IIT-Madras alumnus Suresh Kumar to be New CTO & CDO of Walmart

This week, the US based global retail chain behemoth, Walmart has appointed Suresh Kumar, an IIT Madras graduate and former Google executive, as chief technology officer (CTO) and chief development officer (CDO). He is an engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (1987 batch), and a PhD in engineering from Princeton University (1992).

His appointment comes as Walmart is undertaking major investments in its e-commerce business to compete more effectively with Amazon.

The appointment comes after Walmart's previous CTO Jeremy King left the company to join Pinterest.

Suresh Kumar, who will report directly to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, will join the retail behemoth from July 8. He will be based out of the company’s Sunnyvale, California, office. The 54-year-old will fill in the shoes of Jeremy King, Walmart’s longtime CTO, who left the company in March.

Walmart’s Chief Information Officer Clay Johnson will report to Kumar, as will the technology chiefs at Walmart’s main operating units — US, international and Sam’s Club.

Suresh, 54, and his wife Gayathri currently live in Cupertino, CA and have two daughters. He will join Walmart at Sunnyvale office, officially starting on July 8.

Prior to Google, Suresh was the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure and Operations and before that he spent 15 years at Amazon Inc in various leadership roles, including Vice President of Technology for Retail Systems & Operations, and he led Amazon’s retail supply chain and inventory management systems. Before Amazon, Suresh was a research staff member at IBM T J Watson Research Center.

According to Suresh's LinkedIn profile, he has 25 years of software development experience with a proven track record of managing and delivering mission critical projects in e-commerce and managing 24x7 systems and operations.He has expertise in supply chain management and retail processes including inventory management, fulfillment operations, pricing, demand forecasting, vendor management and catalog operations.



“The technology of today and tomorrow enables us to serve our customers and associates in ways that weren’t previously possible. We want to take full advantage of those opportunities," said McMillon.

"Suresh has a unique understanding of the intersection of technology and retail, including supply chain, and has deep experience in advertising, cloud and machine learning. And, he has a track record of working in partnership with business teams to drive results," Walmart CEO added.

"Walmart is one of the great success stories in how a company evolves over time to serve the changing needs of its customers, and today, it is in the midst of an exciting digital transformation," Kumar said.

With over 11,000 stores, a high-growth e-commerce business and more than two million associates worldwide, the potential for technology to help people at scale is unparalleled, Kumar added.

Softbank's arm Deepcore Launching $55+ Mn Fund Dedicated for Startups in Artificial Intelligence

Deepcore, an AI-focused incubator and subsidiary of SoftBank Group of Japan, is planning to raise more than 6 billion yen (~ US$55 million) for its second artificial intelligence (AI) investment fund dedicated to promising startups in artificial intelligence," reported Bloomberg.

Launched last year by Softbank, Deepcore Inc has reportedly received previous funding from investors including Yahoo Japan and Dentsu. The news of the new fund comes about a week after SoftBank added renowned AI researcher Yutaka Matsuo to its board.

Deepcore is preparing to form a new AI investment fund in two to three years as it expands its core startup incubation business, said CEO of Softbank, Katsumasa Niki, in an interview to bloomberg.

The upcoming AI Fund will be a separate entity from $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund. With the AI fund, the Japan-based conglomerate aims to address deficit of global AI firms in its home country and erect a company that can give a serious competition to GAFA giants -- Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

“The number of startups here is fewer than the U.S. and Europe, and we need to increase it by providing such environment that engineers can open up a business," said Softbank CEO, Katsumasa, who oversaw investment projects for SoftBank until 2016 and was instrumental in the acquisitions of Vodafone's Japan mobile unit and Sprint Corp.

Softbank founder Masayoshi Son said, what unifies those investments is the way they will use AI, redefining every industry and creating new ones.

Deepcore's first AI Fund counts SoftBank, Yahoo Japan Corp., Dentsu Inc. and soccer player Keisuke Honda as its investors and the fund has so far invested in 18 early-stage startups to date.

Last November, Engineer.ai, a San Francisco-based tech startup, raised a $29.5 million Series A that included contribution from Deepcore.

In December, Softbank partnered with Invest India, a government of India's official investment promotion agency, and SoftBank Group of Japan to launch Tech4Future challenge for Indian startups that have developed a global product in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Face Recognition and Cyber Security.

Earlier this year, Softbank's venture capital arm, SoftBank Ventures Korea, re-branded to SoftBank Ventures Asia to focus its emphasis of investments in Southeast Asia and China.

Global Algae Products Market to Reach $ 15 Billion by 2024

Increasing demand from healthy food sector, particularly from manufacturers of healthy foods and supplements coupled with rising demand from pharmaceutical and cosmetic sectors for manufacturing therapeutic drugs and natural cosmetic products to drive global algae products market through 2024

According to TechSci Research report, “Global Algae Products Market By Source, By Application, By Region, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2024”, global algae products market is projected to reach $ 14.99 billion by 2024, backed by rising demand in healthy food products, pharmaceutical and cosmetic sectors. Moreover, increasing application of algae products for generating biofuel is expected to drive the market during forecast period. According to CIA factbook, humans consume 11 billion tonnes of oil from fossil fuels, annually, across the globe. Crude oil reserves are expected to vanish by 2060. Algae can be used to produce biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel. Under the photosynthesis process, algae can create 15 times more oil per acre than what can be achieved from other plants used for producing biofuels, such as corn and switchgrass.

Browse 2 market data Tables and 114 Figures spread through 116 Pages and an in-depth TOC on
"Global Algae Products Market",
DIC Corporation, BASF SE, Koninklijke DSM N.V., Corbion N.V., Cyanotech Corporation, AlgaTechnologies Ltd., Algaetech International Sdn Bhd and Tianjin Norland Biotech Co., Ltd. are some of the leading players in global algae products market. North America dominated global algae products market in 2018 and is expected to maintain its dominating market position in coming years as well. Global algae products market can be broadly categorized on the basis of source into microalgae and microalgae. The microalgae segment dominated the market in 2018, backed by the high value proposition of algae products in the pharmaceutical sector, replacing several synthetically manufactured pharmaceutical products.

Download Sample Report @ https://www.techsciresearch.com/sample-report.aspx?cid=2719
One can also request for 10% free customization on this report.

According to TechSci Research “Algae are highly sensitive to change in environmental conditions. The production hubs for different types of algae are fragmented across the world. China, Japan, South Korea and other eastern countries are the production hubs for macroalgae, while North America and South America are the production hubs for microalgae. The market is highly fragmented in terms of number of players and type of algae products offered. Since different end use industries require different grades of algae, manufacturers in global algae products market are focusing on specific industries by developing specific types of strain of algae. The leading players in the market are microalgae product manufacturers, majorly for the pharmaceutical and food & beverage industries.”, said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm.
“Global Algae Products Market By Source, By Application, By Region, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2024” has evaluated the future growth potential of global algae products market and provides statistics and information on market structure, size, share and future growth. The report is intended to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers to take sound investment decisions. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes the emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities present in global algae products market.

Salesforce Launches its own Blockchain Platform Which can be Used by Non-Coders

US-based Customer relationship management (CRM) software firm Salesforce has announced the launch of its own blockchain platform, which it describes as a low-code platform for Non-Coders that will enable organisations to share verified, distributed data sets across a trusted network.

Named Salesforce Blockchain, the new blockchain channel is built on Hyperledger Sawtooth, an open source modular platform for designing, deploying, and running distributed ledgers.

The blockchain platform is also a 'low-code' platform connected to CRM so that organizations can securely collaborate and share data across third parties. A low-code development platform is a software that provides an environment for not-so-expert programmers or Non-Coders to create application software through graphical user interfaces (drag-and-drop application) and configuration instead of traditional computer programming.

This also means one does not have to go out and recruit blockchain developers but any Salesforce admin or developer can use Salesforce Blockchain with its intuitive UX powered by Lightning, an app development platform of Salesforce. Its integration with Lightning allows customers to easily and declaratively build and maintain blockchain apps, networks, and flows that are directly connected to customer records within Salesforce.

Salesforce partners and third parties can leverage Lightning's intuitive UX and easily connect to the blockchain app or network — which helps with adoption, one of the most crucial pieces of the blockchain puzzle.

Currently available to select designer partners, Salesforce Blockchain is expected to become generally available in 2020 — , and it’s customized for Salesforce Lightning, Salesforce’s front-end framework for app development. It consists of three components: Blockchain Builder, a developer toolset for building blockchain applications; Blockchain Connect, which integrates blockchain actions with Salesforce apps; and Blockchain Engage, which enables customers to invite parties to blockchain apps created within Salesforce.



In a statement, the company said the platform used the open source technology of Hyperledger Sawtooth, and would make it easier for customers to:

<ul>
<li>Build networks with clicks: Customers could now create and share a blockchain object in the same process as any CRM data object — with clicks, not code.</li>

    <li>Automate data with the Salesforce Lightning platform: Blockchain data could be made actionable through native integration with Salesforce.</li>

    <li>Engage partners easily: Companies could now pull in APIs, pre-built apps and integrate any existing blockchains with Salesforce.</li>

Hyderabad Startup True Push wins Rising Star and Premium Usability Award 2019 by FinancesOnline

TruePush, India’s first and only push notifications provider that is free forever for both Mobile and Web today announced that it has been awarded Rising Star and Premium Usability Award – 2019 from FinancesOnline.

Providing push notifications to nearly 4 million subscribers through their clients, TruePush helps enterprises to boost their engagement and help retain audience via a Website or a Mobile App. Through TruePush, the clients are sending more than 100 million notifications per month. The company empowers its clients to take well-informed decisions relating to their offerings and services.

[caption id="attachment_130820" align="aligncenter" width="792"] Co-founders: Ravi Vaka(right) and Manoj Surya(left)[/caption]

“To become a global and a disruptive product, we must be innovative, customer oriented and execute fast. Every day at TruePush, we strive to make the product better than it was yesterday and we keep on adding new features and optimizing the product and the team. These awards are just the beginning and we’ll steadily make our way to the top. The sky is not the limit, what we can achieve in today’s digital era is limitless.” said Ravi Vaka, Co-Founder and COO of TruePush.

FinancesOnline is one of the leading platforms for software reviews and comparisons with highly detailed insights. With the help of this platform, many businesses, including working professionals, can pick, compare and finally choose a SaaS product to their liking with ease.

In a post-lunch meet, Co-Founder and Product Development Head Manoj Surya, of TruePush said, “Our clients started sending 100Mn+ notifications/month is less than 100 days of launch. We listen to our customers and constantly ship what is important making our application more robust. This constant learning curve from our customers is helping us grow faster. We believe we will have a significant market share by next year in push notification space.”
TruePush started with 6-member team and currently has 9 full-time members. The team also encourages young talent by providing opportunities to interns and training them to build a skill set to help them become leaders in the corporate world.

Having worked with more than 1700 clients, the company is having ambitious plans that include-
1. Hitting 100M devices through its clients in 2019
2. Introducing more re-engagement tools in the next 1-2 years.
3. Emerging as a market leader in Push Notifications segment in the next 3 years.

TruePush is a SaaS(software as a service) product that provides free unlimited Push Notifications services for both Mobile and Web. Upon our research, we found there are no free products in the market for push-notifications and we thought, “by making it available for people would help them save money and time”. Being a free tool helped us gaining momentum and a lot of sign-ups. We have plans for making many tools around TruePush, which will be freemium.

Data Science Firm TheMathCompany gets Funding from Arihant Patni of Patni Computers Family Office

TheMathCompany, a data science firm, based in Bengaluru and Chicago, is excited to announce funding from Arihant Patni, from the Patni Computers Family Office. Since its inception in September 2016, TheMathCompany works with over 30 Fortune 500 clients and is one of the fastest growing Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning start-ups in the world. The funding will be utilized to expand TheMathCompany’s footprint globally, build next generation platforms and enhance customer experience.

Founded by industry leaders, Sayandeb Banerjee, Aditya Kumbakonam and Anuj Krishna, TheMathCompany employs over 250 data scientists, data engineers, and visualization experts. The company has clients from industries like CPG, Retail, Insurance and Banking, across the US, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe and the Middle East. This will be the Series A round of funding for TheMathCompany, in tune with their estimated revenue of US$10 Million.

Sayandeb Banerjee, Co-founder and CEO of TheMathCompany said, “In Arihant, we have found not just a financial investor, but also a strategic partner who brings along with him the experience of setting up and scaling global enterprises. Together, we are excited to embark on this journey in building a world-renowned next-gen data and analytics organization. We are changing the way organizations go about enterprise-wide transformations, by defining and executing comprehensive and robust analytics strategies. We are glad to have a partner with the experience and the ambition to work with us towards this vision.”

Arihant Patni, Entreprenuer, Venture Capitalist added, “Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning solutions are redefining business processes and generating immense business value. TheMathCompany has seen tremendous growth in a short span and the founders have a unique vision towards enhancing enterprise intelligence, combined with deep expertise in this space. Having been part of the evolution of Patni computer services, transforming the software delivery space, I see similar potential in TheMathCompany to grow and expand their reach to customers around the world. This is not just a financial investment but a relationship with a team that shares my passion for data science and a commitment to backing the team in the future. I believe their strategy and commitment to customer satisfaction would help the company scale and it gives me great pleasure to be part of the growth.”
About Arihant Patni

Arihant is an entrepreneur and an active venture capitalist and directly engaged in three-sector focused VC funds. He is the Managing Director of Ideaspring Capital, a new early-stage fund in collaboration with established IT entrepreneurs, that focuses on enterprise technology. He is also the Managing Director and Co-founder of The Hive, a Silicon Valley ‘Big Data’ incubator with offices in Palo Alto, Mumbai and Bangalore. He is the Director and Co-founder of Nirvana Ventures, a fund focused on the Internet space. Lastly, he actively invests in his personal capacity via his family office, and works closely with portfolio companies.

About TheMathCompany

TheMathCompany is an Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning firm that helps organizations transform intelligence, create demonstrated value and makes them analytically self-sufficient. TheMathCompany has been recognized as one of the fastest growing start-ups in the world. With a holistic range of services across data engineering, data science and solution deployment, the company is consistently disrupting the analytics services and product space.

Source - Business Wire India

AI-powered HR Tech Platform Hyperhire gets $200K from Korea's Springcamp to Launch Referral Platform JOBKET in India

Delhi-based Hyperhire, a B2B End to End HR Solutions Platform that leverages Artificial Intelligence to identify most appropriate candidates for the relevant profiles, has received 200k USD worth investments as seed funding to launch JOBKET in India. The investment has been done by Seoul based early-stage venture capital firm Springcamp and supported by the Korean Government.

JOBKET is a unique job platform which brings out the concept of referrals in the HR process. The concept of referrals is much trusted for years to source quality profiles for companies offering the most suited opportunities for candidates. The company is also set to announce their series A funding in the coming months.

The newly launched platform will allow users to access various handpicked Job descriptions from renowned companies, basis which they can either self-apply or recommend their colleagues/friends who may have great talent but are unaware of a great opportunity. These ‘referrals’ are designed to be dealt with complete sanctity of offering rewards to those whose recommendations make it to the hiring. Depending on the stature of the Job Profile, users on the site for their referrals can enjoy rewards worth Rs 20,000 – Rs 1,00,000 if their referred candidate makes it to the company.

The launch of JOBKET further builds up the profile of Hyperhire which is a B2B End to End HR Solutions Platform that uses Artificial Intelligence to screen these quality profiles supported by Human Intelligence which is a pool of experienced professionals from leading companies that Hyperhire has put together to screen these profiles further and interview the further shortlisted pool ensuring a point evaluation system and final bunch of selected candidates is what gets passed on to the company, making the process more efficient and hassle free with the quickest turnaround for quality candidates.

Speaking about the development, Mr Daniel Mingi Kim, CEO, Hyperhire said “Machine learning is a boom and a blessing, but its true magic can be seen when combined with Human learning and intelligence. Together the evolution beats all odds and makes success the only output. We at Hyperhire realize that and are here to source the best from the available pool of talent and scout for new ones.”

In the words of the Indian Co-founders of Hyperhire, Amrita Gujral and Nakul Sethi, “JOBKET is a well thought through product with excellence of tech from Korea and the Indian HR insights ensuring the product puts itself to best use guaranteeing efficiency. There are new roles, new skill sets, some enhanced, some newly acquired, the variety is interesting enough for HR managers across companies to step on new understanding of these profiles to ensure the best sifted candidates are hired. We step in as enablers for the HR managers, making the hiring decisions simplified. Ever learning, ever growing!”

JOBKET is a complete solution which in its initial phase will reach out to potential candidates in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. The platform will gradually spread its wings pan India in its next expansion model sometime during end of this year.
About Hyperhire

In an era of machine learning, the value of human knowledge is lesser understood, but it is this knowledge that nourishes and further betters machine learning capacities and advancements. We become the mixologist that seamlessly blends the human skills with the emerging technology, to create a beautiful blend of workplace experiences fit for the working world of today and tomorrow.

Source - Business Wire India

IIT Madras builds Integrated Data Platform IDIP for Efficient Decision Making across Sectors

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras) has launched a Data Platform of ‘Integrated Database on Infrastructure Projects’ (IDIP) aimed at enhancing the efficiency of infrastructure development in India and enable effective decision-making among different stakeholders involved in the infrastructure sector.

Launched on 29th May 2019 during the 15th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR) conference, IDIP is offering combine geo-visual analytics, regional economic analysis and insights on impact of infrastructure projects ranging across – Roads, Ports, Airports, Water & Sanitation, Solid Waste Management and Power.

Founded by Dr. A. Thillai Rajan (Professor at IIT-Madras) and Sethuraman Ramabadran IDIP seeks to address the growing demand for data & research driven consultative solutions in the infrastructure sector. Dr. Rajan is also responsible for launching YNOS Venture Engine, an IIT-Madras incubated startup, launched last year to help startup founders by providing analytical information and intermediation services for early stage entrepreneurs.

Speaking about the importance of this Infrastructure Data platform, Prof. G. Raghuram, said, "Databases such as the IDIP highlight what the real issues in the sector are. Such data also help investors and developers to understand the performance of the existing projects and formulate their investment strategies for the sector."

[caption id="attachment_130808" align="aligncenter" width="711"] L to R - Mr Sethuraman, Director, Akara Research & Technologies, Prof Swapnil Garg, Professor, IIM Indore & Coordinator, PPPINDIANET, Prof Thillai Rajan, Principal Investigator of Project, Dept of Management Studies, IIT Madras, & Prof G Raghuram, Director, IIM Bangalore[/caption]

The initial focus of IDIP would be on the Road Sector, which has received the highest private investment among all infrastructure sectors. The PPP (Public Private Partnership) programme in the roads sector in India is the largest in the world.

To recall, last month it was reported that Indian School of Business (ISB) is setting up a data repository which will store all available public data in a single portal called as 'India Data Portal', which will be ready in a couple of months,

Highlighting the unique points of IDIP database, Principal Investigator of the Project, Prof A. Thillai Rajan, Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, said, “Availability of high quality and reliable data has been biggest bugbear in the Indian Infrastructure Development. The objective of IDIP is to address this strong need. The comprehensiveness of data available in IDIP is unmatched. Availability of this facility would provide a big impetus for research in infrastructure and promote evidence-based decision making among policy makers, funding agencies, and developers.”

Salient features of the IDIP platform include:

• Data coverage across the project lifecycle comprising development, construction and operation phases. Close to 50 different parameters are tracked for the projects,




• Data curated and validated from multiple sources,




• Covers almost all the PPP road projects awarded so far, including those awarded by the state governments. The database would be enriched with the NHAI EPC projects shortly,




• Only source that provides the financial performance data of the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs),




• Querying, visual analytics and search features of the platform facilitate ease of analysis and decision making




• In addition to roads, other transportation sectors such as Railways, Ports, and Airports would also be included in the platform shortly. In the next phase, the coverage of IDIP would also encompass other sectors of infrastructure such as power, transmission, water supply, sanitation and solid waste management.

In this month, NITI Aayog, the think-tank of Indian government, had announced that it is considering a proposal to make consumer data accessible to all, subject to riders, instead of being the exclusive preserve of a few tech firms like Google, Amazon, Facebook or even Flipkart at local level.

For IDIP, the technical expertise for its development was contributed by faculty members from multiple institutions including Dr. Ashwin Mahalingam, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, Dr. Akash Deep, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Prof. Venkata Santosh Kumar Delhi, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay, Prof Ganesh Devkar, CEPT University. The development partner for the project was Akara Research and Technologies.

Mr. Sethuraman, Director, Akara Research and Technologies, who is the development partner for this Data Platform, said, “IDIP currently has the data for all PPP projects and efforts are on to increase the coverage to other sectors, namely, seaports, airports, water & sanitation and power. The data for each project is updated regularly including the performance of the SPVs.”

Prof. Swapnil Garg, Associate Professor, IIM Indore and Co-ordinator of PPPINDIANET, said, “I found the IDIP to be quite comprehensive and also correct. I checked the validity of data for a small sample of projects that I have been tracking for a decade now. It will be very useful for researchers who work in to develop the nations PPP expertise."

Source - Indian Education Diary

Zoomcar brings 100% Off on Car Rentals With Its 'LoveYouBack' Initiative

Zoomcar has completed six years into promoting self-drive and shared mobility solutions in India. On its 6th year anniversary, it has come up with a ground-breaking new offer to usher the country into a wave of shared mobility services. Under its new ‘LoveYouBack’ Sale, Zoomcar is giving 100% OFF on all self-drive bookings made on 29-30-31st May for booking period from 8th June to 25th Nov. Which means users get the ride for FREE.

Zoomcar has completed six years into promoting self-drive and shared mobility solutions in India. On its 6th year anniversary, it has come up with a ground-breaking new offer to usher the country into a wave of shared mobility services. Under its new ‘LoveYouBack’ Sale, Zoomcar is giving 100% OFF on all self-drive bookings made on 29-30-31st May for booking period from 8th June to 25th Nov. Which means users get the ride for FREE. Apart from the whopping 100% OFF, the cornerstone of the sale event is the fact that customers get to avail the offer with ZERO Cancellation charges! Which basically immunes them against any kind of loss even if they do advance booking for any period between June’19 to Nov’19 but then cancel it owing to change of plans.

Apart from Zoomcar's gigantic offer, Free Flight Vouchers from Paytm Flights and Experiential Holiday Vouchers from Club Mahindra are up for grab. Not only that, there's an assured discount hamper of INR 10,000/- from partners like OYO, Flipkart, Titan, Cleartrip and Paytm on every booking.

Commenting on the latest development, Greg Moran, Founder & CEO, Zoomcar, said, “Six years really fly! For Zoomcar, it's been an incredible journey since we pioneered the concept of self-drive rentals in India. From our first city in 2013 to our 47th city in 2019, we've served over 7 million transactions. Nearly 5 million individuals have experienced a Zoomcar over this time. Simply put, this journey wouldn't have been possible without our esteemed customer base. To help show our appreciation, we're giving back a healthy dose of self-drive love in the form of a special anniversary sale to commemorate 6 years on the road. From May 29-31st, we're opening up our vast inventory ever to self-drive enthusiasts to avail 100% OFF on every car booking they make for the booking period between 8th June till 25th Nov, a once in a generation offers across the board.”
About Zoomcar

Zoomcar holds the distinction of being India’s first self-drive mobility platform, with the introduction of car sharing services in 2013 and today is the market leader in the self-drive space with over 7000 cars in its fleet. With a strong focus on the mobile experience, Zoomcar allows users to rent cars by the hour, day, week, or month. Headquartered in Bangalore, Zoomcar is over 250 people strong and operates in nearly 45 cities across India. In 2017, Zoomcar introduced India’s first peer2peer based marketplace for cars with the launch of ZAP Subscribe. In February 2018, Zoomcar inaugurated India’s first car subscription program under the ZAP umbrella.

DeepQuanty Artificial Intelligence Labs Launches 'SnapChek' - An Automatic Processing Engine

• An Automatic Cheque Processing Engine


• Delivers above 90% extraction accuracy on any handwritten field such as date, name, amount in words and amount in figures


• 100% extraction accuracy in printed fields such as account number, MICR, and IFSC Code.


• Significantly reduces time & error in cheque clearing operations

DeepQuanty Artificial Intelligence Labs is proud to announce the launch of its first product - SnapChek - an Automatic Cheque Processing Engine, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Designed and built by a patent pending process, SnapChek delivers above 90% extraction accuracy on any handwritten field such as date, name, amount in words and amount in figures and near 100% extraction accuracy in printed fields such as account number, MICR, and IFSC Code.

Mahadevan Jayaram, Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer says “SnapChek provides banks in India a significant opportunity to enhance banking experience. Imagine the reduction in turnaround time for cheque clearing.”

SnapChek was developed at DeepQuanty’s India Development Centre by a team of AI specialists in under four months. Says Sundar Kanniappan the CTO “Our AI team is proud to have solved a very old handwriting recognition problem in an unconventional fashion, which puts SnapChek way ahead in performance when compared to known and published benchmarks. SnapChek is just the first of a slew of exciting products that will be launched in the next few months”.

DeepQuanty Artificial Intelligence Labs was set up just four months ago with the objective of applying Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence to solve problems in the Banking, Retail, e-commerce, Insurance and Healthcare. The idea is to extract data from images such as cheques, application forms, identity proof, and apparel, with an ability to build further intelligence post extraction. For e.g., one can quickly sort apparel images into kinds, shapes, designs, colours, and sizes. Or similarly, extract from bank statements data such as type of income and expense. The deeper idea is to immensely change the customer experience in the industry and also deliver cost advantages.

DeepQuanty Artificial Intelligence Labs is founded by seasoned professionals with global exposure and decades of experience in the technology and data sciences domain.

Media Tech Firm Leadstart Publishing Raises ₹3 Crore from SucSEED Venture Partners

Leadstart Publishing, a media-tech publishing house, distributor, and rights agency platform, raises funding from SucSEED Venture Partners, Hyderabad based Angel Investment Network. This Pre-Series A Fund-raise round of Half a Million USD (more than INR 3 Crore) was also co-invested by Mumbai Angel Network & JITO Angel Network.

The Mumbai based firm, founded by Swarup Nanda, will be using the funds to scale operations, develop technology, and focus on customer acquisition.

Recognized as India’s largest book distribution network and named as the ‘fastest growing publishing company’ by The Week magazine, Leadstart has 10 brands and publishes over 200 titles a year, with imprints and products in all major book categories. Several of their authors have won major literary prizes such as the Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Akademi Award, Vodafone Crossword Awards, various State literary awards and the Jnanpith Award, as well as regularly being long listed for other awards including the Man Asian Literary Prize.

Commenting on the fund raise, Swarup Nanda, CEO & Founder – Leadstart Publishing said “ It was an excellent experience working with SucSEED, which has an investor base of senior techies, accomplished professionals and entrepreneurs. Their process time was the shortest and evaluation of the product the deepest. It was an absolute pleasure working with them. We look forward to deeper engagement with our investors for advisory and mentoring support as well. We shall be using the funds to scale up operations, develop and deploy tech, along with customer acquisitions.

Speaking on why SucSEED has invested in LeadStart Publishing, Saurabh Sharma, an Active Investor, with SucSEED, said “Leadstart Publishing is utilizing technology driven, just-in-time printing, improvements in the content based on reader feedback and a unique approach to DIY for authors to self-publish.”

“They bring in novelty of idea, uniqueness and a network of smart, passionate team that wants to bring art and literature with improvements in the readers hands!”

Vikrant Varshney, Cofounder & Partner, SucSEED, said “ Leadstart Publishing features distinguished authors and writing from across the globe. The number of books published is over 950 from 800+ authors as of May-2019. They are targeting to publish 2300 books in this fiscal year. We see them playing a big role, considering content is emerging as Key for Publishing, entertainment and OTT Sector. Leadstart has had initial success and this funding could help them achieve sustainable revenue streams too”.

Operating in the Media-Tech space, Leadstart Publishing's existence is to help individuals make commercially viable creative products and connect them to the world market. They are beginning with Books; and in the process of doing so, make available the widest range of products which empower thinking, educate and entertain, in addition generate worldwide employment opportunities in a work place free working environment.

The company enables individuals to create, market, and sell creative products and services globally, thereby bringing literature and art to people. Their integrated platform allows authors to self-publish globally in multiple languages, using technology for creation, providing enhancement and distribution of content to a wider audience such as studios, OTT platforms, or adapting to video formats, by re-imagining content discovery, and bringing reader recognition.

Great Manager Institute™ adds ex-MD of Teleperformance India Sanjay Mehta to its Advisory Board

While Great Manager Institute™ is known for its Great People Manager Study in association with Forbes India, where it evaluates organizations and its managers and comes up with the coveted list of recognized Great People Managers and Companies, it is also developing a platform that acts as AI-powered lifetime digital coach and profiler for people managers.

In order to help the company execute its global plans of redefining people management, Sanjay Mehta, ex-Managing Director of Teleperformance India, one of the largest BPOs in the world and part of the 5.3 billion USD group, has joined its Advisory Board.

A veteran of the BPO industry, Mehta has led Teleperformance India as its Managing Director since 2001 to 2019. He has spear-headed the company’s ascent to one of the most focused, people-prime organization in the industry and is known for re-wiring the concept of Human Resources in the company. Recently, Teleperformance was in news for its 1 billion USD+ acquisition of another leading BPO player headquartered in Mumbai, Intelenet Global Services.

Ashwin Srivastava, cofounder of Great Manager Insitute™, adds about the reason of association with Mehta, “Sanjay is a well-known leader across industries, known primarily for his focus on people. His values about people match perfectly with that of Great Manager Institute and he is someone who can help shape global strategies of the company through his inputs as a possible user of our products."

Mentioning further about this association, Mehta adds, “I am very pleased and excited to associate with Great Manager Institute. This company is taking a new look at people management and I have been a believer and practitioner of their beliefs and solutions."

Sanjay will also be a Guest of Honor at Great People Manager Awards, India’s largest awards honouring people managers, where leaders such as Dilipkumar Khandelwal, MD of SAP India and Ravinder Rana of Concentrix India shall be honoured. The Awards are scheduled to take place on July 26th.

Great Manager Institute provide certification to managers through a unique personalized and contextualized learning intervention program that starts with people management profiling of the managers. Its certification program can be driven by Artificially Intelligent Coach, or a combination of AI Coach and Human Mentors, or through high-profile human mentors alone.

The company has been on an expansion spree with ex-HR leaders such as Kumkum Nongrum, ex-HR Head of Royal Bank of Scotland, joining the company as its Senior Associate.

How to Wipe An iPhone Clean and Clear Cache Permanently

Introduction

Have you ever felt like getting rid of some data or junk files on your device?. This demand is common with Android phones and iPhone. Going about this, one might think they need loads of technical know-how, at least after several common known methods must have failed. This is actually not easy to go by, and that means you must know what to do, and specifically, the details of how to wipe an iPhone.

Also, you may deem it necessary to keep your memory as clean as possible and even after deleting the history log, you want to permanently delete the cache. Here, you would need to know how to clear cache on iPhone.

iPhone Wiping With dr.fone-erase (iOS)

Every once in a while, we all might be faced with the challenge of erasing stuff from our devices permanently. This even becomes more complex if you are an iPhone user. With the tremendous offers that come with iOS devices, some of the apps store information for future use, and they form a special memory called "Cache"- where you can retrieve any information quickly. Unfortunately, this seemingly beautiful feature begins to pose space troubles later on. You start noticing that your phone’s efficiency has reduced and your device isn’t even functioning as optimally as you would expect.

It must be stated that the background apps in iPhone do not get any space at all in the cache, and once you close them down, they do not use any other storage. That means, to free up some space in your device, you can simply remove the junk files and even do basic elementary tasks such as reducing your photo size. The truth, however, is that the numerous conventional methods do not suffice. Nonetheless, you can make your device work faster by freeing the memory of junks and clearing the cache permanently with the help of dr.fone- Erase (iOS) software.

If you fall within the category of people that seek special and accurate ways of wiping their iPhone, and at the same time, clearing the cache permanently- be reminded that so many people are familiar with a complete solution. Perhaps you even wonder if there’s any out there.

You really have to try dr.fone - Erase (iOS) software. This software, produced by dr.fone, is the absolute therapy for wiping or permanently erasing the data on your phone. It allows you to do selective wiping and clearing of your cache, private chat history, etc.

Benefits of Using dr.fone- Erase (iOS)

If your device has suddenly become slower than usual, there are 1,001 that could be responsible for this. Meanwhile, it is logical to attribute this setback to the apps on your device. Other than apps, cancelled or incomplete downloads consume unnecessary space in your device memory. To enhance the performance of your device and wipe the cache clean completely, it's high time you deployed dr.fone- Erase (iOS) to use. It will do a clean job and a magnificent one.

The tool is:

1. Easily usable


2. Allows you to do a selective deletion

All app generated files, temp files, log files and cached files would be completely cleaned off.

Wiping or Clearing Steps

Download the software- dr.fone- Erase (iOS) on your laptop and install.. Then, start the tool and click on "Erase"



Connect your iPhone with a compatible cable to the PC. Then, select "iOS optimizer"



 

A new interface pops up. Choose the cleaning services you want, and click on "Start Scan".



Once the scan is done, click "Clean Up". This does entire cache clearing.



Now, you will get a display of the amount of data or junks that have been released from your memory upon completion of the cleanup.

Conclusion

For incredible spring-clean speed boost, and to get your device running faster than it ever was, try this software. Even though you do not need the same dose of maintenance as you would give to Windows or Androids, your best shot here certainly would be to get the dr.fone- Erase (iOS) software.

Evidently, it is not easy to start clearing the caches or data app from the setting app, and while there are diverse easy-fix methods to solve these problems, the dr.fone- Erase (iOS) software is proven to offer much more- providing a full data eraser with the iOS Full Data Eraser option, and others such as iOS Private Data Eraser and iOS Space Saver.

Ex-Tiger Global execs' Tanglin Venture leads $5.75 Mn Funding of 'Lifelong Online' Home Appliances Firm

In its first funding in India, Tanglin Venture Partners, a $50 million fund launched by former Tiger Global executives Ravi Venkatesh and Edwina Yeo, has led a Rs 40 crore ( ~ US$5.748 Mn) investment in home appliances brand Lifelong Online, a home & personal appliances firm launched in 2016 by Lifelong group, a 25-year-old diversified group with interests in manufacturing of auto components and medical devices, reported ET Tech.

The funding round was a mix of primary and secondary infusion.

Lifelong Online plans to deploy the capital in design, product development, and scaling up manufacturing capability. The company offers a range of products and appliances in the Home, Kitchen, Personal care and Wellness & Lifestyle categories.

Serving in 200 cities in India through an exclusively online presence, Lifelong's products are available on its brand website (www.lifelongindiaonline.com) as well through leading e-commerce platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm, Tatacliq, Shopclues, Pepperfry etc

Edwina Yeo, Partner of Tanglin Venture Partners, said in a statement, "There are significant opportunities for new brands to be created which are built for today’s consumer needs, piggybacking on new-age, online distribution channels."

It was in February this year when Venkatesh and Edwina, launched 'Tanglin Venture Partners', a set of venture funds backed by local Indian internet entrepreneurs including Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, Udaan cofounder Sujeet Kumar, Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy and Facebook’s Asia Pacific head Dan Neary.

Should Education Be Oriented Around 21st Century Skills?

The modern education system fails to meet the needs of people in many ways. It’s not uncommon for a person to be educated from one of the top universities in the world and still not know how to operate a software required for a job or speak a language that’s required as part of an occupation. All these factors limit a person’s employability, and he/she cannot avail the opportunities that come in the way.

The fundamental reason why people attain education is to be able to make a living. They hope that once they graduate, they’ll be hired by the top companies in the field operating in the market. But the fact of the matter is that the modern education system has failed to keep pace with the demands of the changing times. The present work environment is integrally oriented around technological abilities, whereas most of the education curriculum, particularly at lower academic levels, is still theory based.

Drawbacks of the Existing Educational Format

The present educational system is flawed because of the lack of sufficient exposure of students to the practical environment. Most of the education takes place in a closed classroom environment wherein the maximum that an institution can achieve is called a guest speaker or show the students documentaries. None of this is a substitute for practical exposure gained in the field.

Most of the exams and evaluation mechanisms are theory based. To perform well in them, a student has to cram up the text. While this polishes one’s cramming ability, the information stored in mind this way lasts only as long as the exam itself. That’s why so many students need help from essay writer. When students are exposed to practical field situations and are required to make decisions considering the challenges and problems at hand, they cannot manage to make rational choices. While learning theory is important, it’s even more important to know how to apply it.

Another big flaw in the current system of education is its backwardness compared to the technological advancement and fast pace of research and development in the present age.  The curriculum, practical work, and laboratory work taught in most schools today is the same that was taught to the students two decades ago. On the other hand, the world has witnessed a revolutionary change concerning technological growth and level of sophistication.

How to Best Revive the Current Education System

All these factors impact a need for the academicians to revisit the prevailing trends and assess the changing needs of times. The curriculum requires increased integration of the latest technology both as the medium of learning and as the content of the program. Students should have uninterrupted access to advanced technology at schools along with expert guidance and coach on its use. It’s advisable to make studying computer languages compulsory on students, and they should be made part of the curriculum from a much lower academic level.



Students can opt to keep studying them in more depth at higher levels, but they’ll anyway get sufficient knowledge when they’ve studied the basics in middle school and high school. Studying computers derives its importance from the fact that every field ranging from medicine to engineering and economics is computerized. Education cannot be complete unless a student knows computers well. Ideally, all students should be prepared for basic fixing of issues with computers.

Moreover, there should be an increased emphasis on the learning of a variety of languages. The world is becoming increasingly multicultural with every passing day. While many opportunities surface with such fast-paced globalization process, people’s ability to utilize them is impaired because of their lack of knowledge of languages.

Education System Should Be Focused on Developing These Skills

While talking about the redesigning of the education system, it is important to review the skills that the course content should be oriented around. The skills of the 21^st century are based on tools that can be used globally to advance learning, patterns of thinking, operating, and generally living anywhere in the world. Such skills include but are not limited to creative thinking, reasoning or critical analysis skills, metacognition, problem-solving, global citizenship, communication, and collaboration.



In addition to these skills, 21^st-century skills comprise numeracy, writing literacy, reading, and comprehension, digital literacy and information and communication technology. The course content should be revised so that it has increased focus and emphasis on these skills. It’s equally important to utilize technology to pass instruction and make technology a fundamental element of every academic level.

Siemens to Launch its Startup Accelerator 'Next47' in Bengaluru, India

German multinational giant firm, Siemens has opened an office for its separate startup unit 'Next47', a global Venture Capital & Private Equity firm backed by Siemens, in Bengaluru on Monday, to help connect its customers to start-up innovation in India, reported Business Today.

Next47 partners with industry-changing start-ups to multiply their value through the power of Siemens and thereby focusing on innovation and start-ups to enhance digitalisation offerings.

This year, Next47 has launched an internal accelerator program which the firm runs in partnership with Alchemist, a a San Francisco-headquartered, venture-backed business incubator focused on accelerating startups whose revenue comes from enterprises. Th accelerator is platform for Siemens intrapreneurs to develop their business ideas with the support of an unrivaled network of coaches and mentors in order to build the next generation of innovation for Siemens.

Next47 also has a partnership with seed accelerator Techstars to develop the next-generation of Siemens entrepreneurs with the later's 3-month accelerator program.

According to Next47 website, the firm has great connections with a global ecosystem of customers and partners and abundant financial resources with its $1.2 billion global venture fund.

Next47 works with startups who are using deep technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, cybersecurity, autonomous driving, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, and advanced manufacturing, to solve industry's most difficult and fundamental challenges.

[caption id="attachment_130763" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Siegfried Russwurm, Member of the Managing Board and Chief Technology Officer of Siemens AG[/caption]

Dr Roland Busch, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technology Officer and Member of the Managing Board, Siemens AG, said in a media statement, "About 4,000 Internet of Things (IoT) and software experts, along with the work done at the Siemens MindSphere Application Centers based in Pune, Noida and Gurgaon, will collaborate with teams around the world to conceptualise, develop, test and bring-to-market applications in the areas of Smart Urban Infrastructure, Digital Enterprise, Connected Mobility, Future of Energy and Artificial Intelligence."

"There is continuity of Government in India and sectors like infrastructure, mobility, grid connectivity, modernisation of power plants, railway, renewables etc is going to get a good revival and these are sectors that will show good growth in the coming years," said Roland Busch.

He said Siemens had committed over a billion euro investment in India in 2015 and those investments are being done in the country.

Speaking on the sidelines of Siemens Innovation Day in Mumbai on Monday, Sunil Mathur, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens Limited, said, "India needs to harness digitalisation to optimise manufacturing growth and we are seeing acceleration in interest and demand from customers for our digitalisation portfolio. IoT enabled applications are the need of the hour and will focus on contributing to customers' efforts to maximise the potential with digitalisation through data insights."

Next47 has its presence in Beijing, Boston, Israel, London, Munich, Palo Alto, Paris, Stockholm and now Bengaluru, India.

E-Sports Gaming Platform WinZO focuses on Bharat to build community of Gamers, Local Youth and Influencers

India’s gaming industry is witnessing a watershed moment, propelled by increased penetration of smart phones, especially in the Tier II and Tier III cities. Lead by- better connectivity, different & new modes of social interaction, and a growing young population, smart phones are turning out to be an effective medium of entertainment, replacing all other mediums.

Betting on this opportunity, WinZO Games has become India’s biggest vernacular e-sports gaming platform. WinZO, a Kalaari backed Series A venture, has been dubbed as the ‘Netflix of Gaming’. With all your favourite games available on a single platform, you will never miss out on entertainment on WinZO. WinZO currently hosts 25+ games on its platform and is the only platform in India that offers such diverse gaming experience as it is available in eight languages already (Hindi, English, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu). With 5 million+ install base in just one year, it is one of the fastest growing players in the industry!

Commenting on this Mr. Paavan Nanda, Co-founder WinZO Games said, “More than 75 per cent of our users are using the platform in non-English languages and 90 per cent content is consumed in non-metro cities across 200 different cities across India. Our focus is on vernacular users and providing personalised content to them. With WinZO, we have built a stable monetization model for the casual gaming genre in India, by taking a very non-traditional path-breaking approach to reach this audience.

He Further Added “WinZO is building its community online and offline by engaging YouTube and TikTok influencers in a very personalised manner.”

With an aim to strengthen the influencer community, WinZO has started an influencer-focused feature, ‘WinZO Superstar’ across India. Through this, it is inviting the influencers to partner with WinZO. After registering for this feature, these influencers are provided with specific links to promote WinZO on their social media handles for which they are rewarded. WinZO offers these influencer’s opportunities with high-earning potential that varies from Rs. 25,000 weekly to Rs 5 lakhs monthly, basis the leader board on the app.

This feature is empowering social media influencers with parallel earning and employment opportunity and has created an innovative and stable incentive channel for these local influencers on a larger scale to support every effort they make to promote the platform. WinZO is helping these micro influencers to grow their reach on their respective social media handles by featuring their content on their app and social handles as well. Currently WinZO has collaborated with 20,000+ such influencers and is building a strong locale around the same.

WinZO has helped these micro influencers to envision the bigger possibilities in life and achieve what they have always dreamt of. Video/Content of these influencers is featured directly on the app, where they get a chance to garner 50 lakh eyeballs, hence an opportunity to grow with the platform itself.

India is witnessing the biggest revolution of all times, with 300 million people coming on smart phones for the first time ever. This number is projected to almost double by 2022 to 500 million people. This entire set of upcoming Smartphone users will create immense opportunities for E-sports to flourish, engage people and create a localized experience. In India, E-sports as a category in the gaming industry is a new concept and the market is tipped to grow at a very large scale.

Earlier this month, e-sports platform founded by founders of CREO, Mobile Premier League (MPL), has recently forayed into the Southeast Asia market with its launch in Indonesia. MPL has recently raised $35.5 Mn funding from Sequoia India and others in last month.

In March, an another gaming and e-sports platform GamingMonk had raised $100,000 as strategic investment from GameWith, a Tokyo, Japan-based gaming media company.

TikTok is Reportedly Working on its Own Smartphone

ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, is reportedly working on its own smartphone, which will come with all of Bytedance's apps pre-installed. The phone-in-making will also debut with another music streaming app, said a report by Financial Times.

The preloaded ByteDance apps in the upcoming smartphone will include TikTok, chat app Flipchat, video-messaging app Duoshan, Slack-like work messaging app Lark and news aggregator Jinri Toutiao.

Designed for the new generation of creators, Tik Tok is a global video community powered by music. Whether it’s dance, free-style or performance, creators are encouraged to let their imagination run wild and set their expressions free.

There's no fixed date on when the smartphone will launch now any official confirmation. It is to be noted that Bytedance also has its own suite of media apps in China.

Notably, ByteDance isn't the first company to make smartphones as a growth hack. China's largest Selfie app Meitu also builds smartphones pre-loaded with photo editing apps, and recently sold this arm of its business to Xiaomi. Amazon tried this with its Fire Phone (launched in 2014) and Facebook with 'Home' (launched in 2013). However, both companies eventually discontinued these products.

To recall, in October last year, ByteDance or Bytemod Pte Ltd raised massive $3 billion in a funding that made the startup become most valuable in the world, beating Uber Technologies.

India is a prime market for Bytedance and its TikTok generates revenues worth millions in the country. This makes India a possible first launch market for Chinese firm.

Earlier this year, TikTok faced a temporary ban in India post the Indian judiciary discovered that TikTok was hosting child pornography related content. The court issued a notice to the Indian government for ensuring the app was taken off from the both the Google PlayStore and Apple App Store. However, Bytedance stated in its defence that it wasn't opposing the constitution of India and already had tools in place to flag inappropriate stuff.

[Top Featured Image - Gadgetbyte Nepal]

Plus Offices Looking to Raise $5 million to Open More Co-working facilities in India

Coworking Space Is on the upswing not only in Gurgaon but in other parts of the country.

Plus Offices is one of the late entrants in the market but they are one of the fastest growing coworking space in Gurgaon. Plus Offices is now eyeing a bigger pie of the cake in the co-working space. They provide customized productive shared work-spaces and tailor made services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, mentors, consultants, small businesses and large enterprises. The offerings are varied in nature and can be tailor built for various customers according to their work demands.

Started in year 2018, Plus Offices has now expanded its coworking locations in Sector 44 and Sector 67, Gurgaon. With an increase in demand for more coworking office spaces, Plus Offices is now looking to raise funds for expansion in the coworking space domain both in Gurgaon, Delhi & NCR and finally to various parts of the country.

Mr Ravi Kikan, who has been a startup specialist and has had multiple exposures in the startup ecosystem is currently leading Plus Offices in India as a Chief Operating Officer and as part of the founding team based out of Gurgaon. He says " We are looking at building Plus Offices as productive Coworking Space in Gurgaon and hope to become one of the key players in this category by 2019-20, we have aggressive plans across India" . He also added that " Startups, Growth bound ventures, SMBs and Corporates all need coworking and productive workspaces beyond the regular brick and mortar offering which everyone has. To be a differentiator we are planning to help our coworkers in growth and expansion without any hassle or additional pinch on pricing"

Mr Ravi Kikan also runs Startup Specialists Community on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/groups/56766/ which has around 300,000+ global members who are startups, mentors, entrepreneurs, consultants and startup lovers from across the globe. He added " Our bigger objective will be to create a big, vibrant, productive and useful community of startups, growth ventures and SMBs who can co create, collaborate and look at Coworking beyond the regular hot desking and stylish infra structure"

Plus Offices was initially funded through family and friends and some Angel investors from Delhi and NCR. After the first seed round they got into strategic alliances with a couple of real estate players to work as an operating partner to build and expand Coworking Work Space in Gurgaon.

The business has ambitious growth plans, particularly since the opening of its second coworking facility at sector 67, Gurgaon. The current estimated Coworker strength is around 1000+ coworkers at both the Coworking facilities in Gurgaon which is bound to increase to around 3000+ by this year end in both the facilities.

Looking at the bigger opportunity in the Coworking Space domain, Plus Offices is now looking at raising around $5 million to be fueled into growth planning and expansion into new regions in India and building bigger and better collaborative coworking spaces to help Startups and SMBs at large.

Plus Offices provides unique amenities which a class coworking facility would have including wifi, storage, ample parking, shuttle services, a café where members can purchase healthy food items, a lounge and event spaces, complimentary coffee and tea, recreational areas including a mentor program.

Plus Offices has built a relaxing environment where startups, SMBs, small business owners can connect with a network of resources and services that can help their business grow,” said Mr Ravi Kikan.

Mr Ravi Kikan also added "If you are a Entrepreneur, Consultant, Startup, SMB or Corporate who is waiting to expand or move into a newer or bigger or productive facility, we would love to connect with you and host you at Plus Offices. The whole objective is to bring a great experience for the Coworker who is working at our Plus Offices facility so that he or she is more productive and enjoys his focus on work"

Plus Offices provides not only shared amenities and resources, but also a sense of community, networking, and idea exchange among other things. Besides this, Plus Offices was started with an agenda to encourage the startups and women entrepreneurs by offering flexible membership agreements.

Coworking spaces, though a relatively new concept in India, has become a hot property with growth in the number of new startups in Gurgaon.

There are around 70+ Startups, 5 SMBs which are currently coworking with Plus Offices and the plan is to have around 500+ Startups and SMBs to be a part of Plus Offices in the Coworking Space in Gurgaon.The overall plan is to have around 20,000 Coworkers working out of various Coworking facilities of Plus offices in 2019-2020.

Microsoft Unveils New-Gen Modern PCs, Connected Devices and IoT Solutions at Computex 2019

Microsoft today discussed how new modern Windows PCs, connected devices and IoT services and programs at Computex 2019.

"We continue to work closely with our partners to deliver intelligent edge solutions that enhance work and life experiences. The breadth of new PCs, IoT devices and IoT solutions on display at Computex, along with future ecosystem innovations will drive growth and business transformation for partners and customers," said Nick Parker, CVP, Consumer and Device Sales, Microsoft

Partners are Delivering Modern PC Experiences

Partners including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI have recently announced new modern PCs that will delight both creators and gamers. Some of the highlights include:

	Acer’s ConceptD 500 is equipped with up to 9th Generation Intel Core processors and up to NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 GPUs to make workloads and multi-media creation smoother and faster on complex projects. Its multiple CPU cores achieve high single-core speed while staying cool with low heat output and low power consumption. With up to NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 GPUs, the desktop supports four 5K displays (5120×2880 @ 60Hz) with HDR colour, making visual effects, motion graphics and animation rendering a breeze.
	The Asus ZenBook Pro Duo (UX581) is an ultraportable laptop that includes a 4K OLED UHD ASUS ScreenPad Plus (3840 x 2160), a full-width secondary touchscreen (3840 x 1100) that expands and enhances the interactive capabilities of the original ASUS ScreenPad. The display is a frameless four-sided ASUS NanoEdge design, with ultra slim bezels for immersive visuals.
	The new Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 packs more performance in a thinner design and larger display. Dell’s first laptop with Intel’s Ice Lake-U 10nm 10th gen processors and features adaptive performance based on the latest Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology, which proactively changes the power of the CPU according to the performance of the workload. It comes with a redesigned thermal system to cool the higher performing processor, while creating an overall 8% thinner 2-in-1 than the previous generation.
	HP OMEN X 2S is the world’s first dual-screen gaming laptop, allowing player to chat, browse for their perfect songs to accompany their gaming sessions, watch Twitch or YouTube, or even serve as a hub for OMEN Command Center software through an easy-to-use 6-inch 1080p touchscreen above the keyboard – freeing them from the hassles of alt-tabbing. The laptop also features a real-time screen mirroring feature that enhances the gaming experience, by cutting and magnifying parts of the main screen – such as copying the map portion of a racing game – to a second screen, ensuring centered vision and more vertical head movement.
	The new Lenovo ThinkPad T495 offers feature upgrades without compromise, and provides a high level of hardware security and manageability. It features a longer battery life, and increased performance by up to 18 percent (compared to benchmarks of prior generations). Lenovo is also delivering greater peace of mind with just a slide of the ThinkShutter, an all-in-one integrated camera security cover that physically protects ThinkPad users from malicious webcam snoopers.
	Featuring the latest RTX graphics and 9th Generation Intel Core i9 processor and Wi-Fi 6, the new MSI GE65 Raider can easily handle demanding AAA game titles. Its ultra-fast 240Hz IPS-level thin bezel display ensures sharp and clear images in a compact form factor, and the new two-toned mesh design at the underside of the unit, inspired by a dragon theme, provides better ventilation and prevents hot air from recirculating.

These new modern PCs from ecosystem partners require a modern operating system that enables foundational experiences customers already expect from their devices, including seamless updates, security that protects users from malicious attacks, anywhere connectivity with 5G, LTE and Wi-Fi that is consistent and reliable over time. Beyond that, the modern OS must deliver innovative new human centric experiences including cloud connectivity that enables seamless access to data and compute power, rich AI powered applications and experiences, multi-sense capabilities - people can interact using touch, pen, voice, mouse and keyboard - and  the right sensor support and posture awareness to enable a breadth of new form factors and applications.

“Microsoft is investing to enable modern OS experiences that take advantage of silicon advancements, powerful PCs, the cloud and the power of AI. Some of these innovations, including Asian Inking platform, cognitive recognition services that help with photo tagging, as well as the new Your Phone capabilities that lets users mirror their Android phone screen on their PC, are new innovations users can expect in the coming months,” said Nick Parker, CVP, Consumer and Device Sales, Microsoft.

Powering Intelligent Edge and Internet of Things (IoT)

At Computex, Microsoft also shared new services and programs that hardware manufacturers can leverage to get their devices connected and included in IoT solutions:

• IoT Plug and Play is a new open modelling language to connect IoT devices to the cloud seamlessly, helping device partners to deploy IoT solutions at scale. This provides partners a straightforward way to model the capabilities and data coming from their IoT devices and will provide customers with a large portfolio of partner-certified devices that can easily be made to work with any IoT solution, often without writing any new code.

• Microsoft Azure IoT Device Agent V2 for Windows 10 IoTlets operators configure, monitor and manage their devices remotely from their Azure dashboard. It provides an open-source, ready to build package that creates and manages the Azure IoT Hub identities on the device, manages the cloud connection and its renewal, provides a plug-in model for platform components, which allows easy onboarding to various Azure services, including discovery, initialization, error reporting and state aggregation. It also comes with a set of ready-to-ship plug-ins for commonly used platform components and leverages Azure IoT Module twin so a separate UWP app is not required to connect to Azure IoT Hub.

• Azure IoT Centralis a fully managed global IoT SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution that makes it easy to connect, monitor, and manage IoT assets at scale. New custom dashboard features allow partners to bring their own brand and user experience to their IoT solution, and benefit from the built-in security, reliability, device connectivity and role-based user account management provided by IoT Central.

Partners such as Techsun and Advantech are implementing IoT solutions built on Microsoft’s comprehensive, trusted and easy-to-use edge to cloud platforms to embrace business model transformation and accelerate time to value for customers.

“At Microsoft our goal is to simplify IoT – from the cloud down to the smallest microcontroller (MCU) based devices, and we do this by meeting our partners and customers where they are, with the right intelligent cloud services, software and dev tools, to get devices connected, and manage their solutions at scale,” Nick Parker, CVP, Consumer and Device Sales, Microsoft

Gurgaon-based Travel tech startup Airblack Raises $1.5 Mn from SAIF Partners

Gurgaon-based Airblack, an end-to-end travel ecosystem for the new-age independent millennial travelers, which is yet to be launched, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from SAIF Partners, a Hong Kong-based Asia-focussed venture and growth capital fund.

The startup will utilise the seed capital for launching its product, ramping up its traveler community and hiring of a core team.

Founded this year, by Pulkit Pujara (IIT Delhi) and Videt Jaiswal (NSIT), Airblack is essentially a social-travel commerce startup that is connecting users with verified network of power travelers and travel influencers on a personal chat for exchanging recommendations around their travel plans.

Airblack, which claims to have helped more than 1000 travellers with their travel plans, leverages WhatsApp and Instagram ecosystem to connect travelers with verified network of power travelers and travel influencers.

Notably, both Pulkit and Videt are former executives at SAIF Partners. Pulkit was also AVP of Operations at online grocer Grofers. Videt has earlier worked at Boston Consulting Group and co-founded a content startup, which he exited eventually

Over one-third of US $600 billion that is spent on international travel in Asia is spent by millennials. Over two-thirds of travelers in this generation plan and book independently and Airblack is leveraging on this generational shift in the consumer travel space in Asia.

"Lot of content on platforms such as Instagram and travel blogs has made travellers more confident to travel but at the same time, it has also created a problem of information overload, that leads to anxiety and confusion. We saw there is a strong social need in travellers here to talk to other travellers before taking purchase decisions, and an aversion to talk to travel agents because they are not relatable to this audience. We are focused on creating a strong trust layer in this category,” says Videt, co-founder, Airblack.

Mayank Khanduja, Principal, SAIF Partners, said in a statement, "Over $600 billion is spent on international travel in Asia, and we see India's international travel market at an inflection point already. We strongly believe that a large wave of the new consumer demand in travel will be led by people who like to have independence in planning their trips. With increasing disposable income, spend on international travel will go up. And these users will look for social validation online before deciding on a high involvement purchase like travel. We were impressed by the team's unique insights and community-driven approach to cater to this traveler."

SAIF Partners, which manages over $4 billion in assets across India & China, has earlier invested Rs 60 crore in High Street Essentials (HSE), which owns women-centric fashion brands - FabAlley and Indya, in December last year.

SAIF is also known for backing Paytm, MakeMyTrip, Meesho, ShareChat, Swiggy and Urbanclap at an early-stage. Besides MakeyMyTrip, SAIF has invested in other travel startups such as Treebo and Travel Triangle.

Frost & Sullivan explores Convergence of Autonomous, Connected, Electric and Shared Mobility Technologies in India

After successfully hosting its Intelligent Mobility symposium in London for 10 years, Frost & Sullivan is set to launch it in India on 11^th September, 2019 at Le Meridien, New Delhi. The summit aims to bring together industry leaders and visionaries to discuss and explore new business models accelerating a vision of integrated, intelligent, and multimodal mobility in India. The future of transport will be intelligent, resting on paradigms of shared, connected and automated mobility; these technologies are radically altering the way people move around, live, work, and engage with their environment.

For a glimpse of our premier automotive event over the years, please click here. 

To attend the event, register here.



On the occasion of the launch of Intelligent Mobility in India, Sarwant Singh, Managing Partner, Frost & Sullivan said, “The mobility space in India has seen exciting developments in the past 12 months with the emergence of new business models. With the government’s emphasis on electrification driving collaborative development in the space of shared mobility, we are heading toward a dynamic phase of transformative mobility.”

Frost & Sullivan will be evaluating many aspects of the automotive industry, aiming to unravel best-practice solutions, exciting investment opportunities and technologies that will garner the maximum potential. Mega Trends like urbanization, pollution, congestion, connectivity, and globalization are powering the shift away from private vehicle ownership to new business models like car sharing, carpooling, ride-hailing, integrated mobility, and dynamic shuttles.

Talking about the future of mobility in India, Kaushik Madhavan, Vice President, Mobility Practice, Frost & Sullivan, said, “Mobility in India will be driven by the need to make transportation affordable, efficient and shared. In this direction, the Intelligent Mobility Summit aims to bring all key stakeholders in the automotive and non-automotive space together on a common platform to share and discuss innovative ideas and solutions to make Mobility seamless.”

The plenary sessions will share insights on the development of an ecosystem that will enable industry stakeholders including educational institutions to contribute to developing affordable and innovative solutions for the Indian market. These sessions will also throw light on the need to collaborate with young start-ups active in data analytics to share data and generate valuable information that can be used to understand customer preferences and expectations better.

Mobility experts will share unique insights on how the role of the automotive value chain will evolve as we see service, maintenance and second life being bundled into a common overarching value proposition. This unique forum will unfold the reasons why the mobility industry is transforming, what new business models are emerging, and where the real revenues lie. It will also address challenges, ever-expanding opportunities and technology-led disruptions along with unparalleled industry insights on a broad range of topics such as:

• Digital Transformation and emergence of new business models


• Ecosystem Development in the Indian auto industry: stakeholder opportunities for collaboration with non-automotive participants


• Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric mobility technologies in India: Opportunities for collaborative development


• Vehicle Lifecycle Management: purchase journey, ownership management and second life opportunities

The summit promises to be a unique blend of interactive sessions, keynotes, panel discussions with leading automotive manufacturers alongside industry stalwarts like Anil Srivastava, Principal Adviser & Director General of Development Monitoring & Evaluation Office, NITI Aayog, Govt of India; Dr. Arunkumar Sampath, Chief Engineer – Electric Vehicles and Head – Innovation & Global EV Technology Center, Mahindra Electric; Deepangshu Dev Sarmah, Editor-in-Chief, Auto Tech Review, Karan Jain, Co-Founder, REVV; KK Gandhi, Convener, Centre for Auto Policy & Research; Nabeel A Khan, Editor, ETAuto; Nikunj Sanghi, Chairman, Automotive Skill Development Council India – ASDC; Ramashankar Pandey, Managing Director, Hella India Lighting Ltd., and many others.

Frost & Sullivan will also recognize India’s leading edge companies demonstrating business innovation and corporate excellence in the mobility space at the 2019 Mobility Awards Banquet to be held in the evening on the same day.

Bangalore-based 'Clean Air-as-a-Service' IoT Startup Clairco Raises Funds from AngelList

Clairco - Clean air-as-a-service company which offers air quality monitoring & purification services, raised its first round of funding from AngelList. The funding round was led by Prakhar Agarwal – head of investments, AngelList India.

Part of 3rd cohort of real estate accelerator - Brigade Reap, Clairco is an IoT based air quality monitoring and purification company that uses low drag air filters which can be retrofitted to any type of air conditioning and turn them into air purifiers. This helps save a lot of money by not spending on expensive hardware. Clairco has developed this patent-pending air purification system to help address the issue of indoor pollution.

With Clairco closing its first round of funding, the company plans to use the freshly raised capital to expand Clairco's footprint to key cities across the country and strengthen its core-technology team. Incubated in early 2018, Clairco's air monitoring and purification services are currently being implemented in the premises of India’s biggest health/fitness and home rental brands. The company is also executing paid pilots for schools, office spaces, tech parks, and hotels both luxury and budget.

Speaking on leading the funding for Clairco, Prakhar Agarwal – head of investments, AngelList India said “The magnitude of the pollution problem in majority of the Indian cities and the total inaction in dealing with it has been bothersome. For the past couple of months, I was actively scouting for start-ups that are innovating in this space and have a scalable solution beyond just pollution monitoring and analytics. Clairco’s patent pending technology provides a full stack solution to tackle this issue. Given the marquee clients they are working and conducting pilots with, reaffirms my belief of backing the right company”.

Aayush Jha, founder Clairco quoted “The backing of AngelList adds immense value to Clairco that goes just beyond capital. We will also be banking on their rich experience and network to expand to new cities and work at strengthening our core-technology team”.

With 14 out of 20 most polluted cities in the world in India, and the cost of asthma medication reaching a record 55,000 crores per year, the indoor air quality monitoring market is estimated to reach 33,000 crores ($4.63 billion) by 2022.

Working on the concept of predictive intelligence on the connected devices, Clairco analyses air quality data of a particular premise on a real-time basis and installs ultra-low resistance air filter in existing air conditioning units and converts them into smart air purification system.

Clairco charges its customers a monthly subscription fee for businesses of all sizes and scale. This helps businesses ensure a better experience without investing considerable capital expenditure. Our technology enables us to be the only company in India that can guarantee clean air for indoor spaces."

Clairco founder Aayush Jha (CEO) is a second-time entrepreneur and has held key positions in early-stage startups before. He was the Country CEO for Brightbox a connected car's platform that was acquired last year by a Europe based insurance company and also the head of business development at Saif partners funded Bumper.com.

Silicon Valley-headquartered AngelList is the largest platform in the world for startups to raise capital, hire talent and launch their product. Over $1.1B has been invested across nearly 3,400 global startups through AngelList which launched Syndicates in India in early 2018. AngelList Syndicates have invested in over 60 companies since their India launch.

Clairco, owned by Aliferous Technologies stands for the Clean Air Company. With a mission to help businesses offer clean, breathable indoor environments to their customers, Clairco marries intelligent connected devices, cutting-edge machine learning algorithms, and a simple upgrade to existing infrastructure, to help achieve a differentiated air quality experience. Clairco is also a part of real-estate giant, Brigade group's startup accelerator, Brigade Reap.

Huddle and growX Ventures together Launch Electric Vehicles Acceleration Program

Gurugram-based incubator and accelerator Huddle has partnered with growX ventures, inviting early stage ventures solving for use-cases relevant to the Electric Vehicles (“EV”) sector. The concentration for the acceleration program is to focus on B2B facing ventures based in India enabling the value chain across battery-level innovations, charging infrastructure, low-cost manufacturing, and data-driven solutions, to name a few sub-sectors they are targeting to support.

The selected startups will be provided upfront investment up to $150,000 with access to additional funds as the program proceeds, dedicated mentorship from Huddle’s reputed mentor base, pilot opportunities with large partner organisations and university research and data to help them scale.

The program will be open for applications for relevant ventures across India from May 27th to June 16th, 2019, with the acceleration program kick-starting on July 15th for a period of 3 months.

Application Form Link - https://huddleincubation.typeform.com/to/CdcC63

Key Highlights of the Programme

Area of focus will include innovations across the following four sectors. The information below highlights the overall scope of applications across each of these sectors.

Benefits from the Program

• Upfront investment up to $150,000 by growX in up to 3 select startups.



• Acceleration drove by Huddle, wherein a dedicated mentor will work on a one-on-one basis with each selected startup.




• Opportunity for a proof of concept, pilot or commercialization with top MNCs in line with the solution being developed, tested and sold.




• Opportunity to raise a further round of investment to the tune of >$500k, led by growX or other reputed institutional investment partners.




• Access to faculty and research insights from top universities to validate the technology and use cases, in addition to testing developments.

As part of this program, reputed national and international organizations have partnered to assist the growth in the Electric Vehicles industry, space witnessing increasing growth and support by the public and private stakeholders. Huddle and growX ventures have come together with key stakeholders in the form of OEM’s, battery manufacturers, power and energy focused companies, as well as key fleet and last-mile delivery companies, to strengthen these efforts as part of the acceleration.

An overview of the focus sub-sectors is highlighted below

Battery-level Innovations:

• New battery technology to improve performance and operating feasibility  driven through operational efficiencies, operating performance levels, and cost of setup.

Battery Management Systems (BMS) and software applications to improve the operating efficiency, measure usage behavior/predictability and drive R&D.

 

Charging Infrastructure:

• Innovative models around battery swapping and/or infrastructure setup.

Relevant business models around public vs. private partnerships to explore means of the setup of new charging infrastructure.

Innovations around charging mechanism, which could include means to improve the charging process, facilitating superfast charging or building EVSE management software.

Low-Cost Manufacturing:

• Manufacturing setups and models to improve the unit economics, further enabling increased accessibility and scale across sectors.

Retrofitting techniques and processes to improve adoption at the commercial level.

Data-driven Solutions:

• Leveraging data inputs and insights to keep a track of performance metrics, in turn improving the scope for efficiency.

Data analytics tools and platforms to gather actionable data sets, which can be leveraged to improve performance at a product/solution level for multiple stakeholders.

Support service applications leveraging SaaS-based models to enable further productivity to different stakeholders in the value chain.

Models leveraging the network layer across product/service level, through innovations such as IoT enabled solutions.

India Inches Closer To Biggest Blockchain Conference ‘The India Dapp Fest 2019’

In the midst of regulatory ambiguity, India’s biggest blockchain community ‘Blockchained India’ is organizing the five days blockchain conference, dubbed as ‘The India Dapp Fest 2019’ during June 2019.

The India Dapp Fest 2019 is believed to be Asia’s largest blockchain event, held in Tech capital of India, Bangalore on 11-15th June 2019. At its core, IDF is a mega-conference which debuts the success of blockchain road shows of Blockchained India, hosted across 4 metro cities of India in the month of March, which was later extended to 3 more cities in the month of April. These cities are Delhi (on March 2), Mumbai (on March 9), Hyderabad (on March 16), and Bangalore (On March 30) along with Kolkata (on April 6), Ahmadabad (on April 13) and Goa (on April 19).

“The intentions with this roadshow are pure. We want to help the good folks hustling day and night from the crypto space.” states Akshay Aggarwal, Co-founder of Blockchained India

Blockchained India with road show summits gathered the views of 1000+ blockchain professionals from each city on the matter of India and blockchain-friendly regulations. At the venue of India Dapp Fest, Blockchained India team will showcase brilliant Decentralized applications (Dapp) and blockchain based platforms.

It features three days for hackathon and workshop and a focussed blockchain conference for the folks seriously working in this space in the last two days.

• Date – June 11-15, 2019




• Location - The LaLiT Ashok Bangalore




• Hackathon & Workshops – June 11- 13




• Blockchain conference – June 14 – 15




• More Information - https://www.indiadappfest.com/

The bash of five days conference has already become the hot topic which derives the interest of leading blockchain based companies, a host of investors, emerging blockchain oriented startups, brilliant blockchain developers and famous media houses.

India Dapp Fest is a potential platform with proud list of successful entrepreneurs, founders, VCs, top executives of few of the biggest firms as speakers at IDF blockchain conference. Few such names are IBM, Mahindra Group, Accenture, PWC, ConsenSys, r3 Corda, Tezos and more.

The event certainly marks for an incredible awareness of blockchain and crypto industry with the presence of 750+ developers, 50+ Dapps, 100+ Investors, 100+Enterprises, 40+ Prominent Speakers, 20+ Media Houses and 1200+ Delegates.

Join the moment in bringing blockchain to the bigger picture by reserving your spot - https://www.townscript.com/e/india-dapp-fest-324421%20%20

Have a query.? Contact at – hello@indiadappfest.com