Helo Takes Users to Cricket World Cup 2019 With #CheerforIndia

Helo, India's leading social media platform, is giving cricket fans a chance to cheer for team India in England during the Cricket World Cup 2019 with its #CheerForIndia campaign. The campaign encourages users to use the #CheerforIndia hashtag and post original content related to the World Cup 2019 on the Helo, in any of the 14 Indian languages on the app they are most comfortable with. Helo users with the most engaging and interactive posts will get a chance to travel to England and witness team India’s match live.

Coinciding with the highly-anticipated World Cup 2019, the campaign, which runs from May 25th to June 14th, is specifically designed for all cricket enthusiasts as well as the fence-sitters on Helo. While select winners will win tickets to India’s matches in England, other winners also stand a chance to win exciting prizes.

“Cricket in India is a religion that unifies all and with this campaign, we aim to bring our Helo community even closer together to support and cheer for team India during the Cricket World Cup’. Through our #CheerforIndia campaign, we aim to engage and encourage our 40 million monthly active users, who can choose to express themselves in any of the 14 Indian languages available on the platform. We are looking forward to engaging cricket lovers and enthusiasts to come together, connect and participate in a contest, built around India’s favourite sport. Helo wishes Team India all the very best for the tournament,” said, Shyamanga Barooah, Head of Content Operations, Helo.

Recently, Helo partnered with Indian Wheelchair Cricket team as the team sponsor for the Asia Cup in Nepal. This association made Helo the first social media app to host and promote Indian Wheelchair Cricket on its platform. As part of this partnership, Helo also served as the official digital media partner for the Indian Wheelchair Cricket team during the tournament.

Helo’s machine learning powered, visual platform is specifically designed for Indian mobile users who prefer to communicate in their mother tongues. It enables users to create quality content with easy-to-use tools, make new friends, share latest and top trending jokes, memes, status updates, wishes, quotes, shayari and Bollywood news. Available in 14 Indian languages, the app currently has 40 million users, including celebrities, influencers and general users. For more updates, download Helo via iOS or Google Play.

Amazon Expands its Pantry Service to 110 Smaller Cities in India

Amazon.in today announced the expansion of its popular program ‘Amazon Pantry’. It will now be available to customers in 110 cities & towns. Customers in Belgaum, Chikkaballapur, Dharwad, Hubli, Karwar, Kolar, Ramanagara and Attibele can now choose from up to 5,000 grocery and household products from 500 plus brands on Amazon Pantry.

Amazon Pantry makes it convenient for customers to stock-up for a basket of frequently purchased products while increasing savings. Customers can build a basket from Amazon Pantry and have all the products delivered in a single box at their doorstep the following day. They can choose from 5,000 products by over 500 brands. In select cities of Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune, customers can also choose from convenient time slots to schedule their order deliveries.

Commenting on the expansion, Saurabh Srivastava, Director - Category Management, Amazon India said, “Amazon Pantry has become popular with customers as it offers unbeatable savings and convenience of door step delivery, month after month. We have now added more than 70 cities & towns in the last few months to take the total number of cities covered by Amazon Pantry to 110. Customers even in towns like Karwar, Kolar, Ramanagara among others can now enjoy the benefits of Amazon Pantry.”

Amazon Pantry offers selection ranging across staples, cooking essentials, snacks, beverages, packaged food, household supplies, personal care, skin care, pet food, baby products such as diapers & baby food and lots more.

Trend Micro Partners with Market Leading Security Awareness Vendors to Offer Comprehensive Free Training Content

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today announced partnerships with several leading cybersecurity training providers to help businesses protect their employees from the latest cyber threats. To ensure customers have a wide variety of training styles and formats, Trend Micro is teaming up with four leading partners:  NINJIO, InfoSec,  NextTech Security, and  GoldPhish.

The new training materials are available on Trend Micro’s Phish Insight tool, which is a free, highly flexible security awareness solution. This new educational platform will offer customers a diverse library of training content to enhance employee awareness initiatives and arm organizations with the resources they need to improve overall enterprise security.

“All businesses today are susceptible to socially engineered phishing emails and BEC attacks, which can cause severe financial and reputational damage,” said Wendy Moore, vice president of product marketing for Trend Micro. “We want to help make the digital world safer, and have partnered with four leading organizations from around the world to offer educational resources to complement our free Phish Insight tool. Adding educational resources allow companies to not only test their employees’ security awareness, but also improve this awareness.”

Reported BEC attacks cost global businesses nearly $1.3 billion in 2018, more than any other threat category, and phishing emails are linked to a third of data breaches and 94% of malware occurring last year. The latest improvements to Phish Insight will enable businesses to better train staff to curb the impact of these threats.

In line with customer feedback, Trend Micro is working with multiple proven training providers to offer a wide range of content to fit the broadest possible variety of organizational cultures – whether that’s a more conservative teaching style or animated story telling. Some firms will prefer micro learning experiences for their employees whereas other will prefer longer more detailed training sessions, the key is to have enough choice to meet this demand.

Customers will have access to the content that best fits their needs with no contracts or subscriptions, completely free for the first six months during a beta period.

6 Proptech Startups Successfully Graduate at the Brigade REAP Accelerator Demo Day

Brigade REAP, an accelerator program focused on technology that impacts the Real Estate industry, celebrated its Demo Day by unveiling its latest cohort of 6 startups to the industry and VC community.  The keynote address was given by Vipul Roongta, Managing Director and CEO of HDFC Capital Advisors

Located within the Brigade Gateway Campus at Bangalore, the Brigade REAP accelerator program is Asia’s first-ever startup accelerator focused to help startups in the Real Estate sector.

REAP was Launched in October 2016 with an intention to Mentor startups leveraging technology which can help in delivering greater efficiencies to the Real Estate sector. Till date 21 startups graduated through the Brigade REAP Accelerator program.

Over 200 plus start-ups applied for this cohort and the shortlisted startups went through 2 rounds of intense jury selection before the final 6 startups were inducted into the program. The startups inducted in the program went through a four month intensive mentorship and acceleration program before being handed over to the Industry for consumption of their products and services.

At the Demo Day, the 6 start-ups demonstrated their ventures to eminent developers from the Real Estate Industry, Investors, HNI’s, other startup founders and senior management of global corporates.

"In today’s competitive business environment, the ability to adopt and make use of technological innovations to improve operational efficiencies and customer delight will be the key differentiator between the good and great performance. ," said Ms. Nirupa Shankar, Director, Brigade REAP speaking on the occasion.  Rajeev Nair, Head Operations , ] added, “At Brigade REAP, we work with companies on an individual basis and strengthen their value prop, business models & product road map thereby helping them scale in a sustainable and exponential manner.

The startups that presented at the Demo Day are:

1.      Bluesinq Automations: An IoT company that converts existing switches to intelligent switches with an aim to make them staple in every Indian home. They provide simple to install, easy to use & visually pleasing products at cost effective rates.
2.      Clairco:  A clean air company that monitors and purifies indoor air quality and ensures clean air indoors in an affordable and measurable way, by adding purification capabilities in existing AC systems. Customer can view the air quality remotely on a Dashboard which gives never seen before clarity on the quality of air.
3.      Dextra Square: A property security solutions company that helps consumers secure their properties in an effective & hassle-free manner.
4.      Exprs:  A last yard logistics company, building an efficient network of micro-distribution centres across gated communities and corporate buildings to make communities safer and businesses more efficient.
5.      Renewate: India’s only platform for renovation and refurbishment, contributing towards organizing an unorganized sector through a single platform.
6.      Smarter Dharma: Leveraging technology to deliver cost and resource efficiency for the Real Estate industry by injecting sustainability right from conceptualization to handover of infrastructure projects.

Brigade REAP is looking for the next set of exciting startups who are solving problems in the proptech space.

Global Indian International School Launched Various New Programmes this Summer to Promote Holistic Development of Students

Global Indian International School (GIIS), recently launched various programs this summer that emphasised on the holistic growth of its students. These specialised programs were launched across GIIS campuses in Noida, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat and were designed to inculcate skills of information technology, robotics, research-based learning and global thinking into its students.

Launched under the Nine Gems model, these programmes provided a platform for the students to cultivate new skills and enhance the inherent ones along with goal-setting and making them future ready. The activities within these programs were intended to help students learn the skills they will need for college and beyond. More than 600 students participated in these activities across GIIS campuses in India, making the program a huge success.

Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Rajiv Bansal, Director-Operations, GIIS India said, “GIIS aims to nurture the students and create leaders of tomorrow. Our NINE Gems framework is designed to stimulate students to think innovatively, hone their talent and create an identity of their own. Such initiatives have been undertaken to channelize students’ interests and help them grow holistically.”

GIIS Campuses in different cities launched the following initiatives.

Hindustan Scouts & Guides (HSG) - GIIS Bangalore organised 2 camps recently to instil discipline and healthy life in students. HSG is recognised by Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India. More than 100 GIIS students successfully completed the three-day Praveshika Training and Rajya Puraskar Preparation Camp and earned the prestigious title of a ‘Guide’ or a ‘Scout’

Art & Dancing, Dramatics with Helen O’ Grady, Edu Sports, Golf, Dance & Language classrooms -GIIS Noida launched these programs for its students and  also collaborated with “The Golf Revolution” team to train students into the likes of the sport and with “LAGMA school of Languages” that will be offering language programmes in French, German, Chinese, and Spanish.

Robotics at Summer Camp – Innovation was at the core of the summer camp organized at GIIS Ahmedabad. A 5-day Skill Development with robotics summer camp was organized for students from Grade 3 to 7, where they learnt the basics of Robotics. Enthusiastic students built Edge Avoider Robots using Lego parts and also ran the Robots with the help of Software, which was based on drag and drop method. Apart from Ahmedabad, even Noida and Bangalore organised a summer camp filled with fun and learning for the students.

Pro-Champs and innovative clubs - GIIS Surat concentrated on activities that focused on various forms of sports, music, dance and innovative hobby clubs on arts, crafts, literature, language, horticulture and yoga, to name a few.

Most of these initiatives were introduced during the vacation period in order to provide students with a great amalgamation of fun & learning and to ensure maximum participation. Based on the interest of the students, few of these activities will also be continued as part of the after-school programme.

Adoption of ICT Solutions can Eliminate 20% of World’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions - IEEE

Information and communications technology (ICT) encompasses the tools and networks used to create, store and share information. That includes computers, the internet, telecommunications and broadcasting technologies. With the rapid rate of change in all things internet-related, ICT is consistently at the center of the technology conversation. New device turnover raises the question of how to make the relatively short life cycle of phones and computers more sustainable.

According to Charles Despins, IEEE Senior Member and Co-Chair, IEEE Sustainable ICT initiative and Vice President of research, partnerships and faculty affairs at École de technologie supérieure (ETS) at the Université du Québec, “Information and communications technology (ICT) (and the so-called digital revolution in a broader sense) are a double-edged sword in terms of building a sustainable future. On one hand, ICT’s energy consumption and carbon footprint have grown substantially in recent decades. This has been a result of the development of networks, increased usage and non-renewable energy sources powering (at least partly) these ICT infrastructures. ICT life-cycle management also remains a challenge, exemplified by a growing e-waste problem. On the other hand, detailed studies have shown that widespread adoption of ICT solutions in various industries could enable the elimination of 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, as well as substantially contribute to the achievement of at least half of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals”

”Over the last decade, the ICT industry has made great strides on the ‘sustainability in ICT’ front (improved energy efficiency is a good example). Much more needs to be done, but the process is engaged. Going forward, with ICT gradually immersing itself in every industry and area of human activity, “sustainability through ICT” is a huge opportunity but also a daunting challenge. It requires a much stronger dialogue and concerted actions between the technology and ICT industry community, the other industry sectors that use ICT and public policy makers. With respect to the latter, this means engaging at the national government level but also at regional and municipal levels. Notably, when we talk about ‘smart’ cities, ‘smart’ must also mean ‘sustainable.’

Further in this 21st century, the social impacts of sustainable ICT will range from clean, healthy and prosperous communities to individuals fully empowered to pursue their own goals. However, at the current time, as we discuss 5G, 6G and novel applications, just under 50% of the world’s population does not even have access to the internet. In this respect, there is a rich-and-poor-country digital divide as well as an urban-rural divide in many developed countries. As engineers, we must engage at the local level to make our own communities smarter and more sustainable. Much of the positive impacts of sustainable ICT will come from the bottom up instead of the top down”, said Charles Despins.

Seagram’s Royal Stag ‘Makes it Large’ Gives Cricket Fan’s a Money Can’t Buy Experience

Making it large in the international cricket showground, Seagram’s Royal Stag, the proud partners of the ICC World Cup 2019, announces ‘India’s Largest Fan’ Campaign for die-hard cricket fans. Cricket undoubtedly is more than just a sport in our country. Watching the world cup live in England and Wales, is a dream for every cricket fan.

Royal Stag, an iconic brand that has always celebrated the spirit of cricket, is all set to ride on the cricket fever this season with the ‘Royal Stag India’s Largest Fan’ Campaign. Consumers can participate in the campaign by simply giving a missed call on 85019-85019 & get a chance to win an all-expense paid trip to watch the world cup live in England and Wales. The 360 campaign will run across print, radio outdoor and digital mediums.

The campaign will be supplemented with a high energy music video that personifies “India’s Largest Fan” and the dream of watching the world cup live in England and Wales. The high-octane song has been written by Swanand Kirkire ,Music by Shamir Tandon & sung by Benny Dayal. The audio visual really brings to life the spirit of cricket & the experience of India’s largest Fan. You can also preview the music video on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RajZujWe7o .

Commenting on the association, Kartik Mohindra, Chief Marketing Officer, Pernod Ricard India said,” Royal Stag’s ‘India’s Largest Fan’ contest is the perfect opportunity for our patrons to fulfill their dream of watching the ICC Cricket world cup live and that too in England & Wales, the place from which cricket originated. Cricket is worshipped like a religion in India and we understand the passion people have for the sport in this country. Our association with the ICC World Cup 2019 will further reinforce our commitment to the sport. Royal Stag has always lived up to its brand philosophy of ‘Make it large’. With India’s Largest Fan Contest, we hope to give cricket lovers a ‘money can’t buy experience’ in England and Wales, truly making it large in full glory and taking forward our association with the ICC”.