GoI Extends its Technology Partnership with CropIn for CCE Pilot Studies in the Rabi Season

The Central Government of India had partnered with CropIn and nine other research institutions and private agencies to optimize Crop Cutting Experiments (CCE) across the country in September 2018. The goal behind the initiative was to optimize the Crop Cutting Experiments to make them more accurate, scalable and predictable by using cutting-edge technologies like Remote Sensing, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics. The initiative was carried out under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the Centre's flagship crop insurance programme, and was coordinated and monitored by the Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC).

The PMFBY requires the states to carry out a minimum of four crop-wise CCE in every gram panchayat for the submission of the yield data to insurance companies within 30 days of harvest. The CCE was traditionally being conducted using a random survey method to estimate the crop yields of a given location. However, considering that there are 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in India, it is challenging to conduct reliable and accurate CCE in the country at scale within a short harvesting window. Applying technology to the traditional process of CCE will expedite the execution of the experiments and ensure faster processing insurance claims under PMFBY.

The MNCFC has now extended the pilot studies that were being conducted by CropIn to the Rabi season. The objective of these pilot studies is two-fold: 1. It seeks to optimize the number of crop cutting experiments so that they become more manageable, 2. It wants to establish a robust dispute resolution mechanism that enables swift resolution of claim disputes.

The first phase of the pilot studies began in September 2018 and was completed by February 2019. For the next phase, that is Rabi season 2018-19, the studies are being conducted in 25 districts across 10 states including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. CropIn will be conducting the CCE in 4 districts across the states of Karnataka, Bihar, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh. These pilot studies are integral to a more efficient claims processing system which will eventually have a huge impact on the success of PMFBY. The State Governments’ support in executing these studies will continue to play a crucial role.

Similar to the first phase, CropIn will be using its cutting-edge yield and health mapping proprietary AI-ML algorithms that leverage satellite imagery to conduct the CCE. CropIn’s flagship agri-tech products, SmartFarm and SmartRisk will ensure the accurate and efficient execution of the CCE.

CropIn is trying to ensure that CCEs are no longer conducted on random plots. SmartRisk™,  CropIn’s award-winning AI and ML-powered platform, uses both satellite imagery and ground-level data to identify the plots that represent the most accurate sample for the district. Apart from plot selection, SmartRisk also helps both the Government and the insurance companies to gain access to scientific, scalable, and accurate reports that make it easier to conduct crop yield assessments and process insurance claims.

CropIn’s flagship product, SmartFarm, is a digital farm management solution that captures the precise location and size of the farm on which the CCE is being conducted as well as the details of the farmer. This enables greater visibility and transparency in the entire CCE process. CropIn’s AI and ML algorithms not only enable the smart-sampling of crops but also enhance visibility across the entire process. CropIn enables access to a variety of data points, from identifying the crop being grown in a unit area to the harvest readiness of the crops to determine the optimal crop yield points. This allows relevant stakeholders to make more informed decisions.

Indian farmers officially have access to subsidized insurance policies but in order to get coverage or get claims processed, they need to jump through several hoops. With technology-powered CCEs, the process becomes more objective, accurate and fair. The Government’s extension of the CCE pilot studies goes to show that there is enormous potential in a more technology-centric approach.

Gartner Says the Future of Self-Service Is Customer-Led Automation

In order to cope with the avalanche of digital information and activities, customers — like organizations — will increasingly turn to automation moving forward, according to Gartner, Inc.

“There is often a lot of discussion about how enterprises continue to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) to save time and money, but we often overlook the next generation of customers being equally amenable to conducting their personal experiences the same way,” said Anthony Mullen, senior research director at Gartner.

“The reality is that customers have to engage with endless digital activities over their lifetime, which means much more data to consider. The trend of customers assigning their endless digital activities to their virtual personal assistants (VPAs), chatbots and other self-service tools will grow over the next 10 years.”

Shift in Customer Self-Service

Self-service is becoming the norm as customers increasingly expect an effortless experience at scale. Organizations are turning to naturalistic engagement methods, such as voice and other AI-powered technologies, to give customers what they want and achieve higher operational efficiency. In fact, 91% of organizations are planning to deploy AI within the next three years. By 2030, a billion service tickets will be raised automatically by customer-owned bots.

“What’s interesting is that when we begin to look at the dynamics of self-service and continued automation by organizations over a longer time frame, cracks begin to appear,” said Mr. Mullen. “The burden of managing and supporting self-services is being taken from today’s support staff and being pushed into customers’ hands. This level of delegation, from ‘DIY’ to customer-led AI, will be a major force shaping customer self-service.”

The four scenarios that represent the future of self-service then become:

Do it myself
Do it together
Let my bot do it
Let our bots do it

“As customers embrace these DIY mindsets, they will choose providers that allow them to interact easily with these consumer-controlled touchpoints, like smart speakers and VPAs. Enterprise-provided user interfaces will increasingly play second fiddle to customer-controlled experiences,” said Mr. Mullen. “Since customers won’t be able to keep up with the level of self-service required to manage their digital lives, they will delegate to their own bots to manage it for them. The customer self-service of the future is not just about the customers themselves, but both customers and their bots.”

Generation Z Is Most Comfortable With Automation

There is a desire for automation and the use of AI to save time and money across all generations and use cases, however Generation Z (those born between 1995 and 2009) is the most amenable to using these technologies to make their lives easier.

By 2030, personal technologies will become the go-to for user experience delivery. As Generation Z will represent the largest customer base through then, it will lead in the use of customer-directed automation technologies to obtain support and value from the organizations they choose to interact with.

Western Digital's University Hiring Program Helps Accelerate its R&D Centre Headcount to 2,700

By Manu Sharma

Western Digital (WD) a US-based computer hard disk drive manufacturer and data storage company has made significant inroads into the Indian market. After the acquisition of SanDisk in 2016, its India research and development (R&D) centre in Bangalore has become one of its key design centres employing over 2700 engineers mainly through its successful University Hiring Program.

WD's College Graduate Program  in India starts with an intensive four-week bootcamp wherein the students learn the overview of product lines, engineering development, product marketing and business.

Talking to the media, Siva Sivaram, Executive Vice President, Western Digital says, "We have seen our university hires file patents and generate trade secrets within the first year of joining. This is a true testimony to our culture of innovation. SanDisk had a big presence in Bangalore since 2006 with 70 persons and these has been further strengthened under Western Digital. There has been a growth of employment and patents so much so that it’s now the second biggest facility after the US offices."

The company hires freshly graduated college students with bachelors/masters engineering degree directly from top colleges across the country for the post of Design Engineers. The candidates need to show scripting skills in python/Java languages and exposure to hardware design. Similarly, the company also hires Firmware Engineers. Ideal Candidates have exposure to hardware design and can program in machine language as well as high level languages like C, C++.

Western Digital is an authority on non-volatile memory technology and has also been adding 150-200 masters and PhDs students every year from every high Indian universities.

Sivaram remarks, "India is a strategic region for WD and we have grown ten times in the last 5-6 years and almost doubled in the last two years, The strong team in India has played a pivotal role in the company's R&D and product development strategy of the company. The engineering R&D division expertise includes ASIC, memory design, storage, firmware and software development for clients, mobility, enterprise and data centre solutions. The India R&D facility has numerous patents to its credit and have developed key products like the 200 GB micro SD card and 128 GB micro SD card."

Lately India R&D centre has become one of the key engineering sites globally. The centre contributes significantly to the overall innovations in the enterprise, embedded and consumer storage technology segments. “Our focus has been to develop strong end-to-end capabilities in product development across multiple segments of our diverse product portfolio and operate in four verticals, which include retail consumers of SD cards, mobile companies, client computing with laptops, desktops, in the enterprise, and hyperscale data centres," he remarks.

SanDisk has its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California and and two more centres in Irvine and Rochester in the US and additional R&D centres in Israel, Japan, and India. "We don't have a centre in Europe," stated Sivaram.

India is a high growth market and our customer count continues to grow, especially in the mobile segment.  India is the second-largest mobile subscriber base in the world after China. Besides India is a key market and it has been witnessing rapid adoption of consumer electronics such as mobile phones, digital cameras, personal computers and digital music players where SanDisk is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the storage needs of these large, fast-paced markets.

IDC India forecasts that the external enterprise storage systems market is expected to grow at a single-digit compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2018–2023 time-period. The advent of 3rd Platform technologies and digital transformation initiatives across organizations would drive incremental revenues in the near future. 

Plus Offices Looking to Raise Around $5 Million to Open More Coworking Facilities in India

Plus Offices is one of the late entrants in the market but they are one of the fastest growing coworking space in Gurgaon. Plus Offices is now eyeing a bigger pie of the cake in the coworking space. They provide customised productive shared workspaces and tailor made services  for  entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, mentors, consultants, small businesses and large enterprises. The offerings are varied in nature and can be tailor built for various customers according to their work demands.

Started in year 2018, Plus Offices has now expanded its coworking locations in Sector 44 and Sector 67, Gurgaon. With an increase in demand for more coworking office spaces, Plus Offices is now looking to raise funds for expansion in the coworking space domain both in Gurgaon, Delhi & NCR and finally to various parts of the country.

Mr Ravi Kikan, who has been a startup specialist and has had multiple exposures in the startup ecosystem is currently leading Plus Offices in India as a Chief Operating Officer and as part of the founding team based out of Gurgaon. He says " We are looking at building Plus Offices as productive Coworking Space in Gurgaon and hope to become one of the key players in this category by 2019-20, we have aggressive plans across India" . He also added that " Startups, Growth bound ventures, SMBs and Corporates all need coworking and productive workspaces beyond the regular brick and mortar offering which everyone has. To be a differentiator we are planning to help our coworkers in growth and expansion without any hassle or additional pinch on pricing"

Mr Ravi Kikan also runs Startup Specialists Community on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/groups/56766/  which has around 300,000+ global members who are startups, mentors, entrepreneurs, consultants and startup lovers from across the globe. He added " Our bigger objective will be to create a big, vibrant, productive and useful community of startups, growth ventures and SMBs who can co create, collaborate and look at Coworking beyond the regular hot desking and stylish infra structure"

Plus Offices was initially funded through family and friends and some Angel investors from Delhi and NCR. After the first seed round they got into strategic alliances with a couple of real estate players to work as an operating partner to build and expand Coworking Work Space in Gurgaon.

The business has ambitious growth plans, particularly since the opening of its second coworking facility at sector 67, Gurgaon. The current estimated Coworker strength is around 1000+ coworkers at both the Coworking facilities in Gurgaon which is bound to increase to around 3000+ by this year end in both the facilities.

Looking at the bigger opportunity in the Coworking Space domain, Plus Offices is now looking at raising around $5 million to be fueled into growth planning and expansion into new regions in India and building bigger and better collaborative coworking spaces to help Startups and SMBs at large.

Plus Offices provides unique amenities which a class coworking facility would have including wifi, storage, ample parking, shuttle services, a café where members can purchase healthy food items, a lounge and event spaces, complimentary coffee and tea, recreational areas including a mentor program.

Plus Offices has built a relaxing environment where startups, SMBs, small business owners can connect with a network of resources and services that can help their business grow,” said Mr Ravi Kikan.

Mr Ravi Kikan also added "If you are a Entrepreneur, Consultant, Startup, SMB or Corporate who is waiting to expand or move into a newer or bigger or productive facility, we would love to connect with you and host you at Plus Offices. The whole objective is to bring a great experience for the Coworker who is working at our Plus Offices facility so that he or she is more productive and enjoys his focus on work"

Plus Offices provides not only shared amenities and resources, but also a sense of community, networking, and idea exchange among other things. Besides this, Plus Offices was started with an agenda to encourage the startups and women entrepreneurs by offering flexible membership agreements.

Coworking spaces, though a relatively new concept in India, has become a hot property with growth in the number of new startups in Gurgaon.

There are around 70+ Startups, 5 SMBs which are currently coworking with Plus Offices and the plan is to have around 500+ Startups and SMBs to be a part of Plus Offices in the Coworking Space in Gurgaon.The overall plan is to have around 20,000 Coworkers working out of various Coworking facilities of Plus offices in 2019-2020.

Sensory Steering Wheel Keeps Your Eyes on the Road

A steering wheel developed by Jaguar Land Rover could help keep drivers’ eyes on the road – by using heat to tell drivers when to turn left or right.

The research, in partnership with Glasgow University, has created a ‘sensory steering wheel’, parts of which can be quickly heated and cooled to inform drivers where to turn, when to change lane or to warn of an approaching junction. This could be particularly useful when visibility is reduced through poor weather or the layout of the road.

The technology has also been applied to the gear-shift paddles to indicate when hand over from the driver to autonomous control in future self-driving vehicles is complete.

Driver distraction is a major contributor to road accidents around the world and accounts for 10 per cent of all fatal crashes in the USA alone*. Jaguar Land Rover’s research suggests thermal cues could be a way to keep drivers fully focused on the road.

The cues work on both sides of the steering wheel, indicating the direction to turn by rapidly warming or cooling one side by a difference of up to 6oC. For comfort a driver could adjust the range of temperature change.

Studies have shown** temperature-based instructions could also be used for non-urgent notifications, where vibrations could be deemed unnecessarily attention grabbing, for example as a warning when fuel is running low, or for upcoming events, such as points of interest. Thermal cues can also be used where audio feedback would be deemed too disruptive to cabin conversations or media playback.

Alexandros Mouzakitis, Jaguar Land Rover Electrical Research Senior Manager, said: “Safety is a number one priority for Jaguar Land Rover and we are committed to continuously improving our vehicles with the latest technological developments as well as preparing the business for a self-driving future.

“The ‘sensory steering wheel’ is all part of this vision, with thermal cues able to reduce the amount of time drivers have to take their eyes off the road.

“Research has shown people readily understand the heating and cooling dynamics to denote directions and the subtlety of temperature change can be perfect for certain feedback that doesn’t require a more intrusive audio or vibration-based cue.”

The Jaguar Land Rover-funded research is part of a PhD study undertaken by Patrizia Di Campli San Vito at Glasgow University as part of its Glasgow Interactive Systems Research Section (GIST).

Jaguar and Land Rover models already boast a wide range of sophisticated Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) designed to improve driver and vehicle safety, including the new generation Head-Up Display in the Range Rover Velar. The Velar also features capacitive steering wheel controls for common functions that combine with the Interactive Driver Display to help reduce driver distraction.

Computex 2019: Kingston Demonstrates Everyday Life Storage

For over three decades, Kingston, a world leader in memory storage products and technology solutions, continues to develop industry-leading products and technology solutions with great performance, reliability and consistency. This year during Computex, Kingston aims to show high-performance storage products for consumer and enterprise, as well as embedded solutions which power products found in your everyday life. With memory products that empower innovation, Kingston is everywhere with you. The highlighted demo products include:

Next-Generation SSDs for Consumer, Power User and Enterprise

• KC2000 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD: Using the latest controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND, it offers superior read/write speeds, improving the workflow in desktop, workstations and high-performance computing systems. It also supports end-to-end data protection to ensure the data’s safety.

• Data Center 500 Series Enterprise SSDs: DC500R is optimized for read-intensive applications while DC500M is optimized for mixed-use workloads. Both SSDs implement strict Quality of Service (QoS) requirements to ensure predictable I/O performance and low latencies.

• A2000 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD: The upcoming SSD features the 4 Channel Gen 3x4 controller and 3D TLC NAND. With build in NVMe driver, it could support various system from Windows to Linux, offering lower power and heat.

A Reliable Business Partner: Kingston IPC Solutions

Meanwhile, Kingston continues to offer rock-solid reliability and maximum performance for SI and IPC system builders. Kingston’s 100% tested products come with full BOM control and Product Change Notification (PCN), meet the strict quality standards and deliver outstanding service to our OEM and industrial clients.

Experience Kingston: The Embedded Solutions in Your Daily Lives

Kingston’s embedded solutions include eMMC, eMCP, ePOP and DRAM components. The

embedded solutions can be widely used for any other consuming electronic existed in people’s daily

lives.

Kingston can be found on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kingstontechnologyindia/

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/KingstonAPAC

TVS Emerald Acquires Two Land Parcels; Announces its Foray into Bengaluru Residential Market

TVS Emerald, the real estate arm of TVS Group, today announced their foray into the Bengaluru market with the acquisition of two land parcels at Hosur Road and Kanakapura Road. The land parcel on Hosur road, near Manipal country, will be developed into an aspirational high-rise apartment community over 6 acres targeting younger professionals.  The project offers good connectivity to Electronic City, Bannergatta Road, Sarjapur Road and Koramangala. It is strategically located close to office spaces as well as the proposed metro line.

At Kanakapura Road, TVS Emerald will develop a gated community, comprising villas and row houses spread across 6.4 acres. Located in a serene area near the  Art of Living institution, amidst lush greenery, the community will boast of world class amenities offering customers a unique lifestyle and good connectivity. The project is located close to IT office spaces in Bannergatta Road, Mysore Road, Electronic City as well as industrial parks in Bidadi and Jigani.

‘’Over the past 6 years, TVS Emerald has been developing projects across Chennai and is developing about 6 million square feet. We are committed to offering aspirational living with world-class amenities delivered on time. We are happy to bring the same values to Bengaluru and develop projects which nurture nature to create a world of healthy living. Our projects will bring international design to the Bengaluru market, combining the best of urban living and high-quality lifestyles,’’ said Mr. Rajaraman, Executive Vice-President, TVS Emerald.