AI Consulting Firm - Affine’s Accelerator Program “Deep Camp” Goes Live!

Affine, a leading AI consulting firm, goes live with its Accelerator Program, “Deep Camp.”

Deep Camp is the first global accelerator launched by a pure-play analytics firm. The program will provide hands-on assistance to start-ups to improve their products and solutions, mentoring start-ups in the emerging and exciting areas of Industry4.0, IIoT, Gaming & Entertainment, Social Impact, among others.

Start-ups with interesting ideas can apply for the Deep Camp program starting 4th Aug. Application forms for the same are available on the Affine website. The selection process will include a review of applications by an esteemed panel, followed by a boot camp and an interview round. Selected start-ups will have the opportunity to network and learn from some of the most renowned global names in the technology industry, earn cloud credits from Affine’s partner- AWS, and co-sell opportunities with Azure.

“Our demonstrated expertise in deep tech has been instrumental in AI-led transformations of several Fortune-500 enterprises,” says Vineet Kumar, Co-founder, and Chief Solutions Architect, Affine. “Deep Camp will be the first deep tech accelerator to provide actual hands-on help up to 100 hours of AI model training, large scale engineering/cloud and deep domain knowledge through its multiple Centers of Excellence. This will help the selected start-ups vastly improve their solutions.”

“As an organization, Affine has always focused on driving meaningful impact in enterprises and society at large. With Deep Camp, our goal is to mentor and assist the budding tech start-ups on all aspects like business planning, GTM, finance & legal, HR, and marketing to become the future leaders” says Ashish Maheshwari, Head of Global Operations, Affine.

Affine also commits to up to $50,000 seed round investment apart from non-monetary benefits like office space, IT infra and cloud credits.

Ankit Agarwal, Head of Deep Camp, says that “Deep Camp is a unique initiative aiming to collaborate with emerging start-ups across the world. We have designed the program to facilitate start-ups with all that they need to grow and make a mark. We have created a program by integrating the experience of in-house experts and external consultants, capable of coaching startups in all aspects of their business. We hope to collaborate with start-ups who are genuinely seeking opportunities to grow and contribute to the thriving technology ecosystem across the world.”

The detailed press release is attached to this email. Kindly let us know if you require any further information or would like to interact with the spokespeople, we will be happy to facilitate the same. 

Transformation Of Pharma Supply Chain And Lessons Learned From The Pandemic And Future Of Medical Technologies

Authors of the byline

•                     Dr Adithya D Shetty, Assistant Professor - Senior Scale, Department of Commerce, Manipal Academy of Higher Education

•                     Dr D Sreedhar, Associate Professor Senior Scale, Department of Pharmacy Management, Manipal Academy of Higher Education

•                     Dr Sandeep S Shenoy, Head, Department of Commerce, Director, Compliance, Manipal Academy of Higher Education

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we witnessed the vulnerabilities of current supply chain models operated by industries and countries. It has forced the companies and countries to transform their supply chain for the benefit of their growth and economy. The logistics sector in India is said to be evolving keeping pace with the developed world. However, it is considered ineffective due to the lack of integration of transportation and the location of warehouses. The dearth of trained workforce, differences in regulations at national, state and district added fuel to the fire. One of the unique things about the Export-Import Policy of India is that it is updated every year and the amendments would come to effect 1st of April every year.

As we know that logistics are not restricted to just goods and services but also deals with the transportation of the required workforce. Any disruption in logistics leads to a stalemate of all the activities. It was evident from the cut-off of supplies from China. China being the world’s factory for many goods, short supplies were observed globally. Due to lockdown and restricted movement of vehicles, the supply of healthcare delivery has also been affected. Shortage in supplies of essential things like sanitizer, protective gear, medical equipment, medicines, testing kits, and vaccines have disrupted the smooth function of healthcare delivery in the country. However, direct measures were taken to tackle the pandemic with certain innovations in technologies and refining the supply chain models.

The covid-19 pandemic has fast-tracked innovation and has laid the foundation in transforming the healthcare sector. As we know technology is pervasive throughout healthcare delivery. The industry is progressing in every possible way to provide better services to patients virtually, by analyzing, predicting, and preventing diseases. The technologies are effective in providing rapid analytics that can be disseminated to rural or less populated areas and enhance the life expectancy of patients. Among the innovations provoking change, telemedicine, virtual health, cloud-based technologies, artificial intelligence, collaboration, and virtual reality have accelerated transformations in healthcare delivery. The introduction of telemedicine has made healthcare more convenient during the pandemic. It provides contactless online consultation for the patients and enabled the reach of healthcare to both the rural and urban population.

Therefore, telemedicine is one of the effective technologies which is providing medical aid during the Covid-19 pandemic uninterruptedly. Modern healthcare is focusing more on combining the internet of Things with telemedicine which helps the doctors to track and trace the variations of health patterns among the patients. Wearable smart devices which are connected through mobile apps are used to read the health history of the individuals and provide alert messages in case of health risk. The adoption of artificial intelligence has improved the quality of medical services. The technology brought in a new dimension to diagnose diseases, predict epidemic outbreaks, and improve operational efficiency by integrating the data and analyses. The information generated out of integrated data is used effectively to create better treatment plans.

Blockchain technology encrypts medical records and facilitates instant and secured access to data. Blockchain maintains a distributed ledger for all the transactions and provides real-time data support for the movement of drugs within the medical network. Hence the adoption of modern technologies in the healthcare industry reshapes the operational environment and increases productivity by extending the services through virtual mode and the impact of coronavirus has been felt across the globe and affected significantly all the sectors. The logistics landscape has changed and demanded robust technology that can sustain pandemics. Companies and countries that began investing in strengthening their supply chain will be best positioned on the global map.

PhonePe Launches UPI Based AutoPay For Mutual Fund SIP Investments

* Millions of PhonePe customers will now be able to set up their SIP in just a few seconds 

PhonePe, India’s largest digital payments company, today announced the launch of UPI based AutoPay functionality for it’s mutual fund investment offerings that will allow its customers to set up their Mutual Fund SIPs in just a few seconds. This makes PhonePe the first digital investment platform to introduce this feature in the country.

With UPI Autopay, PhonePe customers can set up their SIPs in just 3 steps: Select Fund, Input Monthly SIP Investment amount, and authenticate with UPI PIN making it a first of its kind experience for millions of users across India. It also furthers PhonePe’s vision to continually enhance the end-to-end customer experience while catering to their needs in building the investment portfolio of their choice. The SIP through UPI AutoPay option is available for all existing and new investors on the PhonePe app.

How to set up UPI AutoPay for Investments on PhonePe:

●     Click on the ‘Start a SIP’ icon in the investment section on the PhonePe app homepage.

●     Choose your investment style (from conservative/moderate/aggressive) and duration of investment (short/medium/long term)

●     Select a fund and enter the monthly investment amount

●     Enter your UPI PIN. to set up regular investments

Customers can also access the UPI Autopay feature when they opt for monthly SIPs through any of the Mutual Fund investment options available on PhonePe.

Olam Builds Hybrid Cloud With Nutanix To Connect Millions Of Farmers With Their Customers

* Hybrid Cloud Enables International Food and Agri-business to Drive Data-Driven Decisions Across Its Value Chain

Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, today said Olam International Ltd. transformed its global infrastructure by using the Nutanix Cloud Platform to run multiple digital platforms in a hybrid cloud environment that connects farmers and customers, and drives data-driven decisions across its value chain.

Olam is a leading food and agri-business, supplying food ingredients, feed and fibre to thousands of customers worldwide. The company works with millions of farmers, globally, for whom data on modern harvesting methods, demand situations, and real-time market prices is crucial to increasing profitability for their farming businesses.

“Cloud is the biggest boon for agribusinesses. Farmers need to juggle multiple variables and parameters to manage their yield and income, including weather situations and real-time demand.  In line with this, we launched three cloud-native digital platforms to provide our network of farmers with such data to help them make informed critical decisions,” said Mr. Thiagaraja Manikandan, President & Group CIO/CTO, Olam International. “Our efforts were made possible by the hyper-agile, scalable hybrid cloud environment we run with the help of the Nutanix Cloud Platform.”

Olam identified that digital technology had the potential to transform its business, beyond just improving operational efficiency. But it needed to deploy a software-defined solution because its legacy three-tier infrastructure did not have the capacity to withstand outage scenarios and meet performance needs, nor did it enable Olam to leverage disruptive technologies like machine learning or big data analytics. Using a hybrid cloud strategy, Olam is now able to maintain critical enterprise applications in its private cloud and use public cloud to connect its extended business ecosystem including farmers, suppliers, warehouses, factories, and logistics to customers.

“Olam’s legacy infrastructure was unable to adapt and support newer technologies. In short – it was out of date and of limited value, especially in the agribusiness which is dependent on real-time data across multiple touchpoints. Olam is now able to stay ahead of potential disruption with their end-to-end digital transformation - and with hybrid cloud, they are set to maximize the value of their private and public cloud investments,” said Faiz Shakir, Director, Sales, India and SAARC, Nutanix.

About Nutanix

Nutanix is a global leader in cloud software and a pioneer in hyperconverged infrastructure solutions, making clouds invisible, freeing customers to focus on their business outcomes. Organizations around the world use Nutanix software to leverage a single platform to manage any app at any location for their hybrid multicloud environments.

More Opportunities For Microsoft’s ISV Partners In Global Markets

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are a vital cog in Microsoft’s partner machinery. Recent Forrester studies have shown that when partners build with Microsoft, they are able to develop their solutions 50-75 percent faster and reduce their time to implementation by 85 percent. Forrester's study also shows that partners who sell with Microsoft increase their deal size up to 400 percent and experience greater than 100 percent year-over-year subscription growth in the first three years. Microsoft relies on the deep expertise of its ISV partners to develop the solutions that its customers need most. Hence, it is Microsoft’s top priority to provide the platform, the tools, and the resources its partners need to be successful.

To strengthen its investment in the ISV ecosystem and to simplify the go-to-market process, Microsoft has reduced its marketplace transaction fee from an industry-standard 20 percent to a flat three percent. This investment allows ISVs to unlock their customer base from the largest global enterprises to small and medium businesses, and it enables them to keep more of their margin while scaling globally. The Commercial Marketplace is leading the way in modern enterprise procurement and takes the complexity out of buying software while giving ISVs direct access to their customers. By shaving the transaction fee to just three percent, the Commercial Marketplace becomes the connector and driver for growth of ISVs.

Businesses have dramatically increased their use of Teams to support work-from-home scenarios – and are integrating apps for Teams to help boost productivity and efficiency beyond the usual Teams gains. Partners that have either integrated with or extended Teams capabilities are seeing increased revenues, greater usage, and lower costs. To help partners build and market apps for Teams and Viva, Microsoft has introduced a new set of benefits, including access to Microsoft technology, one-to-one consults with Microsoft experts to help partners design, and build collaborative applications and employee experience solutions—marketing resources to scale to new customers, and support to achieve co-sell status to increase visibility with more than 15,000 Microsoft field sellers. ISVs will also soon be able to sell their apps directly within Teams, offering new economic opportunities and providing a simplified experience for Teams IT admins to purchase apps and subscriptions directly from the Teams admin center on behalf of their organization.

Over 250,000 organizations are using Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform to run and transform their businesses, including 97 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. The momentum is equally strong in the ISV ecosystem, extending first-party apps, and building on the platform to create even more value for joint customers. To date, over 734 ISVs have enrolled in the biz apps ISV Connect program with over 1,472 apps certified. Key enhancements to the ISV Connect program ensure building on the shared success model that reinvests into partners with key technical, go-to-market, and co-sell benefits. Starting this October, there will be significant reduction in revenue sharing fees for ISV Connect aligned to the new commercial market fees of three percent. This simplified program will enable ISVs to accrue benefits faster, all while continuing to reach customers at scale through Microsoft AppSource and leverage the value of Microsoft’s marketing and selling engines.

With over 90,000 Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs), this is a massive channel for ISVs to instantly scale their application to new customers. ISVs will be able to create new private offers to CSPs and extend the margin to resellers—incentivizing resellers to sell their applications. Through the channel, ISVs can grow their business by expanding into new markets, without requiring a local presence, and acquire new customers through CSPs. In turn, CSPs can expand their catalog with new ISV solutions from the commercial marketplace and bundle their value-added services to provide customers end-to-end solutions to solve their business challenges. This creates stronger, better, partner-to-partner opportunities to help partners grow their business. This opportunity is in private preview and will be generally available for all ISVs and CSPs later this year.

Over 30,000 applications and services are included in the commercial marketplace catalog, with over four million shoppers engaging every month. The commercial marketplace is central to selling with Microsoft, whether that's directly through the digital store fronts, AppSource, and Azure Marketplace, through the channel of 90,000 resellers, with the global sales force of over 15,000 sellers, or going to market jointly with IP co-sell. Since 2017, co-selling together has contributed to generating direct partner services revenue worth more than $22.1 billion. Microsoft’s unparalleled reach presents a real opportunity for ISVs. There are over a billion people using Microsoft technology around the world. Microsoft 365 has over 300 million commercial Office 365 users, and 145 million daily active users on Teams. With 97 percent of the Fortune 500 using Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365 and the Power platform to run their business, the Microsoft commercial marketplace is the channel to instantly scale ISV solutions to millions of customers.

Honeywell Establishes Critical Care COVID-19 Jumbo Centre At Dahisar, Mumbai

* Critical Care Centre part of INR 18 crore grant pledged for COVID-19 relief in India this year

* Well-equipped ICU for COVID-19 patients at Dahisar COVID-19 Jumbo Centre in Mumbai handed over to the State Government

* 120 oxygen concentrators, ventilators, N95 respirators, and PPE kits donated for distribution across Maharashtra

Honeywell today announced that it has established an intensive care unit (ICU) facility at the Dahisar COVID-19 Jumbo Centre in the city to treat critical COVID-19 patients. This is the second such facility set up as part of Honeywell’s COVID relief efforts in the country. The company established a similar facility in Bangalore, Karnataka, set up five COVID care centre across multiple cities, and donated essential medical supplies including 120 oxygen concentrators, ventilators, N95 respirators and personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals in the state of Maharashtra. 

Earlier in May, Honeywell also established a 20-bed COVID care centre at the Employees State Insurance Corporation Hospital in Bibwewadi, Pune, and plans to establish a COVID paediatric care centre in the city by the end of August.

“We are glad to see companies like Honeywell coming forward and inspiring industries to support the Government in augmenting the state’s healthcare infrastructure,” said Shri Subhash R. Desai, Hon’ble Minister for Industries, Mining, and Marathi Language, Government of Maharashtra.

“This critical care centre established at the Dahisar COVID-19 Jumbo Centre and the COVID care centre established earlier in Pune will not only provide essential healthcare during the pandemic but will also enhance healthcare capacity for the state’s future requirements,” he added.

The 10-bed ICU facility in Mumbai features necessary equipment to support critical COVID-19 patients. These include five class I ventilators, Fowler beds, BiPAP machines, multipara monitors with and without capnometers, a portable X-ray machine, an ECG machine, an infusion pump, and a laryngoscope set.  Additionally, Honeywell is providing N95 respirators and kits to the centre.

“Honeywell has committed INR 22 crore towards COVID relief in India and has partnered with several state and local governments to help address the ongoing pandemic,” said Ashish Gaikwad, Managing Director, Honeywell Automation India Limited and President (Interim), Honeywell India.

“We have established COVID care centres and critical care centres in six cities across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Haryana, and Uttarakhand. We are also donating essential medical supplies such as oxygen concentrators, ventilators, N95 respirators, and PPE kits,” he added.

Honeywell has established a 10-bed ICU facility in Bengaluru, similar to the one in Mumbai.

The company has also set up 20-bed COVID care centres in Delhi, Pune, Gurugram and Nainital. These centres are being run by the respective local and state governments and are equipped with beds, oxygen supply, PPE kits, medical consumables, and basic medical infrastructure to treat non-critical patients.

To date, Honeywell has donated 1,000 oxygen concentrators, 10 ventilators, 10,000 N95 respirators, and 2,500 PPE kits to various government and private hospitals across the country. 

About Honeywell India

Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 technology company that delivers industry-specific solutions that include aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help everything from aircraft, buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. All of Honeywell’s global businesses have a strong legacy in India, built over the last eight decades. Honeywell’s India commitment is evident in three state-of-the-art manufacturing and engineering operations, and four global centers of excellence for technology development and innovation. Honeywell employs ~13,000 people across different locations including Bengaluru, Chennai, Dehradun, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Madurai, and Pune.

StockEdge & Elearnmarkets.com Aims To Onboard 1 Crore Users By FY’23

* Kotak Securities has recently acquired nearly 10% stake in the financial markets-focused firm

Kolkata-based financial markets education and analytics-focused fintech firm - Kredent InfoEdge Pvt. Ltd. (KIPL), which owns and operates the platforms - StockEdge and Elearnmarkets.com, aims to grow its user base from over 23 lakh currently to 1 crore by FY23, following the recent capital infusion of INR 10 crore by Kotak Securities. The company is also looking to raise Series A in a few months from now.

KIPL, the holding company for both StockEdge and Elearnmarkets.com, has invested in building an alternate ecosystem for first time investors in India with the intent to democratise the financial markets. Currently, the company has two growing platforms under its fold - Elearnmarkets.com for financial education and StockEdge for data analytics in stock markets and mutual funds. 

Launched in 2014, Elearnmarkets.com has evolved from a standalone education portal to becoming India’s largest platform for practical financial market education with over 200 market experts sharing their knowledge in 9 languages with over 10 lakh learners. The platform has grown by 400% in the last 15 months. On completion of the relevant courses, the learners receive certification from NSE Academy, MCX and NCDEX.

StockEdge, which was launched in 2016 to help traders and retail investors obtain structured data of listed companies along with cutting-edge analytics for decision-making, has now evolved into a full-fledged equity and mutual fund research tool with over 2 million app downloads and over 7 lakh monthly active users. The platform has doubled its userbase over the last 15 months.

60% of users in both the platforms are first time market entrants in the average age group of 24-30. In terms of gender distribution, about 20% of the total users are women. Similarly, the platforms have witnessed a significant uptick in users from Tier 2/3 cities. The company sees these segments as the next big growth drivers.

The company will deploy the funds raised towards the strategies of the future – launching a social investing platform, a marketplace of experts as well as gamification of financial market education. While the company already offers content and other services in 9 vernacular languages, endeavors are underway to increase that further, to enable the participation of people from across India towards the journey of financial independence, entrepreneurship, inclusion and efficient investing.

Commenting on the market opportunity, Co-founder & CEO Vineet Patawari said, “Financial markets are certainly experiencing a dramatic shift – from a traditional commission-driven model to a DIY user-driven platform model. The emergence of direct equity as an asset class has been greatly augmented by the pandemic with over 1.50 crores new investors added in the last 15 months in the Indian market. With retail participation in India at a measly 4% of the population, there is sizeable headroom to grow, and as a full-stack player in a highly fragmented market, we are well poised to capitalize on the post-pandemic opportunity awaiting us.”

Speaking about the future, Co-founder & MD Vivek Bajaj said, “We started as a financial education company and evolved to become an alternate ecosystem for retail investors covering learn, analyze, collaborate and transact as stages of the investor’s journey. With the current round of capital infusion by Kotak Securities and others, we are on track to fulfil our mission to truly empower retail investors in India.”

The company follows a freemium business model across both platforms. In Elearnmarkets.com, consumers get free learning content and progress to transact by buying specialized advanced learning modules like courses or webinars. In StockEdge, they subscribe to advanced paid features such as actionable analytics and premium community access.

About Kredent InfoEdge Pvt. Ltd.:

The company is building an alternate ecosystem for empowering retail investors in India. The company is working with multiple intermediaries and also with direct investors in making the relevant knowledge and right data widely available to everyone. The company is extremely focused on Bharat and want to be one of the catalysts for right financial inclusion in India.