MT Educare, one of India’s largest coaching companies has launched a revolutionary book that uses digital technologies to combine the best aspects of a textbook, work book and classroom teaching into an innovative learning experience.
Captioned R+ Notebook, the said book is prepared by highly qualified teachers, instructional designers and top design professionals, and addresses the problem of students forgetting critical concepts at the time of revision. This is often a result of lack of a systematic approach where students tend to write in multiple notebooks, which a student may or may not find while revising before assessments.
The R+Notebook not only covers all the concepts and problems from a textbook along with space to solve these problems, but most importantly, each concept and problem comes with an embedded QR code. If a student has trouble recalling the concept or the approach to solve a particular problem, all he/she has to do is scan the QR code using R+Notebook’s companion app and he/she will be able to see a video of the teacher solving the problem in the classroom.
This innovation thus eliminates last minute stress that students often feel when they can’t recall a concept, or approach to a problem solution while revising the concepts closer to the assessment.
Mahesh Shetty, founder of MT Educare and the Company’s Wholetime Director said, “This is the first time in the world that a ‘traditional’ notebook has been morphed into a multi-media learning book combining textbook, notebook, classroom learning and digital technologies to create a wholesome experience for students.”
The concept was test-marketed in the week of Children’s Day and was met with resounding success. Most of the students who thronged to MTEducare centres to experience this innovative approach to learning have signed up for the Class IX & Class X (2019-21 academic session).
Nutanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing, is questioning whether the promise of public cloud may be confusing India’s enterprises and hindering their growth, rather than helping it.
Nutanix is challenging conventional cloud thinking by outlining how organizations can redefine their business and business models by taking back control of their cloud environment, rather than simply adding to it.
Modern organizations are rapidly embracing multiple cloud services and providers, attracted by the prospect of simplifying operations, improving efficiencies, driving speed and flexibility, and liberating themselves from expensive on-premise vendor solutions.
But is this race to the cloud actually holding back India’s businesses? Enterprises often end up replacing one vendor with another or opting for alternating systems to provide redundancy and business resiliency. This can end up trapping them in exactly the same inflexible, costly and complex infrastructure environment they were looking to escape.
So, what is the solution? Nutanix suggests that better management and visibility into cloud operations holds the key to realising all the promises of cloud.
“The future is not cloud. The future is managing multiple clouds.” said Nutanix Neville Vincent, Head of Nutanix, India, ASEAN and ANZ. “Cloud complexity and clutter is a challenge threatening to overwhelm IT departments drowning in reactive problem-solving. Businesses are looking for the freedom to invest and create. Instant access and control of the ever increasing cloud networks, provides that freedom. The result is a software driven IT department free to focus on enhanced customer experience and shaping the future of the business.”
It’s a timely solution and comes at a time when enterprises are seeing an explosion in IoT and other connected devices which is driving an increase in cloud deployments designed to intelligently manage these devices at the “edge”. Ensuring consistent performance and governance whenever and wherever, from the datacentre to the edge, becomes critical to future business success.
“The cost and complexity of Cloud is costing Asia’s businesses” added Vincent “Instead of focusing on growing their business and adding value for their customers, today’s leaders are instead spending most of their time trying to understand and manage their cloud environment. We change that by putting companies back in control of the cloud.”
Nutanix’s Enterprise OS mitigates the risk and restrictions of public cloud lock-in by allowing customers to move data and workloads securely and seamlessly between public and private clouds with full and immediate visibility of costs. It also provides a single point of control for managing infrastructure and applications in any cloud, from datacentre to the edge, and delivers multi-cloud governance via new SaaS offerings.
The company has been growing rapidly in India as the hyperconverged market become mainstream.
Syska Group, a leading FMEG company announces the launch of ‘Reverb C2 Wireless Earphones’. Syska Reverb is a perfect light weight, comfortable hands-free mobile companion and is powered by really long-lasting battery to make sure that your days are filled with music you love. It features high definition speaker and multifunction button with IPX4 water resistance, long lasting battery and magnetic earbuds. Syska Reverb Wireless Headset comes with HDAB Technology for rich bass and clear sound to deliver best music experience to the consumers.
Commenting on the launch of Syska Reverb earphones, Gurumukh Uttamchandani, Executive Director, Syska Group said, “New technologies are replacing the wired earphones with the wireless ones and consumers are now fond of bluetooth earphones because of the ease to carry them. By launching Reverb C2, Syska is not only looking at providing a seamless music experience to the user but we also want the consumers to experience comfort in the communication aspect too. We believe in bringing new and innovative products that will benefit the consumers and change their perception from using just a normal earphone to a classic earphone. Syska Reverb is esthetically designed to provide comfort and style at the same time and it is an all-day wear with great features”.
Syska Reverb C2 is engineered for high definition sound with HDAB Technology combined with high precision auto level equalizer ensures that the music is played in right cord to give world class sound. The Syska Reverb Earphones is compatible with all types of smartphones, tablets, PC or Mac book and music players. It also seamlessly integrates the in-built equalizer function of Google Music and iTunes, without having any need of any additional app. It is designed ergonomically for long term wear; these headphones feature flexibility to wear around your neck and the stabilizing silicon ear gels provide in-ear comfort. These ensure a perfect fit for long term wear. It is built with polyurethane joints to keep it light weight and easy to carry around whole day.
Syska Reverb C2 is also a perfect companion for outdoor or indoor activities as the earphones are certified as sweat resistant and that makes them a perfect workout companion. The product is available at an introductory price of INR 2849/- in black, blue and green colors. It is also available on leading e-commerce portals Flipkart and Amazon.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on the Digital Economy has announced ftcash as the global grand prize winner for the 2018 MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC). The winning organization was selected by the IIC Champion Committee from 20 Regional Winners in Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. All were vetted after a year-long search for the most innovative, impactful, and scalable future of work solutions on the planet from more than 1,500 global registrants by in-region experts and chosen by Selection Panels at regional celebrations this summer. ftcash exemplified scalable, working solutions that broaden opportunity and harness technology to include more people in the digital economy.
The MIT IIC awards $1.6 million globally to organizations that are using technology to reinvent the future of work and create a more equitable economy.
ftcash was previously the regional winner of the Inclusive Innovation Challenge in Bangkok, Thailand. All the IIC regional winners received an expenses-paid trip to MIT for the Grand Prize Gala where they were honoured with receptions, networking opportunities, and workshops with investors, MIT, and industry experts.
“It is our absolute pleasure and honour to be recognized by MIT. This award represents the highest achievement in inclusive technology, but in our case, it is a validation and reflection of our mission of financial inclusion that resonates with millions of individuals globally. Today, with our technology any small business owner in India can access credit or digital payments with a click of a button. This gives us extraordinary power for us at ftcash to march for inclusion, to reignite the movement for “the missing middle”; to create a just society. With MIT’s unparalleled strength in technology and their commitment to Digital Economy and Artificial Intelligence, we are looking forward to a successful partnership that can allow us to harness the best available resources in the world.”, says Vaibhav Lodha, Co-founder of ftcash.
“ftcash has established itself as one of the most innovative companies today in the fintech sector and the recognition from MIT is a testimony to their focus on product market fit to serve this credit starved market segment. Through our long-term association with the company, we aim to help the company unlock the vast market potential for its product, possibly on a global scale.” says Vikram Gupta, Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures
“The grand challenge of our era is to use digital technologies to create not only prosperity, but shared prosperity,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, Director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. “We created the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge to recognize and reward the many amazing people and organizations that are working to accomplish this mission.”
“With the MIT IIC, we’re celebrating the entrepreneurs and innovators who are demonstrating many different ways to put powerful technology to use to improve people’s economic prospects,” adds Andrew McAfee, co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. “Our winners and other entrants show us that broadly shared prosperity is possible, which makes a great antidote to pessimism and negativity.”
For more on the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge and our mission, please visit: www.MITinclusiveinnovation.com. For more on the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, visit: ide.mit.edu.
ftcash: ftcash is one of India’s fastest growing financial technology venture, recognized by Forbes, which aims to empower micro-merchants and small businesses through financial inclusion using digital payments and loans.
ftcash provides a software and hardware based full-stack payment solution to small merchants to initiate digital payments in less than 5 minutes. In addition, ftcash uses its proprietary algorithm to understand the credit-worthiness using their transaction flow data on the payments platform along with several other data points including psychometric analysis, which can be leveraged to provide these underserved SMEs with institutional finance. After disbursement of loans, the collections is done using the payments platform for their future receivables. The company was launched in Mumbai, India in mid-2015. It was incubated by PayPal and is currently in a strategic partnership with MasterCard to enable merchant services globally. The team comprises of senior executives from Deutsche Bank, Capital One, World Bank, KPMG among others with a pedigree from Wharton, Harvard, IIMs, IITs etc.
ftcash was awarded by HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton as a winner at the UK Trade and Investment – Great Tech Initiative. Most notably, ftcash was recognized for its work in financial inclusion by President of India at Pitch@RB, TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield, Berlin, Singapore Fintech Festival and Abu Dhabi Fintech Festival. The company has also won several other accolades that include Mastercard Global StartPath, IBM Fintech Smart Camp, Red Herring Asia 50, NTT Data Open Innovation, IIM Ahmedabad CIIE-IIFL Fellowship, KPMG Hot 100 Startups, NASSCOM Emerge 50, iSPIRT InTech 50, The Fintech20 India, mBillionth Award South Asia, ISB-SAP Social Enterprise Jumpstart, Action for India 100, Village Capital Program among other accolades. It was selected for World’s first Impact Investment Show – The Real Deal on NDTV and Young Turks on CNBC. ftcash is funded by IvyCap Ventures and 500 Startups.
Cloud infrastructure provider OVH, announced the launch of Digital Launch Pad (DLP), an accelerator for Indian start-ups.
Kickstarted its operation in India few months back, the firm OVH launched its accelerator program under which the firm will offer up to $100,000 to start-ups from innovation to market stage, to deploy solutions built on OVH infrastructure along with training and expertise.
OVH’s global DLP program which was launched in 2015, has supported 1,500 start-ups in 120 countries.
DLP in India would support emerging businesses in the digital arena and allow them to benefit from reliable and flexible cloud infrastructure.
“Public cloud services market in India has seen phenomenal growth over the last 2 years, reaching $1.8 billion in 2017, and is expected to reach $4.1 billion by 2020. With its size and scale, India is well placed to take advantage of the data revolution and we want to draw on our international expertise to help Indian businesses to develop new ideas through a smart cloud, help them through the product development and go-to-market stages and grow along with them as their business grows” said Alain Fiocco, EVP & Chief Technology Officer, OVH.
Sudheesh Sudhakaran, Managing Director, OVH India said, “The Digital Launch Pad initiative is another example of our commitment to our customers, and our focus on helping them grow. We carefully evaluated the Indian market and are providing what our customer’s need.”
Founded in 1999, today OVH maintains 28 data centres in 12 locations across four continents. OVH deploys its own global fibre optic network and manages the entire supply chain for web hosting, making it easier for companies of all sizes to access the cloud.
OVH, a global leader in cloud infrastructure has announced it has started operations and seen strong growth since it opened its first Indian office, earlier this year. With business in North America, EMEA and APAC, OVH has drawn on its international expertise to offer a different vision of the cloud for its growing customer base in India.
Founded in 1999, today OVH maintains 28 data centres in 12 locations across four continents. OVH deploys its own global fibre optic network and manages the entire supply chain for web hosting, making it easier for companies of all sizes to access the cloud. Since its operations in India began in June 2018, the company has seen great momentum with customers across the country signing up to it dedicated servers, web hosting, private and public cloud services.
“In the last two years, the public cloud services market in India has seen phenomenal growth – reaching $1.8 billion in 2017. By 2020, this figure is expected to reach $4.1 billion. Due to its size and scale, India is very well-placed to take advantage of the data revolution and we want to help Indian businesses to develop new ideas through a smart cloud,” said Alain Fiocco, EVP Chief Technology Officer (CTO), OVH.
Giving back to the Indian ecosystem
Today OVH is launching the Digital Launch Pad in India to support emerging businesses in the digital arena and allow them to benefit from reliable and flexible cloud infrastructure. The company offers up to $100,000 to startups to deploy solutions built on the OVH infrastructure.
Commenting on the news, Sudheesh Sudhakaran, Managing Director, OVH India said “The Digital Launch Pad initiative is another example of our commitment to our customers, and our focus on helping them grow. We carefully evaluated the Indian market and are providing what our customers need, which is a safe forum to experiment with different projects, coupled with support from OVH’s experts to develop their ideas.”
A strong growth trajectory for OVH in India
Last year OVH acquired VMware vCloud Air. In India the company has integrated vCloud Air employees into the OVH organisation, increasing the size, expertise and experience of its local team. The expanded sales team has already recruited several thousand customers and the company is seeing high growth. Sudheesh Sudhakaran, Managing Director, OVH India explains, “This growth is set to continue. In fact, taking into account the strength of our team, the growth we’ve seen to date and market conditions, coupled with the high-quality, cost-effective OVH portfolio, we believe that India has the potential to become the largest OVH tech hub outside of our global headquarters in France.”
To further enable this growth in India, OVH is recruiting local partners to work closely with company leveraging its international data centres in Europe and the US.
An alternative, smart cloud
Central to OVH’s operations in India is the company’s vision of a different type of cloud. Sitting at the heart of the data revolution, OVH offers an alternative solution that liberates the cloud for its customers and partners, helping them to succeed.
OVH helps organisation, regardless of their size, to control their data, innovate and develop new ideas in total freedom through a “smart” cloud:
· A Simple cloud, quick and easy to set up
· A Multi-local cloud, close to everyone all over the world
· An Accessible cloud with fair and predictable pricing
· A Reversible cloud, open and compatible
· A Transparent cloud that functions responsibly.
This “smart cloud strategy” revolves around four product universes. Each is tailored to a different type of OVH customer and the way they like to interact with OVH products and services:
OVHmarket is a digital toolbox for accelerating growth. It meets the needs of entrepreneurs who wish to harness the power of digital technology to develop their business. This universe includes a range of web, telecom and cloud solutions that are quick to implement, simple to use, competitively priced and supported by local OVH partners.
OVHspirit includes all the infrastructures you need to build a cloud platform. Infrastructure, hardware and network enthusiasts who want to build a cloud platform for themselves or their customers can harness the power of a scalable, multi-local cloud infrastructure that is based on cutting-edge technologies designed for specific needs, and offers unbeatable value for money.
OVHstack is a public cloud platform based on open standards. It is aimed at followers of the cloud-ready approach who need to develop scalable applications in the cloud. They get a public cloud that is deployed globally, yet integrates easily into their ecosystem and remains reversible.
OVHenterprise is an alternative cloud that powers successful digital transformation. This universe is aimed at decision-makers who want to achieve their strategic objectives using an alternative cloud provider. They retain control of their data by using a hybrid cloud based on both the public and private clouds offered by OVH, as well as any other clouds available on the market.
Working with tech industry giants: VMware and Intel
OVH continues to extend its longstanding global partnerships with VMware and Intel as it expands its business in India.
VMware and OVH have built a solid partnership over the past decade spanning engineering, marketing, sales and support. Boasting VMware Cloud Verified status, and with 7 Partner of the Year awards over 9 years, OVH collaborates closely with VMware to deliver an innovative but affordable Private Cloud based on the full VMware SDDC stack. Through OVH’s acquisition of VMware vCloud Air last year, customers can now also benefit from higher network performance and increased workload mobility through OVH’s global network.
Intel helped OVH design its vast range of servers for fifteen years. With this collaboration OVH is able to deliver hardware that fits a variety of needs and usages for its customers, with the best performance possible. OVH has also been able to innovate by incorporating some of Intel’s latest technologies such as Intel Xeon Scalable Processors and 3D NAND Solid State Drives. More recently OVH also incorporated Intel Optane DC SSD in our high-end servers and VMware vSAN hosts.
IBC media, the creators of the International Blockchain Congress announced the launch of Genesis hack - the world’s biggest blockchain hackathon - at the 10K NASSCOM Start-up Warehouse in Bengaluru. Genesis Hack aims to promote and grow the number of blockchain developers in India. With over 6 million trained software developers, India has the potential to be a blockchain powerhouse, and the developer community plays a privotal role.
“With India’s Blockchain initiatives scaling-up, the need for blockchain-ready developers is growing, Genesis Hack 2019 will change this by congregating over 65k developers from all over India.” - Raghu Mohan, CEO of IBC Media
The launch event of Genesis Hack saw several prominent blockchain industry personali-ties like Abhishek Pitti, CEO of Nucleus Vision, Amit Kanodia, CEO, Host and Abhinav Ramesh, CEO of Murmur, among others. Other attendees at the event included develop-ers and participants who came to witness and support the launch of the biggest block-chain hackathon in the world. Genesis Hack is co-hosted and supported by leading industry experts who share the vision of seeing India become one of the biggest block-chain centres in the world - Nucleus Vision, XDAT, Host, Nasscom 10k startups, Spring-role, Murmur and Eleven01.
An Introduction to Genesis Hack and Why India Needs it
Genesis Hack is a blockchain hackathon that aims to propagate blockchain technology in India.. With the growing need for blockchain talent in India, Genesis Hack aims to bring together over 65k developers to compete against each other for a cash prize of over Rs 1 Crore. The participants will be tested through three major tracks that involve building a blockchain protocol, dApps, and building security solutions for blockchain infrastruc-tures. However, the cash prize is not the only incentive; the participants will also be exposed to India’s entire developer community as blockchain-ready.
The hackathon will soon open registrations for its participants and provide them with ample time and mentorship to build their projects. As its name suggests, Genesis Hack is going to set the precedent for the blockchain revolution in India by nurturing and chal-lenging a potent developer community.
The present state of affairs in India is favouring the adoption of blockchain technology at industrial and government capacities. However, the lack of blockchain developers will set back the intended progress that needs to be made in order to make India block-chain-ready. “There are several use cases for blockchain technology across several industries,” commented Abhishek Pitti, CEO of Nucleus Vision. “But to scale up, we need engineering talent to build and maintain blockchain infrastructures. An event like Gene-sis Hackathon can help promote the need for more blockchain developers,” he added.
Additionally, there are very few blockchain hackathons that give engineers, blockchain enthusiasts and developers the means to contribute to the industry and get inducted into this small, up-and-coming developer community in India. Presently, India has about 6 million engineers who are capable of delivering a solid throughput for the blockchain industry. “As a large-scale event that brings together developers from all over India, Genesis Hack will set the precedent to enable India to solve the biggest blockchain problems in the world with a well-equipped workforce,” said Rama Iyer, President of Elev-en01.
