Enhancing Digital Wellness With Artificial Intelligence ‘echo’ - The Next Frontier In music Therapy

* Therapeutic app from Digital Wellness which would helps you unwind from the cognitive inertia of  your 'busy time' and improve the overall quality of life.

* Music based restoration works, only when it is attuned to your psychological state or mood, when it is personalized for you. 

DigiNxtHlt Solutions LLP, today announced ‘echo’ - an AI based marvel which takes the music therapy experience to new levels as a wellness tool. The ‘echo’ app is built on artificial intelligence technology to gauge and measure moods, stress, and anxiety levels, and deliver customised music playlists to alleviate the condition, ushering in emotional wellness to boost confidence, performance and energy levels.

“Music therapy is more about empathy than entertainment. It slips past pain points and can help gather insights to fix the mind. Music being the only art that goes beyond science, the symbiosis of artificial intelligence and music can well surpass one’s anxiety or stress levels, and take holistic wellness to a new level. It is the only art form that can break through the impenetrable walls of Autism, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.”, says Ms.Sujatha Visweswara, CEO and Co-founder at DigiNxtHlt LLP.

‘echo’ has taken 3 years to build with the help of  myriad number of data scientists, AI engineers, musicians, artists, psychologists and  analysts.‘echo’ is the result of 2768 carefully invested people-years by our global panel of science, domain and technology experts,an average of 27 human lifetimes spent over the course of 3 years.On the launching occassion Mr. Jay Amaran, Honorary Mentor,  Dr. Hari Krishna Maram,  Dr. Srinivas Vegi, Dr C.R. Satish Kumar,  Consultant  Clinical Psychologist, Manipal Hospitals, Bharathi Pratap, Renowned Hindustani Classical Singer and other dignitories were present. For more information on ‘echo’ visit https://digitalwellness.healthcare/offerings/therapeutic-apps/echo/

Zupee Appoints Ashish Chandra As General Counsel For Legal, Compliance Matters

Strengthening its legal team, leading innovator in India’s online skill-based gaming industry, Zupee has announced the appointment of Ashish Chandra as General Counsel. In his new role, Ashish will be responsible for legal and compliance matters at Zupee.

Ashish brings with him over 20 years of experience in Internet and tech industry. He joins Zupee from Whatsapp for India, where he worked as the Associate General Counsel for its largest and one of the most important markets in the world. He was responsible for legal strategy & vetting for building e-Commerce and Fintech/payments business of WhatsApp and Facebook in India amongst other responsibilities.

Congratulating Ashish Chandra on his new role, Dilsher Singh Malhi, Founder & CEO, Zupee, said, "We are pleased to have Ashish as the General Counsel at Zupee. Having over two decades of legal expertise with a number of major International companies, Ashish brings to the table his keen understanding of the Indian legal landscape with regards to digital technologies. The online gaming industry is growing rapidly in India, and Zupee is proud to be a game changer in the space. Considering the dynamic road ahead, Ashish will play a crucial role in advising the company in all legal & compliance matters. We wish him all the success and look forward to his expert counsel."

In his previous tenures, Ashish has worked with various large Indian and US companies like Netflix, eBay, Reliance Jio and Snapdeal. Over past 20 years, he has witnessed and contributed to the growth of Internet business and related regulations and jurisprudence in India. Ashish has successfully managed sophisticated, professional, and diverse stakeholders and navigated the complex Indian legal landscape.

Speaking on his appointment, Ashish Chandra, General Counsel, Zupee, said, “I feel really excited to join Zupee and be a part of the energetic team. Under the visionary leadership of Dilsher, Zupee is really taking great strides in shaping the Indian online gaming landscape. The gaming industry is in its nascent phase at the moment and is in need of a progressive and uniform legal framework for growth and development of the domain. Having guided several Internet and technology companies in the past, I intend investing all my expertise in ensuring the organisation has a strong footing in legal & compliance matters. Zupee has already emerged as a leader in skill games and I hope to continue that journey forward by contributing towards the overall transformation of the sector with a sound legal framework and deepening the understanding about games of skill.” 

A graduate in LLB from Delhi University, Ashish has specialized diplomas in cyber laws from Indian Law Institute, Delhi and Intellectual Property Laws from National Law School, Bangalore.

Founded by IIT Kanpur graduates Dilsher Singh Malhi and Siddhant Saurabh in 2018, Zupee, is India’s leading skill-based mobile gaming and knowledge platform, running live quiz tournaments on its app, where users compete with friends and other players for monetary rewards and a host of innovative game formats in the social and casual gaming space with over 30 million users across formats. The online gaming sector has witnessed a boom during the pandemic, growing at 40% CAGR with over 400 million users in the country. The industry is expected to have a market size of $3.9 billion in India by 2025, marking an increase of 113% from what it is now.

CrowdStrike Speeds Response Time And Remediation Of Critical Security Incidents For Government Agencies

 * Company announces Falcon Forensics on GovCloud; delivers enhanced visibility and automated analysis of attacker activity to dramatically reduce incident response time

CrowdStrike Inc., a leader in cloud-delivered endpoint and workload protection, today announced the availability and FedRAMP authorization of CrowdStrike Falcon Forensics. Hosted within GovCloud, Falcon Forensics speeds the response time and remediation of critical security incidents for agencies by providing increased visibility and automated analysis of attacker activity.

In today’s modern threat landscape, speed of response is crucial to help agencies prevent security incidents from turning into breaches. According to President Biden’s recent Executive Order (EO) on improving the nation's cybersecurity, agencies are mandated to modernize IT infrastructure through cloud adoption, embrace Zero Trust architectures, implement critical security controls like endpoint detection and response (EDR) and vulnerability management, and increase threat hunting to increase the effectiveness of incident response. 

Falcon Forensics for GovCloud helps to address these issues, ultimately increasing cyber resiliency among agencies by providing:

●        Deep-level forensic triage data provided for robust analysis around the cybersecurity incident

●        Convenient collection of the historical forensic artifacts needed to bring visibility into the full threat context without additional queries

●        Automated analysis of attacker activity to help customers hunt through impacted environments at-scale and rapidly return to normal operations

“Government agencies have historically struggled with disparate tools and manual, time-consuming efforts when collecting and consolidating forensic data, often delaying their ability to provide the critical analysis needed to get ahead of fast-moving threats,” said Thomas Etheridge, senior vice president of CrowdStrike Services. “Falcon Forensics for GovCloud simplifies threat hunting and forensic triage analysis, capturing the right forensic artifacts at-scale and presenting them in an easy-to-consume interface allowing agencies to make decisions faster and more confidently as they improve their cyber posture.”

Falcon Forensics for GovCloud provides incident responders with the ability to investigate security incidents faster and with granular detail, offering in-depth data analysis through convenient pre-packaged dashboards to help identify adversaries’ past activity in the environment. Through the cloud-native architecture of CrowdStrike Falcon®, Falcon Forensics for GovCloud is deployed remotely and at scale to minimize business interruptions.

Recently, CrowdStrike introduced Falcon Complete for GovCloud to government agencies, helping them to autonomously protect themselves against sophisticated threats via cloud-native managed detection and response (MDR). CrowdStrike continues its trajectory as a leading innovator in the government space, empowering agencies to adopt cloud-native technologies to better secure the nation’s critical data.

About CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity leader, is redefining security for the cloud era with an endpoint and workload protection platform built from the ground up to stop breaches. The CrowdStrike Falcon® platform’s single lightweight-agent architecture leverages cloud-scale artificial intelligence (AI) and offers real-time protection and visibility across the enterprise, preventing attacks on endpoints and workloads on or off the network. Powered by the proprietary CrowdStrike Threat Graph®, CrowdStrike Falcon correlates approximately 1 trillion endpoint-related events per day in real time from across the globe, fueling one of the world’s most advanced data platforms for security.

With CrowdStrike, customers benefit from better protection, better performance and immediate time-to-value delivered by the cloud-native Falcon platform.

There’s only one thing to remember about CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.

Qualifying organizations can gain full access to Falcon Prevent™ by starting a free trial.

apna Secures $100 Mn Series C Funding Led By Tiger Global At $1.1 Bn Valuation; Committed To Empowering The World’s Rising Workforce

* apna has grown 125x over past 15 months to become a Unicorn: today serving over 16 million users and 150k employers, and enabling 18 million monthly interviews

* The investment strengthens apna’s mission to empower the next billion users with access to employment, professional networking and upskilling

* apna plans to expedite product development, hire best in class talent in Engineering and Product and expand to new geographies

apna, India’s largest jobs platform & professional network for the rising workforce, has secured about $100 million in series C funding led by Tiger Global. The round also saw participation from Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Maverick Ventures  and GSV Ventures. With this round, apna has attained a  total valuation of $1.1 billion. ‘Made in India, for the world’, apna  aims to go into overdrive to sustainably solve the immense challenge of unemployment, poverty and upskilling.

apna has grown 125x over the past 15 months and is currently conducting 18 million interviews each month. In the future the company plans to use the proceeds to further strengthen its presence in existing 28 cities and expand pan-India by the end of 2021 to help accelerate India’s economy. The team plans to double down on their edtech platform for skilling and invest in hiring exceptional talent and building world class engineering and product capabilities. apna plans to build a global enterprise by venturing into new markets such as the USA, South East Asia, and Middle East & Africa starting in 2022.

Sharing his views, Nirmit Parikh, Founder and CEO, apna, said, “apna has a deep social purpose, and is committed to discovery and creation of opportunities to enhance a billion livelihoods, across geographies. With the continued support of our partners, we aim to accelerate our journey of ‘solving for the world’.” 

HIGHLIGHTS

Users served: 16 million+ 

Employers served:  150,000+ 

Professional interviews in last 30 days: 18  million+ 

Active jobs: 5 million+

Job categories and vertical communities: 70+

Cities served: 28

apna’s job platform leverages a sophisticated algorithm that matches candidates with employers taking into account their skills, experience and preferences. The app  also comprises 70+ communities for skilled professionals like carpenters, painters, telecallers, field sales agents, delivery personnel and others. apna communities have enabled users to grow their professional networks, upskill through peer learning and find  gig opportunities. apna’s communities enabled 17 million peer to peer professional conversations in the past month.

In a short period, apna has become the preferred choice of employers to hire the right talent. Several of India’s leading companies, such as Zomato, Bharti AXA, Urban Company, BYJU’S, PhonePe, Burger King, Delhivery, Teamlease and G4S Global rely on apna to address their most urgent and critical hiring needs. apna has facilitated about 100 million interviews via the app in less than two years. 

Griffin Schroeder, Partner, Tiger Global, said, “Apna’s viral adoption is driven by a novel social and interactive approach to connecting employers with job seekers. We expect job seekers in search of meaningful connections and vetted opportunities to drive Apna’s continued explosive growth across India – and the world.” 

Partnering with Owl Ventures, the largest education technology VC in the world, will help bolster apna’s global ambitions in the skilling space. Amit Patel, Managing Director Owl Ventures, said, “We believe that apna has the potential to fundamentally shift how companies approach hiring skilled professionals and how these individuals approach networking and upskilling. The apna team is creating an innovative technology led solution that has already shown tremendous traction by facilitating close to 100 million interviews in approximately two years, and that is just the beginning. By incorporating learning and upskilling offerings to drive strong outcomes for its user communities, apna is building an end-to-end solution that has the potential to help individuals over the course of their career and not just in a single interaction. That repeated interaction and trust they are building on their platform can profoundly impact not just India but the global talent ecosystem."

Throughout the pandemic period, apna has supported business continuity by helping employers connect with and hire interested candidates in their vicinity. After taking concrete steps to accelerate India’s recovery, the company is committed to continue to solve employment and skills related problems for the world. apna has partnered with organizations such as, National Skill Development Corporation, UNICEF Yuwaah, Truecaller, Akzonobel, and the Ministry of Minority Affairs of India, in their endeavor to provide better skilling and job opportunities to candidates.

About apna

Founded in 2019, the apna.co is India’s largest jobs and professional networking platform dedicated to helping India’s rising workforce to unlock unique professional networking, and skilling opportunities.

Having secured more than $190 million from marquee investors such as Tiger Global, Owl Ventures, Insight Partners, Lightspeed India, Sequoia Capital India, Maverick Ventures, GSV Ventures, Greenoaks Capital and Rocketship.vc apna is on a mission to enable livelihoods for billions in India. With over 16 million users, present in 28 cities and counting, and over 150,000 employers that trust the platform - India has a new destination to discover relevant opportunities.

About Tiger Global Management:

Tiger Global Management, LLC is an investment firm that deploys capital globally. The firm's fundamentally oriented investments focus primarily on the global internet, software, financial technology, consumer and industrial sectors. The private equity strategy has a ten-year investment horizon and targets growth-oriented private companies. Such investments have included Spotify, Harry's, Warby Parker, Peloton, JD.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yandex, Mail.ru Group, Despegar, Ola and Flipkart. The public equity efforts emphasize deep due diligence on individual companies and long-term secular themes. Tiger Global was founded in 2001 and is based in New York with affiliate offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Melbourne.

About Owl Ventures

Owl Ventures is the largest venture capital fund in the world focused on the education technology market with over $1.3 billion in assets under management. The Silicon Valley based firm invests in the world's leading education technology companies across the education spectrum encompassing PreK-12, higher education and the future of work (career mobility/professional learning). Owl Ventures has deep domain expertise and leverages a global network of Limited Partners, investors, and strategic partners to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses into transformative category leading companies.

Meditronic Showcases Hugo Robotic Assisted Surgery System At The Inauguration Of Its First Surgical Robotics Experience Centre In India

* Hugo™ RAS System to Help Advance Capabilities in Minimally Invasive Surgery and Expand Access to Care

* The Surgical Robotics Experience Center, First in APAC, Will Enable Clinicians in India to Experience and Train on Robotic-Assisted Surgery Technology from Medtronic

India Medtronic Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT) – the world’s largest medical technology, services, and solutions company – today showcased its new robotic-assisted surgery platform, Hugo™ RAS system, at its state-of-the-art Surgical Robotics Experience Center (SREC), which was inaugurated in Gurugram. The center was inaugurated by Padma Bhushan Dr. BK Rao, Chairman NABH, Chairman ASSOCHAM National Health Committee and Former Chairman- Board of Management at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi in the presence of Chief Guest Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog. Committed to delivering solutions that help surgeons and operating room staff achieve procedural and clinical proficiency, the SREC will focus on standardized training for surgeries with the Hugo RAS system. The SREC is the company's first in Asia Pacific and one of ten world-class facilities around the globe today where clinicians can experience and train on the Hugo RAS system.

The Hugo RAS system — Medtronic's solution to historic cost and utilization barriers that have kept surgical robotics out of reach for many hospitals — is a modular, multi-quadrant platform designed for a broad range of soft-tissue procedures. With the Hugo RAS system, Medtronic is building on its decades-long commitment to bring the benefits of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) to more patients around the world. With MIS, patients experience fewer complications, shorter hospital stays, and faster return to normal activities.1-3,†

Reiterating the need for pathbreaking medical technology for India, Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog stated, “While we believe promoting innovation in healthcare is crucial to building a healthy nation, it is also critical to invest in continuous training and education of the healthcare personnel. The opening of Medtronic’s Surgical Robotics Experience Center is a befitting example of achieving holistic healthcare goals in terms of accessibility and training so that more patients can benefit from latest advancements in med-tech.”

During the inauguration, Padma Bhushan Dr. BK Rao, Chairman NABH, Chairman ASSOCHAM National Health Committee and Former Chairman- Board of Management at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi echoed the contribution of Medtronic in transforming healthcare in India and said, “Innovation is the cornerstone of medical technology advancement and towards saving lives. The advent of robotic surgeries in India is a hallmark of the progress we've made in improving access to quality healthcare for patients. I am confident that Medtronic’s contribution through Surgical Robotics Experience Center will help in training surgeons and in improving adoption of minimally invasive way of surgery.”

Through SREC, the aim is to provide a multi-layered curriculum for training surgeons, assistants, and paramedical staff on the Hugo RAS system in India. The curriculum includes training such as dry lab surgical models, simulation exercises, and robotic instruments and accessories to provide a focused and collaborative experience.

“Training and education of surgeons is an important driver in accelerating medical technology adoption and improving access to healthcare. I believe in a way it is aligned with Government of India’s focus on Skill India. Through the Surgical Robotics Experience Center, we are dedicated to helping surgeons focus on deepening their expertise in robotic-assisted surgery,” said Madan Krishnan, vice president and managing director, Medtronic India. “The Hugo RAS system demonstrates our commitment to the rapidly changing surgical environment by improving experience for our surgeons while delivering quality care to patients.”

“We designed the Hugo RAS system to bring the benefits of minimally invasive surgery to more patients in more places around the world, and it’s incredibly exciting that India is leading the way forward for this new era in robotic surgery,” said Megan Rosengarten, president of the Surgical Robotics business, which is part of the Medical Surgical Portfolio at Medtronic.

“India has a vast number of extremely qualified surgeons and hospitals that nurture healthcare solutions for the patients who need them. SREC has been set up with a vision to provide healthcare professionals a complete hands-on experience of our new surgical robotics system,” said Kevin Falzon, senior business director of Surgical Robotics Asia Pacific, who attended the inauguration virtually. “We’ll be training surgeons on the use of the Hugo™ RAS system, utilizing procedural and evidence-based medical education activities. The center is also equipped with mixed reality technology to provide remote virtual tours to clinicians, administrators, and OR staff.”

The Hugo RAS system combines the precision of wristed instruments with the flexibility of independent robotic arm carts and best-in-class 3D visualization technology on an open console. Touch Surgery™ Enterprise, a cloud-based surgical video capture option powered by artificial intelligence, allows surgeons to seamlessly record, analyze, and share Hugo system case footage.

The Medtronic Hugo RAS System is commercially available in certain geographies. Regulatory requirements of individual countries and regions will determine approval, clearance, or market availability. Hugo RAS is pending CE mark for the EU. In the U.S., the Hugo system is an investigational device and is not for sale. Touch Surgery Enterprise is not intended to direct surgery, or aid in diagnosis or treatment of a disease or condition.

About Medtronic

Medtronic plc (www.medtronic.com), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is among the world’s largest medical technology, services and solutions companies – alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world. Medtronic employs more than 90,000 people worldwide, serving physicians, hospitals and patients in more than 150 countries. The company is focused on collaborating with stakeholders around the world to take healthcare Further, Together.

Manipal Institute Of Technology Observes Engineer’s Day Celebration And Prof. P V Bhandary Memorial Oration On September 15, 2021

Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal celebrated the Engineers Day 2021 on 15th September 2021 to commemorate the birth anniversary of the greatest Indian Engineer Bharat Ratna Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, who is known as the Father of Indian Engineering. Aligned with this event, Late Prof. P V Bhandary Memorial Oration by eminent personality was also conducted.

In memory of Late Prof P V Bhandary, who was the Principal of MIT and Pro Vice Chancellor of MAHE, his family members and admirers came forward to conduct an oration series on a selected theme which is done every year. This was the fourth oration in the series, aligned with Engineer’s Day.

The event began with the floral tributes by the dignitaries to Sir M Visvesvaraya, Late Prof. P V Bhandary and formal inauguration by lighting the lamp.

The Chief Guest of the event was Dr M. S. Valiathan, Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan Awardee, National Professor of Research Government of India and Honorary Advisor, MAHE, Manipal. The Guest of honor was Brig (Dr.) S S Pabla, Pro Chancellor Bharatiya Skill Development University Jaipur. The event was presided over by Cdr. Dr. Anil Rana, Director, MIT Manipal.

As a mark of tradition, the invocation was rendered, by Dr. Vidya S Rao, in order to seek the blessing of the almighty. The welcome address was delivered by Joint Director of MIT Manipal, Dr. Somashekara Bhat. A brief introduction highlighting the achievements was delivered by Dr. N V Subba Reddy, the chairman of P V Bhandary Oration committee.

The Chief Guest of the function Dr. M. S. Valiathan, delivered the P V Bhandary Memorial Oration. He recalled his association with Prof. P V Bhandary during his tenure as the Vice Chancellor of MAHE, Manipal. Dr. Valiathan referred to the issues involved in the Cardiac Surgery and emphasised on the technological support involved such as materials, devices and the use of engineering solutions to take the health care to common people. He highlighted the Strengths, Weaknesses and Opportunities pertaining to Health care in India. While he spoke about the need for easing out regulatory norms, he also stressed that the quality of work carried out should be given the utmost importance.

The Engineers Day Special talk was delivered by Former Director of MIT and former Pro vice Chancellor of MAHE Brig (Dr.) S. S.  Pabla. He spoke on National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and on the enhancement of autonomy of the Universities. He also talked about the future of technical education in India and the new AICTE norms for admission to under graduate programs in India.

The presidential remarks were delivered by Cdr. Dr. Anil Rana, Director, MIT Manipal. He gave examples of eminent personalities who bounced back after failure and hence motivated everyone.  He also stressed on going for an optimal solution if not the best solution.

Students Of Manipal Institute Of Technology Achieved Yet Another Feat With The Start-Up Venture “ALLSKIER”

* ALLSKIER develops customized Edge Computing and IoT solutions for users across multiple domains

Manipal Institute of Technology is proud to announce that two of their 4th year bachelor’s in technology students, Atharv Tendolkar and Amit Choraria have built their start-up named Allskier that develops customized Edge Computing and IoT solutions for users across multiple domains.

The Startup, after its genesis in the past 4 months, has managed to attract more than 20 MIT students from various branches to be a part of this start-up. ALLSKIER shares the passion for a better and sustainable world through intelligent tech. One of their signature drones is the 'Agro- copter' which is the perfect aerial farm assistant for the users in today’s agriculture sector. It offers comprehensive crop health analytics, targeted nutrient/pesticide spraying and fully autonomous on-site surveillance.

Further to the accomplishment by the MIT students, Cdr. (Dr.) Anil Rana, Director of Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) says “Heartiest congratulations to Atharv and Kritika and to their startup ALLSKIERS. The team has a lot of brilliant ideas, tremendous energy and a passion to build a sustainable world with the help of intelligent technology. With 5 G technology spreading fast and wide, edge computing with IoT devices has a very bright future. I wish the team a lot of success. Jai Hind”

ALLSKIER is committed to customer satisfaction and provides not only the best products but also after-sales support, consultation, and seminars to keep itself and its customers informed. As a ‘Made in India' start-up, they strive to contribute to the growth of our country and better understand the niche markets in our country, with a global marketplace as a result.