Dharmendra Pradhan Launches New Reforms, Guidelines to Strengthen Jan Shikshan Santhans

In a bid to boost skill training and entrepreneurship in the remotest corners of the country, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Petroleum and Natural Gas (MSDE) today announced comprehensive reforms for Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS), to further strengthen the skills ecosystem benefiting those in the underprivileged sections of society.  The announcements were made today during the National Conference for Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSSs) which was held today at the AICTE Auditorium in New Delhi; and saw a gathering of more than 700+ people from JSS across India.

Formerly under the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Jan Shikshan Sansthan has been transferred to the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship in 2018. Today’s conference saw the release of new guidelines, aligning the JSSs to the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF). This marks an important step towards the convergence of all skilling activities under the aegis of one ministry, bringing in transparency and accountability to the entire skilling ecosystem.

Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS) has been instrumental in skill training and introducing avenues of entrepreneurship among the socio-economically backward and educationally disadvantaged groups such as neo-literates, semi-literates, SCs, STs, women and girls, slum dwellers, migrant workers. By bringing them under the aegis of the national skill framework, the agenda of today’s event was to align all skilling activities to a common cause of skill development at the district and gram level.

Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon'ble Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said “The emergence of the rural industry as an important growth engine for the economy makes it an imperative for us to stress on skilling our youth in remote districts of the country. JSSs can play an important role in bridging information asymmetry between skill training and market opportunities thereby giving an impetus to the creation of a workforce equipped in technology-driven skills, including in areas like health & wellness, tourism, e-commerce, retail and trade.JSS guidelines have been reformed keeping in mind the diverse stakeholders engaged in running these institutions, and will bring in greater flexibility, transparency and uniformity.”

Giving an overview on the direction being given to JSS, Juthika Patankar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship said, “A skilled society is an essential precondition for achieving social and economic advancement for any country. The re-energised JSS form a unique position for themselves and I am certain that their convergence under Skill India will help bring in a mindset shift amongst our rural youth, to make vocational education and technical training as a preferred career choice. Skilling will not only make them independent but will also help in arresting migration from rural areas to already choked metros.”

“Today, out of the 247 active JSS, we already have 43 JSSs established across 42 Aspirational Districts identified by NITI Aayog and we will soon be introducing a few more in the LWE regions to promote skill development of the youth in the region and help them connect back into mainstream economy. I am positive of the change that the JSS will bring to the ecosystem,” she further added.

Release of New Guidelines

The launch of these strategic guidelines is an attempt by the MSDE to re-energize and reinvigorate the Jan Shikshan Sansthans. By aligning JSSs to the National Skill Framework, the Government aims to provide standardised training across sectors. Key highlights of the guidelines are:

Alignment of JSS course and curriculum to National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) to standardize training
Decentralization of powers for JSSs- giving more accountability and independence to district administration
To identify and promote traditional skills in the district through skilling / upskilling;
Evidence based assessment system
Easy Online certification
Linking JSS to PFMS (Public Finance Management system) maintaining transparency and accountability of the ecosystem
Creating livelihood linkages
Training of Trainers to develop the capacity through NSTIs (National Skills Training Institutes)

Will Accelerate Digital in Financial Services, Synechron Announces in 2019 Trend Report

Synechron, a global financial services consulting and technology services provider, today released a report, ‘Digital Strategies and Transformation 2019: Methodologies and Practical Approaches,” revealing the top trends it expects to see in financial services technology in 2019 and beyond as firms begin to re-structure to prepare for future technologies.

Based on Synechron’s work with the world’s largest global banks and insurance companies, it has published a report that outlines four key themes for financial services’ priorities starting in 2019 – Ecosystems, Technology-led Transformation, Data as a Horizontal, and Culture Transformation.

Digital Business Ecosystems – Ecosystems will reshape the future of Financial Services as banks look to change the way they engage with and support customers to provide value-added services that reinforce their underlying business ecosystem vision. This may be fuelled by a need to keep up with ‘new’ service providers such as FinTechs and InsurTechs or with traditional Technology companies like Amazon becoming increasingly involved in the banking sector. To be successful, these new Business Ecosystems will need to bring together the firm’s Digital Platform Strategy Mobile, and an open Application Programming Interface (API) approach to ingest data sources from the Internet of Things’ (IoTs’) ‘things’. It will need access to powerful Analytics from the programmable economy to help firms go beyond traditional banking services and think about specific events and experiences where data or distributed business models can enable a better customer experience. This will all need to be supported by an Enterprise Cloud strategy, and it needs to happen now for Banks, Asset Managers, and Insurance companies to shift into a successful digital business.

Technology-led transformation – When discussing digital transformation, it is impossible to strategize on an action plan without a heavy focus on Technology.  In 2019, firms expect to update systems to become future-ready with a modern, flexible technology architecture. This will include accelerating the move from monolithic business systems to a microservices architecture and adopting an Open API strategy to support “beyond banking” business models. In terms of front-end engineering, this means ramping up design thinking for more customer-optimized, usable user interfaces (UIs) that shift to AngularJS. This full-stack technology transformation to a more flexible technology architecture also will require a hard look at Cloud strategy.

Data as a Horizontal – Digital Transformation has been fuelling a massive growth in data available to banks, asset managers and insurance companies available for analysis and further business value. Given the vast amount of data created each day, it is considered one of the banks’ most valuable assets - but only if it is properly mined and the value is extracted. Data analytics, data mining, data lakes, and data visualization tools are essential to assign value to the immense amount of data being created and to use it to better understand and target customers. While 2018 moved AI strategies beyond simple automation to more complex Data Science focused use cases, 2019 will set the stage for the push toward enterprise-scale Business Intelligence and further advancement of Data Science strategies to achieve business return on investment (ROI).  Given the anticipated, continued exponential growth of data, firms should also start to prepare for their five to ten-year data strategies which should think about things like Quantum Computing and Ecosystems.

Culture Transformation – Because banks are re-structuring and rethinking their business strategies to align with a new generation of customers and a new generation of service providers, the culture also must transform to adapt. This will include a change in spending from run-the-bank to change-the bank initiatives, as well change management with a focus on agile workspaces and DevOps. Firms will change to support remote workers from anywhere, and invest in diversity and inclusion initiatives for pluralistic workspaces and teams. Sustainable finance will also be a key trend in 2019 as firms’ appeal to a new generation of customers with different priorities.

"2019 will really push forward the future of financial services and see immense change take place. We expect that this year will see the start of ecosystems that bring together some key technologies that aim to provide more effective methods of engaging with customers. We cannot wait to see what 2019 will bring and look forward to leading the way on this new and exciting journey for financial services," said Faisal Husain, Co-founder and CEO at Synechron.

COLOROTHON Celebrates Colors of Life and Social Cause

Becomes the largest open-air painting session, Enters ‘London Book of Record for largest number of people painting under platform of all age groups’

New leaves are springing up and flowers are blooming in every conceivable color all around you. And the stage for COLOROTHON was Aptly Set Up at Kittur Rani Chennamma Stadium Jayangar, for a Burst of Creativity.

COLOROTHON Season 11 with the tagline ‘Draw Your Imagination’ attracted ten thousand people at the Kittur Rani Chennamma Stadium Jayangar, Bengaluru. The  participants included a diverse groups of teens, adults and senior citizens to color their imagination.

The paintings were a reflection of diverse thoughts, nature and shades of life. Many aspiring artists got an opportunity to interact with established artists as they painted live at the event.

The event was Inauguratedby Worshipful Mayor GangambikeMallikarjun, along with Ramalinga Reddy, Senior Congress Leader, Ex. Home Minister, Govt. of Karnataka in the presence of Sowmya Reddy, Jayanagar MLA, N. Nagaraju, ByrasandraCorporator and Celebrity guests like Actress SamyukthaHornad, and Mrs. InterNations USA 2018 – 2019 Krupalatha Martin Dass; Dr. VaniRao, Founder and Managing Director, Youthphoriya; and Kishore Joseph, Founder Trustee, COLOROTHON and Director, Breathe Entertainment, COLOROTHON Season 11.

 The closing ceremony was presided by Ms. SowmyaReddy , MLA, Jayanagar, who presented the trophies and gift vouchers to the best 15 paintings selected by eminent artists across 5 age groups. All participants were also presented with a participation certificate.

Organized by Breathe Entertainment, COLOROTHON also saw a display of other activities like drums circle, caricature, doodle artist, origami artist, interactive street magic, toonfigures , and many more.

Overwhelmed by the response, Kishore Joseph, Founder Trustee  of the COLOROTHON said “it is an amazing and humbling experience to see people come with their family and spend some quality time in creativity, a rarity in today’s fast-paced world.”

“We seem to have achieved COLOROTHON’s aim of providing a limitless opportunity for imaginative thinking and in the process integrate social cause to raise awareness across all societal divisions. We are donating 300 Best paintings to Om ASHRAM TRUST – OLD AGE CARE  for charity,” he  explained.

Elaborating on social cause segments at the event, Kishore Joseph, Founder Trustee, Breathe Entertainment, said, “There was a talk on self-defence for women by Antra Bhargav - India’s First Woman to receive Black Belt in Taekwondo at the age 5, child abuse awareness workshop by Faith Foundation,  Talk on Memory and Mind education for children by Dr. Manjunth. M.S.  Memory & Mind Coach and a talk on eye donation by the founder of Project Vision Fr. George Kannathanam. In the coming month best paintings will be featured in a world’s  largest open-air painting exhibition, the proceedings from which will go to various charitable organizations.”

Summing up the event Sowmya Reddy said, “We are in absolute delight to have seen people bring out the child in them and make moments colorful. Learning and exploring are two constants in our lives.

SHAREit Claims the Numero Uno Spot as the Most Downloaded Tool App in India in 2018

In a report launched by App Annie, the global provider for mobile data and analytics, SHAREit has emerged as the most downloaded tool app in India. It was also ranked as the application with the third most active monthly user base in India, next only to WhatsApp and Facebook.

SHAREit currently has more than 400 Mn users in India who have installed the application. Out of these over 200 Mn are our monthly active users.

The report also mentions SHAREit amongst the top 5 applications downloaded in India across categories. This huge feat was achieved by SHAREit by deeply understanding the Indian internet user’s behavior as well as their demands. Basis their findings and with the digital revolution taking over, SHAREit started its journey into content by partnering with local Indian content providers.

The application which started as a content sharing application, is now amongst the leading content discovery, consumption, and sharing platforms in the country. Via strategic partnerships with local Indian content provider platforms, SHAREit now streams local digital content such as short videos, movies and music etc. for its Indian users which is available in 9 local Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam, etc. With a wide user base especially in tier II and tier III cities, SHAREit has also helped their content partners reach wider audience, especially those unreachable by big players in advertising industry.

Talking about the achievement, Mr. Karam Malhotra, CEO, SHAREit India, said, “We are overwhelmed by the response we have received from India. We find ourselves with a new found sense of responsibility to continuously entertain our loyal users and connect them to them the best of content, gaming and app discovery in 2019.”

“SHAREit regards technology and localization as its most important factor. In the past year, we have worked towards strengthening our team in India with experts from each industry in our 3 markets Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. Beyond the metros, SHAREit also has teams who are working hard to expand the applications’ reach and serve our users in tier II and tier III cities. We are on a journey to ensure digital entertainment of all types could be equally accessible by everyone, by becoming the one-stop service platform allowing users to browse, download, and transfer content with ease.” He further added.

To achieve this goal, Karam also said that, “SHAREit welcomes everyone to join hands as our partner, together we could engage SHAREit’s huge user base and wide reach in India. Together, SHAREit and its partners will revolutionize how users discover, consume and share content in India.”

HDFC ERGO Launches #Camsurvey Clainm Processing for ‘Jaldi Claim’ Settlement

HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company, India’s third-largest non-life insurance provider in the private sector, today announced the launch of first-of-its-kind #CamSurvey motor claim service, a part of the Company’s ‘Jaldi Claim’ services. The new #CamSurvey service will help reduce the time taken to process motor claims, in selected network workshops, on the external body of the vehicle.

HDFC ERGO believes that a claim is the moment-of-truth and speedy claim settlement is of utmost importance for the customer. With this in mind, the company aims to revolutionize claim settlement processes through the ‘Jaldi Claim’ services which will offer quick and seamless settlement of claims.

As part of the #CamSurvey service, HDFC ERGO has installed cameras in network workshops which will enable them to assess the damages to the car. The cameras will be centrally controlled and pictures will be live-streamed for inspection. The pictures will be assessed by HDFC ERGO’s central team through the live-stream and claims will be instantly approved. This eliminates the process of appointing a surveyor to conduct the physical inspection of the vehicle. Moreover, it also saves the policyholders’ valuable time and helps in quick settlement of claims arising from any minor damages to the body of the vehicle.

HDFC ERGO truly believes that customer service is of utmost importance in any business and keeping this in mind, has evolved over the years to adopt newer technologies making processes simpler for the customers. The Company was the first in the non-life insurance sector to launch a mobile application – the Insurance Portfolio Organiser (IPO) App in 2012 and more recently launched the Overnight Vehicle Repair Service, another first-of-its-kind service in the General Insurance sector. In addition, HDFC ERGO customers can also use the Self-Inspection App to renew their motor insurance policy without any physical documentation and inspection.

The new #CamSurvey service is currently available in Mumbai & Pune, and will soon be extended to HDFC ERGO’s network motor workshops pan India.

Inmotion Ventures Invests in Urgent.ly as Part of $21 Million Round

InMotion Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund, has announces its investment in Urgent.ly, the connected roadside assistance service supported by a cutting edge technology platform.

Founded in 2013, Urgent.ly is a full-service roadside assistance provider, taking advantage of connectivity to offer a fully integrated recovery service from first notification to repair. The geo-location of Urgent.ly’s customers and their vehicles means the best-rated and closest providers with the right equipment are algorithmically matched, assigned and dispatched to help the customer. All of these steps – including ETAs, provider tracking, communications and ratings – are connected through Urgent.ly’s seamless, end-to-end digital experience.

In just two years of operations in the USA, Europe and Asia, Urgent.ly has 45 000 connected recovery vehicles on its platform and has signed deals with several large auto manufacturers and insurers.

InMotion Ventures invests alongside BMW i Ventures and Porsche Ventures, supporting Urgent.ly’s ambition to become the market-leading provider of roadside assistance services in the USA, and ultimately, globally.

“We are truly gratified by the support of our investors, including some of the world’s top global automotive brands, as we work to define the future of mobility and roadside assistance experience customers demand and deserve,” said Chris Spanos, CEO and co-founder of Urgent.ly. “We look forward to continuing to innovate our connected services across the rapidly evolving global automotive, insurance and mobility markets, where we have consistently driven increases in customer satisfaction over the legacy analog models that have defined the industry for the past 70 years.”

Sebastian Peck, Managing Director at InMotion, said: “Established automotive manufacturers have a responsibility to develop and fund cutting-edge innovations in the mobility and travel sector. With Urgent.ly, customers will be able to receive an end-to-end digital experience for their premium vehicles. InMotion is incredibly excited to support Chris and the Urgent.ly team throughout this exciting phase of growth.”

Global IT Spending to Reach $3.8 Trillion in 2020: Gartner Report

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total at $3.76 trillion in 2019, an increase of 3.2% from last year, according to research firm Gartner.

The overall IT spending is expected to grow at 2.8% in 2020 to touch $3.87 trillion, Gartner said in its latest forecast.

“Despite uncertainty fuelled by recession rumours, Brexit, trade wars and tariffs, the likely scenario for IT spending in 2019 is growth. However, there are a lot of dynamic changes happening in regard to which segments will be driving growth in the future,” said Gartner research vice-president John-David Lovelock.

Spending is moving from saturated segments such as mobile phones, PCs and on-premises data centre infrastructure to cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, he added.

As digital business and digital business ecosystems move forward, IT will be the thing that binds the business together, he said.

IT services is poised to grow by 4.7% in 2019 to $1.03 trillion, and by another 4.8% in 2020 to total $1.07 trillion. Global enterprise software spending is projected to grow 8.5% in 2019 and expand by another 8.2% in 2020 to total $466 billion, according to Gartner.

Despite a slowdown in the mobile phone market, the devices segment is expected to grow 1.6% in 2019 and another 1.4% in 2020 to $689 million, it added.

Communications services is expected to grow 1.3% in 2019 and 1.5% in 2020 to total $1.43 trillion.

Data centre systems segment is projected to touch $202 billion by 2020.