Nuvepro Raises ₹6 Crores and Appoints Industry Experts as Advisors to Deepen its Cloud Labs Reach in the EdTech Sector

• Advisors to help reach global markets
• The versatile platform to transform delivered over 3M hours in just few months
• Plan to grow the user-base by 10X for upskilling and reskilling needs

Nuvepro, the leading 'Cloud Labs for Education' provider, today announced that it has raised INR Six Crores in another round of funding from the existing investor, 1Crowd. The company also announced the appointment of leading industry experts, Apratim Purakayastha (AP) and Milind Chalisgaonkar as advisors.

Giridhar LV, CEO, Nuvepro said, "We had a great journey so far and really proud of the progress we made in solving a key issue of technical learning with our hands-on Cloud Labs. We are prime for the next level of growth and very excited to welcome AP and Milind to our advisory team. We had 3X growth already this year and plan to use the additional round of funding from 1crowd to accelerate our growth plans by investing more into Product Development, Sales and Marketing."

Prateek Goyal, Partner, 1Crowd said, "We are delighted to partner with Nuvepro in addressing the compelling needs of the upskilling / reskilling market in India and overseas. Over the last couple of years, Nuvepro has built a robust technology platform which gives its customers efficiency & flexibility while providing high quality Cloud Labs experience. We are excited by the vision of the team, their continuous endeavors to reach new heights in this space and look forward to the growth ahead." 

Apratim Purakayastha said, "The rapid worldwide adoption of cloud technologies requires millions of trained professionals to have the practical skills to manage cloud deployments. Hands-on training is a must for proficiency. Nuvepro's unique solution provides such training that can be embedded into any curriculum or assessment systems. I am very excited to be part of the talented Nuvepro team."

Milind Chalisgaonkar, said, "Nuvepro's Cloud Labs solve a key problem for learners - access to a readymade platform for practicing the IT skills taught in a course, using real-world context. The platform is flexible and scalable, making it ideal for training organizations, universities and corporate trainers. I'm confident that Nuvepro is going to be an important part of the technical learning ecosystem."

Janakiraman.S, Chairman, Nuvepro said, "The role of technology in Education is going to be critical in the future and we are excited to have Apratim and Milind to guide it to newer heights. It is equally exciting that 1Crowd continues to trust our leadership and solution that is making Nuvepro a key partner in bringing more hands-on learning to the current education system."

Nuvepro's co-founders Rajesh Vasudevan, Moyukh Goswami, and Umesh Bhatt expressed their excitement on the appointments and investments to take the organization and Cloud Labs to the next level.

About Nuvepro

Nuvepro is a leading Cloud Labs provider for hands on technical training for users from enterprise, educational institutions and online training platforms. With over 250+ hands on labs, Nuvepro is used by over 100K learners in a month. The rich labs cover Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), Big Data, AI / ML, Cybersecurity which are the underlying technologies for Digital Transformation 4.0. Visit us at www.nuvepro.com

About Apratim

Apratim Purakayastha (AP) is the Chief Technology Officer for the Skillsoft group of companies, including the Skillsoft and SumTotal brands. He leads product development and delivery across all products in the Skillsoft group of companies. He has extensive experience in rapidly growing technology companies. Prior to Skillsoft, he was the General Manager of SaaS at SevOne, responsible for its on-demand/ SaaS business segment. Prior to SevOne, AP was the Group President and General Manager of the SaaS division at ACI Worldwide, a payment software company. AP started his career at IBM where he developed IBM's first SaaS product offering as Director of Software. AP has a PhD in Computer Science from Duke University, an MS in Computer Science from Washington State University and a BS in Computer Science from Jadavpur University, India.

About Milind

Milind Chalisgaonkar is Engineer & MBA with 30+ years of experience. As President/CEO/Director he has managed the inception, rapid growth and turnaround of businesses in IT / BPO / Insurance / Manufacturing. His experience helps the Nuvepro team in improving processes and scaling up the business.

Retail Visual Intelligence Innovator, Infilect Raises $1.5 Million Pre-Series A Funding

Infilect founders. Anand Prabhu Subramanian (left), Vijay Gabale (right)

Infilect, a Retail Visual Intelligence SaaS provider to the worldwide Retail Industry, today announced a $1.5 million pre-series A financing led by Mela Ventures and 1Crowd, with participation from The Chennai Angels (TCA). With the investment, Infilect will expand its go-to market programs, and will continue to invest in the areas of Image Recognition (IR) for retail execution, supply-chain optimization, store personalisation, and category planning.

Infilect was started by Anand Prabhu Subramanian (former Bell Labs and IBM Research) and Vijay Gabale (former IBM Research, PHD IIT Bombay), with the vision of digital transformation of worldwide retail through Image Recognition (IR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). In the past 18 months, Infilect has super-charged decision making in some of the global Retail Brands in FMCG, Consumer Electronics, Food & Beverages, Home Improvement sectors across geographies.

"Globally today, Retail Brands lack visibility into presence, placement, positioning, and performance of retail products across a large number of retail stores. The final frontiers, the retail shelves, largely remain undigitized, resulting in out-of-stocks and overstocking; a trillion dollar inefficiency worldwide," said Anand Prabhu Subramanian, CEO and co-founder of Infilect. "InfiViz, our flagship product, leverages IR & AI to process pictures of retail shelves from thousands of retail stores in Modern Trade and General Trade markets. InfiViz instantly generates revenue optimising action plans, reduces stock-outs, and consequently, improves same-store sales by 2% to 5%."

"We are excited to be partnering with Mela Ventures, 1Crowd, and TCA. The investment and mentorship will help us build cutting-edge Deep Technology products and boost our enterprise sales in global markets," added Vijay Gabale, CTO and co-founder of Infilect.

"Infilect's products automate traditional retail processes with speed, accuracy, and on a large scale. Thereby, Infilect empowers decision makers in the entire organization, from associates to category owners to sales leaders, with unprecedented insights and actions. We see a great potential in 'team Infilect' to build a world-class Enterprise SaaS company out of India, and we are thrilled to be partnering with Anand and Vijay through our maiden investment," said Parthasarathy N.S, Managing Partner, Mela Ventures.

"Computer Vision technology has the potential to unlock significant value in the retail sector in the areas of retail execution, customers insights and marketing. We are pleased to see Infilect gain confidence of Indian as well as global consumer brands. We are excited to be supporting Anand and Vijay in their quest to digitally transform retail operations worldwide," said Girichandra Kuchangi, Partner, 1Crowd.

"For superior delivery of retail products across multiple channels, Retail Brands need deep insights from visual data in offline stores. Infilect's founders have unique research and technology background to create magical experiences and extract meaningful actions from visual data captured in diverse retail environments," added Lakshmi Narayanan, Co-Founder, Cognizant and a Chennai Angel investor. In conjunction with the investment round, Rostow Ravanan, an IC Member of Mela Ventures, will be joining Infilect's board of directors.

About Infilect

Infilect is an Enterprise SaaS provider for retail manufacturers, retail brands, and retailers. With innovations In Image Recognition and AI, Infilect's products empower the retail industry with unprecedented visibility into omni-channel sales, in-store merchandising and store operations. Infilect is trusted by global customers and partners, and is backed by Mela Ventures, 1Crowd, The Chennai Angels. Infilect is part of Nasscom Deep Tech Club, Intel India's Maker Lab Program, IITB-SINE's Plugin Accelerator, and NVIDIA's Inception program. For more information, visit https://www.infilect.com.


About Mela Ventures

Mela Ventures Trust is a SEBI-approved AIF Category-2 fund for the early stage companies. With a goal to build next-gen entrepreneurs, the fund focuses on building a portfolio in areas, such as AI/ML, AR/VR, IoT, Cloud Migration and Deep Technologies. Mela Ventures was founded by Industry veterans, Krishnakumar Natarajan and Parthasarathy NS who have co-founded Mindtree and taken it from a startup to a multi-billion- dollar market cap enterprise.

About 1Crowd

1Crowd is an early-stage venture capital fund and an angel platform that offers an institutionalized approach to investing in start-ups. Over the last 5 years, 1Crowd has created a unique ecosystem that brings together accredited investors and mentors with rich experience and expertise, to support founders at various stages of their start-up journey. 1Crowd manages investments of over ₹ 100 crores in 31 exciting start-ups across sectors ranging from enterprise-tech and deep-tech to B2C. The targeted AUM of its maiden sector-agnostic fund from which it is currently investing is ₹ 75 crores. For more information, visit https://www.1crowd.co/.

About TCA

The Chennai Angels (TCA), is one of India's most active angel investing groups. Founded in the year 2007, it is comprised of successful entrepreneurs and business leaders with a track record of starting and scaling large enterprises. Additionally, several seed and venture capital firms hold institutional membership in the group. TCA portfolio companies benefit from the collective expertise and rolodex of its members.

EDTech Startup Sunstone Eduversity Raises INR 24 Crore in Series A FUnding led by Saama Capital

L to R: Ashish Munjal, Co-founder and CEO, Sunstone Eduversity and Piyush Nangru, Co-founder and COO, Sunstone Eduversity

Sunstone Eduversity (owned by Sunstone Education Tech. Pvt. Ltd.) an edtech startup offering industry-ready higher education programs with Pay after Placement, has raised INR 24 crore in Series A funding. The funding was led by Saama Capital, with participation from Ashish Gupta, MD - Helion Advisors, Pankaj Bansal, Co-founder & CEO - PeopleStrong. 

Existing investors, Prime Venture Partners, Rajul Garg and Purvi Capital also participated in the round. 

The company will use the fresh capital to invest in its technology platform, hiring and curriculum. Sunstone is also planning to use the funds to strengthen its efforts in creating industry-ready professionals and building its network of colleges across multiple cities. 

Sunstone takes complete accountability of a student's career by operating on a pay after placement model. Students pay a nominal registration amount as an upfront fee and the remaining fee is to be paid only after getting placed at a job at the completion of the 2 year full time program. This unique Pay after Placement model aligns with students' interest making it a highly attractive proposition for students. 

Owing to the huge demand from students, Sunstone received 10,000+ applications this year as compared to 2500 last year. Sunstone has enrolled 1000 students this year, a 3x growth over last year. With the growing number of new-age businesses and dynamic job profiles, the requirement of graduates with a high-level domain knowledge and core competencies is the need of the hour. Sunstone works closely with corporates to develop industry ready specializations such as BFSI, Logistics, Analytics, Sales Management, Digital Marketing and others. The programs are designed to equip the students with the required expertise to tackle everyday business problems and build competencies across industry verticals. The industry-focused and constantly updated curriculum coupled with dual specializations ensure that the students at Sunstone Eduversity are job ready and have the desired skill sets that are in sync with the requirements of any industry. 

Founded by IMT-Ghaziabad alumnus Ashish Munjal and Piyush Nangru, Sunstone has eight partner institutions in six cities and will have 20 partners in 15 cities by July 2021. Sunstone Eduversity graduates of the batch of 2018-20 secured 100% placements. 

Some of the prominent recruiters were Axis Bank, HDFC, WNS, Genpact, Amazon, TCS, Karvy, Byjus, Reliance Retail, PolicyBazaar and Swiggy among others.

Ashish Munjal, Co-founder, Sunstone Eduversity "We are delighted to welcome Saama Capital into the Sunstone family. Sunstone Eduversity is fixing the problem of large scale skill gaps in students by adopting one simple principle, Accountability. By collecting fees only after our students get jobs, we make sure that all the cogs in our system are working towards the success of our students. One of the challenges faced by freshers is the lack of industry-relevant skills that reduce their chances of getting hired by reputed companies. We focus on imparting practical skills training instead of outdated theory and remote learning methods. For the batch of 2019-21, we generated more than 450 Internship offers even during this pandemic." 

Kiranbir Nag, Partner, Saama Capital "Increasingly, the need for education to be outcome-oriented is dominating the minds of both students and the industry. With its technology-focused, data-centric approach and alignment with the students, we believe Sunstone is well placed to bring about a shift in the present higher education system by equipping the students with the latest tools that would make them ready for real-world job opportunities. We are excited to partner with the founders and other investors of Sunstone and believe that the company's vision has the potential for tremendous impact." 

About Sunstone 

Sunstone Eduversity is creating industry-ready professionals with its unique pedagogy and technology-enabled education delivery. Sunstone offers India's only Pay after Placement higher education programs in partnership with several colleges and private universities. The edtech startup works closely with corporates to develop industry ready specializations such as BFSI, Logistics, Sales Management, Digital Marketing and others. The company's goal is to bring about a shift in the present higher education system by equipping the students with various skill sets so that they are readily absorbed by the recruiters. For more information, please visit: sunstone.edu.in.

Orange and Schneider Electric Run Industrial 5G trials in French Factory

• Schneider Electric Le Vaudreuil factory -- a pilot for digital transformation – is the first factory in France to trial industrial 5G 
• Orange has deployed an indoor, private, virtualized network on experimental frequencies
• 5G project will facilitate the convergence of Information and Operational Technologies (IT/OT) for comprehensive co-innovation approach.

Schneider Electric, a leader in digital transformation, energy management and automation, and Orange, a global telecoms operator and leader in digital services, announced the first deployment of indoor 5G in the industrial sector in France on experimental frequencies as part of a trial. Operating since March, this first co-innovation project in the Le Vaudreuil factory aims to use 5G in a modern industrial environment to build reliable, scalable and sustainable connectivity solutions for future industrial needs.

Thanks to its low latency, very high throughput and – over time – network slicing, 5G will be a competitive lever for companies, as it will bring noticeable improvement in industrial processes and working methods, especially through mixed reality (augmented and virtual). In the Industrial sector, 5G will help synchronize in real time large amounts of data, which are key to boost performance, facilitate remote working, and ensure optimal production efficiencies.

The indoor 5G-enabled trials will support two use cases: augmented reality applied to maintenance technician activities and the implementation of a telepresence robot for remote visits. Nokia radio AirScale and core equipment has been selected and the experimental frequencies have been allocated by the French regulatory authority. Five indoor 5G antennas were installed inside a part of the factory, covering close to 2,000 m2 of production space with download speeds beyond 1 Gbps, on an experimental network architecture allowing local data processing with edge computing technologies. Building on its co-innovation ecosystem, Orange has proposed to use the recently launched Dell technologies 5G-ready Latitude 9510 business PC to deliver these use cases. This allows Schneider Electric to benefit from the laptop’s embedded computing power, wherever the user is located.

Two 5G Use Cases for Industry

In the first use case tested, the teams connected tablets to 5G using the Schneider Electric augmented reality application called EcoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor (AOA). This custom application improves operational efficiency with augmented reality, enabling operators to superimpose real-time data and virtual objects onto a cabinet, machine or entire plant. The objective with 5G is to test future functionality with minimum latency and maximum throughput.


Thanks to its scalability, 5G can support growing bandwidth needs and responsiveness. Operators using the AOA application via their 5G-connected tablet film a machine and access information about its status and future maintenance that are hosted in the cloud in real time. This helps reduce machine downtime and streamline maintenance operations, while minimizing human error. For example, temperature data from a coil winding machine can signal when it is overheating, and a part needs to be replaced.

Moreover, production data used by AOA are collected and processed in Schneider Electric’s micro data center solutions (such as Smart Bunker or Micro Data Center 6U Wall Mount), which locally power, cool and protect IT infrastructure. These “all in one” envelopes bring together power, cooling, and urbanization of servers in a secure place. They can support the roll-out of 5G on a new site with its new use cases (augmented reality, AI, IoT).

The second use case tested by Schneider Electric and Orange concerns driving an AXYN mobile telepresence robot using 5G to eventually arrange remote visits to the Le Vaudreuil site. The performance of 5G makes it possible for very high-quality video to be used with minimal lag time in the virtual interactions between the visitor and the Schneider Electric guide that accompanies the robot throughout the Le Vaudreuil site. A remote visit with high-quality video and audio will help minimize travel time and costs and, most importantly, reduce the carbon footprint while providing the end user with a unique experience.

The trial of these first use cases will help capitalize on Orange's and Schneider Electric's ability to jointly build and operate a state-of-the-art indoor 5G network in an industrial setting. More experiments will be developed to test technologies with strong potential, such as artificial intelligence, and thanks to future hardware and software updates to the network equipment.

“5G is a breakthrough technology for businesses that will bring numerous industrial applications, such as predictive maintenance, real-time video processing, augmented reality and telepresence. These use cases are powerful and competitive levers that will enable the full potential of Industry 4.0. To make the most of this new mobile network, operators, industrial players, public authorities and companies will have to work together. At Orange, we believe in a co-construction approach. Our co-innovation with Schneider Electric for the factory of the future is an example of this: We are poised to support our industrial partners in their digitalization and in the development of solutions that meet their needs.” said Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO, Orange.

"The health, economic and climatic challenges make digitization more important than ever for companies. The pilot conducted with Orange at Le Vaudreuil in a Schneider Electric industrial showcase validates many 5G use cases: augmented reality, remote everywhere, real-time access to data... 5G’s reliability, scalability and durability make it a connectivity solution well adapted to industry 4.0, for greater resilience, competitiveness and sustainability.", said Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman and CEO of Schneider Electric.


About Orange

Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 42 billion euros in 2019 and 143,000 employees worldwide at 30 June 2020, including 84,000 employees in France. The Group has a total customer base of 253 million customers worldwide at 30 June 2020, including 208 million mobile customers and 21million fixed broadband customers. The Group is present in 26 countries. Orange is also a leading provider of global IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies, under the brand Orange Business Services. In December 2019, the Group presented its new "Engage 2025" strategic plan, which, guided by social and environmental accountability, aims to reinvent its operator model. While accelerating in growth areas and placing data and AI at the heart of its innovation model, the Group will be an attractive and responsible employer, adapted to emerging professions.



Orange is listed on Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

For more information on the internet and on your mobile: www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com or to follow us on Twitter: @orangegrouppr.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.


About Schneider Electric

At Schneider, we believe access to energy and digital is a basic human right. We empower all to make the most of their energy and resources, ensuring Life Is On everywhere, for everyone, at every moment.

We provide energy and automation digital solutions for efficiency and sustainability. We combine world-leading energy technologies, real-time automation, software and services into integrated solutions for Homes, Buildings, Data Centers, Infrastructure and Industries.

We are committed to unleash the infinite possibilities of an open, global, innovative community that is passionate about our Meaningful Purpose, Inclusive and Empowered values.

Defence India Startup Challenge-4 Launches for Achieving Self-Reliance in the spirit of AtmaNirbhar Bharat campaign

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh launches Defence India Startup Challenge-4; says defence Startup ecosystem is a decisive step towards achieving self-reliance in the spirit of AtmaNirbhar Bharat campaign;

iDEX4Fauji launched for the first time to encourage innovation among soldiers

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh launched the Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC 4) during the iDEX event, featuring the initiatives aimed at expanding the horizons of Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) ecosystem in New Delhi today. iDEX4Fauji initiative and Product Management Approach (PMA) guidelines were also launched by the Raksha Mantri during the event. Each of these initiatives is expected to facilitate iDEX-DIO to scale up the program qualitatively and quantitatively.

iDEX4Fauji is a first of its kind initiative, launched to support innovations identified by members of the Indian Armed Forces and will bolster frugal innovation ideas from soldiers/ field formations. There are more than 13 Lakh service personnel working in the field and on borders, handling extreme conditions and equipment and would be having many ideas and innovations to improve such equipment. There was no mechanism to support such innovations. iDEX4Fauji would open this window and allow our Faujis to become part of the innovation process and get recognised and rewarded. Services Headquarters will provide support to the soldiers & field formations all over the country to ensure maximum participation.

Speaking on the occasion, Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh said that the iDEX initiative stands out as one of the most effective and well-executed defence Startupecosystem created in our country and it would be a decisive step towards achieving self-reliance in the spirit of the AtmaNirbhar Bharat campaign. Shri Rajnath Singh said, for the first time, an atmosphere has been created in the country when different stakeholders have been brought together to push for innovations in the defence sector. “In order to further strengthen our defence system and make it self- reliant the participation of private sector is also crucial. For this we have taken certain steps like partnerships with private sector, technology transfer, 74 % FDI through automatic route and the recently released negative list of 101 items for import ban after a stipulated period.” Raksha Mantri also said that only yesterday the government launched Defence Acquisition procedure 2020 which seeks to encourage the private industry to participate in the defence sector. Raksha Mantri also exhorted the Armed Forces to “make full use of the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) platform to meet their technological requirements and the Indian Startups to use this opportunity to become an integral part of our Defence enablers.”

The event was addressed among others by Raksha Rajya Mantri Shri Shripad Yesso Naik, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar and Secretary, Department of Defence Production Shri Rajkumar.

Under Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC) 4, eleven challenges from Armed forces, OFB&DPSUs were thrown open to prospective startups, innovators, MSMEs alike to provide their innovative ideas on technologies which find their application in the defence sector. The challenges are as follows:

• Autonomous Underwater Swarm Drones
• Predictive, Preventive & Prescriptive Machine Monitoring 
• Super Resolution for Improving Spatial Resolution 
• AI based Satellite Image Analysis 
• Prediction and forecasting of atmospheric visibility 
• Computer Generated Targets for Virtual Training 
• Remote Real Time In-Flight Health Monitoring of Aircrew 
• MF-TDMA based Wideband SATCOM Modem 
• Foliage Penetration Radar 
• Reduction of RCS of Naval Warships 
• Target Detection in Chaff Environment 

In order to develop a 'right product and the product right', DIO has adopted the Product Management Approach to steer the prototype development to a market ready product. These guidelines are first of their kind and their release by Raksha Mantri is intended to monitor product development milestones achieved by iDEX winners against the requirements set by the Services/ DPSUs/ OFB.

The iDEX initiative of the Department of Defence Production was launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in April 2018 with the objective to encourage and nurture innovations in the Indian Defence sector and create an ecosystem where Startups, MSMEs and individual innovators could interact easily with the Indian defence establishment and provide the latest technological innovations for specific challenges experienced in operational environments through co-development and co-production of innovative solutions. The iDEX initiatives are executed by Defence Innovation Organisation, a Section 8 company of DPSUs BEL and HAL.

DIO has evolved and expanded the magnitude of its activities since inception in 2018:

 

1. iDEX-DIO has launched three rounds of Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC) with 18 problem statements from Armed Forces, DPSUs&OFB and identified 55+ start-ups/ individuals to receive innovation grants in technological areas through the Prototype funding guidelines called “Support for Prototype and Research Kickstart” (SPARK), which entail provisioning of grants upto Rs 1.5 crore to the Startups on the basis of milestones through multiple tranches, for prototype development.
2. DIO has entered into strategic partnership with leading incubators of the country and undergone international collaborations especially with Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) in US. 
3. For efficaciously taking forward the activities, DIO is hiring manpower, doing outreach, launched own website (www.idex.gov.in) & portal, launched 2 cycles of open challenge for supporting suo-moto innovations, SPARK II guidelines and an internship program etc. along with promulgating elaborate guidelines and Standard Operating Procedures. 
4. DDP has 9 Defence PSUs as pillars of defence production in the country and iDEX has enabled capacity building in DPSUs by seeding a culture of innovation and Research and Development. 
5. The iDEX event successfully brought together the iDEX stakeholders on a single platform i.e. Ministry of Defence (MoD), iDEX selected startups, partner incubators, Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO), nodal agencies (Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force), NITI Aayog, DRDO, DPSUs, OFB, think tanks, private industry and Industry associations. More than 500 startups and innovators participated in the event through video conference.

Apply Here - https://idex.gov.in/apply_challenge.php

50% of India Inc Employees Most Stressed about an Uncertain Future during COVID-19

 36% plagued by Mental Health issues versus 17% for Physical Health

50% of India Inc employees have reported that an uncertain future is their topmost source of stress followed by Personal Finances (40%) and Career Growth (40%) as was revealed in a recently concluded survey by The7thFold, a boutique HR and Wellbeing firm. The high levels of stress that have emerged and continue to amongst India Inc employees during the ongoing lockdown is a huge area of concern.

Other sources of stress faced by employees were Self/Family Physical Health (32%), Work task and deadlines (31%), Self / Family Mental Health (25%), Performance Appraisal (22%), Social distancing / isolation (18%), Relationship issues (17%), Being laid off (16%) and Children’s Education (13%), Stress is the biggest trigger factor which impacts Mental and Physical Wellbeing. The lesser or the more managed the stress levels, the better the overall Wellbeing. 

The7thFold’s Employee Wellbeing Survey, 2020 highlights the impact of the current pandemic on the mental and physical wellbeing of employees in India. The survey conducted in July and August with 509 respondents across metros cities and diverse sectors aimed to recognize the distress faced by employees during these uncertain times and understand the role of organization support and benefits in the new normal.

Survey trends in the employee well-being space that emerged during COVID-19: 

Age and Salary: Age had a positive correlation with mental wellbeing; those above 50 years of age (12%) outdid those who were below 40 years - 37% (30-40) 24% (less than 30 years). Employees below the salary of INR 5 lakhs were more vulnerable and reported personal finances (55%) and career prospects (53%) as their biggest sources of stress. 35% of employees with an annual salary of INR 21 – 30 lakhs p.a. reported burnout and poorest mental wellbeing scores. 

Employment Status and Work Mode: Self-employed category is slightly better placed when it came to overall wellbeing as compared to others. 45% of employees working for an employer complained of Anxiety or Depression against 30% of those who were self-employed. 44% of employees working full-time from home reported feelings of anxiety. Boredom was least reported by those who worked fulltime from their workplace (26%).28% of work-from-home employees reported burnout with 48% feeling stressed due to task deadlines. 35% of employees working from home were worried about self/ family’s mental health. Mental Health of the unemployed was the worst. 47% of unemployed reported anxiety with 61% of them feeling stressed and 42% felt anger. 60% of unemployed showed stress regarding uncertainty of future & 61% for career growth. The blended model of working from home and workplace showed higher benefits than those employees who were full-time working from either home or workplace.

Work-Life Balance:

Coping Mechanism

Positive Coping Mechanisms

Negative Coping

Employee benefits: Employees seemed happy with the support shown by their employers. 87% of employees have reported that their employer provides benefits for their Well-being. The biggest expectation versus reality gap is seen for ‘Increased insurance to cover COVID’. 47% of employees consider it as a Top Benefit, however only 18% of employers offer it. Employees provided with ‘Safe travel arrangements to work’ show a significantly better mental wellbeing score over others. Wellbeing of employees who received an Increment and Bonus is significantly higher than others. There were no significant differences in wellbeing seen between those who received a pay-cut and those who received an increment (no bonus). Interestingly, data suggests that offering employees a bonus and no increment was better for their wellbeing than offering an increment and no bonus.

“It is a well known fact that physical and mental wellbeing are correlated, one cannot be managed at the expense of the other. The work from home concept due to COVID-19 was literally adopted overnight by employers creating a whole new set of challenges for all stakeholders. Organisations will thus have to now move towards a holistic Employee Well-being Model which prioritizes both pillars of physical and mental health,” said Hamsaz Wadhwani, Founder and Chief Executive, The7thFold.

About The7thFold:

The7thFold is a boutique HR and Wellbeing organisation and one of the few in India that focuses on building culture, mental wellbeing and performance through various people interventions. The firm conducts employee wellbeing online programmes and online interventions apart from Holistic Wellness programs. Founded by Hamsaz Wadhwani, who possesses over 2 decades of extensive HR experience across various functions and is one of the few seasoned HR professionals who is also a Mental Health Coach and psychotherapist. She is the only Indian to advocate the evidence based Science of Happiness programme founded by Prof Bruce Hood, University of Bristol.

Molekule Air Purifiers Expand to India based on NRI's Invention that Destroys Airborne Pollutants

Award-Winning PECO Air Purification Technology, developed by NRI & Distinguished Professor Dr. D. Yogi Goswami, available via Amazon.in

Molekule, the U.S. leader in reinventing air purification, today announced that its award-winning Photo Electrochemical Oxidation (PECO) air purification technology will be available to Indian consumers through Amazon.in. This is Molekule's first commercial entry into India.

Molekule delivers scientifically advanced air purification solutions using proprietary PECO technology, which was developed by distinguished professor and Non-Resident India (NRI) Dr. D. Yogi Goswami. PECO technology is capable of destroying a wide range of airborne pollutants compared to traditional air purifiers. The broad range of pollutants addressed by PECO includes the destruction of bacteria, viruses, mold, chemicals and particulate matter in the air, among many other contaminants. Molekule has seen a rapid surge in global interest for its products.

Molekule's initial offering to the Indian market through Amazon will be its award-winning Air Mini device, at a retail price of $37999 Indian Rupees (INR). Replacement filters will retail for $4449 INR. Devices will begin shipping mid to late October.

"This is an important time for Molekule to enter the Indian market, and one could not ask for better partners than Amazon.in terms of making it happen," said Yogi Goswami, Co-Founder, Chief Scientist of Molekule. "There is a great need for innovative technology that can help provide an added layer of protection from airborne pollutants – even inside one's home or business – and solutions like ours do just that, by not just filtering the air, but by destroying harmful pollutants within it. Expanding our distribution footprint in India means that more people can breathe cleaner air and we are excited to bring this technology to the people of India."

Dr. Goswami emigrated to the United States in 1969 for graduate studies in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently a distinguished professor at the University of South Florida, where he is also the Director of the Clean Energy Research Center, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. Molekule was co-founded by Dr. Yogi Goswami alongside his daughter, Chief Executive Officer, Jaya Rao, and son, Dilip Goswami, President & Chief Technology Officer.

Molekule's scientifically-proven air purifiers are designed and built to destroy a wide range of pollutants, including bacteria, viruses, mold, chemicals, and allergens. Molekule's technology is whisper-quiet, ozone-free and destroys pollutants at the molecular level. Various independent air quality testing laboratories and internal testing has validated the effectiveness of Molekule's proprietary PECO technology, backed by testing papers.*

*Virus testing conducted on MS2 Bacteriophage.

About Molekule

Molekule is a U.S. based company, who is on a mission to provide clean indoor air to everyone, everywhere. Based on more than 20 years of research and development, our patented Photo Electrochemical Oxidation (PECO) technology destroys the widest range of tiny pollutants, including VOCs, mold, bacteria, viruses and allergens. Using science to revolutionize air purification in ways that the industry hasn't seen, PECO sits at the crux of Molekule's air purification technology and has been rigorously validated by continual third-party laboratories and continual internal testing. We believe air pollution is one of the greatest challenges of our time, as it has been attributed to seven million premature deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization. This is why we are dedicated to the fight for clean air and are actively working with scientists, doctors, sufferers, and policy-makers to offer a fundamentally different approach to air purification.

Trifo Launches Vacuum Cleaner that can See, Listen and Speak as it Cleans

Trifo to launch its first robot vacuum cleaner in India which doubles up as a home security camera 

• With outstanding mapping capability and navigation system, the Max series by Trifo is the smartest and most powerful home surveillance robot vacuums to date.
• Trifo Max series can see, listen and speak as it cleans. It can communicate with the users through the Trifo Home App, whether at home or away.
• The series includes two models – Max that features powerful 3,000 Pa of suction while Max Pet, designed for homes with pets to manage their hair and bigger dirt particles, offers a higher 4,000 Pa. 
• The series comes with a water tank and ten mopping pads, allowing users to mop the floor while sweeping.

Trifo, a Silicon Valley-based AI home robot company, is set to roll out India's first Home Surveillance Robot Cleaner with powerful suction capability. Trifo Max series will be launched on September 30 with two models—Max and Max Pet. The series comes with a water tank and ten mopping pads, allowing users to mop the floor while sweeping.

Loaded with patented TIRVS (Trifo Intelligent Robotics Vision System) technology, Trifo Max series has smart learning abilities. Its advanced AI-powered surveillance system can decide the most efficient cleaning route while detecting and maneuvering around small obstacles such as toys, cables and jewelry. The robot uses its camera to map out different rooms at home and cleans them efficiently.

"Trifo is dedicated to creating home robots that help people achieve a better balance of family, work and personal life. Apart from its powerful cleaning capability and advanced vision navigation system, the Max series is a security device that can detect movement and sound, thereby keeping homes clean and safe," said Zhe Zhang, Founder and CEO of Trifo.

Max features a strong suction power of 3,000 Pa and its smart camera supporting home security functions. Once the Motion Detection feature is switched on, the robot cleaner can serve as a digital watchdog and inform the family about movements, people, or unusual sounds. If necessary, the built-in microphone and speaker can be used to communicate directly with the intruder or the person on site.

Max Pet is designed especially for furry friends at home. In addition to the home security function, it boasts a more powerful suction of up to 4,000 Pa and has no problem picking up pet hair and larger dirt particles. It comes with an extra pet hair extractor featuring an anti-knotting function ensuring long pet hair does not get stuck.

Through the Wi-Fi enabled Trifo Home App, Max and Max Pet can communicate with the users whether they are at home or away. The app gives real-time access to all of the different features and functions for cleaning while providing a new level of human-robot interaction from the camera.

Zhang added, "The specifications, together with a plethora of excellent smart features that it offers at a competitive price, make Max a valuable addition to the Robot Vacuum category. We're excited to bring Max to India so that homes can live better and smarter".

Availability and Pricing

After a successful launch in the U.S., UK and European markets, Trifo Max and Max Pet will be available in India on September 30 at Flipkart and Amazon. Max is attractively priced at INR 32,900 given the superior features it offers, while Max Pet is priced at INR 36,900.

Features and Specifications

Robot Vacuum and Security System in One

Supported by the AI-powered surveillance system, the Max series can function as a security robot guarding home while the user is away. The family can set up alert notifications to trigger automatic video recording or have a real-time inspection of a possible break-in by switching on the camera. Max can watch the house even while charging, as its charging port is at the back connecting to the charging station.

Users worried about privacy issues can disable the microphone and cameras at any time. None of the videos or other information is stored in the cloud or on the server.


Powerful Cleaning

Max has an optimized vacuum fan that creates 3,000 Pa of suction. Its larger main brush and six-claw side brush reach deep into corners, while its larger dustbin and a washable primary filter are easy to maintain. Max Pet has 4,000 Pa of suction to cope with pet hair and bigger dirt particles.


Advanced Intelligent Vision

The Max series runs on TIRVS (Trifo Intelligent Robotics Vision System)—a combination of proprietary algorithms and the latest deep sensing, perception and decision-making technology. This patented feature ensures the robot always knows where it is, decides the most efficient cleaning route, avoids obstacles and creates a map of its path to repeat later cleaning trips.


Trifo Home App

Users can program it remotely to schedule cleaning, whether they're home or not. Family members can see where Max or Max Pet has cleaned, through the map it has built, as it works. The app is available at the Apple App Store and Google Play.


Innovative Human-Robot Interaction

The Max series is Alexa-enabled and the family at home can control it using voice commands, such as, "Alexa, turn on Trifo." When out of the house, the user can speak and listen to other family members, pets, or even intruders using Max's speaker and mic through the Trifo Home App.


…And More

Max's 5,200 mAh battery keeps it going up to 120 minutes and features a USB port for charging other devices at home.

 

About Trifo

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Trifo is a full-stack AI home robot company. Focusing on indoor home environments, Trifo creates end-to-end integrated hardware/software systems with sensing, perception and decision-making capabilities. These robots help people live better lives by perceiving physics, geometry and semantics of home environments, naturally communicating with humans and continuously learning new skills with advanced AI technologies.

Trifo's vision is to build a family of home robots that enhance people's lives and let them focus on what's important. Named after the mighty clover works hard to improve people's well-being, Trifolium repens, Trifo is dedicated to developing home robots that help families obtain the optimal balance between family, work and personal life.

Trifo has earned more than 50 patents and filed for more than 70 additional patents globally. Trifo's proprietary algorithms have been published at top robotics conferences such as ICRA and IROS.

U&i Expands its Wireless Speaker Range; Launches “Airpods”- Unique Earpods Shaped Wireless Speaker

 The wireless speaker crafted in the form of earpods comes with True Wireless Connectivity and rich HD stereo sound with 6-hour backup

 

U&i, India's leading Gadget Accessory and Consumer Electronics brand that specializes in Bluetooth Speakers and Headphones, Chargers, Cables, and many other nifty gadgets have launched a unique product "Airpods"- Wireless speaker. The wireless speaker is versatile and features a distinct design of earpods.

 

The newly launched Airpods boasts of better sound and promises a better battery life. The latest Bluetooth 5.0 ensures uninterrupted connectivity with any phone.

 

With a battery capacity of 1200 mAh (in-built capacity), one can enjoy 6 hours of playtime and backup. Available in white, black, blue and pink colour, Airpods certainly promises to jazz up the style quotient with its stylish finishing. The speaker has an in-built microphone that comes handy for calling and also houses a TF Card Slot and USB Charging port.

 

Speaking on the launch, Paresh Vij, Founder and Director, U&i commented "With the launch of Airpods Wireless speaker, we are bringing in one of the finest yet stylish products from the stable of U&i that will not only up the style quotient but will also promise an unmatched quality".

 

U&i Airpods Wireless Speaker (UiBS-630) Features:

 

Smart pairing:

 

Airpods come with True Wireless Connection (TWS) that allows the connection of 2 speakers, so that you enjoy music from 2 speakers wirelessly through Bluetooth 5.0 up to an operational distance of 10 meters.

 

Rich and Distortion-Free Music:

 

The speaker produces an amazing stereo sound, thanks to its high sensitivity drivers. One can listen to their favourite music with exceptional clarity and can enjoy distortion-free music.

 

Multiple Buttons:

 

The earpods shaped wireless speaker has various buttons such as power off/on, Modes, volume buttons, stop & play.

 

Pricing and Availability:

 

U&i Airpods Wireless Speaker (white, black, blue and pink colour) is available at an introductory price of INR 2,199/- and can be bought from all the leading retail stores & e-commerce platforms.

 

About U&i:

 

Established in the year 2015, U&i is India's most progressive Gadget Accessory & Consumer Electronics brand. We at U&i offer our users the latest range of mobile accessories and gadgets at a compelling price.  Our users can have an array of products from the latest and unique flagship of U&i gadgets. Our products are a perfect blend of innovative technology, unique design, and competitive price. We are committed to serving with the best in quality and innovative products and our key focus is on using creative designs, high-quality reliable components with sleek exteriors.

 

U&i team comprises a pool of experienced and talented workforce and having decades of experience in lifestyle products, designing, and e-Commerce technologies. The team spares no resources to bring out unique products at an inexpensive cost price.

 

Our Brand and products are endorsed by Bollywood big-wigs like Shahid Kapoor; one-stop-shop for branded and unique products.

 

For more information, kindly visit https://uandiworld.com/

Sintavia Acquires Two Additional M400-4 Printers from EOS GmbH

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Business Wire India

Sintavia, LLC, the leading Tier One additive manufacturer supporting the Aerospace, Defense, & Space industry, announced today that it had acquired two additional M400-4 quad laser printers from EOS GmbH of Krailling, Germany. The printers, which were delivered in September 2020, represent the seventh and eighth M400 printers operated by the company, as well as the 20th and 21st industrial printers it owns overall. The purchases follow Sintavia’s announcement in July of its acquisition of an additional Arcam Q20+ electron beam printer from GE Additive.

 

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200929005046/en/

 

Two of Sintavia’s M400 printers at its Hollywood, FL, advanced manufacturing facility. (Photo: Business Wire)

“As we have grown over the past several years, we have shied away from issuing press releases when we acquire new equipment. In a normal year, these announcements are kind of boring. However, this is an unusual year, and we feel it is important to let the industry know that demand for aerospace additive manufacturing is booming,” said Brian Neff, Sintavia’s CEO. “The global pandemic has turned the traditional aerospace supply chain on its head, creating real opportunities for companies like Sintavia to offer high precision solutions to OEMs worldwide, and this trend underpins our announcement today. The EOS M400-4 is the workhorse of our factory, and we continue to see great results with it.”

 

The company stated that it expects to add an additional 6-8 large, industrial printers by the end of 2021, and 8-10 in 2022.

 

About Sintavia

 

Sintavia is the global leader in applied additive manufacturing for the Aerospace, Defense, & Space industry. With high-speed printers co-located alongside precision post processing equipment, a full complement of mechanical testing equipment, and a full metallurgical and powder laboratory, Sintavia is able to optimize parameters, serially manufacture, and audit quality parts for aerospace applications. A founding member of the Additive Manufacturer Green Trade Association, Sintavia is committed to the highest quality standards in the industry and holds multiple Nadcap and other aerospace accreditations. For more information visit http://www.sintavia.com.

 

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200929005046/en/

Savonix and Fujitsu Connected Technologies Limited Partner to Introduce Savonix Mobile App on Raku-Raku Smartphone F-42A

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Business Wire India

Savonix, a global leader in digital cognitive health testing, and Fujitsu Connected Technologies Limited (FCNT), one of the major smartphone manufacturers in Japan, unveiled Savonix Mobile–a digital cognitive testing app–on the Raku-Raku Smartphone F-42A.

 

More than 4.6 million people in Japan are suffering from some form of dementia, with the total expected to soar to about 7.3 million people – or one in five Japanese aged 65 or over – by 2025. Japan’s government last year announced aims to reduce dementia cases by 6 percent in those aged 70 and older over the next six years.

 

Savonix Mobile, pre-installed on the Raku-Raku Smartphone F-42A, will allow users to test their cognition across eight brain functions such as executive function, working memory, and impulse control. Users will immediately receive test results within the app and will be able to take action to manage their cognitive health. Savonix Mobile detects mild cognitive impairment 93 percent of the time. For this reason, testing cognition is a good way to monitor your brain health over time. Recent studies presented at this year’s Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in July showed that up to 40 percent of dementias may be prevented by changing health habits such as diet, smoking, alcohol use, and sleep. Understanding your lifestyle risks can help you make smarter choices about brain health.

 

The Raku-Raku Smartphone will also house a pedometer and other important healthcare pre-installed applications to support and manage the user’s health.

 

“We’re excited about our partnership with FCNT as it will put easy and accurate cognitive testing into the hands of people who need it. This is impactful and aligns with how Japan and Japanese companies like FCNT are leading globally on the prevention of dementia,” said Savonix Founder and CEO Dr. Mylea Charvat. “Our digital cognitive assessment platform enables people to assess and monitor their brain health regularly and to incorporate lifestyle advice to improve brain wellness.”

 

“It is our great pleasure to have our Raku-Raku Smartphone F-42A equipped with the Savonix Mobile App,” said Katsumi Takada, President & Representative Director at FCNT. “This adoption enables services that support maintaining brain health and reducing the risk of dementia for users. We expect that this will make people more conscious about their health and help them lead a healthier life.”

 

About Savonix

 

A global leader in cognitive health, Savonix delivers the only neuropsychology platform in the market. Savonix provides digital cognitive health solutions and empowers healthcare providers, payers, and researchers to evaluate and leverage results to improve health and treatment outcomes. Developed by clinical neuropsychologists and digital health technology experts, the Savonix Cognitive Assessment is an accurate, accessible, and affordable tool available for download on all mobile devices. To learn more about Savonix, visit Savonix.com.

 

About Fujitsu Connected Technologies

 

Fujitsu Connected Technologies Limited was established in February 2016 through the spinoff of Fujitsu Limited’s mobile phone business. To create a future where people live their lives fully with peace of mind, FCNT connects people, things, and services in a more comfortable way with transcendental ideas and advanced technologies. FCNT has led the way in its integration of healthcare technologies into mobile phones since they introduced the world's first mobile phone with a pedometer in 2003. For more details, please visit https://www.fujitsu.com/jp/group/fcnt/

 

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200929005016/en/

2020 "Postman State of the API” Reveals API Investments Will Remain Strong

More than 13,500 respondents told Postman that while the pandemic put the world on hold, API development continues to surge.

Postman, the leading collaboration platform for API development, today released the results of its 2020 State of the API Report. The annual report, the largest and most comprehensive survey of the API industry, surveyed 13,586 API developers, testers, executives, and others to understand who is working with APIs, how they are getting their work done, and where they see the industry headed.

Key survey findings:

• API investments have remained strong: Close to half of respondents stated that investment of time and resources into APIs will increase over the next 12 months, while another third stated that investments into APIs will stay the same, despite a challenging economic environment.
• The pandemic has changed the world, but it didn't stop APIs: 89% of industry members surveyed stated that their organizations offered remote work options as a result of COVID-19. Nearly a third (30.6%) said that APIs played a role in their organization's ability to respond to COVID-19 by facilitating customer communications, powering remote work options, and quickly responding to regulatory changes and government initiatives.
• APIs are the nucleus of digital transformation: For those working on digital transformation initiatives, 84.5% state that APIs are playing a significant role in those initiatives.

 

"Our annual survey reveals that the API ecosystem is expanding, investments are flowing, and momentum for an API-first philosophy is being embraced more and more, " said Abhinav Asthana, Postman's co-founder and CEO. "The data also shows us the importance of APIs and their role in responding to sudden and tectonic shifts in the way businesses, governments, and nonprofits operate, including pandemics."

 

Over 60% of survey respondents rated themselves as 5 or better (out of 10) in terms of embracing an "API-first" philosophy, which indicates a groundswell toward API-first. The API industry also continues to touch just about every job role, from developers to management to sales, and even to the C-suite. In fact, 1 in 10 of those working with APIs today are in management roles—from the C-suite through to directors and managers.

 

"After a full review of the data, we found that more than 7 in 10 respondents said the most important factors they consider before integrating with APIs were reliability, security, performance, and documentation," said Postman Chief Evangelist Kin Lane, who works with many companies that are integrating APIs. "However, less than half of the respondents indicated that pricing was an important factor."

 

Additional survey findings:

●       Lack of time (52.3%) is the number one obstacle to producing APIs. Lack of documentation (54.3%) is the number one obstacle to consuming APIs.

●       Respondents felt they should spend more time designing (11% of their time, in an ideal world) and automating testing (15%) for APIs, and less time debugging APIs (10%) than what they experience in real life: Only 8.7% of time is spent designing APIs and 11% of time is spent automating API testing, while 17% of time is spent debugging APIs.

●       REST (93.4%) is the dominant architectural style, followed by webhooks (34.4%), SOAP (33.4%) and GraphQL (22.5%). JSON Schema (75.6%) is the dominant API specification, followed by Swagger 2.0 (43.9%) and OpenAPI 3.0 (27.8%).

●       Microservices (48.7%) is the future technology respondents are most excited about, followed by Kubernetes (43.6%) and containers (42.2%).

 

About Postman

Postman is the leading collaboration platform for API development, used by more than 12 million developers and 500,000 companies worldwide. Postman is an elegant, flexible platform that is used to build connected software via APIs—quickly, easily, and accurately. Postman is headquartered in San Francisco and has an office in Bangalore, where the company was founded. Postman is privately held, with funding from Insight Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and CRV.

Increasing Direct-to-Farmer reach in India : Dhanuka partners with Agritech Startup Gramophone

Supporting the Future of AgriTech, one of India's leading agro-chemical Company, Dhanuka Agritech Ltd. has partnered with Gramophone, to provide crop solutions to Indian farmers. Dhanuka brings its agronomy expertise and world class technology on the tech platform of Gramophone, for farmers to get direct and easy access to affordable crop intensive technology. During the pandemic, the advent of digital technology adoption became necessary and this initiative expanded its reach to benefit the farming community with digitized solutions. With 5,30,000+ farmers on board, it will provide the entire exclusive farm management to  farmers with a personalised and easy to use digitized approach. 

Reaching out to farmers and catering to their needs requires in-depth on ground knowledge and the right channel to reach them. Gramophone works on a personalised solution approach that enables farmers get the right crop inputs. The collaboration with agriculture giant Dhanuka will pave the way for a new dawn in the agriculture industry as it enables customized solutions along with product oriented solutions to farmers. This platform will create a one-stop resolution for crop solution requirement at farmer's doorstep.

Commenting on the partnership, Tauseef Khan, CEO and Co-Founder of Gramophone said, "Our partnership with Dhanuka is a testament that the agriculture industry is moving towards tech enablement to reach customers. This association will help us to reach deeper markets and pave the way for better yields for farmers across the country. We will continue to bring innovation in our solutions and provide an all-inclusive seamless experience to farmers in India"

Gramophone is on a mission to create a future of farming that puts 'Farmers First' by democratising knowledge, building transparency in transactions, and creating a connected ecosystem for farmers' business. We are excited to see how farmers are adopting newer opportunities to maximise their income.

Partha Sengupta, National Marketing Head, Dhanuka Agritech Ltd mentions, "Dhanuka is an organisation committed to Indian farmers to improve their yields and profit. Dhanuka is extending its foot and collaborating with multiple alternate channel partners like Gramophone to increase its reach to farmers and use technology to support farmers to directly access latest Agri input services."

The collaboration will deliver Agronomic Intelligence at convenience of delivery of Agri Inputs like seeds, crop protection & crop nutrition products. The start-up has tied up with the local young rural entrepreneurs for last mile delivery and companies like Dhanuka will be looking at getting granular real time data of farmers all over India from Gramophone. This will improve the quality by helping farmers attain the best quality inputs for better yields.

About Gramophone: Gramophone is pioneering Intelligent Farming Platform - using data to guide a farmer in selecting the right agricultural inputs for maximum yield. To provide products to farmers seamlessly, Gramophone has established a decentralized distribution model which gives speed and quality service to the farmers. Gramophone provides agronomic intelligence based on parameters like soil type, irrigation methodologies, weather, and crop type, to help farmers select the right crop and inputs which can be procured in one place through its platform. 

 

About Dhanuka:

Dhanuka Agritech Limited is one of India's leading agrochemical Company and is listed by Forbes Magazine in the category of "200 Best under A Billion Companies in Asia Pacific. The Company is listed with Bombay Stock Exchange & National Stock Exchange of India and has been bestowed with many awards & recognitions from time to time. The Company has a pan-India presence through its marketing offices in all major states in India, with a network of more than 7,200 distributors & dealers selling to over 75,000 retailers across India and reaching out to more than 10 million farmers. The Company has technical tie-ups with many American and Japanese companies. Dhanuka with more than 150 registrations including Herbicides, Insecticides, Fungicides and Plant Growth Regulators /Bio- Stimulants and with over 350 active SKUs has one of the most extensive market penetration in Agrochemical Industry. Dhanuka has solutions for all major crops grown in the country.

E-commerce Startup The Indus Valley Wins Prestigious TiE50 Award at TiEcon 2020

The Indus Valley a D2C natural cookware brand is excited to announce that it has been selected as a 2020 TiE50 Winner in the prestigious TiE50 Awards Program. This ten-year-old awards competition is a program of TiEcon, the world's largest conference for tech entrepreneurs.

The Indus Valley was founded in 2016 by the husband and wife duo Jagadeesh Kumar and Madhumitha Udaykumar. After receiving funding from The Chennai Angels, they have managed to grow rapidly and are currently at the 25 Crore ARR.

They are on a mission to make all Indian kitchens natural and safe. They design and sell natural cookware products like iron tawa (griddle), cast iron Kadai (frying pan) and wooden spatulas.

"Customer is in the centre of everything we do. Being a D2C brand we are close to the customer and continuously make improvements." said Jagadeesh, to which Madhumitha added "The products that we develop are designed for Indian food. We have a strong iterative product development method that helps us continuously launch new products and improve our products and process."

The TiE50 Awards was presented virtually to the winners during a ceremony on September 3rd. The Indus Valley was recognized for its work as a trusted consumer brand using the D2C e-commerce model.

"TiE50 again attracted high potential startups bringing innovation from different parts of the world. Besides the recognition associated with the TiE50 award, this year TiE50 also partnered with Meet the Draper's, a ground-breaking reality show to give an opportunity to some companies to pitch to the show," said Kamal Anand, TiE50 Program Chair, while speaking about the Award Program.

"For over 28 years as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship and with a global footprint of half a million entrepreneurs, enterprise executives, and investment professionals, at TiE Silicon Valley we take pride in the fact that we have created TiE50, a strong 10-year-old brand for recognizing high potential startups," said BJ Arun, President, TiE Silicon Valley.

With this added dose of enthusiasm and recognition, The Indus Valley will continue building a strong presence in the cookware space. The company sells on their own website (https://www.theindusvalley.in/), as well as marketplace presence on Amazon, Tata Cliq and Flipkart among others.

Currently the company is processing 15000 + monthly shipments. They are a strong 100+ member team. They have reached 1,00,000+ customers in 6000+ pin codes. Going forward, The Indus Valley plans to focus more on product development and research. "Our financial goal is to reach an INR 100 Cr ARR by 2022," said Jagadeesh, adding that the company also has plans to extend its reach beyond the current category and is working on raising fresh capital to fuel the growth.

QAD Tomorrow Thought Stream Introduces the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise

QAD Inc. (Nasdaq: QADA) (Nasdaq: QADB), a leading provider of flexible, cloud-based enterprise software and services for global manufacturing companies, held QAD Tomorrow, a one-hour global thought stream that introduced the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise, QAD's vision for manufacturing companies that are built to survive and thrive in the face of disruption. The company also announced the availability of the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise Maturity Model Diagnostic tool, which provides a method for manufacturers to gauge their preparedness to cope with disruption.

"Being prepared for the uncertain and the unforeseen, and ready to implement a rapid response to disruption, are critical for survival in today's highly competitive and challenging world." said QAD CEO Anton Chilton. "Recent events have had a huge impact worldwide and underline the need to be ready to face these challenges however and whenever they manifest themselves. The ability to adapt in near real-time to these types of events is critical to a business's success and even its survival. QAD engineers agile solutions that help manufacturers do exactly that. We call these companies Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprises."

QAD Tomorrow streamed globally September 22. The hour-long thought stream focused on the disruption in manufacturing and the imperative for manufacturers to digitally transform their businesses. Participants heard from QAD CEO Anton Chilton, CMO Carter Lloyds, CTO Tony Winter, and Michael Eckhardt from the Chasm Institute discussing the current trends disrupting industries worldwide and how manufacturers must be prepared to leverage disruption for competitive advantage.

"It was great to see registrations from 7 countries in South Asia," said QAD Managing Director South Asia, Jan Biezepol. "It's proof that South Asia manufacturing companies recognize the need to increase their ability to adapt to disruption. This region has been resilient while facing global business disruptors including natural disasters, geopolitical disruption and now a pandemic. Our market leaders push towards becoming really fast, agile, and effective companies, and I am glad to share how QAD can help them do so."



The Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise

QAD Tomorrow introduced the vision of the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise. Chilton discussed how Industry 4.0 and the increasing importance of digital transformation can help manufacturers adapt in response to internal and external disruptions, changes in customer preference and government regulations.

QAD's Adaptive Applications portfolio of manufacturing solutions, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), demand and supply chain planning (DSCP), global trade and transportation execution (GTTE), and enterprise quality management systems (EQMS) is designed to help manufacturers become Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprises. Adaptive solutions can be modified, changed, extended, and adapted, as a company changes its business strategy in response to changes in the business climate.

The Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise Maturity Model Diagnostic

QAD Tomorrow also debuted the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise Maturity Model Diagnostic, a complimentary diagnostic tool designed to help manufacturing companies gauge their ability to recognize and adapt to disruption. The Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise Maturity Model Diagnostic tool helps companies identify their business's strengths and potential weaknesses in the context of business disruption. It places companies in one of four stages along what QAD calls the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise Maturity Model. Each stage, Disjointed Enterprise, Functional Enterprise, Effective Enterprise, and Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise, describes certain characteristics related to a company's ability to cope with disruption.

The results of the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise Maturity Model Diagnostic can help manufacturing companies begin to answer the following questions:

• What does my company need to do to prepare for and manage disruption?

• How does my company compare to an ideal Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise?

• What does my company need to do to become an Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise?



About QAD – Enabling the Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprise



QAD Inc. is a leading provider of adaptive, cloud-based enterprise software and services for global manufacturing companies. Global manufacturers face ever-increasing disruption caused by technology-driven innovation and changing consumer preferences. To survive and thrive, manufacturers must be able to innovate and change business models at unprecedented rates of speed. QAD calls these companies Adaptive Manufacturing Enterprises. QAD solutions help customers in the automotive, life sciences, consumer products, food and beverage, high tech and industrial manufacturing industries rapidly adapt to change and innovate for competitive advantage.