Microsoft India Announces The General Availability Of Power Automate Desktop For Windows 10

Microsoft has announced that its Power Automate Desktop solution will be generally available to Windows 10 users in India at no additional cost. Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10 is a new low-code, Robotic Process Automate (RPA) application that empowers businesses to automate repetitive and manual tasks and focus on higher-value work to achieve more. An easy to use application, it enables both coders and non-coders alike to optimize their workflows - from simple data transfers to complex business processes. The solution is part of the Microsoft Power Automate Service.

In a dynamic business environment, organizations are looking for ways to be more productive and drive faster time to value while delivering more strategic and innovative thinking. Repetitive tasks, when managed manually, consume the finite hours in each workday and impact the productivity of employees and organizations. By bringing RPA to Windows 10 users, businesses can empower their knowledge-workers to focus on strategic tasks to deliver higher value to customers. Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10 can also minimize human errors, simplify workflows, reduce maintenance effort and cost, and improve scalability while ensuring security.

Commenting on the announcement, Praveen Mellacheruvu, Business Lead – Business Applications, Microsoft India, said, “In the new dynamic and competitive remote reality, democratization of technology is a major focus of Microsoft to increase productivity of organizations and individuals. With Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10, we are making it possible to automate processes in a logical, clear, simple way without the need to write a single line of code. By bringing robotic process automation to Windows 10, everyone across an organization can collectively focus on work that makes a difference for the bottom line.” 

The RPA capabilities of Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10 streamline workflows across modern and legacy applications on desktop by recording actions such as mouse and keyboard clicks. It records repetitive actions from desktop across multiple applications such as SharePoint, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, and many third-party applications—as well as websites, and then lets users replay the automation whenever needed. With the solution, users can also automate collection of data across multiple sources—such as a database, webpages, Excel files, PDFs, and more—to auto generate a report based on requirements.

To enable customers to leverage the capabilities of Power Automate Desktop for Windows 10, Microsoft offers the Attended RPA plan. The solution enables automation across the organization making it easier to share and collaborate across flows and access more than 400 built-in connectors through cloud flows. Democratization of RPA is further facilitated by identification of bottlenecks in business processes with process advisor (preview), extraction of data from documents in AI Builder, and management and control of flows with centralized governance.

Power Automate Desktop is available worldwide in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired Softomotive, a London-based RPA solutions provider, to expand low-code, robotic process automation capabilities in Microsoft Power Automate, strengthening the ability for anyone to automate processes. Microsoft Power Automate service is being used by more than 350,000 organizations worldwide to build and deploy custom, end-to-end business solutions using low-code solutions.

Microsoft first introduced RPA in Power Automate at Microsoft Ignite in 2019 and has seen tremendous growth with hundreds of thousands of organizations using Power Automate and taking billions of actions each month. Windows 10 users can harness the power of low-code RPA by downloading Power Automate Desktop on March 2, and it will be included in Windows Insider Preview builds in the coming weeks.

About Microsoft Power Platform and Power Apps

Microsoft Power Platform is a low code platform that allows organizations to analyze data, build solutions, automate processes, and create virtual agents, to meet business challenges effectively.

Power Apps is Microsoft’s low code application development platform that spans Azure, M365 and D365 as well as stand-alone applications, empowering everyone, whether a citizen developer, an IT admin or a Pro Dev to collaborate and solve business problems and innovate faster.

About Microsoft India:

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Today, Microsoft entities in India have over 13,000 employees, engaged in sales and marketing, research, development and customer services and support, across 11 Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, New Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. Microsoft offers its global cloud services from local data centers to accelerate digital transformation across Indian startups, businesses, and government organizations.

LTTS’ Annual Open Innovation Initiative TECHgium® Concludes With Record-Breaking Participation Of Engineering Students

* Over 22,500 students from 354 engineering institutes competed to solve real-life business problems

L&T Technology Services Limited (BSE: 540115, NSE: LTTS), a global leading pure play engineering services company, announced the winners of its annual open innovation initiatives for engineering students, TECHgium®. For the first time held under the virtual mode, the fourth edition of TECHgium® saw record-breaking participation thereby placing the forum as one of the most sought-after by engineering students in India to gain exposure to solving real-life business challenges.

Over 22,500 engineering students from 354 reputed institutes participated in this year’s edition as compared to corresponding figures of 19,000 and 272 in 2019. The participation from faculty members witnessed an even higher surge with numbers jumping from 1,030 to 2,363.

The team from Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai was declared as winners of the TECHgium® 4th edition for developing a solution that can blur personal information in vehicles. The runners up comprised of students from Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Coimbatore for their work on Energy Efficient Defrosting method for Evaporators. The team from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore won the third prize for their concept on Sewage Coagulation using Co-Culture of Bacteria.

TECHgium® is designed to usher in a new generation of engineers with skills and capabilities prized by the industry, enabling them to solve myriad engineering challenges and in the process enhance their career prospects and augment LTTS’ solutions practice.

Dr Keshab Panda, CEO & Managing Director, L&T Technology Services, commented, ‘The engineering services landscape in India is poised to be the sunshine sector for years to come and one key critical element for this to materialize is availability of a robust and wide talent pool of budding technologists. Our TECHgium® open innovation platform is an important step towards this as it aims to provide bright engineering minds an opportunity to gain exposure into real life business challenges. We are thankful to all the students, faculty members and institutes who have helped us achieve new milestones during this latest season of TECHgium®.”

TECHgium®’s successful fourth edition saw 61 innovative PoCs on real life technical challenges pertaining to domains such as AI, Compute Vision, 5G, Ergonomics, and Sustainability, covering major industries including Automotive, Plant Engineering, Telecommunications & Hi-Tech and Industrial & Consumer Products.

Conceptualized in 2017, TECHgium® has established itself as a forum increasingly sought after by the engineering student’s community. Student participation in LTTS’ popular platform increased by 221% since inception. The TECHgium® platform is also used as an avenue to hunt talent for hiring needs and to offer internships.

The winning teams are facilitated with awards worth over ₹15 lacs with additional benefits such as continuation of work on the PoCs of interest, pre-placement offer and recognition by reputed industry professionals.

About L&T Technology Services Ltd

L&T Technology Services Limited (LTTS) is a listed subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Limited focused on Engineering and R&D (ER&D) services. We offer consultancy, design, development and testing services across the product and process development life cycle. Our customer base includes 69 Fortune 500 companies and 53 of the world’s top ER&D companies, across industrial products, medical devices, transportation, telecom & hi-tech, and the process industries. Headquartered in India, we have over 16,000 employees spread across 17 global design centers, 28 global sales offices and 62 innovation labs as of December 31, 2020. 

International Tuberculosis Symposium On World TB Day, March 24

Each year, World Tuberculosis (TB) Day is obsered on March 24 to raise public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of TB and to step up efforts to end the global TB epidemic. TB remains one of the world's deadliest infectious killers. Each day, nearly 4000 lose their lives to TB, and close to 28,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. The theme of World TB Day 2021 is 'The Clock is Ticking'. It is high time that we bring back the much-needed attention to TB, despite the COVID pandemic, to not lose the gain achieved over the last decade. In connection with World Tuberculosis Day, Manipal McGill Program for Infectious Diseases, MAHE, Manipal, Department of Infectious Diseases, KMC Manipal & Mayo Clinic Center Tuberculosis, USA organised a Virtual International Symposium on Tuberculosis om March 24, 2021.

Dr Sharath Rao, Dean, KMC Manipal welcomed the gathering.  Dr Kavitha Saravu, the Coordinator of MAC ID and Head of Infectious disease, gave the introduction of the symposium. The Conference was inaugurated by our Chief Guest, the Vice-Chancellor. Lt. Gen. (Dr) M D Venkatesh. The MACID newsletter 'Contagion' was released by the guest of honour, the Pro Vice Chancellor of MAHE, Dr PLNG Rao. He wished the best for the deliberations. Dr T S Murali, Associate Professor, Dept. of Biotechnology, Manipal School of Life Sciences, proposed the vote of thanks.

The program's organising chairpersons were Dr Kavitha Saravu, Dr Madhukar Pai, Director McGill International TB Centre McGill University Canada and Dr Zelalem Temesgen, Director, HIV Program & Director, Mayo Clinic Center for Tuberculosis Division of Infectious Disease Mayo Clinic, USA.

Dr Claudia Denkinger, Head of Division, Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany, took an insightful lecture on 'Advances in Molecular TB Diagnostics'. She discussed alternative methods for sampling and newer molecular diagnostics for improved and faster detection of TB. Dr Mahadev Rao, Professor & Head, Dept. of Pharmacy Practice, MCOPS, MAHE, Manipal, took an exciting session on 'Precision therapy for TB: The way forward.' He shared the results of the extensive research that he has done on this topic in Manipal. Dr Guy Thwaites, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Director, Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU), Vietnam, delivered a passionate talk on 'TB meningitis: Improving the treatment outcomes'. He threw light on the most challenging aspects of the diagnostics and TB management of the brain. Dr C Padmapriyadarsini, Director / Scientist F (Medical), National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis [ICMR] Chennai, delivered an enlightening lecture on 'MDR TB: New regimens and advances' with special emphasis on the use of these regimens in Indian settings. Dr Dick Menzies, Director, McGill International TB Centre, Canada, took the concluding talk on 'Latent TB Infection in high-burden settings: To treat or not to treat?' and discussed a vital aspect of TB prevention.

Khatabook Acquires Biz Analyst In A Strategic Move To Strengthen Tech Offerings For MSMEs

* ‘Biz Analyst’ to operate as a distinct brand and offer premium value-added services to customers 

* Acquisition is a part of Khatabook’s ongoing efforts on monetization and growth

* The platform will enable Khatabook’s MSME customers to digitize operations for business growth by leveraging business analytics, sales force automation and digital invoicing

India's fastest growing fintech start-up, Khatabook, today announced the acquisition of Biz Analyst, a leading SaaS business management application, in a deal worth USD 10 million as a mix of cash and equity. With this acquisition, Khatabook aims to leapfrog into the next phase of growth and offer its customer base of over 10 million monthly active merchants an opportunity to scale up their businesses by utilizing premium value-added services. Creating a closer integration with their upstream supply chains -- distributors, wholesalers, traders, and suppliers -- Khatabook users can now seamlessly avail additional features to improve their efficiency through business analytics, sales force automation and digital invoicing.

Launched in late 2016, Biz Analyst is a cash flow positive business providing solutions to SMEs using Tally accounting software to automate daily business operations and make data-driven decisions to manage sales, inventory, outstandings and productivity. The company has achieved consistent growth and currently has over 80,000 paid users. Biz Analyst, now as a part of Khatabook, aims to double the user base in 2021 and create bigger opportunities for the network of its 1000+ channel partners.

The Biz Analyst team will continue to run independently, retaining Mumbai operations while maintaining synergies with the Khatabook headquarter in Bangalore. The original co-founding team of Biz Analyst Vaibhav Vasa, Mehul Sutariya, and Nilesh Zaveri will now be a part of Khatabook’s leadership team.

The acquisition is in line with Khatabook’s continued efforts to drive meaningful change and solve complex problems in-house through technology and focus on building the right infrastructure to empower MSMEs in the country. Utilizing Khatabook’s core strength, Biz Analyst’s tech solutions will potentially reach a widespread and massive network of MSMEs spanning almost every district in India. The tech and product development efforts will be scaled up while streamlining hiring and talent development under the Khatabook structure.

Commenting on this, Ravish Naresh, CEO and Co-founder, Khatabook said, “This deal is our first strategic acquisition as we intensify our network effects up the supply chain and focus on monetization. The features and strengths that Biz Analyst offers are the perfect extension to our present business portfolio. The acquisition is a step forward for Khatabook in its mission to provide business efficiency to India’s MSMEs through value-added services.”

The founders of Biz Analyst, Vaibhav Vasa and Mehul Sutariya in a joint statement said, “We are thrilled to join forces with Khatabook, a company whose core values and mission resonate with ours. Together, we look forward to expanding the digital adoption by SMEs through our affordable SAAS solutions and connecting businesses across different verticals onto a single platform. As the new chapter in our growth journey unfolds, we are excited to create bigger and better opportunities for our team, for our partners, and most importantly, for our customers, by bringing in products that cater towards solving day-to-day challenges faced by them.”

Over the course of the last year, several MSMEs and kiranas have adopted technology to become more operationally resilient. Powering the digital transformation of the ecosystem, Khatabook platform recorded 1.4 billion+ transactions with a cumulative value of more than $100 billion. 

Medimix Launches 100% Natural, Anti-Bacterial And Skin Nourishing Hand Sanitizer Gel

Medimix the flagship brand from the renowned AVA group today announced the launch of its new range of Hand Sanitizer Gel. Medimix Hand Sanitizer Gel brings out the age-old goodness of Medimix in a unique hand sanitizing formulation.

Hand Sanitizers, unlike Hand Washes are generally not washed off from hands upon usage. Natural sanitizers are the best option to keep away from harsh chemicals which tends to dry-out the skin quickly. Medimix hand sanitizer gel brings the age old goodness of Medimix in a unique hand sanitizing formulation. It contains only 100% natural perfumes & moisturizers and is free from all types of artificial colouring agents, thus making Medimix Hand Sanitizer a safe solution.

Innovative combination and blend of natural ingredients including aloe vera, thulasi and natural glycerine are used; which has proven to have powerful anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties which offers 99.9% germ protection. The sanitizers will be available in 50 ml and 250 ml bottles and are priced at Rs.25 and Rs. 125 respectively.

Speaking about the offering Dr. AV. Anoop, Managing Director, AVA Group said, “Hand Sanitizers have become inevitable and an essential routine during this pandemic. We have come up with this new addition by bringing our time-tested learning together to cater to the changing preferences and needs of the hour. We are delighted to offer this unique natural blend of hand sanitizer gel which not only protects from germs but also nourishes your skin in every use.”

Medimix Hand Sanitizer Gel is available at all major retail outlets and e-commerce platforms.

About Medimix

Launched in the year 1969, Medimix is the flagship brand of AVA Group. Medimix manufactures a wide variety of skin care products ranging from soaps to hand washes. Medimix has been listed as one of the most trusted brands in India, owing to the finesse and quality maintained by the company in their products. With a vast experience of over 50 years in the field of traditional Ayurvedic science, Medimix brings the goodness of 18 natural herbs, thus providing its users with a healthy and glowing skin. Various products hailing from the Medimix brand include Medimix Classic Soap, Medimix Sandal Soap, Medimix Clear Glycerine-Deep Hydration Soap, Medimix Clear Glycerine-Oil Balance Soap, Medimix Clear Glycerine-Natural Toning Soap and Medimix Transparent Soap. Each of these products are made exclusively for different skin types. Medimix also manufactures hand washes which include Medimix Herbal Hand wash and Medimix Sandal Hand wash, each having the combined goodness of various Ayurvedic elements.

About AVA Group

Founded and developed to its renowned state by Dr. AV Anoop, who owns the production, manufacturing and marketing related activities of Medimix. Other ventures from the house of AVA group include Melam, Kaytra, Divine and Sanjeevanam. Melam is a venture that was taken midway by AVA group. Melam strives to provide its customers with new food experiences that amalgamate together with quality and hygiene. Kaytra presents a traditional and healthy solution to common hair problems. Kaytra products have been made with a combination of traditional herbs and flowers which are known to hold the key to a healthy scalp. Sanjeevanam is a natural healthcare center where every individual can experience a natural way of living and thus identify the need of a joyous existence. Sanjeevanam Ayurveda Hospital in Cochin, Kerala with NABH accreditation was the first Ayurveda hospital to receive the prestigious Diamond class certification from the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of Kerala. With a truly bespoke approach, upon arrival every guest will experience a consultation with Sanjeevanam’s impressive and experienced faculty of senior doctors. Divine is another skin care range born from the house of AVA.

Skullcandy Expands Fan Favourite Product Line With Premium Sound, Active Noise Cancelling Tech With Indy ANC

Skullcandy Inc., the original lifestyle audio brand, is unveiling exciting new addition to their most popular product family. 

Skullcandy’s best-selling product line, Indy True Wireless, is expanding to include Active Noise Canceling technology with Indy ANC. This will be the brand’s first true wireless earbud to feature the ANC technology. They also come enabled with Tile™, eliminating the fear of ever losing your device.

“Skullcandy products are always made with our fans in mind as we look to infuse new technologies in our headphones and earbuds,” said Amlan Bhattacharjya, CEO, Brand Eyes, Distributor of Skullcandy in India. “When it came to Indy ANC we listened — giving our most popular line the upgrades that customers have been wanting. We stand behind building quality products for every experience. Indy ANC do just that!”  

Following last year's release of the widely popular Indy franchise, Skullcandy is debuting their first Active Noise Canceling true wireless earbud, Indy ANC. The earbuds use Skullcandy Active Noise Cancelling technology with customizable Personal Sound via the Skullcandy App for a truly unique listening experience tailored to each user. The enhanced fit of Indy ANC, as well as ambient listening mode, provides more comfort and convenience with the ability to use each bud solo, giving the user full control. With up to 19 hours of total battery life with ANC on, IPX4 Sweat and Water Resistance, Lag-Free Connection, and a wireless charging case, Indy ANC combines the best features of the previous Indy earbuds to create the pinnacle true wireless experience. Indy ANC will be available for 10999/- in True Black. Pre-Orders available at Skullcandy.in from March 25th onwards.

About Skullcandy®

Skullcandy is the original lifestyle audio brand. Based in Park City, Utah, the company designs, markets and distributes audio products through a variety of global channels in some of the most important cultural hubs in the world. The company's website can be found at https://www.skullcandy.com. 

About Brand Eyes Distributors Pvt. Ltd. 

Brand Eyes distributes consumer electronic and telecom products into high street retail, online, mass merchant and B2B. We do more than just logistics we offer a comprehensive range of services to drive brand and channel growth across our markets. We excel in supply chain management within a broad range of channels and major retailers. Through constant analysis, we identify trends and spot market gaps making us the partner of choice for many of the world’s leading brands.

Infogain Launches Hiring Drive In Pune For Over 200 Tech Profiles By May 2021

Infogain, a Silicon Valley-based leader in human-centered digital platform and software engineering services, today announced its hiring plans for Pune, for the months of March, April and May 2021. The company plans to hire over 200 people in key tech profiles.

The organization is looking at adding talent across the board by hiring for a mix of entry, mid and senior level positions. The profiles on offer include DevSecOps profiles, Azure Cloud Engineers, Azure Data Engineers, .NET microservices developers, Azure IOT + .NET engineers, people experienced in Kubernetes and containers, test automation profiles, React developers and UI/UX resources, among others. Once enrolled, the new joinees will be taken through an on-boarding process that will include a briefing and training sessions as per the job role.  Like other IT services companies, most of Infogain Pune’s staff are currently working from home.

Infogain started its operations in Pune in 2008 with its acquisition of Spider Systems, and subsequently expanded operations in October 2019 with its acquisition of Silicus Technologies, a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP cloud transformation services company operating in Pune since 2005. With Silicus, Infogain expanded its Microsoft Azure capabilities driving business differentiation at scale through cloud-enabled innovation and modernization across apps, IoT, data, AI, and infrastructure solutions, across industries like Retail, Healthcare, Telecom and Energy (IoT).  The Pune facility is one of Infogain’s leading IoT and Azure technology centers in India. With this hiring drive, Infogain Pune center will add new talent to the current count of 500 employees in the next couple of months.

Ravindra Satyanarayana, Senior Vice President, Infogain said, “While 2020 brought a certain level of unpredictability in business, the IT sector showed great resilience and agility. Cloud transformation, while always inevitable, has become critical within a very short period. We are delivering cutting edge projects involving Cloud, IoT, and various other IT services at global brands, many of which have been clients for 5, 10 or even 15 years.” He added, “We have structured training programs to equip our teams with all the expertise they need to deliver great engineering outcomes for our clients. We are currently looking to hire both laterally as well as bring campus talent on board. 

To apply for Infogain’s open positions in Pune, candidates may apply on the Careers page of the official company website.

About Infogain

Infogain is a Silicon Valley-based company with human-centered digital platform and software engineering expertise.  Infogain ‘engineers business outcomes’ for Fortune 500 companies and digital natives across the technology, healthcare, insurance, travel, and retail industries.  We accelerate experience-led transformation and deliver digital platforms using technologies such as cloud, microservices, robotic process automation, IoT, and artificial intelligence.

Infogain is CMMI Level 5, ChrysCapital portfolio company and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Gold Partner and Azure Expert MSP, has offices in California, Washington, Texas, London, Poland, Dubai, India, and Singapore, with delivery centers in Seattle, Houston, Austin, Kraków, New Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, and Mumbai.