NiYO & Upwardly Jointly Launch Investment Solution for Financially Underserved Segment

In one of the largest financial inclusion initiatives of its kind in India, NiYO, a fintech company managing employee benefits and payroll, and Upwardly, a tech-enabled financial advisory startup, have jointly launched a savings and investment solution for the financially underserved population in the country.

The partnership will make their combined wealth-creation app — NiYO Bharat mobile app — available to the masses, including over 1 million existing and new users of NiYO. The new investment strategy will lower the entry barriers to structured investment to a minimum of Rs 100.

NiYO Bharat mobile app users, who comprise blue and grey collar workers from the services and manufacturing sectors, will have a best-in-class solution with ease of convenience and top performance. The NiYO-Upwardly solution will target investors with annual incomes of $2,000 to $4,000 falling outside the purview of traditional banks and wealth management companies. This segment is estimated at over 50 million households.

NiYO has been launching financial products that are carefully curated by the proprietary algorithms designed by Upwardly.

NiYO Co-founder and CEO Vinay Bagri said, “Financial inclusion has always been at the core of our business. We are delighted to collaborate with Upwardly and offer a savings and investing solution to our customers through the NiYO Bharat mobile app. We believe this will go a long way in helping both our existing and new customers manage their short-term and long-term financial needs, and fulfil their financial goals in life.”

Prateek Mehta, CEO, Upwardly, noted, “We started Upwardly to democratise investing and wealth creation. We are excited about our partnership with NiYO and we believe that we can take investing to the next Rs 10-20 crore savers in India. A minimum investment amount of ₹100 and a choice between savings and growth options will excite our customers. We have also introduced Video KYC to seamlessly on-board NiYO customers. We expect NiYO users to widely adopt the solution and benefit from structured wealth creation.”

Over 800+ Indian Women Seek Promising Job Roles at Exclusive Diversity Job Fair

The sixth edition of ‘Women Changemakers Career Fair and Confluence’ made waves at The Leela Ambience, Gurgaon Delhi-NCR. An initiative of Stockroom.io, the event was an exciting opportunity for women to identify better job opportunities and understand diversity initiatives of leading corporate organizations.  The event provided a platform for participants to network with women corporate leaders and apply for available job roles across organizations.

Funded by Mancer Consulting Services, one of India's leading recruitment consultancy firms, Stockroom.io helps companies hire curated technology talent.  Women Changemakers is an exclusive career fair and confluence for women, which is the diversity vertical of stockroom.io.

At the venue, about 800 women with professional experience ranging from mid to 15+ years’ experience, and about 200 re-starters participated in focused discussions that helped them apply for suitable job roles. The high-level speaker line up and influencers at the Fair was also a huge attraction for most participants who were looking to learn, grow in their professions.

A very evident trend noticed this edition was with the number of women looking to get back into the workforce. Out of a total talent pool of 1200 entries received from Delhi for the event– 290 Women are Career Re-starters.  This is the highest ever in Delhi – The 2017 event had 55 career re-starters among 650 participants and the 2018 event in Delhi has 150 women looking to restart their career

The event also marked the launch of Woman ChangeMakers Returnship Program: Debut 2.0. This 4 week online internship program is an opportunity for women who have taken a break in their careers and want to re-enter the workforce as recruitment professionals. This program will enable corporates to recruit potential women candidates who can work from the comfort of their homes as recruiters.

Speaking on the launch of ‘Debut 2.0’, Naren Krishna, the founder of Stockroom.io said “ Debut 2.0 is a very powerful tool for women who are looking to start their journey back in the workforce as recruitment professionals. The program offers flexibility and ease of transition from your break to getting back to work. The 4 week training will be provided in the form of weekend classes by few of the industry’s biggest names in the recruitment space. The program is designed to provide soft skill trainings and mentorship to help increase the returnee’s confidence and have meaningful impact as they begin their journey”

Debut 2.0 is a free program that women can register by visiting: https://wcmi.in/debut-2.0/. The curriculum of the program covers topics ranging from Sourcing, Talent mapping, Social recruiting, Talent marketing.

Women Changemakers Career Fair and Confluence had a powerful lineup of speakers that included Hitesh R; Author and Paralympic Medal winner, Preeti Kaul; VP – Human Capital @ Optum, Kaushambi Nag Bhatia; People Leader, Org Practice Asia @ McKinsey, Jaya Singla; Lead Consultant | Project Manager @ Thoughtworks, Raman Kansal; Office Principal @ Thoughtworks

Naren Krishna, the founder of Stockroom.io observing the participation, said “We have been receiving great response from Delhi women community every time. This is our 3rd time in Delhi-NCR and first of the five events planned this year. We are truly overwhelmed by the response from candidates and companies. Apart from helping companies recruit amazing diversity talent we also wanted to give back to the society with the launch of Debut 2.0 in whatever way we can. In the coming one year our aim is to ensure we at least have 50 world class women recruiters who would be working from their convenience of home. This is going to be a one-of-it’s kind program ever in the recruitment space.  ”

In July 2018, Stockroom.io launched Equiv.in , India’s first exclusive diversity job portal. This platform today has over 60,000+ Women, 3000 persons with disabilities and 20 profiles and helps companies connect with an amazing diversity talent pool through the portal and its highly curated events.

Towards an Inclusive Workplace: It's One’s Ability, Not Disability that Defines an Individual

Over 50 representatives from the corporate sector participated at an employer sensitization seminar organized by the American India Foundation (AIF) and Cheshire Disability Trust (CDT). The seminar titled “Diversity in the Workforce” provided a platform to understand the challenges and share best practices of employers in hiring diversified work force in terms of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs), especially Women with Disabilities and also brainstorm ways to promote inclusion of PwDs in the formal workforce. The key address was presented by the chief guest Shri V.S. Basavaraju, State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Government of Karnataka.  With the support of Tarsadia Foundation-USA and Circle of Hope, Boston, AIF advocates for inclusive growth in India through the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the workforce and acceptance of disabilities within larger communities.
                                                                   
Other eminent guests present during the event included Meenu Bhambhani, VP & Head - CSR, Mphasis, Rama Chari, Director, Diversity & Equal Opportunity Centre (DEOC), Bipendra Gupta, General Manager, Lemon Tree Hotels, and Jyothi Ganapathi, Accenture. Addressing the participants, Shri V.S. Basavaraju, State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Government of Karnataka said “We need to talk about diversity in not just one particular sector, but diversity across all other sectors that are equally important for people with disabilities to be able to have a meaningful life. The Government is committed to doing its best. Collaboration and convergence seems to be the mantra to make this happen.”

On the occasion Mathew Joseph, Country Director, AIF said “In a country where less than 2% of its disabled are employed, AIF is revolutionizing the industry paradigm in India by providing equal opportunity and access to employment for persons with disabilities. Participation from the corporate sector is crucial in promoting inclusion of PwDs, especially women with disabilities at workplace.”

AIF’s Ability Based Livelihood Empowerment (ABLE) works with persons with disabilities by providing skill development training and creating employment opportunities for a sustainable livelihood. Since its inception, ABLE has trained more than 14,000 PwDs. With specialized curriculum development for the visually impaired, hearing impaired and orthopedically impaired, ABLE combines assistive technologies and workplace solutions with career counselling. ABLE also builds the capacity of NGOs across India to ensure equal opportunities for all PwDs.

About AIF: The American India Foundation is committed to catalyzing social and economic change in India, and building a lasting bridge between the United States and India through high-impact interventions in education, livelihoods, public health, and leadership development. Working closely with local communities, AIF partners with NGOs to develop and test innovative solutions and with governments to create and scale sustainable impact. Founded in 2001 at the initiative of President Bill Clinton following a suggestion from Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee, AIF has impacted the lives of 4.6 million of India’s poor. Learn more at www.AIF.org

AIF’s Ability Based Livelihood Empowerment (ABLE) program trains persons with disabilities (PwDs) and facilitates their entry into the job market through advocacy, promoting inclusive growth in India. With specialized curriculum development for the visually developed (massage therapy), hearing impaired (retail and hospitality) and orthopedically impaired (mobility); the ABLE program combines assistive technologies and workplace solutions with career counselling, while building the capacity of NGOs across India to ensure equal opportunities (SDG 10) for all Persons with Disability (PwDs).

Cheshire Disability Trust (CDT) is a non-profit voluntary organization registered in 2011 is a member of the Leonard Cheshire Disability Global Alliance, a worldwide organization with affiliations in 54 countries. CDT’s mission is to enable people to improve their quality of life and to campaign for the removal of the barriers which hinder them.

Mindtree Promoters Condemn, Remain Unconditionally Opposed to Reported L&T Takeover Bid

The promoters of Mindtree, a global technology services and Digital transformation company, today said they would unconditionally oppose the reported hostile takeover bid by Larsen and Toubro Ltd.

The promoters, including Krishnakumar Natarajan (executive chairman), Subroto Bagchi (co-founder), Rostow Ravanan (CEO) and Parthasarathy N.S. (executive vice chairman and COO), issued the following statement:

“The attempted hostile takeover bid of Mindtree by Larsen & Toubro is a grave threat to the unique organization we have collectively built over 20 years. Since we started the company in 1999, we have built a rock-solid organization that outperforms its peers in IT services, differentiates and innovates through digital, and consistently delivers strong financial results and favorable returns to our shareholders. We’ve also carefully created a differentiated corporate culture made up of our amazing “Mindtree Minds,” which reached the 20,000 milestone this year. A hostile takeover by Larsen & Toubro, unprecedented in our industry, could undo all of the progress we’ve made and immensely set our organization back. We don’t see any strategic advantage in the transaction and strongly believe that the transaction will be value destructive for all shareholders. Our collective success depends on building and nurturing relationships with our clients and partners. This unexplainable transaction will bring disruption to those relationships and impair Mindtree’s ability to differentiate itself in the market and continue to deliver client value and great shareholder return. We believe that culture needs to be carefully created and nurtured over time, and can’t be bought and sold like any asset.

The team of Krishnakumar Natarajan, Subroto Bagchi, Parthasarathy N.S. and Rostow Ravanan at Mindtree said, “We remain 100 percent committed to our long-term vision of building an independent company. We believe it’s in the best interests of our shareholders, Mindtree Minds, and our organization overall to continue opposing this takeover attempt. In addition, there has been a large outpouring of sentiment from Mindtree Minds online at #MindtreeMatters expressing their strong desire to retain our culture and our independence. In the meantime, while this situation unfolds, Mindtree will continue to be laser focused on continuing the stellar work for our clients and delivering great value to them.” 

AECOM Accelerates Digital Advancement with Real-time Insights into Project Performance and Trends

AECOM is a premier, fully integrated global infrastructure firm with 87,000 employees across 150+ countries that provide design, engineering, construction, and management services. AECOM was an early adopter of Bentley’s new ProjectWise Project Insights cloud service.

Project management teams previously relied on other tools to prepare snapshots of information management progress inside the ProjectWise environment, which was time consuming and produced results that were quickly outdated. These dashboards showed current status but did not necessarily provide an adequate view of past performance or insight into future performance.

AECOM collaborated with Bentley to imagine and develop a new solution, ProjectWise Project Insights, a cloud service built on Microsoft Power BI. ProjectWise Project Insights enables project teams to leverage and visualize project data more effectively in order to identify trends in the information management process.

At AECOM, teams have access to “data-rich” ProjectWise templates through the organization’s award-winning ProjectHub system. These templates promote a repeatable, consistent, and process-driven approach within the Common Data Environment (CDE). ProjectWise Project Insights equips decision makers with an immediate picture of the performance of the CDE and unlocks new value from the project such as an ability to examine historical trends and predict future ones. This digital advancement solution delivers new perspectives and a deeper understanding of project performance by presenting clear, up-to-date and actionable visualisations of project performance.

Now in production across more than 30 major infrastructure projects, ProjectWise Project Insights is delivering a new perspective and immediacy to the analysis of project performance. Project managers can visualize and share live information trends and improve collaborative behaviors. ProjectWise Project Insights also enables AECOM to measure and monitor the adoption of best practices and standards. This includes model-based delivery, an iterative process that focuses design development into the design model rather than drawings that are quickly out of date. ProjectWise Project Insights equip the project management team with automated performance metrics to monitor and enhance the adoption of model-based delivery.

For AECOM teams that design, build, and operate some of the largest infrastructure assets in the world, ProjectWise Project Insights will provide new ways of analyzing information in the CDE that will ultimately benefit clients and drive consistency and information management best practices across global ProjectWise projects.

Norris Spencer, Highways Information Manager, AECOM, said, “ProjectWise Project Insights is delivering a new perspective to Leadership and Project Management as the dashboards provide unique views of information management practices and Building Information Model health across the CDE.”

Elizabeth Berna, Information Manager, AECOM, added, “Our project managers also use the dashboards to identify trends in project performance providing the client with new ways of assessing project health.”

Secure Cam Expands into India with Rs200 Crore IT Project

Secure Cam IT Solutions, a United Arab Emirates-based security surveillance and IT solutions provider, is expanding into India as part of the launch of its global campaign.

The company has earmarked about Rs200 crore for the implementation of ‘Secure Our City’ in India. As part of the $1.5 billion worldwide campaign that was announced last October, Secure Cam has promised to install about 10,000 cameras for free in one city across 150 countries by 2025.

The IT service provider has registered in India as Secure Cam India with offices in Bengaluru and Kochi.

"We are expanding into India as the country offers a fast-growing market for us within the IT sector. The surveillance camera industry in itself is expected to experience a double-digit growth of about 15 to 20 percent in the next three years and we want to ensure that we are at the forefront of the growth story," says Chairman and CEO Rijoy Thomas.

Secure Cam, which has been a leading integrator of IT solutions and security systems, has been working with major corporates in the UAE and across the GCC.

The company will soon introduce its own branded products, which it feels, will help the company strengthen its position in new markets including India.

"We are looking at a market with growth potential in excess of Rs20,000 crore in India alone. By the end of 2019, we aim to establish our strong presence across various states in the country," he says.

Last October, the company announced a major global campaign to equip more than 1.5 million buildings worldwide with security camera solutions. At the event, held at the prestigious Armani Hotel in the world's tallest building - Burj Khalifa in Dubai, it was announced that the first phase of the campaign will be rolled out across 13 countries, starting with India.

"We are now fully prepared to kickstart the India programme," says Emil Jose, the COO of Secure Cam.

Secure Our City will be launched in India across five cities in a phased manner. "The name of the first city will be unveiled in June. Anybody who is interested to participate in the registration can do so by visiting secrecam.org. The city with the largest number of registrations will be given preference," explains Emil.

The campaign aims to demonstrate that the world can be a secure place with the deployment of the latest tech solutions and that a secure environment will naturally fuel economic development.

"One of the hurdles for economic growth within an urban area is its crime scene. That’s where the United Arab Emirates has shown a way, where the law enforcement agencies, powered by technology, have created wonders in maintaining law and order. The UAE example was one of the inspirations for us to launch this campaign," says Ahmed Sarour Al Marar, a UAE national and partner, and MD of Secure Cam IT Solutions.

A minimum of 10,000 CCTV units will be given for free in each of the five cities as part of the campaign in India. The unit includes an 8-channel HD IP camera system with 30-days recording capacity. Secure Cam is also offering installation, two-year warranty and one-year service for free as part of the campaign. The recording capacity of the hard disk will be based on market standards in different countries. "Our aim is to secure a city in every country as a starting point to prove that it is possible to leverage the available technology to bring peace of mind to residents,” says Rijoy.

Cricket Fever Builds as Emirates Reveals ICC Cricket World Cup Livery

Emirates has revealed its ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 themed Emirates A380 livery in the build up to one of the world’s most anticipated sporting events this year.

Former India cricketer and ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2011 winner, Virender Sehwag, and Emirates sponsored Lancashire team players Saqib Mahmood and Tom Bailey helped to marshal the newly emblazoned aircraft out of the Emirates Engineering hangar. The cricket players were accompanied by Emirates Engineering staff who had worked on installing the decal, and who were later treated to a game of mini-cricket by the aircraft. The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup trophy also made its debut at Emirates Engineering earlier this morning, and excited employees got the chance to take photos with the iconic trophy.

Boutros Boutros, Divisional Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Marketing & Brand for Emirates Airline said: “We are proud to be the official airline for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019. Today’s reveal takes us one step closer to bringing the tournament to life for the nations competing in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019, and for cricket fans across the globe. Emirates directly serves customers in 9 nations participating in this year’s ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, and we look forward to sharing the excitement of this passionate sport with cricket fans and communities around the world, particularly those who will be feverishly following their national teams as they attempt to clinch cricket glory.”

ICC Chief Executive David Richardson said: “I am delighted to be able to see the Emirates plane with the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup livery making its debut today. It is a wonderful way to celebrate what I know is one of the most eagerly awaited sport events of the year and fitting that its first journey is to our hosts in England and Wales.”

The attention-grabbing ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 decal covers a substantial area of 694sqm on the Emirates A380 fuselage and includes player silhouettes batting and bowling against a backdrop of vibrant shades of purple and pink. The decal was installed on A6-EOH, which is scheduled to fly today to London Heathrow in the UK, the host nation of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019. Over the next few months, the aircraft is expected to fly to other UK points including Manchester and London Gatwick. Cricket fans and aviation enthusiasts alike can also look out for the aircraft landing and taking off in Johannesburg, Mumbai, as well as Emirates destinations served by the A380 in both Australia and New Zealand.

Emirates will also be flying most of the national teams to the event as they get ready to compete for the trophy and title of world champions of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 in England and Wales. The tournament will run from 30 May to 14 July 2019, with teams competing from England, South Africa, Pakistan, India, West Indies, Afghanistan, Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Emirates has been a Global Partner of the International Cricket Council (ICC) since 2002, and is a sponsor of both the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, and the event’s match officials selected from the Emirates ICC Elite Panel of ICC Umpires, the Emirates ICC International Panel of Umpires and the Emirates ICC Elite Panel of Match Referees, which also sees Emirates featured on their official kit. Emirates also supports other ICC events including the ICC Men’s and Women’s T20 World Cups and the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup.

In the UK, Emirates is also the official sponsor of Durham County Cricket Club and Lancashire County Cricket Club, including naming rights to both clubs’ playing grounds and their respective T20 representative teams.