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|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

IEEE, the largest professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, released the technology predictions from their experts for the year 2016. According to the IEEE experts, newer and more efficient ways to consume energy using renewable sources as well as energy efficiency will be one main focus this year.

The principal element of this revolution is extensive use of smart-grids and technologies that improve resilience and reliability while assimilating clean energy resources. According to IEEE, 2016 will witness an increased share of technological innovation in the energy sector with a focus on ‘global clean energy’.

Dr. Kannan Tinnium, IEEE Senior Member and Technology Leader, Electrical Technologies & Systems, GE Global Research said

We will see more and more integration of smart grids with renewable power sources such as wind and solar energy, pursuing the primary agenda of clean environment. Although the wind and solar energy sources that are derived from the environment are infinite, these sources are not under human control.

When we have such a high penetration of renewables on the grid, there exist operational challenges such as intermittent supply and unpredictable availability of these energy sources. Integration of renewable energy into the smart grid, powered by innovative technology solutions for energy storage will be fundamental in addressing these challenges and achieving greater degrees of reliability and consistency in delivery.

In addition, Dr. Mini Thomas, IEEE Senior Member, Director of Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Professor of Department of Electrical Engineering at Jamia Millia Islamia University said

In the year 2016 we will see more distribution, automation and renewable integration onto the smart grid. Around 13 percent of our country’s generation is already from renewable energy. With a large boost in the solar power installations happening in North India, India will be a powerhouse in the field of renewable energy.

Dr. Mohammad Shahidehpour, IEEE Fellow & Bodine Chair Professor and Director, Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation, Illinois Institute of Technology added

Yet another trend that will surface in 2016 is more consumer interface of electronic vehicles. The awareness and sensitivity towards the environment is intensifying on a global scale. This year will see a growing interest among countries and communities in addressing environment pollution and favouring electric vehicles.

Internet of Things [IOT]’s Impact on the Energy Revolution

Another productivity revolution in the energy sector in 2016 will be IoT. John McDonald, IEEE Fellow & Director of Technical Strategy Industry Standard and Policy Developments for GE Grid Solutions added

In 2016, we will look at energy applications of IoT. Energy and utility are estimated to drive future market growth of IoT and Machine to Machine [M2M] communications given the Indian government’s serious initiatives to deploy smart energy meters

In fact, the power sector is already witnessing real-time deployment of IoT with a few production and distribution companies adopting smart grid technology to manage supply and demand and also study customers’ power usage behavior. A few companies in the Indian oil and gas industry have also initiated IoT pilot projects for cost-effective remote monitoring and maintenance of pipeline networks. The impetus is real and I see 2016 as the year when IoT will move beyond hype to being visible in all of our lives.

For more information, please visit the following links

About IEEE

IEEE is a large, global professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities, IEEE is the trusted voice on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. For more information, please visit IEEE

[Image Credit* – DesiSmartGrid]

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Simplilearn, the World’s Largest Certification Training Provider, launches its first television campaign [TVC] titled ‘Get Certified, Get Ahead’ with internationally acclaimed actor Irrfan Khan. The campaign aims to encourage working professionals to break their inertia and pro-actively shape their careers by acquiring new technology skills and certifications.

Conceptualized by Bangalore-based agency, Propaganda, the TVC urges every working professional to take charge of his or her career in order to get ahead and not depend on luck. With Irrfan’s powerful message, the TVC compares the workplace to a game of chess where every professional’s goal is to make it to the next level. And how, the protagonist took matters of his career, like certification training from Simplilearn, and zoomed ahead of others to become the boss and occupy the cabin, which symbolizes success in corporate world.

Simplilearn’s ‘Get Certified, Get Ahead’ campaign marks how ‘edu-tech’ has come of age in India, and is becoming mainstream. There is a greater need among professionals to re-skill themselves at a time when new technologies evolve in workplaces every few years. This national campaign highlights Simplilearn’s plans to increase the visibility of its online certification courses in trending categories such as Big Data & Analytics, Digital Marketing, Cloud Computing, Project Management and IT Security to white-collared professionals spread across Tier-I and Tier-II cities.

Expressing his views on the campaign, Kashyap Dalal, Chief Product & Marketing Officer at Simplilearn said

Acquiring new in-demand skills through industry acclaimed certifications is a guaranteed way for professionals to get ahead in their careers. This is also one of the biggest requirements for industry to grow, as talent availability is regularly sighted as one of the biggest challenges by Fortune 500 CEOs. Through this national campaign on television and digital channels, I see Simplilearn playing a much more active role in the skill building needs of working professionals as well as enterprises in India.

On the idea behind the campaign, Priya Jayaraman, Co-Founder & Business Director, Propaganda added

The Simplilearn campaign touches upon real corporate aspirations and a way to achieve them. Each of us dream of getting ahead in our corporate life, and do not know how to go about it. The reason to rope in Irrfan Khan was that the story needed to shake every working professional out of an inertia of not having done much about planning their career. People associate with Irrfan for his unassuming take on life, being the voice of reason and optimism. We intentionally kept it a simple narrative to let the power of the message echo with a working professional’s sentiments.

The campaign is on air from today and will be live across digital and radio channels.

With offices in Silicon Valley and Bangalore, Simplilearn is the world’s largest certification training company and has trained over 500,000 professionals across 150 countries, delivering over USD 5 Billion salary increments so far.

About Simplilearn

Simplilearn is the world’s largest provider of short term certification courses that addresses the unique learning needs of working professionals. Having trained over 4,00,000 professionals worldwide,  Simplilearn provides unmatched customer experience, which handholds a customer – right from enrolling into an online course to getting Industry-recognized certificate in hand.  Simplilearn’s course contents are recognized by over 40 certification bodies, prominent ones being PMI, Axelos, Scrum Alliance, Peoplecert, and The Open Group. Simplilearn has also diversified into vendor certification like those from Microsoft, Cisco, and Salesforce. For more information, visit SimpliLearn

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

YuppTV, the world’s largest Over-The-Top [OTT] provider for Indian content, has expanded the entertainment choices available for its users by announcing a partnership with B4U. Under the partnership, YuppTV users anywhere across the world, with the exception of the US, will be able to view B4U Music and B4U Movies.

B4U is one of the world’s leading Bollywood television networks and operates on more than 8 different satellites in over 100 countries. The move to partner with B4U is meant to augment YuppTV’ s current Hindi entertainment library. Both channels will be available in Hindi and can be viewed on computers, smart TVs, smart Blu-ray players, streaming media players, tablets, smartphones and gaming consoles along with other video content through YuppTV’ s platform.

Speaking on the announcement, Uday Reddy, Founder & CEO – YuppTV, commented

YuppTV, today, has established its credentials as the biggest Indian TV content enabler in the world. As such, we constantly endeavour to provide our users across the globe with more entertainment options. This partnership with B4U will help us augment our current offerings and add to the Hindi content options available for our users.

Ashok Shenoy, Head – International Business of B4U added

Our association with YuppTV allows us to expand our bouquet of offerings to its vast digital audience globally. As a premier digital content destination, it will provide any-time, anywhere access to viewers who can enjoy our extensive movie and music programming across devices. This falls in place with our strategy to reach our viewers at their convenience and fulfill their Bollywood entertainment needs on the go.

About YuppTV

YuppTV is one of the world’s leading Over-the-top [OTT] content providers for South Asian Content. YuppTV was founded in 2006, with headquarters in Atlanta, GA and has branch offices in the USA and India. YuppTV started with two channels and has grown to deliver more than 200+ TV Channels today.  YuppTV is accessible on more than 25 internet enabled – Connected TVs, Internet STBs, Smart Blu-ray players, PCs, Smart Phones and Tablets.

For more information, please visit YuppTV

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Auto-mobiles of tomorrow will operate at the intersection of connectivity, data and intelligence. Big data will add a new dimension to the evolution of performance and safety aspects. But the next big leap in auto-mobiles would be driven by the vehicle’s ability to connect to the larger eco-system as well as leveraging data for vehicle level optimisation and delivering a personalised & intuitive ride experience. Ather Energy is all set to enter this phase of automobile evolution with the launch of its smart scooter the S340.

The scooter is the maiden venture of Ather Energy, a Bangalore based technology start-up by IIT graduates Tarun Mehta & Swapnil Jain. It will debut at SURGE on Feb 23.

Tarun Mehta, CEO and co-founder of Ather Energy said

Our focus on connectivity and data analytics enables us to offer a unique ride experience. Access to system level data open the possibilities of understanding ride behaviour on a continuous basis and update vehicle parameters based on it. To start with the S340 comes with a touchscreen dashboard that provides on-board navigation, the ability to create personalised profiles with preferred vehicle settings, ride modes and a host of features. With electric set to be future of automobiles, Ather has built a high speed electric scooter – with a powerful Li-ion battery pack and sub-one hour charging.

SURGE is Web Summit’s first conference in India. Web Summit is one of the biggest and most popular technology summits globally that is known to be a great platform for start-ups and investors. Over the last few years, Web Summit has seen the participation of technology players ranging from Fortune 500 companies like Apple and Google to the most exciting start-ups including Airbnb and Uber.

Talking about SURGE, Tarun Mehta added

We are very thrilled to be part of SURGE as it is one of the most influential technology summits in the world. We believe that this is the ideal platform to launch a data driven product which is envisioned to be part of a larger connected ecosystem. The launch will bring to fruition the exciting journey that we started two years ago.

Tarun is also a speaker at SURGE and will share his perspective on Why vehicles of the future will be electric and connected, a belief that has led to the creation of the S340.

In an ecosystem dominated by software players, Ather Energy is among the few hardware start-ups in India. Their first product, the S340 is completely designed in-house and will commence commercial production in Bengaluru later this year.

The company received funding from Tiger Global, Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal.

For more information, please visit Ather Energy

[Image Credit* – AtherEnergy]

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

When we talk about Real Estate Portals, there are very few [or should we say none of them] that focus on ‘Commercial Real Estate’. There are portals like CommonFloor, 99acres, Housing etc. that mostly target retail customers.

Today, we interact with Mr. Ajay Rakheja, Co-founder, CEO – creindia.com that aims to solve that problem. CREIndia is a commercial real estate platform that integrates the physical and technological world with the gel of research into it, making the outcome more meaningful and intelligent.

We have a chat with him about his startup, Commercial Real Estate Market, entrepreneurship etc. So let’s start of with the Q&A.

Can you give a small background about your startup and it’s founders

With decade of experience and expertise in commercial real estate enabled me to offer services to leading corporations, MNC’s, promising startups and high net-worth individuals. Some of the companies I have worked for Birla Sun life, ICICI bank, Anant Raj Developers, IL&FS & Colliers International.

Our co-founder team comes from commercial real estate industry itself. Their consolidated experience is more than 75 years, successfully executed more than 2000 commercial real estate deal of different nature and complexity

We are an informed integrated platform for commercial real estate with Online & Offline services. We founded creindia with the vision of creating a robust online commercial real estate landscape, where we wanted to simplify the search of commercial real estate and offer the business fraternity with a hassle-free process of locating their ideal property and maximizing reach to get best possible solutions

It is said that startups arise due to problems, is it same in your case ?

Yes, that holds true for us as well. As said, we all co-founders come from the commercial real estate background and have individually faced problem, creindia has thus been incepted as a solution to those problems.

What is the Total Addressable Market [TAM] of the ‘Renting/Leasing commercial property’ ?

Last 5 years of commercial market have recorded approx. 130 million sq.ft of office space leasing from key markets, whereas 15 Million sq.ft of leasing in retail spaces and 30 million sq.ft of leasing in warehousing spaces. These numbers are only from the recorded transaction whereas un-recorded numbers are much higher.

What are the various factors that your algorithm takes into account while keeping track of particular property’s valuation ?

Our process is the combination of algorithm and actual site visit by the team. The algorithm tracks various property characteristics and its detail whereas the site visit captures the market scenario and comparable of neighbourhood properties.

Valuation is done by combining both the aspects, that is property characteristic and market scenario which is further finalized by the approved private valuer or government valuer after going through the details.

Which are the cities where CREIndia is currently present ? [i.e. it tracks properties of how many cities ?]

We are currently showcasing properties from Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad, Lucknow and Chandigarh. Work in Progress has also been initiated at Kolkata and Jaipur.

Can your throw some light on funding, whether CREIndia is bootstrapped or seed-funded or angel-funded ?

We generated the Bootstrap fund traditionally by doing advisory services and sustain the model wherein we realized the next level of staffing and external advisor’s will have to empanelled and have some Seed fund on the table to structure and accelerate our growth and therefore  we went ahead took Seed fund  from HNI’s in September 2015.

What is your revenue model of CREIndia ?

We are an informed integrated platform for commercial real estate with online & offline services.  Property listing is absolutely free for landlords & brokers. However in case the landlord  or seeker wants to be facilitated by our offline services, our team does the same. Having said that in order to unlock complete property  details we do charge the seekers in two forms i.e. either  Subscription and /or  Individual property.

The revenue in current scenario is based on traditional formats for visibility and lead generation. Lately CRE Valuation has also been introduced to add another revenue stream to the existing traditional ones.

What is the kind of verification that gets done when some Retail/Office Space etc. is put for lease on CREIndia ?

Any property listed on CRE undergoes 3 levels of check before it goes live. Once the property is listed it goes under fist level of macro check by the Customer Relations team followed by  physical check  by the fleet on ground and finally the cycle ends with the Head of Verification department checking for content and other mandatory fields.

Can you share more information on CREBazaar ?

CREbazaar is an additional product feature with the idea of showcasing those properties which are under “best deal format”, “Discounts” or have some frills attached to them for both  sale and  lease offered by Owners/owners representatives.

We have experienced that with our ongoing aggregation strategy ,the BAZAAR will transform the way how the commercial real estate buyers & sellers used to traditionally behave. We have also observed that Delhi/NCR investors have been more interested towards the same kind of property.

How different is CREBazaar from the Real Estate Expo’s that happen in various cities ?

The very difference lies with the fact that its virtual exhibition, which is at the ease of seeker. And another difference is that the idea behind the CREbazaar to consolidate those “Best deal formats” at one place is something unique and never seen before.

It gives clients a complete informative way to confidently explore his options as per needs, budget and location. In a typical office or Retail scenario owners were never comfortable with the idea of deals and discounts on their assets and holdings but this approach & initiative from CRE has brought forward direct discounts from owners.

We believe that except for due diligence, this process has shortened the first level of negotiation and provided complete property details for an informed decision making.

Does CREIndia plan to provide End-To-End services [right from Estimating Valuation, Listing Property, Getting Buyers, Getting Legal Work done etc.] ?

We have a vision  beyond that. Our micro learning of our industry has given us some innovative thoughts of providing solutions at various levels.

Who are the potential competitors of CREIndia ?

Frankly, we don’t see any competitor as such. This is a complete fulfilment platform in making. There are many portals and apps which are attempting enter online real estate space but not much in commercial real estate except for large numbers now entering to co-working spaces.

What was the trigger point for you to become an entrepreneur ?

How do innovative ideas come into existence? They germinate when there’s a sense of restlessness that keeps prodding a person every day. They pluck you from your comfort zone, steady income, forthcoming promotions or promise to increase the bandwidth in a reputed organization & give you monotonous life and its style.

Probably that is not a common phenomena, I felt the same when the idea of  CREIndia sow into my head. It led me to leave my high performance and comfortable job from Colliers International, and my experience of 19 years in Commercial Real Estate, made me lay the foundation of CREIndia.

After quitting, me and my other co-founders came-up with a concrete, innovative and inevitably challenging business model of CREIndia. This project was incepted with the vision to spearhead revolution in the commercial real estate industry. They combined the challenges of real estate with the solution of the inability of the existing current online & offline models

Nowadays VC’s prefer to fund younger team(s), what is your take on it ?

There are two combinations that can really work out great together, either Ideation paired with experience or out of box thinking backed up by a great team. VC/PE’s of the world are now becoming more active on evaluating experience and execution capabilities.

What are your key advices to people who want to startup ?

Don’t be in hurry to be just an entrepreneur create sustainable and realistic revenue model, don’t simply rely on valuation and funding.

There is consolidation in Real-Estate sector, what is your take on the same since fund-raising was much easier in 2015 ?

We believe if consolidation is making any sense to the solution you were trying to give or M&A was the only strategy before you scale, than it is absolutely understood but if the same is just for the sake of valuation or in interest of investor’s sake, your purpose of existence gets defeated and then you drive the business for others.

Lately it has been seen and realized too much of spend on tech to influence and bring customer delight through social media which does not assure to give you a sale. The product is always hungry to actually attract clients to view and feel before it actually gets a conversion. So the flip side real estate conversion to sale will always have to be blend of offline and online.

We believe business through digitized way does need a scalable platform but with cautious and testing at all small steps. Revenue with start-ups are always on hits and misses and have to try out all possible options to get the ROI.

Fund raising has never been easy, investors always believe in the sustainability of business and have always been smart and calculative with their investments. Its just they have tried with many ideas and ventures, they have become more experienced with the industry and market move.

There has been a valuation bubble, what is your take on the same ?

We are not in a hurry and nor in this race. We believe in being clear with your product and know your customers by showing minimum tech and more of practical based services. Realistic revenue projections and sustainable model will eventually enhance  your valuation.

VC Funding or Bootstrapping ? Your thoughts on the same ?

Sustain with a bootstrapped venture for as long as you can and when you start feeling the need of extended resources because you are showing traces of tremendous growth get in there for the VC funding race.

How important for Entrepreneurs to have good mentors ?

For any successful venture, it is very important to have good mentors who can guide you with their experience . We are lucky to have good mentors around us.

Any parting advice from your side to the aspiring entrepreneurs ?

As they speed thrills but kills, so for all budding young entrepreneurs be cautious before speeding up your entrepreneurial ventures while all the others use your experiences to deliver and maintain high service standards thus justifying your role.

We are sure that you would have got some handy tips from the discussion we had with Mr. Ajay Rakheja of CREIndia. If you have any questions related to CREIndia or have any general query, please leave them in the comments section.

[Image Credit* – Metrorealtymagazine]

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Tata Sky, the technological pioneer of the Indian DTH industry has announced its [first-of-its-kind] plans to bring internet browsing applications on their Set Top Box. This feature will enable subscribers to browse and interact on certain apps through the Tata Sky Set top box, on almost all TV sets. Not necessarily a Smart TV.

Tata Sky’s latest offering will not only be available to new subscribers, also most of the existing subscriber base will have this feature. The service will be available at no additional cost to Tata Sky subscribers, in the coming months.

Speaking on the occasion, Harit Nagpal, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Sky said

We don’t look at ourselves as a DTH operator. We are a content distribution platform. The scope of that is defined by what content, which medium, what screen the subscriber wants. That is the level of convergence that Tata Sky is looking at achieving.

About Tata Sky

Launched in 2006, Tata Sky is a JV between the TATA Group and 21st Century Fox. The company has invested in state-of-the-art digital infrastructure, partnered with global leaders to provide superior technology and set-up high-end 24×7 call centers across the country manned by multi-lingual customer service associates.

The Tata Sky brand has achieved significant milestones, industry accolades and is rated as the No 1 DTH brand by the ET Brand Equity 2012 most trusted brand survey. Recently Tata Sky+ HD has been rated as the ‘Product of the Year’, 2013 in the DTH category. The company currently has a presence in 50,000 towns with over 15 million connections. For more information on Tata Sky, please visit TataSky

[Image Credit* – Tata Sky]

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

India’s leading digital payments platform, FreeCharge, has crossed a scintillating mark of ‘half a million’, ‘FreeCharge Go’ card creation within 10 days of customer roll-out. With this, FreeCharge has inched closer towards it vision of creating a less cash economy.

The ‘FreeCharge Go’ card is linked with the FreeCharge wallet and makes the wallet universally accepted across all online merchants in India. The card was launched in association with YES Bank and is powered by MasterCard. Through FreeCharge Go, customers experience much swifter and ubiquitous transactions. They can top it up by adding money to their FreeCharge wallet and use it on-the-go for all their online transactions.

Commenting on the milestone, Govind Rajan, Chief Operating Officer FreeCharge said

FreeCharge wallet has crossed 20 million wallet users with over a million transactions a day. Today we have crossed half a million mark for our on the GO card which is a great indicator of how the country is moving towards digital payments. We at FreeCharge are confident that by end of 2016 we will witness a huge transformation in customer spending patterns with more and more transactions becoming digital.

With a strong focus on creating a frictionless customer experience, over 99% of transactions on FreeCharge are completed in less than 10 seconds. ‘FreeCharge Go’ is built to ensure the safety and security of customer data, with state of the art technology wherein data is secured with 128-bit encryption and stored as per PCI DSS compliance. In addition, every transaction using the card needs to be verified by an OTP which is sent to the registered mobile number. The virtual card is accepted at all major e-commerce portals and can be used to pay for movie tickets, book event tickets, pay for various transportation services and leveraged for hyper-local services across all Indian websites.

About FreeCharge

FreeCharge is India’s leading digital platform for recharge and utility payments which provides prepaid, post-paid, DTH and Electricity bill payment for almost all Indian service providers. FreeCharge was founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah & Sandeep Tandon and had received funding of over $120 million in the last 4 years. In the largest acquisition in the consumer Internet space yet, Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge in Apr’15 resulting in India’s largest m-commerce ecosystem.  For more details, please visit FreeCharge

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Zendrive, the mobile technology that makes roads safer through data and analytics, today announced it has raised a $13.5 million Series A round led by Series A round led by Shervin Pishevar of Sherpa Capital with participation from Nyca Partners, Thomvest Ventures [Peter J. Thomson] & existing investors First Round Capital, BMW iVentures, Fontinalis Partners [Bill Ford] and Tad Montross. The funding will drive the company’s focus on safety innovation as the world rapidly moves toward the future of transportation.

Pankaj Risbood, Co-Founder & VP-Engineering of Zendrive said

The transportation and logistics sectors in India are undergoing rapid growth and modernization. At the same time, road safety is becoming an increasing focus for regulators and communities [240,000 fatalities on the road in 2013]. Zendrive technology, by virtue of working on any smartphone, fits in very well with the requirements for a solution that is cheap, does not require hardware and can be rapidly deployed nationwide.

Through its product suite, Zendrive’s SDK technology taps mobile sensors to measure driver safety through actions like acceleration, braking, swerving, and phone use, among many others. Zendrive, founded by Google and Facebook veterans, is utilizing powerful artificial intelligence algorithms and hundreds of billions of data points to analyze sensor data and return actionable insights for fleets and drivers. Because it’s software-based, managing and scaling within any number of vehicles is simple and affordable, allowing for more flexibility than a hardware solution.

Shervin Pishevar, co-founder of Sherpa Capital said

Zendrive represents the natural evolution of safety for the next wave of transportation innovation. Stacked with mobile and data experts from Google and Facebook, this team has introduced the first significant driver and passenger safety innovation since air-bags.

Pankaj Risbood, Co-Founder & VP-Engineering of Zendrive added

Zendrive engineering team in India is building state of the art machine learning models to monitor driving behaviors and employing game mechanics to coach drivers to become safer. We are already working with hundreds of billions of sensor data points and growing very rapidly to extract actionable insights for making roads safer.

Zendrive’s technology can be used by a broad list of industries and products including on-demand services, commercial fleets, taxi aggregators, insurance, city planning, mapping, driving instruction, roadside assistance and more. Together, these industries span hundreds of millions of drivers worldwide. With its new investment, Zendrive plans to grow its team and continue honing its road safety technology. This round brings the company’s total investment up to $15 million.

About Zendrive

Zendrive is a company dedicated to making roads safer through data and analytics. It represents the next wave of safety innovation as the world rapidly moves toward the future of transportation that includes on-demand and autonomous vehicles. Through its product suite, Zendrive leverages mobile sensor data to provide actionable insights that improve safety for passengers and drivers. For more information, please visit Zendrive

[Image Credit* – Zendrive]