Credit Saison, Capital Float Join to Offer Digital Financing to SMEs

Credit Saison, one of Japan’s largest financial institutions, has partnered with Capital Float, India’s leading fintech NBFC, to deliver working capital financing to Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across India. The two companies have jointly developed a unique co-origination model through which they will both contribute capital to deliver last-mile credit to MSMEs across the country. MSMEs will be able to apply for these loans online and receive approvals within the quickest turnaround time in the industry, powered by Capital Float’s path-breaking technology and credit underwriting platform integrated with Credit Saison’s systems.

Kosuke Mori, Managing Director, Credit Saison Asia Pacific, said, “Credit Saison plans to invest significantly in India and build a loan book of US$1 billion in India over the next few years, a significant part of which will flow into the MSME sector. Our alliance with Capital Float – Credit Saison’s first SME-focused partnership in India – will be a formidable enabler for both entities to deploy a large portion of this capital towards the sector. We have also integrated closely at a technology stack and API level, enabling a seamless experience for the end-borrower.”

The partnership is also unique in that it will operate through a co-origination model. Co-lending of SME loans was pioneered by Capital Float, and has been encouraged by the Hon’ble Finance Minister as a game-changer for scaling up MSME lending. This partnership will be the first instance of a global lender teaming up with an Indian player to address this gap. Capital Float today manages the largest co-origination ecosystem in India.

Sashank Rishyasringa, Co-Founder, Capital Float, said, “Capital Float has already lent INR 8,500 Crore in digital credit across India; we plan to further lend INR 1,500 Crore to MSMEs in the next year, supported by this partnership. Together with Credit Saison, we continue to double-down on MSME segments where credit demand is severely underserved, with a particular focus on Tier 2 & 3 cities. Our focus will be on providing credit to small manufacturing & services firms, followed by small retailers using digital payment modes.”

The partnership between Credit Saison and Capital Float has gone live this month, with plans to scale up rapidly over the coming quarters.

Trend Micro Creates Factory Honeypot and Traps Malicious Attackers

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today announced the results of a six-month honeypot imitating an industrial factory. The highly sophisticated Operational Technology (OT) honeypot attracted fraud and financially motivated exploits.

The six-month investigation revealed that unsecured industrial environments are primarily victims of common threats. The honeypot was compromised for cryptocurrency mining, targeted by two separate ransomware attacks, and used for consumer fraud.

“Too often, discussion of cyber threats to industrial control systems (ICS) has been confined to highly sophisticated, nation-state level attacks designed to sabotage key processes. While these do present a risk to Industry 4.0, our research proves that more commonplace threats are more likely,” said Greg Young, vice president of cybersecurity for Trend Micro. “Owners of smaller factories and industrial plants should therefore not assume that criminals will leave them alone. A lack of basic protections can open the door to a relatively straightforward ransomware or cryptojacking attack that could have serious consequences for the bottom line.”

To better understand the attacks targeting ICS environments, Trend Micro Research created a highly realistic, industrial prototyping company. The honeypot consisted of real ICS hardware and a mix of physical hosts and virtual machines to run the factory, which included several programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human machine interfaces (HMIs), separate robotic and engineering workstations and a file server.

Trend Micro urges smart factory owners to minimize the number of ports they leave open and to tighten access control policies, among other cybersecurity best practices. In addition, implementing cybersecurity solutions designed for factories, like those offered by Trend Micro, can help further mitigate the risk of attack.

Accenture, Qualcomm Collaborate with InterContinental Hotels Group to Pilot Extended Reality Solution to Transform Event Planning

Accenture and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. have collaborated with InterContinental Hotels Group to pilot a solution that uses augmented and virtual reality to reinvent the event planning experience.

Developed by the Accenture Extended Reality (XR) practice, in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, the XR Event Planner solution places event planners, buyers and hotel sales staff side-by-side in a virtual reconstruction of an event space, allowing them to remotely envision and configure the layout in real-time. Piloted at InterContinental® Los Angeles Downtown, the proof-of-concept recreates the hotel’s iconic Hollywood Ballroom in 3D, including accurate reflections of architectural features, layout, lighting, carpet design, table settings and fabric patterns. Users can modify room layouts, toggle between table and chair configurations, stage placement, decorations and lighting—all while collaborating remotely and adding notes for colleagues or the hotel set-up crew.

The solution represents an important step toward addressing challenges within the meetings and events industry, a $330 billion annual market in the U.S. alone. Currently, booking event spaces can be a slow and expensive undertaking, requiring event planners to scout geographically distant locations. The lengthy timeframe to close a sale results not only in lost opportunities, but also increased booking costs for both property owners, event planners and end buyers. Feedback from focus group testing and market analysis that Accenture conducted shows that the XR Event Planner could increase hotel revenue by up to eight percent. In addition, hoteliers estimate it could reduce sales cycle time, decrease booking costs and improve brand loyalty and brand affinity, particularly with millennials.

“Collaborating with Accenture and Qualcomm Technologies on the XR Event Planner pilot has demonstrated the power of augmented and virtual reality technologies in hotels,” said Jeff Edwards, senior vice president, Global Hotel & Owner Solutions, InterContinental Hotels Group. “This tool equips hotels, such as InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, to close event sales even faster and increase productivity, while simultaneously helping clients experience event spaces without having to travel, in a new, dynamic way that brings the event to life during the planning process.”

Designed to be used across multiple devices, including mobile phones and tablets, the pilot solution extends the traditional consumer digital journey from smartphone AR to a more immersive head worn device, including Nreal AR glasses and HTC Vive Focus Plus VR headsets – both powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ Platform.

Raffaella Camera, global head, Innovation & Market Strategy, Accenture Extended Reality, said, “The Accenture XR practice is continuously exploring ways to reimagine how people and organizations alike interact with the world around them through the latest immersive technologies. Our XR Event Planner is a prime example of this principle in action, with the potential to fundamentally transform how the event planning industry operates.”

As a strategic initiative of Accenture, the Accenture Extended Reality (XR) practice uses human-centered design principles, deep industry knowledge, global scale, and expertise in combinatorial technologies such as AI and IoT, to help global 2000 companies imagine, create and deliver impactful XR experiences to unlock new business value.

Brian Vogelsang, senior director of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc, added, “Qualcomm Technologies invents the technologies and tools that transform industries and lives. We believe that XR has the potential to revolutionize the enterprise and we’re proud to work with Accenture and InterContinental Hotels Group to bring the benefits of immersive computing to the event planning industry by harnessing the power of our Qualcomm Snapdragon Platform.”

Qlik Acquires RoxAI to Extend Qlik Sense’s AI Capabilities with Advanced Alerting and Intelligent Automation

Qlik has announced the acquisition of RoxAI and its Ping intelligent alerting software to deliver actionable, self-service alerting and workflow automation capabilities that enhance analytics users’ and systems’ ability to proactively monitor and manage their business data in real-time to make faster, insight-driven decisions.

Organizations are looking to accelerate business value through data. However, data is always changing. Ping’s self-service intelligent alerts, integrated with Qlik’s leading analytics platform, can immediately notify users through mobile, email and social channels of material changes in their data and the context, triggering decisions and actions immediately. And with Ping, any user can design and create their own advanced alerts around their own use cases – based on their existing dashboards and data – without needing a developer or administrator.

“The limitation of most analytical dashboards and applications is that you have to go there to know what’s happening, or what’s changed,” said Mike Capone, Qlik CEO. “What we need is full cycle integration between changes in the data, to analytics, to alerts and notifications that are immediately sent downstream to users or other systems. The combination of Qlik Data Integration, Qlik Data Analytics, and now RoxAI and Ping will provide customers with a real-time intelligence loop that drives actions.”

Modern data analytics encompasses an entire workflow, from initial data preparation and integration (Qlik Data Integration), to AI-driven insights (Qlik Sense®), to sharing and operationalizing findings. With Qlik Insight Bot™, Qlik already augments the user’s ability to explore data within their workflow via conversational analytics. With RoxAI and Ping, Qlik expands the ability to deliver real-time, data-driven insights for action where and when it can make a difference to business success.

In the future Qlik plans to integrate Ping with workflow and robotic process automation (RPA) solutions through APIs that will further accelerate business value of customer data. Further, enhancements are planned to include the capability for “proximity-based alerts”, where, for example, an online shopping vendor can automatically alert a regional manager with performance insights when they arrive at a store location.

Ping can augment analytics user’s intelligence through:

* Self-service alert design and creation directly within their analytics dashboard
* Advanced managed alerting based on statistical trending and outlier evaluation
* Predetermined or ad-hoc sharing of alerts with colleagues directly from mobile or email
* Time-based trend evaluation with a historical repository of metrics data
* Guided live data exploration via mobile or desktop based on alerts that go beyond initial data reports to drive immediate action

“As data is democratized, users want to not only understand data, but use it in real-time to manage their business by exception and automate business workflows,” said Ranjit Bahia, Founder of RoxAI. “We’re excited about the opportunity for Qlik’s analytics user base to now benefit from intelligent alerts that drive action.”

RoxAI and Ping are well known to the Qlik ecosystem as an existing partner, and as a Trusted Extension Developer (TED) accredited solution, users know it is validated by Qlik for quality and functionality, leveraging Qlik’s open API framework. Ping is also already in deployment at multiple Qlik customers such as Benjamin Moore & Co., who are seeing the positive impact on their ability to get more value from their data that lives in Qlik.

Ping is available today and will be packaged as a Qlik value-added solution in the first half of 2020. By integrating these capabilities with Qlik Cloud Services and triggering workflows within 3rd party automation technologies, Qlik will deliver the most robust end-to-end solution to accelerate business value from data.

About Qlik

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, one where everyone can use data to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. Only Qlik offers end-to-end, real-time data integration and analytics solutions that help organizations access and transform all their data into value. Qlik helps companies lead with data to see more deeply into customer behavior, reinvent business processes, discover new revenue streams, and balance risk and reward. Qlik does business in more than 100 countries and serves over 50,000 customers around the world.

Kaspersky Reports Fall in Cybersecurity Threat Incidents in Indian Market for 2019

Kaspersky in a recent media event in Bangalore stated that India has shown positive progress in their fight against cybercriminals. The Country reportedly saw a fall in the number of threats in 2019 as compared to 2018. According to Kaspersky's KSN reports; from 2018 and 2019 there has been a moderate decrease in the number of attacks targeted at India.

38.8 percent of the overall Indian Kaspersky users were attacked at least once by web-based attacks in 2019 as compared to 2018 when it was 40.4 percent. These threats include file-less malware, social engineering attacks and other attacks that were targeted through the world wide web. The total number of unique threats detected by Kaspersky products in the year 2019 was 142,250,268.

The local threats or local infections detected in India by Kaspersky products in 2019 were around 231,142,762, bringing the country on the 69th rank worldwide as compared to 2018 when the attacks detected were 297,477,131 and India was in the 47th place worldwide. These attacks usually happen due to major spreading of malware via removable USB drives, CDs and DVDs, and other "offline" methods.

India also ranks 14th worldwide in the number of attacks caused by servers that were hosted in India, which accounts for 8,064,950 incidents in the year 2019.

Mr. Dipesh Kaura, General Manager for South Asia, Kaspersky said, "In my opinion cybersecurity is the most troubling area for any large enterprise. With Kaspersky's comprehensive portfolio of cybersecurity solutions, we are in a position to help organisations to mitigate or respond to any kind of dynamic threats. We want to strengthen our position as a security solutions partner rather than just a point product organisation. The plan is to create more awareness, more mindshare, and dependability on Kaspersky. We also have a very robust plan to engage with our channel partners so that we can work together to combat cyber threats and build a safer world together."

Mr. Saurabh Sharma, Senior Security Researcher, Global Research and Analysis Team Asia Pacific (GReAT APAC) said, "In India, we did see a decrease in the number of adware and malware attacks, however, there has been a huge increase in Riskware attacks from 28 percent in 2018 to 39 percent in 2019. The presence of riskware on your machine will allow threat actors to use that legitimate application for malicious purpose."

Kaspersky has recorded incidents in which legitimate, remote administration programs - such as WinVNC, which has been secretly installed in order to obtain full remote access to a computer. Other examples of riskware include file downloader, software for monitoring computer activity and internet server services - such as FTP, web, proxy, and telnet.

Because there may be legitimate reasons why Riskware is present on your computer, antivirus solutions may not be able to determine whether a specific item of Riskware represents a threat to you. Kaspersky's products let you decide whether you wish to detect and remove Riskware:

Detecting and removing Riskware: There can be many reasons why you suspect that a Riskware program, that has been detected by Kaspersky's antivirus engine, is posing a threat. For example, if you didn't consent to the installation of the program and you don't know where the program came from, or if you've read a description of the program on Kaspersky's website and you now have concerns over its safety. In such cases, Kaspersky's antivirus software will help you to get rid of the Riskware program.

Choosing not to detect Riskware: For cases where Riskware programs are detected, but you're confident that these are programs that you have consented to, you may decide that the Riskware programs are not harming your devices or data. Kaspersky products let you disable the option to detect these programs - or let you add specific programs to a list of exceptions - so that the antivirus engine doesn't flag this Riskware as malicious.

Pesto Tech Launches Pesto Remote - Democratises Learning for Working Professionals

Highlights

* The programme runs for 16 weeks and requires two years of relevant work experience in software engineering
* Developed following the success of Pesto’s Residency programme, to scale its offerings on a pan-India level
* Designed to teach advanced coding skills in conjunction with soft and people skills and leadership attributes
* No upfront charges for the programme. Instead, candidates pay a percentage of their future income only after making more than 1.5x to 2x their current income

Pesto Tech, the homegrown edu-tech company redefining Indian engineering careers, today announced the launch of Pesto Remote, the online version of their pioneering upskilling programme. Through this addition to its academic repertoire, Pesto will now provide its next-level learning, development, and skills solutions to candidates across the country from the convenience of their homes. The newly launched program is another step towards Pesto mission of enabling global pay parity and borderless opportunities for Indian engineers.

Pesto operates on a unique Income Sharing Agreement model (ISA) and charges a zero fee upfront. Once a student has completed the programme and embarked upon a career of their choosing, they pay 17 percent of their monthly income for a maximum period of 36 months. Thus far, more than 1.1 lakh developers signed up on the platform for its Residency and Pro programmes from across India, with only 123 engineers making the cut. Graduates have gone on to secure jobs with top tech startups including Rippling, Swiggy, and many other YC companies, with the average salary being north of 30 lakhs. Pesto’s residency program gives it’s students an average 5x increase in their salaries with pay packages going as high as 65 lakhs per annum.

Pesto Remote has been co-created by the Pesto team and its graduates as well as with feedback from the engineering community. The aim was to create a program that not only addresses the challenges for Indian engineers but develop a customised learning experience aligned to their convenience. This has been an endeavour in line with Pesto’s mission to break boundaries and open the opportunities the program offers to everyone.

“Pesto was founded for one purpose – upskilling India’s five million software engineers and giving them access to borderless job opportunities. The launch of Pesto Remote has taken us a step closer to that goal. Through this programme, we’re excited at the chance to connect with talent across India, and help an even wider swathe of the engineering community fully realise and utilise their innate potential,” said Ayush Jaiswal, Co-Founder and joint CEO of Pesto Tech, at the launch.

So far under the confines of the residency program, Pesto grads had to leave their jobs and move to Pesto training centres for a 12-week intensive training limiting the scale of each batch and the access for engineers pan India. Pesto Remote solves for this by expanding Pesto’s offering for the engineers across the country further incentivises candidates by removing the need to travel to Pesto's training hub in New Delhi. This allows working professionals the opportunity to participate at zero opportunity cost, offering a true democratisation of the system. The programme will run for 16 weeks and will be delivered via a mix of live classes and self-paced learning modules with group discussions and personalised mentoring. The first batch is scheduled to begin on the 29th of February, 2020. Open to software engineers with over two years of relevant experience, the course is divided into two core sections:

Weeks 1 to 6 consist of Advanced Web Engineering and will cover topics such as Javascript, git, functional programming, test-driven development, continuous dev and integration, accessibility, and clean code, among others

Weeks 7 to 16 will serve as a Deep Dive into Advanced JavaScript, React, Node, Mongo, and Redux Independent. This section will bring candidates on par with international standards

Additionally, the programme offers optional modules on Open Source Apprenticeship and Live Product Development to eligible candidates. These will allow students the opportunity to practice their skills and work alongside domain experts on live projects. By engaging online through a combination of live lectures, group discussions, and practical assignments designed and prepared by Pesto’s faculty, participants will learn to develop and showcase their talent as world-class full-stack engineers.

Founded in 2018, Pesto Tech is an intensive training program dedicated to empowering India’s top software engineers and giving them access to borderless job opportunities. What Pesto offers is a 12-week program enabling young engineers with a lifelong upskilling strategy and a strong community of alumni. They train experienced software engineers by connecting them to mentors from renowned brands from India and the US. It helps software engineers in India break into international tech careers via full-time remote jobs resulting in a career leap worthy of their skills and qualifications. 

Manipal Hospitals Bangalore Successfully Performed India’s First Bentall Operation

Manipal Hospitals Bengaluru the foremost multi-specialty healthcare provider committed to clinical excellence and patient care performed Bentall operation successfully for a  Jehovah witness patient 43 year old Mr. Uwen from Nigeria this month for the first time in Asia. A team of Cardio Thoracic Vascular and Heart Transplant Surgeons, Dr. Devananda NS, HOD & Consultant -  Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery and Heart Transplant , Dr. Murali Krishna, Consultant - Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery and Heart Transplant  and Dr. Lalchand H Bangadi, Consultant Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery and Heart Transplant of Manipal Hospitals Bangalore conducted this procedure.

Mr Uwen, 43-year-old Geophysicist from Nigeria was excessively getting tired of physical exertion for last couple of years. It worsened so much over the last 2 years that he has to voluntarily quit his job. When investigated, he was found to have severe leakage of aortic valve (one of the main valve of the heart) leading to severe enlargement of his heart, producing heart failure. He was put on heart failure medication and asked to undergo change of the aortic valve at the earliest.

Being a person of Jehovah faith, who do not accept any blood or blood product transfusion, it was difficult for him to find a surgeon who would accept him for surgery. When he got in touch with Jehovah community in India, he was directed to Dr. Devananda NS, HOD & Consultant, Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery, Manipal Hospitals Bangalore who has experience in treating several Jehovah patients for heart surgery.

Sharing more details on the case, Dr. Devananda NS, HOD & Consultant - Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery, Heart Transplant, Manipal Hospitals Bangalore, “Mr. Uwen, was reinvestigated at Manipal Hospital. In addition to aortic valve leak with heart enlargement, he was also found to have gross enlargement of aortic root and early part of his aorta, medically called “annuloaortic ectasia. This condition requires not only replacement of the aortic valve, but also replacement of the entire aortic root (Bentall Operation). This is a complicated operation and doing it without blood on face of his poorly functioning heart (Ejection Fraction - 35%) which otherwise should have been 55% (in a normal person) was a challenge. After a coronary angiography, he was treated for 2 weeks with iron replacement and erythropoietin injections to build his hemoglobin from 13.5 gm/dL to 14 gm/dL. He underwent Bentall Operation on 03/01/2020, he had a smooth recovery and was discharged within 10 days with a hemoglobin of 10 gm/dL.”

In our knowledge, this happens to be the first case being reported in a Jehovah in India. However, Dr. Devananda NS, HOD & Consultant - Cardiothoracic Vascular Surgery  and Heart Transplant,  Manipal Hospitals Bangalore , who has performed heart surgeries in over a dozen of Jehovah patients from 3.5 kg child to adults says, ”This is the second time he has performed this operation in a Jehovah patient. Apart from meticulous planning the operation, good post-operative care is essential for successfully treating this challenging group of patients”.

Expressing his happiness on the treatment, Mr. Uwen Said, “I have recovered completely and now leading a happy and normal life all thanks to Dr. Devananda and team. The doctors have been supportive throughout the procedure and even my post-surgery follow-ups reports are good.  Grateful to the team that they took up this challenging surgery and at the same time keeping up with the sentiments of my belief and faith. I appreciate the efforts and commitment of the doctors.”