New Viral Snapchat Lens Has 1.3 Billion Snapchatters In (Faux) Tears

There’s a new Snapchat Lens that’s blowing up right now across Snapchat, Spotlight (Snapchat’s in-app entertainment platform for UGC content) and other platforms. The Crying Lens lets you plant tears on your face - or your friends’ – and people can’t get enough. 

Since launching on Friday, over 180 million Snapchatters have engaged with our new Crying Lens 1.3 billion times. The Crying Lens has also gone viral off of Snapchat, with over 100 million views on other platforms. Would you be interested in covering?

On Spotlight:

David Dobrik can’t and won’t stop using the Lens on his friends – unbeknownst to them – and asking “what’s wrong?” or “are you okay?”; cue laughter 

King Kumar is all of us when the waiter walks in your direction with food, but ends up serving the table next to you 

Jack Doherty posted a hilarious video of his friends crying because they love him so much 

Other platforms:

Naser Al Azzeh (Jordindian) trying the filter on friends at a house party 

Kylie Jenner pokes fun at her and her sisters on the Met Gala red carpet 

Kim Vega’s boyfriend doing chores make him simply, upset 

Fullmhouse perfectly reveals our internal thoughts while working out 

The Lens is available globally on iOS and Android on Snapchat , 

HCL Foundation Kicks Off Pan India Symposium ‘CSR For HCL Grant Edition VIII In Bengaluru

* HCL Foundation has already invested INR 900 crores in CSR in the last 11 years 

* Launches HCL Grant Edition VIII with a commitment of INR 16.5 crores 

HCL Foundation (HCLF), the CSR (corporate social responsibility) arm of HCL Technologies, hosted the first pan India Symposium for HCL Grant Edition VIII in Bengaluru for NGOs in Karnataka and the neighboring states at the Christ University.  

HCL Foundation strongly believes in the power of grassroots empowerment. The HCL Grant Symposium Series – ‘CSR for Nation Building’ is one such opportunity that enables us to engage, co-learn, and co-create ideas for sustained nation-building, from the ground-up. 

The daylong event comprised a panel discussion with local NGO representatives and civil society experts on the theme ‘Creating Impact Along with Compliances Under CSR.’ A total of 200 NGOs were present at the event with a participation of over 350 people, representing many parts of the region.  

There was an insightful panel discussion and a fireside chat with eminent speakers- Ms. Nidhi Pundhir, Director, HCL Foundation; Mr. Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy (Krishna), Co-founder and CEO, Sattva; Mr. Rishabh Lalani, Independent Consultant; Mr. Rohit Bahadur, Partner Social and Sustainability Advisory, Grant Thornton and Mr. Nikhil Pant, Chief Executive Officer, REACHA who also moderated the panel. 

Mr. Vijay Mallya, EVP & Global Head Delivery, Financial Services, HCL Technologies, spoke about the role of creating meaningful partnerships not just for business but also for social impact. 

Ms. Nidhi Pundhir, Director, HCL Foundation, set the context by presenting an overview of the HCL Foundation and its community development journey in India. She also introduced HCL Grant, a key project for supporting NGOs doing exemplary work in rural development.  

The symposium comprised several sessions such as a Masterclass/workshop on CSR Law and New Amendment by Mr. Bhomik Shah, CEO and Founder, CSRBox and NGOBox, and Mr. Nikhil Pant, Chief Executive Officer, REACHA. The symposium also had a Workshop/Masterclass by Dr. Usha Manjunath, Director & Professor, IIHMR (Institute of Health Management Research), Bangalore on Programme Management for Non-Profits. A motivational talk on reshaping social work in the post-Covid world was conducted by Mr. Ravi Sreedharan, Founder, ISDM (Indian School of Development Management). 

This is the second time that the HCL Foundation has conducted a symposium in Bengaluru. The first symposium in 2019 received an overwhelming response from NGOs in the state and the participation has been more encouraging this year.  

SAAHAS, a Bengaluru-based NGO, was HCL Grant Winner in 2020 for its project on “Sustainable Waste Management through Community-Owned Rural Resource Recovery Systems,” which is being implemented across four districts – Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Ballari, and Ramanagara of Karnataka. 

Through this Symposium, HCL Foundation reached out to the NGOs on CSR mandate, challenges, and opportunities in the local area development, Proposal Writing, and Project Management and encouraged them to apply for the HCL Grant 2022. The state has many good NGOs working in the field of Education, Health, and Environment, which could benefit from the symposium.  

The HCL Grant Pan-India Symposiums is an initiative by the HCL Foundation to bring together NGOs, government, corporates, and policymakers from across India on one platform to interact and develop regional as well as a sectoral understanding of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and deliberate upon how to contribute toward nation-building. It will also have CSR & sector experts, academicians, HCL Grant recipient NGOs, and other development sector practitioners on panel to meet and share their experiences. 

HCL Grant Symposiums, being conducted across 10 States & UTs of India this year, aims to invite all interested development sector professionals, non-profits, social purpose organizations and academic institutions to join for the symposiums at various locations.  

Through these symposiums, HCL Foundation aims to inform NGOs about HCL Grant, one of the most coveted institutionalized grants available in India, which identifies NGOs doing path-breaking work in rural development through an independent, robust, and democratic process. 

This is the eighth consecutive edition of the HCL Grant in which grants will be awarded in the categories of Education, Health, and Environment, with a commitment of ?5 crores for a three-year project in each category. The Grant would also reward the other finalists with ?25 lakhs for a one-year project. The total fund committed for the eighth edition is ?16.5 crores.  

HCL Grant has seen a significant increase in registrations. Since 2016 onwards 35000+ Registrations, 7500+ Applications has been received under HCL Grant. The idea of the HCL Grant is not only to recognize the work of NGOs contributing to the nation’s growth and development but to also stay engaged with them to achieve the desired impact. 

The HCL Grant Compendium published each year features not just the winners, but also the work of up to 30 shortlisted NGOs, 10 from each category. It is a step toward re-establishing the value of strong governance in civil society and providing international visibility to Indian NGOs doing path-breaking work in the rural development sector. 

For more information, visit http://hclgrant.hcltech.com 

Quote of Ms. Nidhi Pundhir, Director, HCL Foundation 

HCL Foundation, through HCL Grant Symposiums Edition VIII, aims to bring together NGOs, Government, Corporates, and Policymakers across India on one platform to develop a regional and a sectoral understanding of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and deliberate upon how it can contribute toward #NationBuilding. 

We are always committed to supporting the commendable work NGOs are doing at the grassroots level in the Education, Health, and Environment sectors. We believe that the symposiums will efficiently empower NGOs with the latest information on best practices and transformative ideas and support them in building a better India. 

In 2020, we had SAAHAS, a Bengaluru-based NGO, as our HCL Grant Winner for its project “Sustainable Waste Management through Community-Owned Rural Resource Recovery Systems.” We have witnessed an overwhelming response to the symposium today and are delighted to see many NGOs coming in with their interesting work and hope that the sessions will help participant NGOs re-establish strong governance in civil society.  

Red Hat Defines A New Epicenter For Innovation With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

* The world’s leading enterprise Linux platform pairs hardened, trusted code with cloud-based services, powering traditional and next-generation production workloads

* Designed for edge and multi-cloud computing, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 drives consistent, manageable innovation everywhere it runs, from data center to cloud to edge

* Red Hat Enterprise Linux remains an economic driver, with the overall Red Hat Enterprise Linux footprint forecast to touch more than $13 trillion of the global economy in 2022

Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today introduced Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, the Linux operating system designed to drive more consistent innovation across the open hybrid cloud, from bare-metal servers to cloud providers and the farthest edge of enterprise networks. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is designed to drive enterprise transformation in parallel with evolving market forces and customer demands in an automated and distributed IT world. The platform will be generally available in the coming weeks.

or two decades, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has served as the backbone of enterprise IT, both in the data center and in the cloud, emphasizing customer choice and flexibility. With this platform for innovation, Red Hat customers can choose their underlying architecture, application vendor, or cloud provider with the consistency necessary for modern IT. Combined, this has resulted in Red Hat Enterprise Linux becoming an epicenter for innovation. According to a Red Hat-sponsored IDC study, the global Red Hat Enterprise Linux economy is forecast to exceed $13 trillion in 2022. This includes supporting the business activities of Red Hat customers, which is estimated to provide financial benefits totaling $1.7 trillion in 2022.

Building on decades of relentless innovation, the latest version of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform is the first production release built from CentOS Stream, the continuously delivered Linux distribution that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This approach helps the broader Red Hat Enterprise Linux ecosystem, from partners to customers to independent users, provide feedback, code, and feature updates to the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform.

IDC2 predicts that “by 2023, 40% of G2000 [companies will] reset cloud selection processes to focus on business outcomes rather than IT requirements, valuing access to providers' portfolios from device to edge and from data to ecosystem.” To Red Hat, this indicates that a standardized platform that can reach across all of these footprints and provide an experience optimized for both innovation and production stability is crucial. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is engineered to address these needs and more, enabling operations teams and developers to deploy new initiatives without abandoning existing workloads or systems.

A ubiquitous platform for consistent innovation across the data center, cloud providers, and edge

Customers can use Red Hat Enterprise Linux wherever and however it makes sense for their unique operational requirements with broad availability and deployment options across major cloud marketplaces. Existing customers can migrate Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions to the cloud of their choice with Red Hat Cloud Access, while any customer looking to adopt the scale and power of the cloud will be able to deploy the platform on-demand from major cloud provider marketplaces, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

This platform's ubiquity also stretches to the edge. With enterprise interest in edge computing growing and forecasts predicting a market of more than a quarter trillion dollars by 2025.3, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 incorporates key enhancements specifically designed to address evolving IT needs at the edge. These capabilities include:

Comprehensive edge management, delivered as a service, to oversee and scale remote deployments with greater control and security functionality, encompassing zero-touch provisioning, system health visibility, and more responsive vulnerability mitigations all from a single interface.

Automatic container roll-back with Podman, Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s integrated container management technology, which can automatically detect if a newly-updated container fails to start and then roll the container back to the previous working version. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 also highlights Red Hat’s efforts to deliver key operating system functions as services, starting with a new image builder service. Supporting the core platform’s existing functionality, the service supports image creation for customized filesystems and major cloud providers and virtualization technologies, including AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and VMware.

Red Hat and AWS have worked together for more than a decade to support the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux at launch on AWS. Most recently, customers can now run Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based workloads on AWS instances that use ARM-designed Graviton processors. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 integration with AWS Graviton processors helps to optimize the price performance for a wide range of cloud workloads running in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

A stronger backbone for innovation everywhere

As IT teams adopt new technologies and extend into new operating footprints, the threat landscape becomes more dynamic and complex. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 retains Red Hat’s commitment to delivering a hardened Linux platform that can handle the most sensitive workloads, pairing innovation with extended security capabilities. Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions also include access to Red Hat Insights, Red Hat’s continuous, proactive analytics service for detecting and remediating potential configuration and vulnerability issues while optimizing resource and subscription usage across the hybrid cloud.

Beyond the hardening, testing, and vulnerability scanning that all Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases undergo, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 incorporates features that help address hardware-level security vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown as well as capabilities to help user-space processes create memory areas that are inaccessible to potentially malicious code. The platform provides readiness for customer security requirements as well, supporting PCI-DSS, HIPAA and more.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 also introduces integrity measurement architecture (IMA) digital hashes and signatures. With integrity measurement architecture, users can verify the integrity of the operating system with digital signatures and hashes. This helps to detect rogue infrastructure modifications, making it easier to limit the potential for systems to be compromised.

Further supporting enterprise choice in architectures and environments across the open hybrid cloud, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 will be available on IBM Cloud and also complements the key security features and capabilities of IBM Power Systems and IBM Z systems. Pairing the security-focused hardware capabilities of IBM’s architectures with the security enhancements in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 delivers the innovation, strength and security capabilities that many organizations need in hybrid cloud computing.

Consistent automation and development across the hybrid cloud

As IT systems grow to encompass a wider variety of workloads and footprints, IT operations teams are using automated systems and tooling as force multipliers. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 helps IT organizations embrace automation across the hybrid cloud, with capabilities tailored to help cut complexity and enhance manageability.

The platform introduces an expanded set of Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Roles, which provide an automated workflow for creating specific system configurations. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 further builds out this selection, adding new System Roles for Postfix, high-availability clusters, firewall, Microsoft SQL Server, web console, and more.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 also supports kernel lives to patch from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console, further automating how IT organizations can address critical tasks at scale. This enables IT operations teams to apply updates across large, distributed system deployments without having to access command-line tooling, making it easier to address production-impacting issues from the core datacenter to multiple clouds to the edge.

Building on the strategic alliance expanded with Microsoft in 2015, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, available at launch on Microsoft Azure, provides a foundation ready for key Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft SQL Server, thanks to joint engineering efforts with Microsoft. This includes tailored performance co-pilot modules, tuned profiles, a SQL Server system role powered by Ansible, and more. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 also continues to fully support .NET development and applications, bringing applications built using Microsoft’s development platform to the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform.

Availability

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 will be generally available in the coming weeks via the Red Hat Customer Portal and major cloud provider marketplaces. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is also accessible via no-cost Red Hat Developer programs that provide developers with access to software, how-to videos, demos, getting started guides, documentation, and more.

Supporting Quotes

Matthew Hicks, executive vice president, Products and Technologies, Red Hat

“From vast public clouds and tiny edge devices to simple containerized applications and complex artificial intelligence workloads, modern IT starts with Linux. As the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 extends wherever needed across the open hybrid cloud and beyond, pairing the trusted backbone of enterprise Linux with the innovative catalysts of open source communities. Linux is positioned at the epicenter of rapid technological evolution and that Linux is Red Hat Enterprise Linux.”

Ashesh Badani, senior vice president, Products, Red Hat

“Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 continues Red Hat’s commitment to matching the relentless pace of IT innovation across industries. The platform is designed for an automated world, where the operating system forms the connection point between otherwise disparate and disconnected environments and technologies. Whether it's extending existing skills into new IT footprints or helping to bring cloud-native workloads to production, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 provides the innovation engine for the modern and future enterprise.”

Fred Wurden, vice president, AWS Commercial Software Services

AWS and Red Hat have collaborated for over a decade to provide enterprise-ready cloud computing solutions for customers. Now, we bring Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, a more consistent and innovative Linux platform onto AWS, enabling customers to run their mission-critical workloads on over 500 generally available instance types including the most advanced ARM-based AWS Graviton processors which power the latest generation of Amazon EC2 instances.”

Ashish Nadkarni, group vice president, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group, IDC

“IT is no longer limited to the corporate data center or to public cloud deployments - instead, systems and operating environments must extend out to the furthest edges of the digital domain. As with virtualization and cloud computing before it, this new paradigm benefits from a standardized Linux platform such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which gives IT teams a common foundation for innovation no matter where they operate.”

Mike Cross, principal product owner, GlaxoSmithKline

“High-performance computing is a critical component of pharmaceutical innovation, as being able to quickly identify and analyze new global health challenges is crucial to our corporate mission. Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports these environments for us, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is poised to drive even greater performance out of these production systems in our efforts to help communities around the world adapt to a changing health landscape.”

Hillery Hunter, general manager, Cloud Industry Platforms and Solutions, CTO, IBM Cloud

“With IBM Cloud, clients can take advantage of open cloud architecture to accelerate the pace at which they can drive innovation, while still prioritizing security and resiliency. With the support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, our clients, particularly those in highly regulated industries like financial services, can be assured they are using an environment designed with security and enterprise capabilities in mind. As organizations prioritize security, compliance, and modernization velocity, this environment can help them manage workloads across their hybrid cloud environments to provide a consistent experience.”

Omar Khan, General Manager, Azure Infrastructure, Microsoft Corporation

“We look forward to helping our customers continue to innovate as they migrate to the cloud. As businesses extend workloads from the cloud to the edge, solutions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Microsoft Azure offer benefits for the enterprise, including automated Red Hat Enterprise Linux workloads through Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Azure.”

James Jones, DevOps engineer III, PODS Enterprises, LLC

“We run an extensive set of critical services on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 provides an expanded set of capabilities, particularly around cloud-native and containers support, that will help us to further enhance and refine our Linux landscape. The updates to manageability features such as cockpit and Red Hat Web Console are ones that we’re keen to explore more deeply, especially as our environment becomes more entrenched in cloud-native services.”

ABOUT RED HAT

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

KDEM And Mikro Grafeio Services Pt. Ltd. Signs MOU To Proliferating Growth In Emerging Cities Across Karnataka

The Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) in its endeavor to augment India’s start-up ecosystem and collaborative innovation, today entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Mikro Grafeio Services Pvt. Ltd. Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, CEO, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission Pvt Ltd. (KDEM), and Mr. Santosh Mahalingam, CEO, Mikro Grafeio Services Pvt. Ltd., signed an MOU on 27th April 2022 in Bengaluru, to promote ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ mission to key emerging cities and districts across the State of Karnataka through enhanced collaborative initiatives.

This MOU is aimed to bring about a necessary change in the outlook of commercial spaces in cities beyond Bengaluru for the right social and economic impact to make its mark.

The Beyond Bengaluru program of KDEM is spearheading the mission of proliferating the growth of the digital economy in clusters beyond Bangalore by identifying potential clusters in the state. The program aims at building a community of key industry players, entrepreneurs, start-up owners, academia, accelerators, and the student community, the Beyond Bengaluru program of KDEM is steering towards getting investments and generating employment in the state.

Mikro Grafeio Services Pvt. Ltd. is a social impact start-up that aims at creating employment opportunities in Tier 2 & 3 towns; they support Hybrid work models by offering flexible workspaces for employees to work from their hometowns. With the support of KDEM, it hopes to motivate enterprises and organizations to set up their global offshore capabilities in Mysore, Mangalore, and Hubbali clusters by developing and pooling resources & creating a plug and play infrastructure. Plans also include engaging with the Hospitality Industry to optimize the existing inventories and setting up sector-specific incubation centers.

Speaking at the occasion, Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, CEO (KDEM) highlighted the benefits of Mikro Grafeio’s solutions in promoting economic growth in Tier 2 & 3 cities, thus aligning with KDEM’s vision for the future of Karnataka.  He added, “In view of the new normal, Tier2/3 cities in Mangaluru, Mysuru and Hubbali clusters have showcased tremendous potential. KDEM and MGS shall aim to work together towards setting up global offshore capabilities in Beyond Bengaluru clusters. We also hope that this development will also help women empowerment and strengthen efforts in diversity inclusion, by offering fair opportunities with the comfort of working closer to home”.

Mr. Santhosh Mahalingam, CEO, Mikro Grafeio Services reflected on the overall social sustainability and impact of this collaboration with KDEM through this MOU.  “As a startup conscious about ESG, we have been focused on bridging the digital divide and empowering local economies by providing universal access to entrepreneurial and professional opportunities, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.  We also intend to optimize our skilling expertise to meet the requirements of KDEM’s Talent Accelerator ecosystem in emerging cities and towns to advance sector-specific talent development initiatives.”

About Mikro Grafeio Services Pvt. Ltd.:

Mikro Grafeio Services Pvt. Ltd. is a social impact start-up that aims at creating employment opportunities in Tier 2 & 3 towns and thus enabling local economies to thrive. Providing distributed workspaces that process ready, people-ready, and performance-ready, Mikro Grafeio is an integrated workspace and workforce solutions, provider.  Our workforce solutions include a host of value-added services - hiring, training, and deploying talent, tech-infrastructure management, employee well-being & engagement, and other business support services. Mikro Grafeio assists in hiring, training, and deploying a productive workforce faster and at scale to either kick-start or expand operations. We also offer workspaces across 300 + locations across India through our discovery platform, BeRightHere.com. 

About Karnataka Digital Economy Mission Pvt Ltd.:

Karnataka Digital Economy Mission is a Section 8 organization designed to function as the knowledge bridge between the Government of Karnataka and industry with a view of accelerating the growth and investments of the IT, BT, and S&T sectors in Karnataka.  The Karnataka Digital Economy Mission promises to harness the unlimited potential of the digital economy of Karnataka to transform the lives of the people in the state. The IT ecosystem not only uplifts the lives of professionals in the industry but also powers millions of other ancillary jobs across other industries.

Experian Launches New Cloud-Based Decisioning Solution – PowerCurve Strategy Management

* The new SaaS model helps businesses make faster and more efficient credit decisions 

Experian, the world’s leading global information services company, has launched a new PowerCurve® Strategy Management solution, a powerful decisioning solution delivered as software-as-a-service via cloud. The solution is designed to help organisations leverage data and make faster, secure, and informed business decisions. 

PowerCurve® is a unified platform that helps businesses understand and leverage their data across the entire customer life cycle – be it acquisition, retention or growth – to make fast, efficient decisions that support their strategic goals. With the new solution, businesses will be able to swiftly adapt their decision-based strategies at lower operational cost while harnessing the power of cloud.  

Neeraj Dhawan, Managing Director, Experian India, says: “Financial institutions in India are looking for more agile and scalable decisioning solutions. To fulfil their needs, we have come up with a comprehensive suite of solutions to help businesses make better decisions and stay one step ahead. At Experian, we are committed to providing advanced solutions through innovation, technology, and excellence.” 

The cloud-based PowerCurve® solution empowers businesses with integrated insights by maximising data and analytics to drive effective decisions across customer touchpoints. The solution supports businesses across a wide range of industries, including banking, fintech, MSME, insurance and beyond. 

PowerCurve® Strategy Management combines machine learning and Experian’s deep knowledge of the industry to generate advanced data-driven insights. The cloud-based service offers: 

Market-leading expertise – Easy access to a world-class decision engine with a strong global track record, providing high performance strategy execution. 

Agility – Businesses can evolve their strategies swiftly with self-service capabilities and easily expand the solution for their portfolio growth. 

Business user control – Designed for business users with easy access and full autonomy for strategy design, testing, and deployment to production. 

Security first – State-of-the-art security which includes round-the-clock security event monitoring, detection, and response as well as with seamless and continuous security patches. 

Cloud native – The solution is built on active-active microservices architecture ensuring high availability and scalability, consumed as a service. 

Full automation– Continuous innovation with fully automated software upgrades every six weeks that make new functionalities available at businesses’ convenience.   

The new PowerCurve® Strategy Management solution sits on the Experian cloud deployment platform and leverages the scale and the rich features of the underlying Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure, to deliver its as-a-service benefits to businesses. 

IPO-Bound Navi Expands Its Board To 4 Independent Directors With The Latest Appointment Of Vidit Aatrey, Meesho’s Co-Founder & CEO

* With Mr. Aatrey’s appointment, independent directors now form a majority on Navi’s Board.

* Navi had recently also appointed three other independent directors - namely, Mr Abhijit Bose, Mr Shripad Shrikrishna Nadkarni, and Ms Usha A Narayanan.

Navi Technologies Limited (“Navi”) announced the appointment of Mr Vidit Aatrey, the co-founder & CEO of Meesho as an Independent Director on its board of directors (“Board”) effective as of April 9, 2022, subject to completion of formalities.

Mr Aatrey’s appointment is in continuation of Navi’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its Board, having recently appointed three other Independent Directors, namely, Mr Abhijit Bose, Mr Shripad Nadkarni, and Ms Usha Narayanan who all come with rich and diverse experience across various sectors.

With this appointment, Navi’s Board, which now comprises 7 members, will have majority representation from independent directors. The other board members include Navi’s promoter and co-founder, Mr. Sachin Bansal, co-founder, Mr. Ankit Agarwal and Mr. Anand Sinha, the former Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Commenting on the appointments, Sachin Bansal, Co-founder of the Navi group said:

“I am pleased to welcome Bobby (Abhijit), Shripad, Usha and, most recently, Vidit to our Board. They each bring a unique perspective and I believe they will add significant strategic value to Navi as we continue to grow. These appointments  further reinforce our commitment to setting high standards in corporate governance.”

About the Independent Directors:

Mr. Vidit Aatrey is the co-founder & CEO of Meesho. He graduated from IIT Delhi in 2012 and co-founded Meesho in 2015. He has been featured in Fortune India’s 40 Under 40 list for 2021, and was awarded the EY Entrepreneur of the year 2021- Startup category.

Mr. Abhijit Bose is the Head of India for WhatsApp. Prior to taking on the leadership role at WhatsApp, Abhijit held senior executive positions at Oracle, Intuit and was the co-founder of Ezetap. He graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA and Cornell University with a Bachelor's degree in Science.

Mr. Shripad Shrikrishna Nadkarni is a member of Maverix Platforms. Mr. Nadkarni has several decades of experience in India’s consumer, pharmaceuticals, food & beverage and consulting industries. In the past, he has been associated with Coca-Cola India and Johnson & Johnson Private Limited for a combined period of 16 years and last held the position of Vice President- Marketing. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Ms. Usha A Narayanan, who is already a part of the Navi group as an Independent Director for other group entities such as a Navi Finserv Limited, Navi General Insurance Limited & Chaitanya India Fin Credit Private Limited, has more than two decades of audit experience with Lovelock & Lewes Chartered Accountants LLP, a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she was a partner for a period of 15 years. She is also a former independent director on the board of directors of Bank of Baroda. Ms. Narayanan is a Chartered Accountant (ICAI) and a qualified Company Secretary (ICSI).

About Navi Group:

Co-founded by Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal, the Navi group offers a range of financial services and products such as Personal Loans, Home Loans, Retail Health Insurance and Mutual Funds.

“Navi Technologies Limited is proposing, subject to receipt of requisite approvals, market conditions and other considerations, to make an initial public offer of its equity shares and has filed a draft red herring prospectus (“DRHP”) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The DRHP is available on the website of the SEBI at www.sebi.gov.in as well as on the websites of the book running lead managers, Axis Capital Limited at www.axiscapital.co.in, BoFA Securities India Limited at www.ml-india.com, Credit Suisse Securities (India) Private Limited at www.credit-suisse.com/in/en/investment-banking-apac/investment-banking-in-india/ipo.html,

Edelweiss Financial Services Limited at www.edelweissfin.com, and ICICI Securities Limited at www.icicisecurities.com, and the websites of the stock exchange(s) at www.nseindia.com and www.bseindia.com, respectively. Investors should note that investment in equity shares involves a high degree of risk and for details relating to such risk, see "Risk Factors" of the RHP, when available. Potential investors should not rely on the DRHP for any investment decision.

The Equity Shares have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “U.S. Securities Act”) or any other applicable law of the United States and, unless so registered, may not be offered or sold within the United States except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. Accordingly, the Equity Shares are being offered and sold (a) in the United States only to persons reasonably believed to be “qualified institutional buyers” (as defined in Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act) in transactions exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act, and (b) outside the United States in offshore transactions as defined in and in compliance with Regulation S and the applicable laws of the jurisdiction where those offers and sales are made. There will be no public offering in the United States.”

LG Electronics Under Its CSR Initiative “KAREIN ROSHNI” Will Support 8700 Cataract Surgies

·       LG has partnered with five charitable hospitals across India

·       The initiative is aimed at benefiting 8700 individuals through cataract eye surgeries

With a continued commitment to serve the community and on the occasion of its 25th Anniversary in the country, India’s leading consumer durable company, LG Electronics India announced the launch of KAREIN ROSHNI- Light For Every Sight A CSR initiative. Under the aegis of this initiative,  LG has announced to support 8700 cataract Eye surgeries across India through 5 charitable Hospitals.

LG has announced its latest CSR initiative with an aim to support underprivileged. The company has pledged to support 8700 cataract eye surgeries across India through five charitable hospitals namely - Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, Delhi, Icare Eye Hospital, Noida, Sankara Eye

Foundation, Coimbatore, H V desai Eye Hospital,Pune,Sri Sankaradeva Nethralaya,Guwahati.

Commenting on the initiative, Younglak Kim-MD,LG Electronics India said, “Over the past 25 years, our aim has not just been to make meaningful innovations that create convenience for our consumers, but also elevate the lives of the people. Our latest KAREIN ROSHNI- Light For Every Sight CSR initiative is an effort to offer a gift of vision to the people who cannot afford quality care. LG has always been committed to introduce meaningful interventions. We are thankful to all our partner hospitals and the people associated with this initiative for supporting us in this cause.”

Dr. R.V. Ramani;Padma Shri Awardee;Founder & Managing Trustee;Sankara Eye Foundation India said “India has a huge population of visually impaired people.1/3rd of World’s population of blind live in our Country. The majority of the visual impairment is either preventable or curable.Majority of Patients suffer from Cataract.While the efforts taken by the Governmental and Non-Governmental Agencies to combat blindness started yielding results, the Pandemic over the past 2 to 3 years came as a bolt from the blue.Community Eye Care surgeries could not be pursued in the last 2 years.As a result, a huge backlog of cataract Patients has been accumulated across India.Only a concerted effort from all like-minded organisations would help in clearing the backlog of pending cataract surgeries.LG getting involved in this Humanitarian Cause will help mitigate the suffering of Cataract Patients.We at Sankara Eye Foundation India, across the Country, are glad to join hands with LG to provide the Gift of Vision to the Millions."

Dr. Umang Mathur- Executive Director, Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, Delhi said, “Shroff Hospital, being one of the torch-bearer of the eye care industry, it gives me immense pleasure to associate with LG on this new initiative. I believe avoidable blindness is still a big challenge in India and initiatives like KAREIN ROSHNI help us move towards our goal of eradicating needless blindness. I wish we can spread more awareness with our work and be the reason for vision.”

“Cataract is the leading cause of avoidable blindness in India. There is a backlog of over 22 million blind eyes (12 million blind people) in India, and 80.1% of these are blind due to cataract. The annual incidence of cataract blindness is about 3.8 million.This partnership will contribute towards saving the sight of countless who cannot afford a simple surgery. 700 cataract surgeries will be supported by LGEIL under their CSR programme.“We are grateful to LG Electronics India Private Ltd for their support towards this initiative. With this partnership, we hope to reach the unreached and ensure that quality eye care is available to everyone,” said Mr. Parvez Bilimoria, Executive Director- H V Desai Hospital (unit of The Poona Blind Men’s Association).

On the occasion, Dr. Sushil Choudhry- Managing Trustee ICARE Eye Hospital & Post Graduate Institute (unit of Ishwar Charitable Trust),Noida said, “Blindness is not only a health problem but is one of the most important social problems worldwide with enormous economic implications. Blindness is mainly a problem of developing countries which is preventable in at least 80% of cases. The WHO/NPCB (National Programme for Control of Blindness) survey has shown that there is a backlog of over 22 million blind eyes (12 million blind people) in India, and 80.1% of these are blind due to cataract. The annual incidence of cataract blindness is about 3.8 million. Cataract is responsible for 50-80% of bilaterally blind and this is avoidable and treatable.We are grateful to LG ELECTRONICS INDIA PRIVATE LTD for trusting ICARE’s mission of eradicating avoidable blindness and supporting us by approving cataract surgeries for the needy and elderly rural population.Our constant endeavour is to reach out to these people and help them not only to regain their eyesight but  once again live a life of dignity.” 

LG Electronics has always believed in enriching the lives of people and through this initiative, the brand is set to lend its support to the cause of helping underprivileged visually-impaired people regain their vision. LG Electronics is continuing this programme since 2018.

About LG Electronics India Pvt Ltd               

LG Electronics India Pvt. Ltd. (“LG Electronics”), a wholly owned subsidiary of LG Electronics, South Korea was established in January 1997 in India. It is one of the most formidable brands in consumer electronics, home appliances, HVAC, IT hardware. In India, LG has earned a premium brand positioning and is the acknowledged trendsetter for the industry. LGEIL's manufacturing unit at Greater Noida is one of the most eco-friendly units among all LG manufacturing plants in the world. The second Greenfield facility is located at Ranjangaon; Pune has the capacity to manufacture LED TV’s, air conditioners, commercial air conditioning systems, washing machines, refrigerators, and monitors.

*Home Appliances include- Refrigerator; Washing Machine, AC, Water purifier, Microwave, Fan, Dishwasher & Air purifier