Accenture Launches Experience Activation Network at Mumbai to Power Growth for World’s Leading Brands

Accenture has opened a center in Mumbai that serves as the centerpiece of its new “experience activation network,” a collection of state-of-the-art sites worldwide that are dedicated to powering brand experiences that deliver marketing-led growth.

The experience activation network is part of Accenture Interactive Operations — the marketing managed services arm of Accenture Interactive— which harnesses talent, technology, and process innovation through SynOps for Marketing, to deliver dynamic brand experiences across all consumer touchpoints and channels.

Occupying two floors of its Intelligent Operations Center in Mumbai, Accenture’s new experience activation center includes dedicated design thinking spaces, immersive demonstration zones and interactive digital surfaces, as well as open collaboration zones for clients to co-create alongside industry-specialized teams.

Among those at the center’s opening today were executives from a number of marketing pioneers — including GlaxoSmithKline, Radisson Hotel Group, Shell and others — that have embarked on bold marketing transformations with Accenture, using emerging technology, a global shared services model and process innovation to drive experiential-led growth.

“With the customer experience increasingly a driver of competitive advantage and sustained growth, the marketing function is emerging as a new organizational superpower,” said Debbie Polishook, group chief executive of Accenture Operations. “Our experience activation network is helping clients stay one step ahead of the convergence of the front and back office by enabling CMOs to transform their operating models and capitalize on the growth opportunity ahead of them.”

Key targets for the new center include chief marketing officers and other marketing executives, many of whom are struggling to meet the rapidly evolving needs of consumers. In fact, recent research from Accenture found while only one-sixth (17%) of nearly 1,000 CMOs surveyed know how to transform their operating models to deliver hyper-relevant customer experiences at a global scale, organizations that do deliver such experiences generate shareholder returns 11% higher than those of their industry peers.

Beyond the Mumbai location, the global experience activation network includes similar centers in Turin, Italy;  Malaga, Spain; Warsaw, Poland; Dalian, China; and Costa Rica. These centers are connected to more than 100 Accenture locations worldwide to seamlessly bring the best of the company’s investments in innovation to clients anywhere in the world.

In addition, the experience activation network is among the world’s largest concentration of marketing activation experts, bringing together tens of thousands of professionals worldwide that include data scientists, graphic designers, platform practitioners, content production specialists, programmatic experts and ecommerce experts.

“We have built a model for a new generation of marketers who must deliver a meaningful and connected customer experience across all touchpoints and channels,” said Nikki Mendonça, president of Accenture Interactive Operations. “Our experience activation network powers a marketing-led growth agenda by harnessing all the skills, assets and capabilities our clients need to activate, operate and scale customer experiences with greater speed, scale and agility.”

The experience activation network will take full advantage of the latest managed services from Accenture Interactive Operations, which include:

* Next-generation content services to amplify content at scale and drive dynamic personalized experiences using the latest techniques and technologies.
* Digital marketing services to activate digital channels dynamically to grow marketing-led revenue, using proprietary algorithms and machine-learning intelligence, and deliver personalized, seamless brand experiences.
* Programmatic media services to drive growth by executing multi-platform paid media activity programmatically and with full transparency to improve top and bottom-line results.
* eCommerce services to boost digital sales by enabling customers to discover what they want, find what they are searching for, and buy what they want the way they want it.

Atos Opens First Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Germany

Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, opened its German Artificial Intelligence (AI) Laboratory in Munich. In this innovative environment, Atos is developing for its clients business solutions using AI and other cutting-edge technologies. At the opening ceremony Thierry Breton, CEO and Chairman of Atos, highlighted the relevance of AI for the industry and the economy.

"Artificial Intelligence solutions have the power to be true game changers: For individual companies as well as entire economies, the holistic implementation of digital techniques leveraging AI is key to their success in the future", says Thierry Breton, CEO and Chairman of Atos. “Our AI Lab is the right platform for the collaborative development of tangible digital use cases that deliver long-term value as quickly as possible. “

The German AI lab is also part of Atos' global AI network as an element of its partnership with Google Cloud, which was initiated in 2018. The lab is aimed at companies and organizations that want to promote and develop the use of AI across their businesses. Atos and Google Cloud offer the necessary technological and industry-specific technical expertise as well as concrete use cases.

“The successful use of artificial intelligence technologies requires both technological and vertical knowledge “, says Annette Maier, Managing Director Google Cloud DACH. „That's why Atos and Google Cloud form a very strong partnership that brings these two benefits together. “

At the opening event in Munich, Atos provided numerous customers and partners insights into the digital future of the economy by various use cases. The mixed reality solution, for example, demonstrated that by combining real-time 3D images with PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) data, insights were more precise enabling product development cycles to be shortened. Another showcase demonstrated the potential of connected supply chains worldwide. Thanks to digital logistics, goods delivery times are precisely calculated using advanced analytics factoring in external circumstances. This enables a seamless and efficient supply chain.

The AI Lab in Munich is part of the local Business Technology Innovation Center (BTIC). The recently upgraded BTIC is part of the global network of Atos innovation centers. In this setting Atos’ customers and partners can develop ideas and creative digital solutions together with Atos experts, combining a wide range of areas such as cloud, cybersecurity, Internet of Things, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. The BTIC integrates Atos’ global technological and industry experience, a comprehensive range of use cases, and a global network of subject matter experts and partners.

It will be the flagship for Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 solutions for Atos in Europe. This is supported by Atos’ strong footprint in the German manufacturing industry and its long-term relationship with Siemens, which as both a customer and partner, ensures that Atos has a deep understanding of the digital transformation needs for the manufacturing industry. 

Firework - Silicon Valley Based App Now Unveiled in India with Focus on Next-Gen Consumer Mobile Applications

Firework, a social mobile video app for iOS and Android devices, has now entered India. With ‘Reveal’, its patent pending technology, it will allow creators to take both horizontal and vertical video in one shot from their mobile device. Firework is part of a suite of apps created by Loop Now Technologies, Inc. a Redwood City, California (Silicon Valley) based incubator start-up that focuses on next-gen consumer mobile applications. Firework became the fastest social media app to achieve 1 million users in only 5 months while still in beta, growing +200% quarter over quarter. Firework is committed to empowering everyday creators to produce extraordinary stories with premium production value.

In India, Firework will focus on working with some of the biggest names in entertainment and already has content from ALTBalaji, Hindustan Times amongst others. The platform has attracted marketing whiz Harish Bijoor to start his Firework profile who has been regularly updating it with 30 second videos on marketing. Firework will debut many interesting features in the coming months to its Indian users. Offering user generated, platform-curated and original content from media partners including Refinery29, Firework's launch includes the announcement of recent content creation, promotional and advertising partnerships. Thousands of top digital creators have already discovered Firework including Frankie Grande, Dang Matt Smith, Olivia Jordan, and Marlon Webb, among others.

Firework is backed by the top-tier industry venture capital firms like IDG Ventures, who have invested in the past in TenCent, Baidu, Xiaomi, Flipkart and Lightspeed (investors in Snapchat and other unicorns and GSR Ventures). The venture capital firms have participated in the series A round of Firework. With a team of 51, Firework has a strong executive team combining tech and Hollywood expertise with stalwarts like Jerry Luk, Co-founder and COO,  Linkedin (before the Microsoft acquisition), Cory Grenier, ex Director of sales and Marketing at Snapchat and Bryan Barber, ex Warner, 20th Century Fox and Universal.

Speaking on redefining the Indian market, Vincent Yang, CEO, Loop Now Technologies, Inc. said “India has the fastest growing smartphone market in the world and it is exciting to be part of this revolution which has impacted everyone”. Vincent is also a Stanford MBA and previously co-founder and CEO at EverString, a leading AI company that has raised around $100M in Silicon Valley.

As three quarters of internet users are expected to go mobile-only by 2025 (according to World Advertising Research Center (WARC), creators and advertisers will be capable of reaching their audience with personalized content across a near-instant connection.

Cory Grenier, Chief Revenue Officer, Firework said, " Reports suggest that Indian consumers spend nearly 170 mins per day on apps and India in the past has seen over one billion app downloads. As Firework, we have over 3 million registered users across iOS   and Android. The Indian market will see us substantially increase that number”.

Higher Education Institutions Across Asia to Double the Rate of Innovation with Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft Asia and IDC Asia/Pacific released findings specific to the education sector for the study, Future Ready Skills: Assessing APAC Education Sector’s Use of AI[1], where it found that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will help double the rate of innovation improvements for higher education institutions.

With student outcomes being a key performance metric for higher education institutes, many are turning to leverage data to glean insights and drive improved outcomes. “For many institutions, student performance has a direct impact on rankings. AI can be a tool to help better manage outcomes and ensure continued innovation to optimize operations and enhance student engagements, as it reduces resource intensive work among faculty and administrative staff,” said Larry Nelson, Regional General Manager – Education, Microsoft Asia.

“In fact, we found that 3 out 4 education leaders agree that AI will be able to drive competitiveness in the next 3 years. However, only 32% of education institutions in Asia Pacific have embarked on their AI journey,” added Nelson.

Based on the study, the top business drivers for education leaders to adopt AI include better student engagement, higher funding, and accelerated innovation. For institutions that have adopted AI, they are already seeing improvements in the range of 11% to 28% today in areas such as higher funding, accelerated innovation, higher competitiveness, improve efficiency and better student engagement. By 2021, education institutions with AI stand to experience the biggest jump in higher funding, which is expected to increase by 3.7x, higher than most industry sectors in Asia Pacific.

Developing a globally engaged citizenry is of utmost importance for all countries and is also one of Japan’s key priorities. However, many students would avoid these opportunities as doing so can delay them from taking the classes they need for graduation.  As one of the top universities in Japan serving over 17,000 students, the Faculty of Engineering at Hokkaido University has embarked on its AI journey as part of its mission to encourage students to study abroad.

In a bid to remove this obstacle and contribute to a better abroad experience, the university developed a Microsoft Azure-based e-learning system that enables students to keep up with coursework back home. Leveraging AI and automation capabilities, the system helped the university broaden student access, expand capacity, streamline course prep from days to hours, and enhance security – transforming the abroad learning experience.

“Our Azure-based e-learning system far better meets the needs of our students, who can access courses from PC, Android, iOS, and other devices. This gives them a more enjoyable and convenient educational experience,” said Professor Yukinori Kobayashi, Doctor of Engineering and Director of the Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University.

Asia Pacific’s Education Institutions Need to Focus on its Strategy and Investment, Culture and Data

The Study evaluated six dimensions contributing to the sector’s AI readiness. The educational sector is currently lagging in Data, Strategy and Investment, as well as Culture when compared to Asia Pacific’s overall AI readiness. This signifies that more work needs to be done for these specific areas for educational institutions to remain competitive.

1. Data: Education institutions need to work on availability, quality and governance of existing data

Data readiness is a key issue for education institutions. Today, data within higher education institutes is siloed, with limited usage of a cloud platform for scalability. Institutes also face issues with data timeliness and quality from sources, and a lack of governance practices to ensure trust in data usage.

2. Strategy and Investment: Education institutions need to evaluate investment allocation to support their AI strategy

For education institutions to reap the benefits of AI, they must have a sound AI strategy in place to help improve their AI readiness. With this, they need to also look at investment strategies that can be allocated to support organization-wide AI efforts.

3. Culture: Traits required for AI adoption lacking in education institutions

More than half of the education staff, and nearly half of the education leaders polled believe that cultural traits and behaviors are not pervasive in their organization today. For example, 67% of staff and 46% of education leaders do not agree that staff are empowered to take risks, and act with speed and agility within the institution.

“For education institutions to fully harness the power of AI, they will need to work on developing an AI strategy which can help better integrate AI elements in various areas of the institution. To do so, they will first need to have better data hygiene and work on improving data readiness. Lastly, culture is an important key to help nurture the AI-mindset. Education leaders will need to develop an innovative culture and empower their staff to work in an agile manner,” said Victor Lim, Vice President, Consulting Operations, IDC Asia/Pacific.

AI Skills Required for Future of Educational Sector

Both education leaders and staff in the education sector are equally positive about AI’s impact on jobs. Majority of education leaders (61%) and staff (61%) believe that AI will either help to do their existing jobs better or reduce repetitive tasks. In addition, both are optimistic of the impact AI will bring to their jobs, with 21% of education leaders believing that AI will create new jobs while 13% of staff agreeing so.

However, according to education leaders, the skills required for an AI future are in shortage. The top three skills identified to face a shortage of supply in the next three years include:

* IT skills and programming
* Digital skills
* Quantitative, analytical and statistical skills

The Study also noted that there is a disconnect with education leaders’ perception of their staff’s willingness to reskill. Although the education leaders realize that there is an urgent need for reskilling efforts in order to cultivate an AI-ready workforce, they are not fully convinced that their staff are committed to being reskilled. Based on the study, 26% of education leaders felt that workers have no interest to reskill, but only 11% of staff had no interest.

“Education management needs to better understand their staff and prioritize reskilling efforts to address skills shortage. Only then, are they able to bring their respective institutions forward into an AI future, and achieve better student outcomes,” shared Nelson.

The 6th Edition of Asian Summit on Education & Skills (ASES) Commences in Bangalore

Key Highlights

* The summit is an Asian chapter of the annual Education World Forum in London
* India's only annual Leadership & Ministerial event dedicated to the Education & Skills sector in Asia
* Hosted by Department of Education, Government of Karnataka
* Organised by IDA along with MHRD, NITI Aayog, MSDE
* Ministers & Ministerial delegations from over 15 countries converging in this year’s edition

India Didactics Association (IDA), the exclusive membership association in India for the education & training fraternity has organised the 6th edition of the Asian Summit on Education & Skills (ASES) in Bangalore on 23rd September 2019. The event was presided over by C. N. Ashwath Narayan, Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka and current Minister of Higher Education, Information Technology & Biotechnology and Science & Technology in the Government of Karnataka and Aditya Gupta, CEO, India Didactics Association (IDA).

The summit was organised with an objective to offer an insight and inspiration from leading education pioneers, policy makers and education experts. The theme of this year’s ASES is ‘What should we do with what we know? Agency, Communities and Technology. ASES brought together the Ministers & Ministerial delegations from over 15 countries on this platform to exchange the dialogues on the challenges and opportunities which lies in the education and skill sector in the Asian countries.

C. N. Ashwath Narayan, Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka and current Minister of Higher Education, Information Technology & Biotechnology and Science & Technology in the Government of Karnataka said “I extend a warm welcome to the Ministers, Excellencies and eminent education leaders on behalf of the people and government of Karnataka. We would like to appreciate and recognise the contribution of India Didactics Association in the field of education.  The need of the hour is to address the challenges that persist particularly in the field of education sector. It is important to empower the youth with the opportunities and provide them the platform as quality education is imperative for the betterment of the society. I feel honoured and privileged to extend all the cooperation to India Didactics Association to make a difference in the field of education.”

Aditya Gupta, CEO, India Didactics Association said, "As our education system is taking a quantum leap towards Education 4.0, India is witnessing a paradigm shift in the way teachers and students are assimilating information. At present over half of India’s population is under the age group of 25 years. The number of people in the age-group of 5-24 years (education seeking population) is likely to reach 478.8 million by 2020. With such a huge education seeking population, we need to encourage formulation of policies that would prepare these young brigades of India to be future ready with all sets of skills and innovative mindset using technology. ASES brings together policy makers and senior educators from across Asia and the world to discuss and address the latest trends and solutions prevalent in education sector. It also provides an opportunity for knowledge sharing and facilitates the policy development and its implementation.”

The event was hosted by Department of Education, Government of Karnataka and partnered by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), NITI Aayog, The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE). The other partners of the event include AICTE, NCERT and National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) apart from various Indian and international partners. The event saw participation from over 300 Ministers, Policy Makers & Senior Education Leaders from India and other Asian countries.

Bank of Baroda Launches National Digital Platform for Farmers

Bank of Baroda, India’s third largest lender, launched the Agri Digital Platform - “Baroda Kisan” for farmers across the nation, on September 21, 2019. Mr. P S Jayakumar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of Baroda launched the app in the presence of the Executive Director of the Bank Mr. Vikramaditya Singh Khichi, Mr. B R Patel, Agriculture and Financial Inclusion, General Manager (Chief Co-ordination), senior officers of the Head/Regional Office of Bank of Baroda and others. Farmers, women members of self-help groups and other villagers also attended the function in huge number.

The national Agri Digital Platform – “Baroda Kisan” is a powerful platform to fulfill various needs of farmers.  It is a web-based portal which is easily accessible on mobiles.  The mobile platform will use the existing feature of M Connect Plus mobile application as a landing page.  It is envisaged on an information technology based platform that will fully cater to all the major needs of farmers. These include notification, weather forecast, crop conditions, soil moisture, information on crop worms, market prices, special crop-related consultation, inputs for purchase (e.g. seeds, fertilizers, pesticides), agricultural equipment on rent, consultancy services and innovative financing options for the sale of agricultural products etc. Some of these services also supported by advanced technology such as advance prediction, advance analysis, grading of crops based on image sensing, advance information about pests etc.  Gradually this platform will cover various services in a phased manner. This platform has been started from Gujrat.

In addition to the launch of Agri Digital Platform- "Baroda Kisan", various other activities were also launched at the event.  These included launch of the centralized processing of agriculture proposals, for farmers across the country, which have been set up the bank at two places – Gandhinagar and Hyderabad, launch of loan scheme for construction/renovation of toilets and domestic drinking water facilities under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, launch of loan scheme for construction of houses in rural areas. 

Apart from this, loan acceptance letters and cheques were handed over to the farmers opting loans from the bank under various schemes of the bank such as Kisan Credit Card, Self Help Group, Dairy, Smartphones, Agricultural Equipments etc.  Cheques were also handed over to the beneficiaries of various social schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana.  Certificates were awarded to the trainees who have undergone training at RST institutions established by the Bank for unemployed youths to empower them for self-employment.  The programme concluded with vote of thanks by Shri P. Vinod Kumar Reddy, General Manager and Head, Agricultural Advance.

Students Expressed their Penchant for Science with Creative Essays

Students of St. Johns school Bangalore were in for an extravagant activity when they were asked to write essays on their thoughts on Mankind without science. With a strong gathering of more than 900 students of Std. 06th to 10th, competition was bustling with pool of creative talent who expressed their novel ideas through essays

The essay writing competition was organized in line with the ongoing “Vigyan Samagam”, a one-of-a-kind first ever mega science exhibition in India, jointly promoted by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Mumbai, Department of Science & Technology (DST), New Delhi along with National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata. The students were briefed on the theme and objective of Vigyan Samagam before the competition. The students were also guided to explore the website, app and social media handles of Vigyan Samagam to know more about the exhibition, projects displayed so that they can pursue their interest in science.

After going through a huge number of entries, a panel consisting of eminent personalities from the scientific fraternity picked up the winners of the competition. Khushi of Std 10th won the first prize, for her innovative thoughts and interesting content. Aarthi Kumari B and Pavithra P, of Std 10th and 9th respectively, were adjudged as first and second runners up for their wonderful participation.

The Principal of the school Asil Arasi said that any kind of unique initiative would always encourage students to follow their creative mindsets. And especially with this activity, students know about the nuances of essay writing on science

The judges too were astonished at the response and appreciated students’ writing abilities. They too enthusiastically interacted with students to understand more about their novel thoughts on science.

The representatives from the organizers of Vigyan Samagam distributed informative material to the students and teachers. The material included hands on information about Vigyan Samagam, the projects displayed at the ongoing exhibition.

Many initiatives and activities are being taken across other schools in Bangalore in a phased manner to promote Vigyan Samagam. The key motive of arranging this mega science exhibition is to demonstrate the technical ability and scientific acumen of Indian Scientists in global mega science projects like CERN, LIGO, SKA, TMT, INO, FAIR and ITER.