New Swarovski Lighting Store Adds Sparkle to High Street Bengaluru

Swarovski Lighting is proud to announce the opening of the new luxury lighting partner store in Bengaluru, Karnataka. This is the third mono-brand Swarovski Lighting showroom to be launched in India with a footprint of 2,300 square feet, located in the upscale area of Bengaluru just opposite India’s first most luxury retail mall ‘UB City Mall’.

Swarovski Lighting is part of the Swarovski Group, a world-renowned leader in the cut crystal business.

In 1895, in Tyrol, Austria the visionary Daniel Swarovski invented a machine to cut crystal perfectly and precisely. Swarovski today is the world leader in cut crystal for jewelry, decorative pieces, lighting, architecture and interiors.

In 2011 the Swarovski company formally established Swarovski Lighting which includes two distinct premium lighting brands: Swarovski with its contemporary aesthetic and Schonbek with its classic designs.

The Swarovski brand marvels spaces and amazes with its emotional aura of inspiration. Its contemporary and fresh design unites expertise in cut crystal with state-of-the-art lighting technology as well as ideas from the most renowned designers of today.

Since 1870 the Schonbek brand has been synonymous with authentic, handcrafted crystal chandeliers of the highest heirloom quality, which can be found in the Palace of Versailles and even the White House. The height of bespoke luxury, each chandelier is delicately handcrafted and made to order.

Now Almost Half the World's Population is on the Internet

By the end of 2018 a full 51.2 per cent of people around the world will be using the Internet. Some 3.9 billion people are now using the internet, meaning that for the first time more than half of the global population is online, the United Nations said on Friday.

The UN agency for information and communication technologies, ITU, said that by the end of 2018 a full 51.2 per cent of people around the world will be using the Internet.

"By the end of 2018, we will surpass the 50/50 milestone for internet use," ITU chief Houlin Zhou said in a statement.

"This represents an important step towards a more inclusive global information society," he said, adding though that "far too many people around the world are still waiting to reap the benefits of the digital economy." He called for more support to "technology and business innovation so that the digital revolution leaves no one offline." According to ITU, the world's richest countries have been showing slow and steady growth in Internet use, which has risen from 51.3 per cent of their populations in 2005 to 80.9 per cent now.

The gains have meanwhile been more dramatic in developing countries, where 45.3 per cent of people are currently online, compared to just 7.7 per cent 13 years ago.

Africa has experienced the strongest growth, with a more than 10-fold hike in the number of Internet users over the same period, from 2.1 per cent to 24.4 per cent, the ITU report showed.

India Retain Top Rank with $80 Billion in Remittance in 2018

India is poised to retain its position as the world's top recipient of remittances by recording a 22.5 per cent jump to $80 billion in money sent home in 2018 by overseas Indians, the World Bank said in a report on Saturday.

Other top recipient nations include China ($67 billion), Mexico and the Philippines ($34 billion each) and Egypt ($26 billion), according to the latest edition of the World Bank's Migration and Development Brief.

Remittances to South Asia are projected to increase by 13.5 per cent to $132 billion in 2018, at a stronger pace than the 5.7 per cent growth seen in 2017. Bangladesh and Pakistan both experienced strong upticks of 17.9 per cent and 6.2 per cent in 2018, respectively, the bank said.

"The upsurge is driven by stronger economic conditions in advanced economies, particularly the US, and the increase in oil prices having a positive impact on outflows from some GCC countries such as the UAE which reported a 13 per cent growth in outflows for the first half of 2018," said the report.

The UAE, which is a host country for around three million Indian expatriates, has traditionally been the largest source of remittances to India. The UAE's share in total remittances to India was 26.9 per cent followed by the United States (22.9 per cent), Saudi Arabia (11.6 per cent), Qatar (6.5 per cent) and Kuwait (5.5 per cent), according to 2017 data released by the Reserve Bank of India three months ago.

The Washington-based World Bank estimates that officially-recorded remittances to developing countries will increase by 10.8 per cent to reach $528 billion in 2018. This new record level follows a robust growth of 7.8 per cent in 2017.

The Indian economy is on the fast track and among the top growing ones, which is aptly complimented by the Indian citizens living outside the country, he adds.

In its report, the World Bank noted that global remittances, which include flows to high-income countries, are projected to grow by 10.3 per cent to $689 billion, it said.

India has registered a significant surge in remittances over the past three years - from $62.7 billion in 2016 to $65.3 billion 2017. In 2017, remittances constituted 2.7 per cent of India's gross domestic product, the World Bank said.

For 2019, it is projected that remittances growth for the South Asia region will slow to 4.3 per cent due to a moderation of growth in advanced economies, lower migration to the GCC and the benefits from the oil price spurt dissipating.

The report said as global growth is projected to moderate, future remittances to low- and middle-income countries are expected to grow moderately by 4 per cent to reach $549 billion in 2019. Global remittances are expected to grow 3.7 per cent to $715 billion in 2019.

However, the bank noted that the global average cost of sending $200 remains high at 6.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2018. Reducing the cost of remittance to three per cent by 2030 is a global target under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10.7.

Increasing the volume of remittances is also a global goal under the proposals for raising financing for the SDGs, the bank said.

Design Takes Over the City with the First Edition of Bengaluru ByDesign

Bengaluru ByDesign celebrated its first edition with an inspiring programme of installations, workshops, talks, screenings, design pop-ups and more which saw the city transform throughout 23 Nov - 2 Dec. Bengaluru ByDesign is a democratic festival for the local and general visitors, along with the design industry engaging over 200,000 individual visitors. The Festival highlighted India’s design talent whilst it also functioned as a platform for global creative dialogue, featuring a strong participation from design professionals from across the world. This year’s Festival covered three key themes: Design & Public, Design & Education and Design & Business and celebrated creativity, encouraged design thinking and explored the innovations in design today.

“Bengaluru ByDesign aims to bring together designers from across the globe and demonstrate the city as a powerhouse for the creative industries to come together. Design Weeks globally are a hugely valuable platform as they enable economic diversity and development as well as increase public awareness and appreciation of all aspects of design, whilst fostering recognition of the vital role design plays in our lives. With Bengaluru ByDesign, we aim to create a platform for design stories to be told. Each of them talks to an expanding audience hungry for design ideas and enjoying the quality and diversity of what’s to offer. “ Suprita Moorthy, Founder, Bengaluru ByDesign

“For the first edition of Bengaluru ByDesign, the focus on impacting the public was well received through public installations. At the same time collaborations with design universities and corporates such as TVS, VU Technologies, Titan, Asian Paints and WeWork was interwoven in our programme seamlessly, benefiting each one of them. ” Priyanka Shah-Bhandary, Co-Founder, Bengaluru ByDesign

The Festival aims to foster innovation, creativity within the community, with a core objective of changing public perceptions of design through experience. Multiple key landmarks across the city were activated with 7 public installations including Karolina Merska’s Pajaki Chandelier made out of local flowers titled A Little Paper, A Little Poland, Bluecat Paper’s Stop & Stair - Unchained Symphony: Birds covering the staircase at UB City with handmade paper make out of cotton, 20+18 Chair Project showcasing one functional object with multiple interpretations featuring process, material, form, quality and time, A Different Point of VU by VU Televisions aim to open a dialogue on the role of technology plays in our lives and Tales of Indigo by Asian Paints gave viewers a unique insight into the story and history of the colour - Indigo. Other public installations included Green is the Colour by Total Environment at St. Marks, Bengaluru. This installation formed a twisted arch made of metal and jute covered with baby spinach plants creating the appearance of a continuously twisting green ribbon and When Buildings Come Alive, where Townhall Bengaluru was wrapped with warps and wefts with the exquisite weaves from Aadyam Handwoven’s collection creating a disruptive sight capturing the public’s imagination. 

India’s largest design conference, India Design Forum (IDF) was one of the key highlights of the Festival who featured global thought leaders and practitioners of technology, innovation, and design, to Bengaluru for the first time. Exploring the topic Disruptive Design this year's theme discussed how cutting-edge innovation and technology is creating lifestyle changes universally. From what we wear, the way we consume information, how we engage with our environment; to how we live is changing rapidly with disruptive businesses and products.

Key highlights of the IDF included sessions by Jay Kothari, Project Lead, X- The Moonshot Factory, USA and Sanjay Poddar, Project Lead, Accenture Labs on collaborative innovation. Chris Solarski, Swiss Game Designer and Biren Ghose, Country Head for India at Technicolor discussed how emergent technologies seen in gaming and experiential media shape and interrogate our relationships with reality, and help to solve real-world issues. Steve Lidbury,  Managing Principal,  Eight Inc. talked about designing for the experience economy: how today's consumer is more concerned with experiences and transformations than goods and services. This is forcing designers and brands to tear up the rulebook and rethink their strategies. The internationally-acclaimed Graphic and Type Designer, Shiva Nallaperumal talked about the way he uses his work to disrupt expected norms, the power of graphics and typography to be subversive.

“IDF2018 @Bengaluru has been a great success for us. Our USP has always been our curation and the topics were relevant to the current debates on technology interventions, Design education, craft in modern luxury retail, designing for the Millennials and sustainable practices in architecture. IDF2018@Bengaluru is a huge success with a riveted audience and highly inspiring Speakers. Congratulations to BBD for an amazing city-wide celebration of events and installations, we will be back next year!” Rajshree Pathy, Founder, India Design Forum

Sanjay Garg, Founder, Raw Mango, talked about contemporising fashion traditions and breaking away from the established industry structures such as fashion weeks and runway shows. Maximiliano Modesti,  the French-born  Founder of Les Ateliers 2M, the Indian embroidery partner for major international luxury brands such as Hermes, Isabel Marant, and Chanel, spoke about changing perceptions of craft and of making in India. Gautam Vazirani, Curator, Lakme Fashion Week  and  IMG Reliance, was in conversation with  Parvinder Marwaha, Design Program Manager for the  British Council, UK, on craft in a world of rapidly evolving technology and the visual mediums being used to pass down these stories - showcasing projects with Storyloom Films for the global Crafting Futures campaign. Kamal Sagar, founder of the architecture and building firm Total Environment talked about 'big city life' and the design innovations that will change our urban environments to make cities safer, cleaner, and more livable. Rahul Mishra, spoke about the need for innovation in the production and consumption of fashion.

Other pioneering design industry influencers and practitioners speaking at IDF Bengaluru include Malika Verma Kashyap, Border&Fall;  Brian Parkes, CEO, Jamfactory, Australia; Jahnvi Dameron Nandan, The Perfume Library;  Revathi Kant, Chief Design Officer, Titan; Bandeep Singh, Photo Editor, Fortune India; and Abhimanyu Nohwar, Founder-Director, KibaDesign.

Bengaluru ByDesign featured three design districts in the city by activating design events at Whitefield, Electronic City and Yalahanka, that played host to various events. At the Electronic City, building on the Festival’s ongoing ambition to promote design thinking within the region, the Design Day at Titan was received with critical engagement and debate reinforcing the platform at the Festival as a vital forum for discussion within the region and globally. Notable speakers, sharing an array of engaging themes, included Antony Parham, Creative Director, FITCH spoke about Designing For Future. Ravi Bhogu, Founder and CEO, Monitra Healthcare, Anshuman Singh, Founder, ReTiSense and Abhishek Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Goqii discussed The Future Of Wearable Technology moderated by Somprabh Singh, Business Head, Titan - Wearables and P.A.D. and companies including Under 25, ToneTag and Banyan Nation covered the topics on Ideas that Shake the World. 

Yelahanka ByDesign featured workshops for students at Srishti School of Art Design & Technology. Srishti also played host to the Contemporary Japanese poster exhibition featuring 15 key graphic designers from Japan showcasing their works created between 1986 - 1991, a period in Japan known as the Bubble Economy. The creation of these posters which were then made for international meetings and expositions was influenced by an increase in awareness towards environmental problems as signs of globalization started becoming visible.

To make design inclusive, educational and accessible, other activations around the city included  Museum of Everything curated by Sarayu Hegde, Founder, Bombay Attic, and Virja Shah, Founder, Kit and Caboodle focusing on Indian contemporary alternate fashion, ethical clothing for sustainable living and lifestyle products. TVS and Bengaluru ByDesign launched a Design Challenge wherein students and young professionals were invited to render colour and graphics to TVS Apache RR 310 and TVS NTORQ 125. Total Environment in collaboration with the Festival conducted their annual event, Think Design at Whitefield, Bengaluru and focused on their large residential projects along with showcasing their capabilities in design, food & sustainability.

A series of events and workshops were curated with Workbench Projects and Wework to engage and educate the audience on Design & Making and included an object shop, design documentaries, Origami, Pajaki, lighting design, 3D printing and laser cutting workshops conducted by industry experts. Chris Solarski, Swiss artist-game designer and author,  conducted workshops with Industry specialists like Technicolor and other gaming companies and introduced the magic of Gaming Art & Design to a general audience at their Whitefield campus. 

The Festival was in collaboration with TVS, Progress Partner, Asian Paints, Colour Partner and WeWork, Productivity Partner.  Titan, Total Environment, VR Bengaluru, Technicolor and Shrishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology have come on board as Design District Partners. Workbench Projects, The Swissnex India, The Polish Institut New Delhi, Institut français en Inde, The Japan Foundation, Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan are the Content Partners and Anant National University, the Education Partner. The Festival is supported by VU Technologies, Aadyam, Aditya Birla Group, Nicobar, Hospitality partner Oakwood & Logistics Partner: Star Worldwide.

ExxonMobil Launches Mobil Super Moto Range of Two-Wheeler Engine Oils in India

ExxonMobil announced that its wholly-owned affiliate, ExxonMobil Lubricants Pvt Ltd, has launched Mobil Super Moto – a range of premium technology lubricants specifically developed to provide exceptional cleaning and protection for the engine, transmission and clutch in all types of two-wheelers.

Like the automobile industry, the two-wheeler sector is evolving very fast and becoming extremely popular in every part of India because of the added advantage of affordability. With this growing demand and usage comes the attention towards engine maintenance for two-wheelers.

In a country like India with varied climate conditions, rough terrains and heavy traffic across all regions, it is critical to have products that maintain good performance and extend engine life. Mobil Super Moto is designed to deliver long engine life and protection that in turn transforms the way India travels.

“India is one of the world’s largest two-wheeler markets, with an increased focus on convenience and affordability,” says Deepankar Banerjee, chief executive officer, ExxonMobil Lubricants Pvt Ltd. “We are proud to continue providing world-class lubricant solutions for the Indian market with our launch of Mobil Super Moto for bikes and scooters.”

Sharing further insight on the launch, Kapil Mittal, director of market development – India for ExxonMobil Lubricants Pvt. Ltd. said, “Today, more than ever, consumers in India are focused on making their vehicles last longer. Mobil Super Moto’s ability to offer protection in a wide range of driving conditions and temperatures provides consumers peace of mind, day after day.”

The Mobil Super Moto range is available for scooters and bikes. It consists of Mobil Super Moto 10W30, 10W40, 20W40 and 20W50, as well as a 10W30 product specifically for scooters. The range is priced between Rs.304 to Rs.434.

UL Completes First BHEL Solar Module Tests for BIS Certification Programme

UL, a leading global safety science company, has successfully completed the first series of tests for solar panels manufactured by the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) under the mandatory certification programme of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

One of the country’s earliest manufacturers of solar modules, BHEL has a module manufacturing capacity of 226 megawatts (MW) at its state-of-the-art facility in Bengaluru. , UL collaborates with BHEL on various projects and will continue to support the company in the BIS programme.

“Over the past three decades, BHEL has led the development of solar manufacturing capacity in India, enhancing sustainability and environmental goals. The ongoing efforts to strengthen the quality of solar modules through the BIS certification is an important development, and BHEL fully subscribes to the programme. UL played an important role in our journey to achieve the highest standards of quality and performance,” says Rajababu D., general manager, BHEL.

Commenting on the development, Suresh Sugavanam, UL’s vice president and managing director for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa said, “We are honoured to service BHEL to meet their testing and certification requirements. As one of the most formidable public sector units, BHEL has played an important role in establishing a domestic quality ecosystem. By creating a network of local vendors, the BHEL is an inspiration for the domestic manufacturing industry.”

As part of this programme, samples of 4BB and 5BB high-efficiency modules of both monocrystalline and polycrystalline varieties between 300 to 340 wattage were tested by UL at their Bengaluru solar photovoltaic laboratory over a period of two months. A battery of over 100 tests, including a damp heat test and thermal cycling test were performed on the samples, as required by BIS certification standards. 

UL is the first laboratory in India empanelled by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) for testing various components, such as PV modules, solar inverters, charge controllers and solar lighting systems. The facility is equipped to test these products for national and international certification programmes, including those specified by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

The Solar Photovoltaics, Systems, Devices, and Component Goods (Requirement for Compulsory Registration under BIS Act) Order 2017, issued by MNRE in August 2017, has been enforced since Sept. 1, 2018.

Qlik Expands Analytics, Business Intelligence Leadership in AI and ML

Qlik continues to lead the analytics and business intelligence industry in delivering AI (augmented intelligence) innovation that expands the value of Qlik’s platform for all users. With the November 2018 release of Qlik Sense, Qlik has introduced new machine learning (ML) capabilities into its cognitive engine and platform. Precedent-based machine learning allows the Qlik cognitive engine to get smarter over time, continually learning from user interaction and feedback as well as other sources. Qlik is the first analytics company to bring AI and ML capabilities together with human intuition in a way that truly augments the user’s power to discover.

According to Gartner, Inc., “A new paradigm — augmented analytics — is rapidly gaining traction. Central to this development is the use of ML automation/AI techniques to augment human intelligence and contextual awareness, and to transform data management, analytics and BI as well as many aspects of data science and ML/AI model development and consumption.”

Qlik’s new machine learning capabilities will initially be utilized in Insight Advisor, which debuted as part of the June 2018 Qlik Sense Enterprise release. Insight Advisor auto-generates and suggests the best analytics and insights to explore based on the overall data set and a user’s search criteria, making insight suggestions increasingly relevant and valuable as the machine learns from the user’s analytics interactions. Users can directly train the machine by manually creating analytics, altering what the machine suggests, and providing direct feedback. The cognitive engine also learns from additional governed and trusted sources such as business rule definitions in global libraries and Qlik artifacts.

“AI brings about a future of possibilities and will make analytics more human, not less,” said Arun Balasubramanian, Managing Director, Qlik India. “By enabling users to access highly contextual, data-driven insights at their point of need, Qlik allows AI and machine learning to support and complement human decision-making and intuition. This unique integration of man and machine is what Augmented Intelligence is all about. Leveraging AI and machine learning will deliver an enhanced experience where users will benefit from a more efficient, intelligent and streamlined process.”

“More and more of our clients are asking for concrete use cases where they can leverage artificial intelligence,” said Moritz Schieder, Visual Analytics Practice Lead for Deloitte Consulting. “Qlik’s augmented intelligence approach is a great example of how to use machine learning to even better bridge the gap between data and the human decision maker by supporting data preparation tasks, choosing the right types of visualizations, and suggesting insights to the user.”

“Enterprises need their analytics partners to deliver innovation that drives user intelligence and improves their ability to more easily get value from data,” said Elif Tutuk, Director of Research at Qlik. “Our extensive investment in AI and machine learning is a game changer for users. It expands their ability to easily move through multiple levels of data exploration with confidence, knowing that the system is learning right alongside them, and that each new insight makes them smarter and can lead to new opportunities.”

Qlik’s AI and ML capabilities are truly unique because they work directly with Qlik’s associative engine, combining the power of AI with human intuition. Because the associative engine is aware of a user’s context (selection state) at each step in the exploratory process and knows all the data that is associated and unrelated to that context, this is factored into machine driven analysis and insight suggestions to make them more relevant. It’s like giving the user “peripheral vision” that guides them to hidden insights and helps them see the previously unseen. Thus, Qlik delivers the power of AI2, whereby both machine and human become increasingly empowered. Associative Indexing combined with Augmented Intelligence = AI2.