Accenture has released Accenture Banking Technology Vision for 2017, an annual report that draws on the analysis of an advisory board of more than two dozen individuals, interviews with technology luminaries and industry experts, and results of a survey of more than 600 bankers.

Image Source – AI

In the next stage of artificial intelligence adoption, banks will use AI to help understand the intentions and emotions of customers and enable better interactions, according to the report from Accenture.

According to the report, more than three-quarters [78 percent] of bankers globally and 87 percent in India believe that AI will enable simpler user interfaces that will help banks create a more human-like customer experience. In addition, four out of five global respondents [79 percent] and almost nine out of ten [87 percent] of bankers in India believe that AI will revolutionize the way banks gather information and interact with customers, and three-quarters [76 percent globally] and 83 percent in India believe that within three years, banks will deploy AI as their primary method for interacting with customers.

According to Piyush Singh, MD and head of Accenture Financial Services group in India

Indian banks are embracing digital solutions for interacting with customers; the next step is implementing the enabling power of artificial intelligence [AI], such as identifying consumer preferences and then reacting with insight and emotional intelligence. In addition to gaining insights, banks could transform customer experience and improve operational efficiency. However, the challenge will be how quickly banks can implement these new technologies as banks continue to face legacy issues with their existing IT set up. This would require a C-suite-led impetus to embrace new technologies.

The theme of this year’s report, Technology for People, is a call to action for bank executives to design technology to help align their products and services with what consumers want in near real-time. In traditional banks, basic transactions continue to migrate from physical to digital channels, leading to major changes as banks redesign their branch networks and enhance their digital footprint. Four out of five bankers surveyed [80 percent] globally as well as India expect AI to accelerate technology adoption throughout the organization, providing their employees with the tools and resources to better serve consumers.

As with previous Technology Vision reports, Technology Vision 2017 is structured around key trends informed by the research.

The five trends identified in Technology Vision 2017 are

  1. AI Is the New UI [Experience Above All]
  2. Ecosystem Power Plays [Beyond Platforms]
  3. Workforce Marketplace [Invent Your Future]
  4. Design for Humans [Inspire New Behaviors]
  5. The Unchartered [Invent New Industries, Set New Standards]

The Design for Humans Trend indicates that the key to increasing the quality of customer experience lies in the ability to adapt for unique customer behaviors. The report finds that while human contact is diminishing in terms of volume, the quality and importance of human touch points will increase. For instance, one-third [34 percent] of the bankers surveyed globally and almost similar number in India [33 percent] said they plan to use a detailed understanding of human behavior to guide new customer experiences. And while nearly nine in 10 bankers [89 percent] said they believe that their customers are satisfied with their bank’s use of personalization, two-thirds [67 percent] globally and in India claim they struggle to understand their customers’ needs and goals.

As reported in the Ecosystem Power Plays trend, banks are increasingly integrating their core functions with digital ecosystem platforms in an effort to manage more broad-based consumer relationships. Nearly all bankers surveyed [98 percent] said they believe that it is ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ critical to adopt a platform-based business model and engage in ecosystems with digital partners, with one-quarter [25 percent] of global respondents and 40 percent of India respondents saying their organizations are already taking aggressive steps to participate in ecosystems.

Many banks are already giving authorized third-parties access to account data and aggregated card profiles to benefit customers. Banks recognize that it is critical to participate in these ecosystems, but it comes at a cost. Three-quarters [76 percent] of respondents globally and four out of five [80 percent] in India said that participating in these ecosystems would require giving up control in favor of an overall better outcome- such as speed, agility and access to new customers- and that same number believe that chosen partners and ecosystems will help determine their bank’s competitive advantage moving forward.

Methodology

Accenture’s Technology Vision is developed annually by the Accenture Labs. For the 2017 report, the research process included gathering input from the Technology Vision External Advisory Board, a group comprising more than two dozen experienced individuals from the public and private sectors, academia, venture capital firms and entrepreneurial companies. In addition, the Technology Vision team conducted interviews with technology luminaries and industry experts, as well as with nearly 100 Accenture business leaders.

In parallel, Accenture Research conducted a global online survey of more than 5,400 business and IT executives across 31 countries and 16 industries to capture insights into the adoption of emerging technologies. The banking industry report is based on responses from 579 respondents at banks in 31 countries across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America. The goal of the survey was to identify the key issues and priorities for technology adoption and investment. Respondents were mostly C-level executives and directors, with some functional and line-of-business leads, at companies with annual revenues of at least USD 500 million, with the majority of companies having annual revenues greater than USD 6 billion.

ACT Fibernet, India’s largest non-telco and third largest Internet Service Provider announced the launch of 1 Gbps [Giga speeds] wired broadband internet service for the city of Hyderabad. Launched in the presence of K. Taraka Rama Rao, Minister for IT, Municipal Administration and Urban Development and Industries [MAUD], ACT Fibernet is the first player in the Indian internet market to GIGA enable an entire Indian city.

Riding on the strength of being the largest non-telco ISP, ACT Fibernet has the best global fiber optic technology and is now bringing world class experience with futuristic speeds to Indian consumers.

When the average internet speeds in India is 2.5 Mbps, ACT Fibernet’s 1 Gbps launch will leapfrog Hyderabad internet speeds to 400x national average.  Very few cities across the world can boast as being ‘Giga enabled’, certainly not at this scale. This launch places Hyderabad in league of select cities in the world that can boast of such futuristic technology. Giga speeds will allow downloads from the internet faster than transferring data from a USB drive.

ACT Fibernet is the largest broadband provider in twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad with over 65% market share. Growing at an incredible rate, ACT Fibernet is known to be a speed pioneer in the broadband industry; this launch will not only provide internet connections at incredibly high speeds, but will disrupt and lead technological growth in the country.

Speaking on the launch Bala Malladi, CEO, ACT Fibernet said

With our citizens and the government moving towards the Digital India movement, high speed internet is the need of the hour. With the launch of our 1 Gbps broadband internet service, it gives me immense pride to turn this dream into reality. The city of Hyderabad is apt for our maiden launch as it has some of the best technology brands, educational institutions and a vibrant economy.

We are confident this product will transform the way internet is now being consumed at large and this will fast track the government’s newest target to connect all its 23 million Telangana residents through the Internet by 2018.

Speaking at the launch, Shri. K. Taraka Rama Rao said

I am extremely pleased to be present here and witness the historic launch of 1 Gbps broadband internet service for an entire city in the country. It is my vision to connect our residents through high speed internet and I am sure this product from ACT Fibernet will further help fulfill my vision of making Telangana a tech and digitally advanced hub.

India is the second largest market globally with internet connectivity reaching over 400 million people.  With the government’s constant and fervent efforts to internet enable cities, internet penetration is set to reach over 600 million users by 2020. Additionally, the government’s recent announcement to boost high-speed broadband via optic Fiber to 1,50,000 gram Panchayats will further receive support through initiatives such as ACT Fibernet’s and its contribution to the country’s digital growth.

ACT Fibernet’s 1 Gbps wired internet service is slated to soon be available in the 11 cities the company has presence in. The product is currently available in Hyderabad for INR 5999 per month, 1 Gbps , 1TB FUP.

About ACT Fibernet

ACT Fibernet is India’s third largest ISP in the wired broadband category with a customer base of 1.2 million. Headquartered in Bengaluru, it has operations in 11 cities across India occupying the leadership position across most of these cities. For more information, please visit ACT Fibernet

The Vivaldi browser unveiled the new History feature, giving users insights into their online behavior. The latest release also includes more options for taking notes in the browser, powerful sound control for tabs and other improvements.

History like never before

Vivaldi’s new History feature lets users explore their browsing patterns, backed by statistics and visual clues.

Jon Von Tetzchner, CEO at Vivaldi Technologies said

We want to make browsing history more useful than ever before. Instead of having to scroll through hundreds of lines, Vivaldi gives a comprehensive overview of history, presented in a visual way. This lets our users analyze their online activity and helps them find what they are looking for.

Million ways to find everything

The new History feature lets Vivaldi users quickly scan through visited websites and get helpful hints for finding old URLs.

In addition to the list of URLs offered by most browsers, Vivaldi shows history in a calendar view with detailed statistics about previously visited sites. Graphs and a color-coded heat map overlay add another dimension, showing peaks of online activity and key browsing trends.

All this data helps find previously visited web pages even when users cannot remember the right search term. Vivaldi’s history puts searches in context – it may be easier to find an old URL if the user recalls seeing it on a certain day when he or she was particularly active online.

Vivaldi users can also narrow down the search to a date range either from the monthly view or from the Day Picker Calendar. In addition to that, users can filter search results by date, title, address and views.

For your eyes only

All of this information is strictly private and local to a user’s computer-Vivaldi doesn’t collect user’s history data.

The new History feature shows the kind of data that could be tracked by third parties. Instead of trying to monetize our users’ browsing patterns, we are giving them this data – for their eyes only.

With the ability to analyze this information, users can decide if they want to adjust their online behavior or remove certain items from the list.

History on your side

Vivaldi’s Side Panel with fast access to bookmarks, downloads, notes and websites of users’ choice now also includes History. Clicking on the History icon will reveal a list of previously visited URLs alongside open websites. This way, users can quickly search through history without leaving the current page.

Always striving for more

With each release, Vivaldi strives to improve every aspect of the program, and 1.8 is no exception. Some of the highlights include:

  • Create notes with drag-and-drop – Vivaldi lets users take notes in the Side Panel as a convenient way of adding thoughts and ideas to websites. It is now possible to create notes by simply dragging and dropping selected text into the Notes menu – not only from the browser itself, but from any other application. Users can also right-click on the text on the website they are currently browsing and select ‘Copy to Note’ from the drop-down menu to create a new note.
  • Advanced tab muting – Vivaldi offers many ways of controlling unwanted noise in the browser, and the latest release adds new options for muting tabs. Users can now choose if they want to allow sounds in all tabs; only let the active tab play sound or let the background tab play sound, as long as the active tab doesn’t.
  • Preference to enable or disable auto-updates on Windows.
  • Option to set the home page to Start page.
  • Ability to open links in the current tab from the right-click menu.
  • An option to display hibernated tabs in grayscale.
  • Matches are highlighted in the address bar drop-down menu.
  • Translation improvements for Chromium.
  • Image search from the right-click menu.

Source*Vivaldi

About Vivaldi Technologies

Vivaldi Technologies is an employee-owned company that creates products and services for discerning web users. In everything it does, Vivaldi believes in putting its users first. For more information, please visit Vivaldi

SumTotal, the leading provider of talent management solutions, unveiled a range of new features and additions to the SumTotal Talent Expansion Suite. The Talent Expansion Suite is the first in the industry to bring talent, learning, recruitment, and workforce management into one platform. This release includes expanded access to learning content, enhancements to the visually engaging user interface, improved browsing and search capabilities, and deployment flexibility to meet the complex technical requirements of modern organizations, both in the cloud and on premise.

The SumTotal Talent Expansion Suite simplifies and streamlines talent management for organizations and engages employees with innovative solutions to know, mobilize, develop, promote, reward, and incentivize global organizations of all sizes.

Bill Donoghue, Chairman & CEO, Skillsoft said

Since the acquisition of SumTotal we have invested significantly in bringing a platform that delivers rich functionality on a beautiful consumer-led experience to market. Last year, we brought learning and talent together in our Talent Expansion Suite and with this release, we have a unique proposition in the market-delivering talent, learning, recruitment and  workforce management on a single, unified data SaaS platform. By bringing all the HCM components into one suite, we are addressing our clients and the market challenges of attracting, retaining, developing, and engaging this multi-generational workforce-delivering a state of the market digital technology experience with cutting edge functionality.

This release of the SumTotal Talent Expansion Suite features a number of new capabilities specifically created to allow organizations of all sizes to measure, understand, and maximize the performance of their global workforce, including

Career Planning and Job Matching

Career Planning – Advanced algorithms to support internal mobility, which recommends internal open jobs to employees that best fit their profile and career goals.

Job and Competency Matching – New competency metrics provide an at-a-glance dashboard, highlighting areas for development in both current jobs and jobs targeted as part of their career plans.

SumTotal Mobile

Smartphone-optimized access – Provides complete employee profile and resume information, including metrics and details for performance, goals, compensation, learning & development.

Seamless user experience for mobile learning Users can now seamlessly download courses on the app and launch them offline, regardless of location. 

Continuous performance feedback enhancements – With the new SumTotal Mobile App, managers and employees can provide and view feedback, anywhere, at any time.

Windows 10 and Windows Surface integration – Employees can now access content using Windows 10 on their laptop and Windows Surface devices – online and offline.

Next Generation of Performance Management

New single dashboard – Now allows employees to easily review, search, and filter all feedback.

Connect feedback to development plans – Managers can provide feedback to selected individuals, and can link users back to specific goals and competencies.

Optimizing the Learning Process

Streamlined, form-based approvals – Allows organizations to optimize their learning management processes by support new forms based approval workflows that comply with the SF182 and EHRI federal government standards. 

Powerful content management tools – Administrative users can now easily publish, manage, and replace content without having to create a new version from scratch.

Workforce Management

New appearance – Unified look and feel with single sign-on capabilities.

Workforce management enhancements – Simple streamlining of daily schedule and shift changes.

New single timeline for managing & completing tasks – New enterprise-search allows a single point for users to search.

About SumTotal Systems

SumTotal Systems, LLC, a Skillsoft Company, is the world’s most popular Talent Management Solution. SumTotal’s award winning Talent Management Suite enables companies to attract, know, mobilize, develop, progress and reward their workforce. With over 150 million users, SumTotal is continuously investing to allow for the changing demands of customers and their users. The Talent Expansion Suite includes four key components –Talent, Learn, and Work. For more information, please visit SumTotal Systems

Yaantra,India’s fastest growing start-up which offers doorstep repair services and sells refurbished and pre owned smartphones with warranty has now launched its first ever branded retail store in the city. Yaantra is all set to facilitate a one-on-one treatment for its customers, wherein they can visit the store in person and get to understand the repair services better.

The India’s first-of-its kind store launched by the company allows the people to purchase refurbished and pre owned handsets with warranty of all varieties and brands first-hand. The endeavour is to further enhance the trust that the brand has created in the market so far, catering to a transparent level of dealing. The store shall serve as the unified centre offering technical support and phone correction for all the mobile handsets at once.

Expressing his delight on the launch, Jayant Jha, co-founder, Yaantra, said

This is yet another beginning for us in a way, entering into the physical market and we shall strive best to continue to innovate, excel and work towards maximum customer satisfaction. The store is strategically located in the District Centre, Janakpuri area, which is one of the city hubs for everything technical. We have also opened two kiosks one in the EDM Mall Anand Vihar and the other in Pacific Mall, Subhash Nagar.

This initiative will help us reduce the turn around time to service our customers, what works best for our clients and also gives us the competitive edge. Yaantra repairs and sells pre owned/ refurbished phones with warranty upto 6 months, promises data protection and is highly focused on customer delight.

While the Indian market is replete with technological inventions today, the refurbished mobile market still remains a highly fragmented, unorganised and to a great extent, a grey area at large. With scalable businesses like Yaantra coming to fill this gap the market faces, it looks like it will soon create great opportunities to offer.

Although there are many small players operating in the market for long, customers often fail to build the kind of trust required for having safe investments in such deals for refurbished models without a dependable entity in picture. With growing numbers of reputed names now joining the game, customers can finally relax about getting cheated or facing any undue stressful situations.

Started as Gadgetwood in 2013, this start up re-branded itself to Yaantra last year. Yaantra started with an ulterior objective to offer doorstep repair services for mobiles, smartphones and tablets to the users in India. Backed by a knowledgeable and certified team of resources, serving customers online as well as directly at their doorstep, this promising start up soon made its mark with its customer-centric philosophy. Yaantra’s successful tie-up with Xiaomi and others, within just a short span of it entering the competitive market, throws light on its future in the business sector.

For more information, please visit Yaantra

Housing.com, part of Elara Technologies Pte Ltd which also owns PropTiger and Makaan has launched Housing Partner, a unified platform for real estate developers and partners to manage their business. The latest technology-powered product from Housing.com is aligned with its objective of becoming a preferred digital platform for all stakeholders within the real estate ecosystem.

Housing Partner is a web-based dashboard that will help property sellers [developers and partners] to monitor and manage leads in an effective manner, all within a single and convenient interface. Through this, customers would be able to enhance productivity by being able to view leads, purchase qualified leads and accordingly customise their offerings.

The platform will also allow customers to report irrelevant leads thus reducing the wastage in terms of time, efforts and money; resulting in increased profitability. ‘Housing Partner’ will also allow developers and partners to view and edit their listings, thus improving the turnaround time to close transactions.

Speaking about the launch of ‘Housing Partner’, Mani Rangarajan, Chief Business Officer – Platform Business Unit, PropTiger.com, Housing.com and Makaan.com said

Technology has always been in the DNA of all products offered by Housing.com and with ‘Housing Partner’, we have once again redefined the role of technology within the real estate industry. While our primary consumer will always be the home-buyer, engaging with the developers & brokers to help improve their business would eventually benefit everyone. ‘Housing Partner’ is our latest offering and has been developed in line with the Group’s objective of becoming the country’s preferred Online-to-Offline [O2O] digital real estate services platform.

Sharing his views on ‘Housing Partner’, Ram Jalan, Group Digital Marketing Head, Wave Group said

Real estate is one of the most dynamic industries where factors that influence a purchase decision vary from one individual to the other and; the prices of properties within the same neighbourhood could vary drastically. In such a scenario, a technology-enabled platform like ‘Housing Partner’ can go a long way in helping us understand the needs of the customers and make better informed decisions which eventually add value to our end-buyers.

Going forward, ‘Housing Partner’ would be further enhanced by incorporating a host of features that would help customers leverage the data collected and to use if effectively. New features would also allow customers to programme their ad campaigns and digital marketing spends for optimal efficacy.

From a partner ecosystem perspective, ‘Housing Partner’ will enable broker app integration as well as an incentive mechanism for end-users to drive sale, it will also allow multiple users from the same partner company to log in simultaneously, allowing them to stay updated real time.

In January earlier this year, PropTiger.com and Housing.com announced a merger to form India’s largest digital real estate entity with an objective of becoming the country’s preferred full service online-to-offline [O2O] real estate platform. The company is the only player offering the full range of real estate services, such as personalised search, virtual viewing, site visits, legal and financial diligence, negotiations, property registration, home loans and post-sales service. The combined entity currently has a monthly traffic of over 7 million visits, and has more than 1 million properties listed for resale and in excess of 195 thousand properties listed for renting.

About Elara Technologies Pte. Ltd

Elara Technologies Pte Ltd is a Singapore-based information technology services company and the holding company of Housing.com, PropTiger.com and Makaan.com. The company provides digital real estate marketing and transactions services. PropTiger.com & Housing.com merged in January 2017 to create India’s largest full service online-to-offline [O2O] real estate platform. For more information, please visit Elara Technologies Pte Ltd

Shoppers Stop partners with ToneTag, a proximity communications firm, to integrate and deploy ToneTag sound-based contactless payments at Shoppers Stop stores. This technology will enable  customers to make ‘cardless’, ‘cashless’ and ‘contactless’ payments at Shoppers Stop stores across India.  The ToneTag technology will use sound-waves from mobile phones to make electronic payments.

With ToneTag’s sound pay technology, customers can make secure payments within a matter of seconds and experience a faster check out. This launch is a fin-tech revolution and a significant step towards the adoption of cashless payments in India-in line with the vision of Digital India.

Govind Shrikhande, Customer Care Associate & Managing Director, Shoppers Stop Ltd. said

Our collaboration with ToneTag is yet another step in the direction of digitizing all our Shoppers Stop stores. Our paramount focus is to offer our customers a convenient, fast and enhanced shopping experience. With ToneTag’s sound-based technology, our customers will now have multiple payment options for a smooth, fast and convenient shopping experience.

Kumar Abhishek, CEO, ToneTag said

Shoppers Stop’s contribution towards digitization has been exemplary. I am a strong believer that Shoppers Stop and ToneTag will continue to strive for best consumer experience by bringing great retail technology with simple user interface.

ToneTag’s breakthrough technology uses audio signals or ‘tone tags’ for data exchange between devices.  Payment instructions can be transmitted, using a sound signal, through a traditional phone line, without any additional hardware or software requirements or dependencies.  This makes highly inter-operable and secure cashless payments possible from any mobile phone to another phone or computing device.

About ToneTag

ToneTag is a sound based proximity communication provider that enables contactless proximity communication, location based services and customer engagement services among a multitude of other solutions. Backed by Reliance VC among a host of investors, ToneTag has enabled contactless, offline, proximity communication on any device through sound and their team continues to innovate and transform the way devices will communicate with each other in the near future. For more information, please visit ToneTag

The National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj [NIRDPR] launched India’s First focused ‘Rural Innovators Startup Conclave’ [RISC2017] at NIRDPR, Hyderabad. The focus of the two day event was to build capacities and promote fresh talent by giving them a platform to display their innovations, encourage greater learning, and strengthen the cadre of young rural innovators and start-ups.

Highlights [Day – 1, 23/03]

Indian start-ups are mostly IT based and cater to urban services. Innovation and Technology Diffusion for ‘rural development’ is the need of the hour. Other important stakeholders who act as support systems to rural innovators are still evolving. There is a need to develop and nurture mentors, angel investors, faculty, corporates, media so that they play a much more active role in contributing to the ecosystem.

The Chief Guest for the event, Honourable Minister of State for Science, Technology and Earth Sciences, Shri YS Chowdary noted

I am immensely happy to be associated with RISC2017, an initiative very close to my heart. Rural development is an important subject and higher dividends from the rural youth are still at large. This kind of an initiative which focuses on rural urbanisation requires synchronisation modern day development concepts. Since our country is agrarian based we have to take a quantum leap to help farmers improve their income level and reduce cost of living. I believe NIRD&PR can play a major role in capacity building-help farmers get educated in fundamental financial literacy and cost accountancy.

We have been talking about globalisation in last 2 decades-we have a lot of potential to tap rural markets. There is need to focus on particular areas in particular technologies for particular people and see that they are saturated. The Govt of India should ensure that a number of initiatives are started by properly coordinating with colleges institutions and state govts. I assure the full support of my ministry to NIRD&PR, besides lobbying with other relevant ministries to muster their support in the endeavours of NIRD&PR.

Speaking at the launch, Dr. W.R. Reddy, IAS, Director General NIRDPR, Hyderabad, said

RISC2017 is the first of its kind platform to connect all institutes and agencies promoting innovation and start-up culture to look at the rural landscape. RISC will be an annual feature that can handhold and mentor the innovators and connect the startups with funding agencies. We believe rural development can be accelerated by infusion of technology tapping the creative minds of the youth across the country.

RISC2017 featured RISC Awards 2017 under Six domain areas namely

  1. Agriculture and Allied
  2. Green Energy Technologies
  3. Drinking Water, Health and Sanitation
  4. Waste to Wealth
  5. Sustainable Housing
  6. Other Livelihoods

Rural Innovations and Technologies in ‘Idea with Prototype’ and ‘Startup Stage’ were recognized by the jury members. The award winners were announced 24th March.

Highlights [Day – 2, 24/03]

The ‘RISC 2017 Awards’ were conceptualised to encourage the rural youth and bring to the fore the creative young minds of the country to showcase their innovations for rural development.

The award ceremony was graced by Chief Guest N. Ramesh Kumar, IAS [Retd], State Election Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad. The RISC 2017 Awards received 200 entries from across India. Out of the 200 entries, 110 were shortlisted and 12 were awarded under the categories of ‘Best Innovators’ & ‘Best Startups’. The  six best startups were awarded a cash prize of Rs 1 Lakh each and the 6 best innovators were were awarded a cash prize of Rs 50,000 each, along with a certificate and  glittering memento.

The winners of the RISC Awards 2017 were adjudged  under the following six categories

  • Agriculture and Allied – Exabit System [Startup category], Mr D Babu Rao [Innovator category]
  • Green Energy Technologies – Divyanga Thrift and Credit Society [Startup category], Mr Amol Koli [Innovator Category]
  • Drinking Water, Health and Sanitation – Mr Soujanya Bodha [Innovator category], Cerela Nutritech [Startup category]
  • Waste to Wealth – Allika [Startup category], Mr Chandra Dass [Innovator Category]
  • Sustainable Housing – Pipal Tree [Startup Category], Mohammed Ismail Khan [Innovator category]
  • Suatainable Livelihoods – Ms Ambica Eco Green Bags [Startup Category], Mr Tirupati Rao [Innovator category]

Images Images

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. W.R. Reddy, IAS, Director General NIRDPR, Hyderabad, said

We thank all the innovators and start-ups for coming out with their inventions and making this event a great success. NIRD&PR will put in efforts to ensure that these products which are at their nascent stage, will receive the kind of support and facilitation required to package them attractively for end users. Going forward, NIRD&PR will be opening up a new front for them-we will be engaging a large number of volunteer service providers for design improvement of these products and integrate these designs in the rural ecosystem.

We are are grateful to NIRD&PR for intitating this first of its kind platform that encourages rural innovators like us to do more for our country and promote entrepreneurship amongst all strata of society.

About NIRDPR

The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, an autonomous organisation under the Union Ministry of Rural Development, is a premier national centre of excellence in rural development and Panchayati Raj. Recognized internationally as one of the UN-ESCAP Centres of Excellence, it builds capacities of rural development functionaries, elected representatives of PRIs, bankers, NGOs and other stakeholders through inter-related activities of training, research and consultancy. For more information, please visit National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj