class-room learning to create an engaging experience.”
“We are living in a fast-paced world where learners are digital natives and are exposed to manifold content enabling them to meet their needs at the tap of their fingers. While India is still at a very nascent stage at adapting digital learning technologies, TCS iON’s ‘Life Long Learning’ platform will act as a key enabler. Phygital access to appropriate content is the need of the hour to meet demands of Gen’Z’ and be relevant at every stage of life”, Mr Ramaswamy added.
The essence of the various “Life Long Learning” products from TCS iON across different segments:
K-12:
· Sharpener: Understands the mental impression of the student on a subject-topic and provides personalized recommendations to improve
· IntelliGem: A contest for students to develop, learn and demonstrate their skills they have learnt beyond academic curriculum. Eg. 21st century skills
· Prep4Exam: A range of online practice exams with deep analytics for 11th and 12th grade students aspiring to succeed in competitive exams
Higher Education:
· GuruCool: Offers a student to interact with renowned authors/ professors/ subject matter experts, peers to augment their classroom learning and enhance their outcome
· Blaze: Offers a learner to learn under the mentorship of an industry expert, understand the trending practices and prepare themselves to be industry ready
· Cert-n-Edge: Certifies students on trending topics and vocational skills to give an edge in their job prospects by listing them with key corporate recruiters
Working Professionals:
· Prep4Job: Assesses students’ preparedness for recruitment exams in various industries like Banking, Manufacturing, Government, Corporates etc and provides personalized feedback
· Qualifier: A proctored 2 stage assessment that enables students to showcase their talent to global corporations, helping them secure their dream job
· ProCert: Gives credence to an experienced professional for prior expertise in specific domains through a proctored 2-stage assessment and makes their profile listed with key corporate recruiters
India’s largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services has opened its new delivery centre in Suresnes, France.
The delivery centre, which is located in the Parisian region, can accommodate up to 230 employees, TCS said in a statement.
Along with TCS’ existing locations in Lille and Poitiers, the new delivery centre highlights the company’s growing focus on the region as IT services firms look beyond US to grow their revenues. Europe is one of the fastest-growing regions for TCS.
Rammohan Gourneni, TCS France Country Head, said, “The region stands at an incredibly exciting point in technological history, and as Europe’s third largest IT services market we are perfectly placed to ensure TCS’ innovative solutions can help French businesses grow and transform in the Business 4.0 era. ” The launch of “Paris DC” follows the French government’s huge investment into digital technology, with President Emmanuel Macron recently outlining his strategy to invest €1.5 billion into AI over the next four years.
“As TCS celebrates 50 years of operations and 25 years of presence in France, the opening of this delivery centre marks a new step in our development in this strategic market,” said Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and Managing Director, TCS.
Since establishing operations in France in 1992, TCS has gone from strength to strength in the region.
In 2006, TCS acquired its then representative and exclusive partner in France, TKS. The acquisition laid the foundation for TCS’ long-term strategic growth into Europe’s third largest IT services market, and was followed by the opening of a first delivery centre in Lille in 2012, the acquisition of Alti in 2013, and the opening of second delivery centre in 2014 in Poitiers.
In two years, TCS doubled the number of employees at this centre.
Over the past five years, TCS’ growth in France has been strengthened by the development of the business sector, and the signing of major contracts with French multi-national customers.
For example, TCS and BNP Paribas Securities Services partnered to build a solution for the asset servicing sector with TCS’ blockchain Quartz technology.
Scientists have created the world's fastest computer at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, that can process more than 3 billion calculations per second.
US scientists have unveiled the world’s most powerful and smartest scientific supercomputer that can complete over 200,000 trillion calculations per second – providing unprecedented computing power for research in energy, advanced materials and artificial intelligence (AI). The US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) supercomputer called Summit will be eight times more powerful than its previous top-ranked system, Titan.
For certain scientific applications, Summit will also be capable of more than three billion billion mixed precision calculations per second, or 3.3 exaops. “Summit will empower scientists to address a wide range of new challenges, accelerate discovery, spur innovation and above all, benefit the American people,” said Rick Perry, Secretary of Energy. The IBM AC922 system consists of 4,608 compute servers, each containing two 22-core IBM Power9 processors and six NVIDIA Tesla V100 graphics processing unit accelerators, interconnected with dual-rail Mellanox EDR 100 Gb/s InfiniBand.
Summit's placement as the "world's fastest" isn't exactly official yet, because the Top500 list for supercomputer rankings hasn't been updated yet. Summit also possesses more than 10 petabytes of memory paired with fast, high-bandwidth pathways for efficient data movement. The combination of cutting-edge hardware and robust data subsystems marks an evolution of the hybrid CPU-GPU architecture successfully pioneered by the 27-petaflops Titan in 2012. ORNL researchers have figured out how to harness the power and intelligence of Summit’s state-of-art architecture to successfully run the world’s first exascale scientific calculation.
Scientists led by ORNL’s Dan Jacobson and Wayne Joubert has leveraged the intelligence of the machine to run a 1.88 exaops comparative genomics calculation relevant to research in bioenergy and human health. The mixed precision exaops calculation produced identical results to more time-consuming 64-bit calculations previously run on Titan. In addition to scientific modeling and simulation, Summit offers unparalleled opportunities for the integration of AI and scientific discovery, enabling researchers to apply techniques like machine learning and deep learning to problems in human health, high-energy physics, materials discovery and other areas.
“Summit takes accelerated computing to the next level, with more computing power, more memory, an enormous high-performance file system and fast data paths to tie it all together. That means researchers will be able to get more accurate results faster,” said Jeff Nichols, ORNL associate laboratory director for computing and computational sciences. “Summit’s AI-optimised hardware also gives researchers an incredible platform for analyzing massive datasets and creating intelligent software to accelerate the pace of discovery,” he said.
Union minister Arun Jaitley along with senior ministerial colleagues and officials on Monday discussed the future course of action for debt-laden Air India, weeks after its strategic disinvestment proposal failed to attract any bidders, sources said.
The meeting was attended by Piyush Goyal, who has been temporarily given the charge of finance ministry, Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and other senior officials.
According to sources, the meeting, chaired by Union Minister Arun Jaitley, took stock of the developments related to debt-laden Air India and discussed the way forward.
Strategic disinvestment
The report prepared by consultancy EY, the transaction advisor for Air India’s proposed strategic disinvestment, was discussed.
The report has listed out the reasons for the disinvestment failing to elicit any initial bids as the deadline ended on May 31, sources said.
Last week, a source had said the government was considering listing of debt-laden Air India after the proposal for 76% strategic stake sale failed to attract any bidders.
In a major setback, the government on May 31 said that no initial bids were received for the proposed stake sale in Air India and that various options would be explored for the airline’s future.
The government proposed to offload 76% equity share capital of the national carrier as well as transfer the management control to private players, as per the preliminary information memorandum.
Low cost carrier
The transaction would have involved Air India, its low cost arm Air India Express and Air India SATS Airport Services Pvt Ltd.
The latter is an equal joint venture between the national carrier and Singapore-based SATS Ltd.
In harmony with its mission to enrich the neighbouring communities through scalable and sustainable solutions, Toyota Kirloskar Motor today inaugurated a newly constructed government hostel at Byramangala in Ramanagara district. The hostel equipped with necessary facilities is expected to benefit 60 children, thereby creating a safer environment for the schoolchildren and ensure improvement in the standards of their living.
The event was inaugurated by A. Manjunath, MLA - Magadi, Venkateshamma R President Town Munciple corporation Bidadi, Gangemare Gowda, Deputy Director of Public Instruction - Ramanagara along with Naveen Soni, Vice President - Toyota Kirloskar Motor. These pre-emptive efforts taken by the company aims to help alleviate the school dropout rates, thereby bringing out a positive difference in the areas of Education.
Appreciating Toyota’s relentless efforts towards the betterment of the society, A. Manjunath, MLA – Magadi said, “Right to compulsory and free education is fundamental to the progression of the nation, and the Government of India is trying its best to bring back dropped out students to the mainstream education. Efforts by corporate houses like Toyota to increase school amenities to the students are commendable, as lack of infrastructure remains one of the single largest causes for school dropouts in the state. My heartfelt gratitude to Toyota Kirloskar Motor for all the community development endeavours, to bring about a progressive and sustainable transformation in the society.”
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Naveen Soni, Vice President, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “The Indian education system is hampered by multiple challenges, lack of adequate infrastructure being one of the most significant. An essential component to consider while promoting quality education is a favourable learning environment, which is entitled to each and every school going child in the country. An enriched physical as well as the psycho-social environment of the child plays a big role in defining their learning outcomes.
We at Toyota look at creating lasting and positive transformations in order to build a more equitable society. Education is the cornerstone for any country’s progress, and as a responsible corporate citizen, we have over the years established a number of projects across Karnataka towards providing children from less fortunate families get access to a conducive environment that will promote quality learning opportunities. We hope this hostel will provide an apt environment for them to grow and learn and be the change makers of tomorrow.”
Toyota Kirloskar Motor over the years has initiated several projects to accelerate access to quality education in the country. Recently, the company distributed school supply kit consisting of bags, books, geometry box’s, drawing books and crayons will be distributed to 22,000 students from first to tenth standards in 300 schools in Ramanagara district. This program have expanded over a period, enhancing the beneficiary coverage to around 22,000 school children this academic year, as compared to 3000 children in 2007.
The company has reconstructed many government schools Yandahalli & Kupya villages in Mysore District in 2017-18, Dyavalinganapalya and Thalaguppe villages of Ramanagara District in May 2016-17, benefitting over 95 students covering 1st – 5th grades. They also constructed Ashrama School at Byramangala, LPS School at Medanahalli & Ashrama School at Hosadoddi. These projects have shown a positive impact on the school attendance ratio - with an increase from 28% to 36% in Medanahalli and 40% to 60% in Hosadoddi schools.
Under the Government’s National Campaign to provide clean sanitation facilities for girl child in India, Toyota has also pledged its support to ‘Swacch Bharat – Swacch Vidyalaya’ – by constructing sanitation units at identified schools by the Government in 3 locations across India to help reduce school dropouts. The company constructed 795 units of sanitation facilities in 237 government schools across India (of which 125 units are located in Varanasi, 545 units in Ramanagara district & Bangalore in Karnataka and 125 units in Vaishali in Bihar).
On the occasion of World Day against Child Labour, Child Rights and You (CRY), one of India’s leading NGOs, organised an event on Church Street to raise awareness on the issue. CRY created an experiential zone to make people feel in minutes the life of children living under theclamp of labour.
People walked into a mobile room where a similar atmosphere of a factory was recreated. To provide realism to the milieu, sight, sound, and smell of the labour environment was also mimicked.
“Changes are real when people feel for the cause. On this World Day against Child Labour, we wanted to make people experience the harsh conditions few children have to go through during their childhood. Lack of education has a direct implication on a child making them more vulnerable in being a child labour. This need to stop and the motive of this event is to expose the truth of labour to the general public”, said Suma Ravi, Regional Director, CRY South.
Child Labour is increasingly being considered as an acceptable norm in the society as people tend to see it as a means for underprivileged families to make ends meet. There are 10.13 million child labourers between 5-14 years in India (Census 2011), out of which Karnataka has 4,21,345 and Bangalore has 66,622 number of working children.
Sasken Technologies Ltd., (formerly Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd.), a leading product engineering and digital transformation solutions provider, has announced that it has onboarded Mihir Kumar as Senior VP and Head, Industrials Business Unit to lead the company’s efforts in the Industrials segment.
Mihir has more than two decades of experience spanning across Product Engineering, Digital Transformation & IT Services and has successfully led multiple strategic client relationships and businesses. Mihir brings in extensive industry knowledge and has orchestrated several industry and outsourcing solutions that have enabled business success and operational efficiency for his clients.
Welcoming Mihir into the organization, Hari Haran, President - Global Sales, Marketing and Business Lines, said, “We see great opportunity for growth in the Industrials space with the advent of Industry 4.0. Mihir will lead the growth of the Industrials segment at Sasken by delivering strategic value and compelling proposition to our customers, by channeling our product engineering and digital transformation offerings.”
Prior to joining Sasken, Mihir led the Industrials and Aerospace business in Americas for LTI (Larsen & Toubro Infotech). In addition, he was responsible for leading the market development of Industrial IoT practice at LTI. Before LTI, Mihir worked at Infosys for more than 18 years, where he set up and led the growth of the Aerospace & Industrial Conglomerates segments.
Commenting on Sasken’s expertise in Industrials, Mihir Kumar, Senior VP and Head, Industrials BU, said, “The industrials space is transforming with machines becoming intelligent and digitally managed, operations getting augmented by AR/AI and Analytics, and plants becoming dynamic and data-driven. Organizations are making increased efforts to uncover business opportunities, create new revenue streams, improve productivity and efficiency, and deepen customer engagement. At Sasken our differentiated expertise in Chip to Cognition positions us uniquely to help our customers IoTize their assets, design next generation industrial products, and leverage digital technologies to gain insights into making businesses more efficient. I look forward to working with the team here and strengthening Sasken’s efforts in the Industrials business.”
