Delhi-Based Digital Agency, Socially India, Launches Pro-Bono Grassroots Initiative

Delhi-based boutique digital agency, Socially India, launches #Allies4Change - a social initiative wherein the company intends to adopt one grassroots organisation NGO for a minimum of 6 months and handle their digital marketing pro-bono.

Campaign Inspiration:

As per Ankita Mahabir, Founder, Socially India, the inspiration for this campaign came from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

"During the pandemic, many of us had to face extreme circumstances and somehow, at Socially we made it through the other end. That got us thinking about how we could do our part to give back - especially to the grassroots organisations that worked tirelessly through the pandemic.  The past two years have made us realise that there's a lot we can do with the skills and resources we have, and as a company, we decided to put that into action."

Depending on campaign success, the company aims to adopt up to 2 organisations in a calendar year. The eventual goal is to provide the NGOs with enough tools to manage their strategies after the 6-month engagement period. The company will also be available for continued guidance. The first organisation will be announced in January 2022.

Using Professional Skills for a Positive Impact:

Grassroots organisations across India will be able to participate in the #Allies4Change campaign through a simple online application form.

Application form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjOZCajuLwo09SbNeagylO3Z4pMwpD_kRi74HCJUWkejTFmw/viewform

“As marketers, we sometimes forget that we have at our disposal one of the most powerful tools in this day & age to drive social change. Our goal with #Allies4Change is to use our skills to provide grassroots organisations in India the support and guidance they need to achieve their goals via digital - be it anything from awareness to fund-raising.”

- Nancy, Digital Strategy Lead, Socially India

#Allies4Change also hopes to inspire other professionals to also use their skills to make a positive change and impact - no matter how big or small, every little bit makes a difference.

About Socially India: 

Socially India is a content-driven digital marketing agency that thrives on bringing powerful, fun, and innovative ideas to life for digital channels. With clients spanning 5 countries, 7 cities, and diverse commercial verticals, Socially is a real ally in the digital world.

SteppinOut By Dineout & Soul Search India Launches ‘SneakinOut’: India’s Largest Sneaker Fest

* Participants get a chance to win the most iconic sneakers like Air Jordan 1 high and Air Jordan 3 x A Ma Maniere

* Live performances by Gully Gang India

It's not just you, everybody’s eyes also light up when they see a great pair of kicks. Sneakers go beyond just being a desirable item of footwear –  they have evolved into a cultural symbol of our times. Keeping the all-time high trend, SteppinOut is launching SneakinOut: a sneaker fest curated by SteppinOut by Dineout and Sole Search India. The festival curated to unite sneaker enthusiasts will be hosted in 7 cities of India starting 27th of November in Bangalore. 

To capture the emerging sense of sneaker culture, this festival will include fun activities like shoe customisation, lace it up, dartboard challenge, photo booths, and much more. SneakinOut is also exclusively collaborating with Gully Gang for all 8 cities, where the best talent from the gang will keep you grooving at the event! Shah Rule, DJ Proof/Karan Kanchan Frenzzy, MC Altaf, D'Evil, Tsumyoki, Kidd Mange are some of the artists you’ll definitely catch at the events.  

SneakinOut festival aims to create an ideal platform where sneakerheads, gamers, musicians, and graffiti artists, come together to buy, trade, or sell sneakers and celebrate the rising sneaker culture in India. The festival will host the most iconic sneaker brands and emerging Indian street labels to engage and interact with street-style enthusiasts.

People who opt for VIP tickets to the event could get to be a part of an exclusive raffle where they could win the most iconic sneakers of all time! Some of these include Air Jordan 1 High “Hyper Royal”, Yeezy Foam Runner and Air Jordan 3 x A Ma Maniere. Casa Bacardi, the sponsor for this event also have a giveaway planned for all sneakerheads - they are giving away a total of 25 sneakers in these 8 cities!

Sole Search India, co-founded by Rannvijay Singh,  is the country’s largest hyped reselling marketplace. They connect buyers and sellers with the goal of providing everyone access to the world’s most sought-after sneakers, streetwear, accessories & collectables. Rannvijay is one of the most passionate sneaker-heads in the country with over 400 sneakers that he’s proud to own. 

About SteppinOut by Dineout

SteppinOut is one of the largest experiential event curators in the country. With more than 20 events hosted in a month, ranging from night markets, live music shows, concerts, comedy nights, and much more! In August 2020, SteppinOut was acquired by India’s largest dining out platform - Dineout. The acquisition was a step forward in creating memorable experiences while expanding Dineout’s overall value proposition to consumers across India. This enabled in creating a first-of-its-kind experience for our users — with Dineout hosting thousands of restaurant partners, and SteppinOut hosting new and innovatively curated events. Rooted in diversity all while maintaining quality, all SteppinOut’s experiences are crafted with intimate attention, impressive detail, and an immense amount of love.

For more information,  visit –  https://www.dineout.co.in/

LTI And IBM Inaugurate Innovation And Experience Center In Bengaluru To Help Clients Accelerate Digital Transformation

* Companies will collaborate in the areas of hybrid cloud, security, data, and AI offerings

Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd. (BSE: 540005, NSE: LTI), a global technology consulting and digital solutions company has opened an Innovation & Experience Centre at LTI Whitefield campus in Bengaluru (India) focusing on IBM technologies. The Center will assist enterprises in modernizing their operations and accelerating digital transformation journeys.

This Innovation and Experience Center will showcase LTI solutions that have been co-created using IBM technologies such as IBM Cloud and Cloud Paks. The Centre will also serve as a forum for customers to engage with LTI and IBM technical resources for in-depth technology briefings, solution demos, software, tool access and solution workshops.

Sudhir Chaturvedi, President-Sales and Executive Board Member, LTI, said: “The rapid technological advances make it necessary for customers to experience solutions before adopting them. Our new center in Bengaluru fulfils this need for the joint customers of IBM and LTI. This center will offer combined benefits of LTI’s rich domain proficiency and IBM’s deep technical expertise, and thereby assist clients in their transformation journey.”

Through this center, IBM and LTI will collaborate and invest in creating joint solutions and develop industry viewpoints around digital transformation, hybrid cloud, data & AI, and security services. In addition, both LTI and IBM teams, will work with customers to address their requirements around driving digital transformation and managing multiple clouds.

Evaristus Mainsah, GM, Hybrid Cloud and Edge Ecosystem, IBM, said, “This center is an outcome of our growing alliance with LTI to help clients predict, automate, secure, and modernize their business operations. We are confident our clients will benefit from the ease of access to industry-specific assets and customized joint solutions with IBM’s open hybrid cloud approach that will help to accelerate their transformation journeys.”

Distinct features of the center include an IBM Playground for associates to explore and experiment with prototypes, History Zone that highlights LTI-IBM alliance journey, joint customer success stories, Innovation Zone for brainstorming on innovative ideas and planning future offerings, and Discussion Zone with feedback mechanism to ensure continuous improvement.

LTI has strong capabilities in IBM’s Digital Business Automation portfolio. LTI’s Automation consultants are helping clients in driving productivity improvements with industry specific pre-built IBM frameworks. Earlier this year, LTI and IBM had announced expansion of their global alliance.

About LTI:

LTI (NSE: LTI) is a global technology consulting and digital solutions Company helping more than 460 clients succeed in a converging world. With operations in 33 countries, we go the extra mile for our clients and accelerate their digital transformation with LTI’s Mosaic platform enabling their mobile, social, analytics, IoT and cloud journeys. Founded in 1997 as a subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Limited, our unique heritage gives us unrivalled real-world expertise to solve the most complex challenges of enterprises across all industries. Each day, our team of more than 40,000 LTItes enable our clients to improve the effectiveness of their business and technology operations and deliver value to their customers, employees and shareholders. Find more at http://www.Lntinfotech.com or follow us at @LTI_Global.   

LetsTransport Partners With EVRE To Charge Its 1000-Strong EV Fleet

* EVRE setting-up 200 charging stations in Bengaluru

* EVRE to install 1,000 EV chargers in 12 cities over next six months

* First phase to entail installation of 300 chargers by March 2022

* Potential reduction of 5.4 MT CO2 emissions and 2.4 million litres of fossil fuel annually

LetsTransport, a Bangalore based tech-logistics company has partnered with EVRE, India’s leading EV Charging Infrastructure player to provide parking and charging infrastructure for its 1,000-strong fleet across 12 cities.  Under the partnership, EVRE will set-up 1,000 EV charging stations across India within the next six months, which will be utilised by LetsTransport and other EV fleet owners.

LetsTransport has an active fleet of over 1,00,000 vehicles and they are moving towards building a 100% EV fleet. In October 2021, LetsTransport announced their fleet augmentation with 1000 electric vehicles to drive cost optimization and sustainability. They recently partnered with several OEMs to build a robust EV fleet for their last-mile logistic services. 

In order to complement this EV fleet across 12 cities, EVRE will design, manufacture and execute the operation and maintenance of the EV charging infrastructure.  The technology for all the chargers, existing and upcoming, is owned and operated by EVRE.  Taking an integrated approach to demand aggregation, supply optimization, connecting with charging infrastructure and financing, in this partnership LetsTransport will help in demand assessment of where EVRE should set up charging stations for higher utilization.  Further, the space for parking and charging this EV-fleet in 12 cities will be provided by EVRE.

This partnership is a testament to the fact that Efficient and contiguous EV charging infrastructure is the key to operate an EV fleet, wherein the EV fleet operators can concentrate on managing their core operations.

Speaking on the partnership Mr. Pushkar Singh, CEO & Co-Founder, LetsTransport said, “At LetsTransport we have always believed in building a sustainable growth model. We have been working on EV pilots across India with our clients for over a year now and we firmly believe that EV is going to be the future of urban freight movement, especially in the last mile space. We are proud to partner with EVRE to overcome the challenge of EV adoption in the industry.  We are working on enabling wider adoption of EVs in the last mile space, and EVRE is a perfect partner for our sustainability goals.”

Commenting on this partnership, Krishna K Jasti, Co-Founder and CEO of EVRE said, "The ease of sustaining a large EV fleet is what EVRE brings to the table.  With over 650 operational public EV Charging stations across the country in the hub model, we are in a position to help any EV fleet owner exploit the best potential of their fleet and contribute to the holistic drive to bring down the carbon footprint of mobility.  We are happy to partner with a player like LetsTransport as we can mutually support each other by increasing the footprint and utilisation of hubs across the country”.

The phase-wise implementation will include EVRE setting-up 200 charging stations in Bengaluru, 200 in Delhi NCR and the rest in cities including Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad amongst others by end of 2022.  Over these months, the two companies will work together to strengthen charging infrastructure across the cities mentioned and ensure access to this infrastructure to support the expanding commercial EV fleet of LetsTransport.

About LetsTransport: LetsTransport, the Bengaluru based firm, is a last-mile tech-logistics solution provider for intrastate freight deliveries. Founded in 2015, it is one of the largest urban logistics service providers in India. With its aim to improve the livelihood and work environment of the urban trucking community along with improving the efficiency of the sector the firm has on-boarded 100k+ trucks across India. Currently, the firm is catering to urban logistics operations of 17 cities in India by working across industry sectors such as organized retail, FMCG, e-commerce, distribution and 3PL companies. Some of its clients include Amazon, Bisleri, JioMart, JSW Cements, Pidilite, Britannia, Coca-Cola, Delhivery, and Udaan. The company offers customized logistics solutions for clients, along with other value-added services such as screened drivers, audited and GPS-enabled vehicles, point-to-point billing, 24×7 service and status updates, tech integrations through APIs, and greater efficiency, all at transparent and economical pricing. (www.letstransport.in)

For further information, please letstransport@wizikey.com

About EVRE: EVRE is India’s leading integrated charging infrastructure company that follows EAAS (Energy-as-a-Service) model, offering public charging infrastructure in a pay-per-use model in nine cities across India.  EVRE is working towards enabling EV-ready communities and cities with sustainable Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure that are not only convenient but prompt consumers to make the switch with ease.  Founded in 2017, EVRE aims to enhance the experience of the EV users with smart and connected infrastructure for seamless and immersive consumer experience while ensuring sustainability through its solar-powered Intellipoles. 

EVRE is focussed on establishing and maintaining 50,000 EV charging stations by 2023. 

Technology Predictions Globally For 2022 And Beyond ...

By  Viswanath, CTO, Atlassian

Over the next 5 years, Web 3.0 will upend the way we think about application development. Where Web 1.0 was the era of internet protocols, Web 2.0 is our current state of applications and generated content. Web 3.0 will rise as a result of the cracks in the current system, which puts user data in the hands of social media giants. Powered by blockchain technology, this new version of the web will usher in a decentralized internet and put data ownership back in the hands of the user. For the industry, it will completely change the way we approach application development and privacy.

Archana Rao, CIO, Atlassian

Every business unit in an Enterprise will operate in an agile fashion with their dedicated IT partner, changing the way business units transform and build new capabilities. With IT now sitting at the center of business, these teams will only grow in size and partner with more departments to deliver long-term business value. The success of each service they provide will now be measured by outcomes, instead of output, and require them to move from a project- to product-based operating model.

Employee engagement and burnout prevention will remain at the top of the agenda for IT. Distributed work, competition for talent, and increasing levels of burnout will drive IT leaders to invest in building a world-class, digital employee experience. This will include the adoption of more asynchronous collaboration tools, having all employees on the same cloud platform, and making information across the business more open. 

Adrian Ludwig, Chief Trust Officer, Atlassian

More empathy, not technical skills, is key to building resilience in 2022. We’ll begin to realize that security is not just a technical problem; It’s an organizational and human problem. As an industry, we’ve learned that it’s not enough to mandate security protocols and increase training. Instead, security teams will need to exercise empathy in order to better understand developers' top concerns and motivating factors. For example, you will have far more resilient systems if your development environment includes a strong incentive structure or removes friction for developers to perform security testing and make security improvements.

The lines between security, engineering, trust, privacy and compliance in an organization will disappear. Information privacy and compliance are now top priorities for customers in the era of cloud and distributed systems. CISOs and CSOs at global companies will be expected to lead on a proactive approach in getting ahead of rising regulatory policies and rethinking user privacy. As was the case with Atlassian, this will likely result in simplifying organizational structures to remove collaboration barriers between these interconnected teams.

As cloud adoption outpaces on-premise growth, distributed architecture will become table-stakes for security strategies. The adoption of cloud is accelerating and will soon eclipse on-premise growth. What this means for security teams is that they’ll need to look ahead and eliminate lateral movement by moving to an architecture that's broadly distributed and primarily consists of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.  

Project “Saaf Water” On A Journey To Keep Track Of Ground Water Quality To Benefit The Masses

* First Indian team to win the IBM Call for Code Global Challenge

Manikanta Chavvakula, a second year undergraduate student from FLAME University, along with team members which include Hrishikesh Bhandari from IIT Madras, Satyam Prakash from IIT Madras, Sanket Marathe and Jay Aherkar, together known as Team ‘Saaf Water’ were awarded the global winners of IBM Call for Code Global Challenge 2021. A panel of some of the most eminent leaders in sustainability, business and technology, including former US President Bill Clinton, awarded Team Saaf Water the grand prize of $200,000. This is the first Indian team to ever win the title.

Dr. Dishan Kamdar, Vice-Chancellor, FLAME University, said, “At FLAME, we have always emphasized on not just academic learning, but also on understanding real-world problems, deconstructing them and finding innovative solutions to them. We are extremely proud of our student – Manikanta - and the team of Saaf Water on this achievement. I am confident that their success will encourage and pave the way for many more such efforts by our students to work on solving issues and contributing to the betterment of our country.”

Call for Code is a platform for developers to use their skills with cutting-edge technologies to drive a positive and lasting change across the world. Top solutions are further developed, incubated, and deployed as sustainable open source projects with support from partners like IBM and the Linux Foundation. Team Saaf Water will now receive support to launch this project from IBM, the United Nations, David Clark Cause, the Linux Foundation, and others partners of the Call for Code movement.

As approximately 50% of the world's population is still dependent on groundwater, Team Saaf Water felt that there is a strict need for a system which regularly monitors and pre-warns about anomalies or degradations in groundwater. Saaf Water is an open-source AI-IoT platform which when installed will help in timely monitoring of groundwater and informs authorities as well as the community about water quality along with purification methods for consumption. It also predicts when the water quality will go bad and helps reduce dependency on manual test kits or lab tests for approximate assessment.

The Saaf Water project is a Wi-Fi and cellular-enabled device that can be mounted on many different types of pumps, which is outfitted with sensors that collect information such as total dissolved solids, turbidity, pH, electrical conductivity, and temperature. The device uploads collected data to software in the cloud that analyses it. When contamination is found, users receive text alerts, as the pump’s LED warning lights flick on.

The team will be now democratizing access to information about water quality in a way that can both help local agents ensure quality and inform the community at large when they’re at risk. The team aims to implement Saaf Water on the ground and benefit the masses. As Saaf Water is an Open Source Project, it makes it easy for developers to contribute to it and the team will now start a journey to make Saaf Water a global solution and make water quality information accessible and easy to understand for all, to prevent health illnesses due to water contamination.

Link to the Saaf Water website: https://saafwater.com/

About FLAME University 

FLAME University is the pioneer of liberal education in India, delivering the country's premier interdisciplinary education experience. It is driven to being one of India's most respected and reputed centres of learning - the premier destination of choice for higher education in the nation for learners and teachers, to push the design and nature of studies and to create a societal up-gradation phenomenon, particularly in the fields of liberal education and leadership. FLAME has been set up with an idealistic vision and a social commitment to contribute to society nobly. With more than 120 quality full-time faculty members, the university offers an unparalleled educational experience. The student-teacher ratio is 11:1, unmatched at the higher education level in India. Spread on 60 acres of green expanse with aesthetically designed infrastructure, and the campus currently consists of five schools: FLAME School of Liberal Education, FLAME School of Business, FLAME School of Communication, FLAME School of Computing and Data Sciences and FLAME School of Design, Art & Performance. FLAME University has been established as a state private university vide the FLAME University Act 2014 (Maharashtra Act No. II of 2015) of the Government of Maharashtra. It is recognized by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under Section 2(f), and degrees awarded by the University are recognized under Section 22 of the UGC Act, 1956.

MAHE And Asian Media With Culture’s Network, Deakin University Organizes Virtual Celebration Of Folk Expressions & Heritage Films

The virtual folklore festival, titled ‘MAHE Deakin Jana-Pada’, is an attempt to celebrate, educate, investigate and create an awareness regarding the processes of cultural preservation and cultural change and is supported by Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Regional Office Bengaluru, Consulate General of India, Melbourne, Australia, Association Nationale Cultures Du Monde (ANCM) Gannat, France, International Dance Council, UNESCO, Zorenka Dance Association, Pensa, Russia, Mythic Society, Bengaluru, India, Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy, Bengaluru, India, La Danza Integradora de Culturas, Bolivia.

The term jana-pada, often used in south Indian languages, refers to folklore, a rich aspect of any culture. An international festival of this nature is one of the best means to safeguard, promote and also diffuse the intangible cultural heritage. The cultural expressions through music, dance and performance contributes significantly to the enhancement of Karnataka’s cultural identity and diversity and such a virtual folklore festival provides an appropriate platform.

With over ten countries participating, the event represents opportunities of formal and informal contacts for exchange of ideas, for learning from other experiences and for international cooperation. Even though physical participation is not a possibility given the circumstances brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic, this festival aims to bring to the audience a near live experience. The festival brings together folk performers and cultural heritage films in the digital space, showcasing a curated collective. It is being put together in an innovative and fresh manner in order to connect different parts of the word through this initiative.

Being organized on the occasion of ‘Azadi ka amrit mahotsav’, such a unique and evolutionary international cultural folklore festival will support exchange of the folk forms as it becomes a meeting place of cultures as the participants will give an insight into their folk traditions promoting a culture of peace, which is the primary objective of the partnering universities.

The MAHE Deakin ‘Jana-Pada’ consists of two segments. The first one, being the Virtual folk festival that shall be spread over four weekends on Saturdays, beginning from the 27th of November, 2021 for two hours each day. In this, there will be one folk form of Karnataka and others from different parts of the world. This brief show will be followed by a discussion (which will include one member from the performing group, along with other academics/filmmakers). The panel discussion will focus on the cultural aspect of the dance forms, tradition, challenges, and its future. The discussion topics will include themes relating to Nature-Culture, Rites, Rituals, Folk tales and Oral Histories and Cultural Heritage in Teaching and Learning.

As an academic output to the event, an issue of Global Media Journal Indian Edition will be dedicated to folklore research. Also e-book with graphic representation of the performances and event write up will be published.

The second segment will be the Intangible Cultural Heritage Film festival in January 2022. Film makers have been invited to submit films (factual, documentary or experimental) that explore any aspect of the Intangible Cultural Heritage which can include folklore, nature-culture, rites, rituals, tales, oral histories and others. It is being proposed to be conducted via in person screening of the award winning films at Manipal & Bangalore at a convenient date which shall be announced in the near future.

The day 1 inauguration of 27th November, 2021 will be held via the online platform Zoom, from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm IST.

This event is being curated by festival directors, Dr. Vikrant Kishore, Deakin University, Dr. Shubha H.S, Associate Professor and the Head, Department of Media Studies, Manipal Institute of Communication, and Mr. Shreeraj Gudi, Assistant Professor – Senior Scale, Manipal Institute of Communication.