All Posts by Himanshu Sheth

|In: HealthCare|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Joining the league of smart technology and fitness gadgets, multi-feature mobile application Revofit, a one stop shop for a total transformation, was launched by healthpreneur and wellness expert, Sunjay Ghai, who is also a Co-Founder of hyper local delivery platform ‘Scootsy’. The app was incubated in AntFarm Incubators, which has been founded by Rishi Khiani. In just a few weeks, the app has crossed 20,000 downloads, its key features being credibility and convenience.

Bad eating habits, stress at the work place, lack of sleep and nutritional deficiencies are the root cause of preventable diseases such as diabetes, heart issues, hypertension, and so on. In fact, such preventable diseases will for the first time be the highest cause of death in India. Revofit intends to be the ultimate destination for preventive health and fitness. A pocket guide with multiple avenues of engagement, the app provides customized support across five categories – Plan, Move, Eat, Shop and Chat.

Not only can you enjoy its many novelty features, but you can also connect with competent professionals for real-time tips and advice. Plan right begins with an advisory service driven by a team of nutritionists, who using AI create unique eating plans designed specifically for users at a very individual level. This is tracked within the app to ensure that the user is following recommendations.

Move right, as a section, is based on a trainer, that is shot on HD video. It uses a complex algorithm to create unique workouts, which keeps evolving according to user inputs and progress, just like a human personal trainer. For the walking enthusiasts, a walk/run feature uses a voice coach to motivate and guide users through walks and runs.

Eat right is content driven primarily by recipes from master chefs like Vicky Ratnani, who dispel the myth that eating healthy is boring and bland. In certain pockets of Mumbai, one can also order food through ‘farm to fork’ RTE brand Hello Green by Revofit, which will soon scale to all major metros of India.

Moreover, Revofit also has a shopping section of curated brands based on nutrition and vitamins, aimed at offering the best products at the best prices. The app can be accessed ‘anytime anywhere’, and is a convenient tool for working professionals, travellers, and just about anyone facing a time crunch. Skipping daily workouts and indulging in cheat meals are no longer an option.

Sunjay Ghai , CEO, Revofit, said

Revofit offers a completely dynamic experience that adapts to each individual according to data collected via user interactions; workouts, diets, and preferences are curated according to their inputs, and they progress accordingly. This algorithm sets us apart from other fitness apps. Consider us the Netflix of fitness, because in the coming months you will see India’s renowned trainers launch their fitness programs using our platform.

Aside from fitness content, users can also access a library of oriental and continental recipes, healthy meals on Hello Green by Revofit, meditation programs; have fun with its gamified interface; engage with the brand offline at various experience centers and events; participate in support groups; and snap up branded Activewear. For further information, please visit Revofit

|In: AI|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Although artificial intelligence may have once been thought of as nothing more than a sci-fi trope, it’s actually a legitimate technology that’s already changing how companies across a wide range of industries do business. Any professional who could benefit from enhanced data analysis and pattern recognition could theoretically take advantage of this technology.

Image Source – AI

Digital marketers are no exception. AI has the potential to revolutionize sales tactics through techniques like chatbot marketing automation. That said, many people still don’t fully understand this technology, or what it can do. That is why it’s important to learn more about it. By familiarizing yourself with AI’s capabilities, you are more likely to see how the tech can be used to improve your marketing strategy.

Introducing Machine Learning

Many AI programs rely on machine learning to function. Essentially, machine learning refers to an AI’s ability to develop specific problem-solving skills by referring to established data points.

For example, machine learning allows AI to analyze previous data sets from the stock market. As the AI learns thorough reviewing past trends, it’s able to make more accurate predictions about the stock market on its own.

This means AI is likely to make more and more key business decisions in the near future. Marketers can leverage this power to boost the success rates of campaigns.

Machine Learning & Customer Behavior

Again, machine learning involves analyzing data sets to learn a skill or generate insights. That’s why it can play a major role in any task that involves learning from consumer behavior.

There are currently many different channels that could potentially provide consumer behavior data. Social media conduct, search history, purchase history; all may offer information that can help an AI develop more accurate customer profiles.

This is very significant from a marketer’s perspective. According to a 2016 survey, 80% of marketers agreed that customers were more responsive to personalized content. Consumers want marketing content to be tailored to their specific needs and preferences.

Thanks to AI, offering that kind of individualized experience is easier than ever. AI can analyze customer behavior data much more efficiently – and thoroughly – than a human. Marketers will use it to more effectively segment their customers into separate groups and profiles, allowing them to target those clients with the most relevant content possible.

AI Content Curation

Stronger list segmentation isn’t the only benefit AI offers marketers. The technology also has the capacity to analyze reporting on topics ranging from sports and pop culture to science and politics.

Combine this quality with AI’s ability to generate detailed customers profiles, and it’s easy to imagine that marketers will soon rely on AI to provide customers with the information that’s most relevant to their interests. This helps automate one of the more essential components of any digital marketing campaign.

Chatbots

AI-enhanced chatbots offer many potential benefits to digital marketers. Along with taking over customer support duties, chatbots can reach out directly to customers via existing platforms like Facebook Messenger, alerting them to relevant promotions, new product announcements, and more.

Because AI has the ability to learn from customer behavior, a chatbot would know exactly when to reach out to a given customer for the best possible results. It will also know precisely what type of content it should provide.

Looking to the Future

In all likelihood, we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what AI can do for digital marketers. What is clear, however, is that it’s poised to offer major benefits. The marketers who embrace its potential early will stand out from the competition, offering their customers the kind of marketing experience that would be impossible without AI.

About the Author

Rae Steinbach is the Freelance Editor at Snaps, a mobile messaging platform connecting brands to millennials. You can find more about Rae here

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

At its AI for All conference in Bengaluru, Microsoft India showcased some of its most recent artificial intelligence [AI] solutions aimed at helping improve lives and transform businesses. Microsoft India said it is helping 650 India-based partners use the Microsoft cognitive services, IoT, AI and machine learning platforms to build solutions for India.

Over the last year, Microsoft and its partners have deployed AI solutions in areas such as healthcare, education, agriculture, retail, e-commerce, manufacturing and financial services. Microsoft also announced a partnership with Forus Health, a Bengaluru-based technology company focusing on retinal imaging devices, to leverage AI capabilities for early detection of diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma & macular degeneration, and help reduce avoidable blindness.

Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, said

We are working closely with our partners to bring AI to all sectors in India. The intersection of AI with people and society presents an incredible opportunity to create a lasting, positive impact on the world and in India. Our partners are creating inclusive solutions designed to solve local societal and business problems.

Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President, Business Development, Microsoft, said

We are working to democratize AI and make it available to all. As a company, we have been working with AI for over 25 years. As humankind discovers new challenges and refocuses on old ones, AI can help us find better and more sustainable solutions.

Partnership with Forus Health

Diabetic retinopathy is one of the most common complications of diabetes population due to lifestyle changes and accounts for up to 10% of cases that experience loss of vision. As part of Microsoft AI Network for Healthcare, Microsoft and Forus have worked together to integrate AI-based retinal imaging APIs into Forus Health’s 3Nethra devices using Microsoft Azure IoT Suite. This will help Forus technicians identify eye fundus images as well as disease conditions better. 3Nethra devices, which can be operated by minimally trained technicians, are deployed across over 20countries and have so far touched more than two million patients.

K. Chandrasekhar, Founder & CEO, Forus Health, said

Forus Health is excited to partner with Microsoft in providing integrated services in ophthalmology screening to the end customer using artificial intelligence. This would help in potential early identification and treatment for problems like diabetic retinopathy. This partnership will help assist doctors with diabetic patients in rural clinics in India as well as other emerging economies such as Mexico.

Microsoft, enabling partners

Microsoft helps up-skill partners using trainings and hackathons on AI, machine learning, Microsoft Bot framework, cognitive APIs and Machine Learning Studio. Microsoft also offers practice resources to partners to help develop new in-house capabilities and reach more customers. Resources are available to partners in the field of business analytics and AI, data platform modernization and data warehousing and big data, among others.

Microsoft’s partners and customers drive AI innovation in India

Microsoft partners and customers in India are using and/or offering AI-based solutions across scenarios including customer segmentation and life time value assessment, demands forecasting, multi-factor customer identification system [face, biometric and speech], omnichannel analytics, fraud detection and credit risk assessment, and remote monitoring amongst others. A few examples include-

Hitachi Micro – Using cognitive services and machine learning, Hitachi is developing facial biometric customer identification systems for banks, to make Face the ID for users to access their accounts and make transactions. This will improve the overall user experience and safety for customer. Using Microsoft’s AI based solutions, the company is also creating facial recognition and patient authentication platforms for healthcare organizations, enabling easy biometric check-in for patients, attendants, doctors and healthcare staff.

Nihilent Technologies – Nihilent, a Microsoft Gold Partner, offers a comprehensive suite of AI, machine learning, user experience and design thinking-based solutions to customers around the world. The company is delivering AI-based solutions for several operational verticals viz.,

  • Vehicle Telemetry for an Indian Insurance company – The solution analyzes trip details such as driving pattern, frequent place of travel and maps the insurance policy information for further analysis such as classifying vehicle segment, performing a correlation of driving pattern with accident claims.
  • A modern and comprehensive parking solution implemented using Azure IoT for leading parking solution provider, WorldWide Parking Inc, with offices in 16 countries. The effort included an assessment of the existing solution and re-engineering it into a more modern, scalable and performant cloud-based platform.
  • Facial Recognition that provides a trusted system for facial security. It prevents access to the premises for unregistered persons.
  • Recommendation Engine for a leading non-banking financial services company using market basket analysis to make recommendations based on the relationships among products/services and the products/services utilized by customers.
  • Text Analytics – Deals with large number of unstructured documents and performs Text Mining of the corpus of pdf data to create a structured database using key words & natural language processing. The solution will help in understanding how existing and proposed projects are likely to behave in future.

WittyParrot – WittyParrot Word widget, is a productivity solution provider for knowledge workers to create word documents rapidly by assembling pre-built, consistent and compliant content. WittyParrot was part of Bengaluru-based Microsoft Accelerator’s 10th batch where they underwent an intensive six-month coaching and mentoring programme. They are using Microsoft’s Azure cloud offering and leverage it for technologies like big data, internet of things [IoT] and advanced analytics, among others, while being fully integrated with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office 365, several CRM platforms and various voice enabled chat-bot technologies.

BrainifAI – Gurugram-based start-up BrainifAI is creating multiple solutions to ensure cab safety by tracking drivers and passengers. This includes detection of soberness of drivers and escorts, as well as in-cab physical threats.

Ola Play – Ola Play is the world’s first connected car platform for ride-sharing, that will leverage Microsoft AI and IoT to enhance driver experiences with tele-matics and navigation guidance; passenger experiences with cloud-based infotainment and productivity; and provide auto manufacturers with custom digital experiences for their customers. The advanced tele-matics platform will transform the car into a high-performing, intelligent vehicle, capable of assessing fuel efficiency, engine performance, and driver performance. It will also enable smarter navigation and predict breakdowns, enhancing safety and security while creating new business models and opportunities.

Flipkart – Flipkart is leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics capabilities in Azure, such as Cortana Intelligence Suite and Power BI, to optimize its data for innovative merchandising, advertising, marketing, product discovery, content moderation, pricing and customer service. With powerful insights about its business and new, intelligent services, Flipkart can deliver increasingly relevant and personalized experiences to its customers.

ShepHertz – The Gurugram-based tech start-up serving 65k customers across 150 countries processes 111+ billion API calls. ShepHertz endeavors to make applications (apps) developers successful on the cloud. Their Intelligent Digital Hub Platform [IDHP] helps build omni-channel [mobile, social, gaming, TV, IoT, wearables, point of sale and web] apps and increases user acquisition, retention, engagement and conversion through their real-time actionable big data analytics solution. As part of IDHP, ShepHertz Applied AI Services is using Microsoft Azure to provide social listening tools such as sentiment analytics, machine learning tools such as chatbots, Prediction analytics and Face Recognition for visitor management, attendance and intruder detection. ShepHertz also uses Power BI for AI and big data visualization and reporting.

ZingHR – Mumbai-based ZingHR is helping businesses address the talent acquisition and retention challenges by operating on Microsoft Azure’s machine learning, cognitive, analytics, voice Bots and social listening capabilities. With emotion APIs for sentiment analysis, it has enabled HR departments to achieve reduced hiring cycles and unbiased hiring leading to 80% improved efficiencies.

ZingHR is offering Hire-to-Retire solutions and services to over 500 enterprise customers across India, South East Asia and Middle East. By adopting the latest Microsoft technologies, ZingHR platform is highly flexible, scalable, mobile, and economical with lean HR practices.

  • Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission [KAPC] – As part of an experiment with Microsoft, KAPC, Department of Agriculture, the government of Karnataka is using price forecasting for agricultural commodities, in addition to sowing advisories for farmers in the state.

Microsoft has developed a multivariate agricultural commodity price forecasting model to predict future commodity arrival and the corresponding prices. It uses remote sensing data from geo-stationary satellite images to predict crop yields through every stage of farming. This, along with other inputs such as historical sowing area, production, yield, weather, among other datasets, are used in an elastic-net framework to predict the timing of arrival of grains in the market as well as their quantum, which determine their pricing.

AI for All conference

The AI for All conference saw participation from industry representatives from across healthcare, automotive, IT and IT-enabled services, among others. The event featured discussions about the benefits of artificial intelligence [AI], and how this can be used to augment human ingenuity. The one-day conference also included a Design Thinking Workshop around AI.

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Indian School of Business [ISB], organized the India Conference on Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition in Delhi. The objective of the conference was to offer a roadmap to manage innovations at various stages in the value chain, which calls into play the various tools of the Intellectual Property System. The role of Intellectual property, from producer to the end user, in relations to innovation was addressed through a daylong conference.

In his keynote address, Shri Suresh Prabhu, Minister for Commerce and Industry, Government of India, mentioned that Government is working on having regular interactions with the Start-ups, who are at the forefront of innovations, primarily on regulatory aspects, which helps them in their business initiatives.

Dean Rajendra Srivastava, Dean of the Indian School of Business in his opening address, said

There is a need to integrate insights from West and East to address the tussle between competition and protection. There is a need for a dialogue between the competing interests of the society, corporate and the individual level for the required value migrations. Our Lab is the Market Place and we need to look at ways we could manage ideas.

Dr Girish Sahani, Director General, CSIR & Secretary, DSIR, said

CSIR stands No.1 in R&D Patents and this was possible because of the mind-set change in the scientists to bring about synergy into production systems and focus towards more product based innovations vis-a-vis process based. CSIR is currently positioned at 75th in the Global R&D institutions.

Speaking on innovation ecosystem in India, Dr Rishikesha Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore, pointed out that much of the innovation in India is dominated by the multinational companies. However there is immense scope for frugal innovations in India especially happening at the start-up levels.

Dr Rishikesha Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore, said

Start-ups are becoming increasingly visible. The future of innovation is in e-commerce, Fintech, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning etc. Many companies are looking at India for their R&D needs.

Professor Anil K Gupta, Founder Honey Bee Network & Executive Vice Chair, National Innovation Foundation, said

We must not focus on frugality which is only for customers but also look into the manufacturers. There is a need to bridge the formal and informal innovations happening in India.

Ms Geeta Gouri, Former Member, Competition Commission of India and Director [Tariffs], APERC, in her address opined that creating new markets is also an important responsibility of the competition commission. Taking the examples of the cases at the Competition Commission on automobile after market and Google search engine, Ms Gouri said

Anything dominant will result in abuse, but the innovator must get the required credit for his innovation.

Mr Vivek K Kamath, Managing Director, Merck Sharp and Dohme Pharmaceuticals [India], opined that there is a need to focus on both large as well as niche categories healthcare intervention. Mr Vivek K Kamath said

Policies are forward looking right now, but enforcement gap maybe the challenge. We need to  do better on the enforcement dimension especially related to Intellectual Property Protection, Patented product pricing and clinical trials which will create a robust Indian healthcare innovation ecosystem.

The conference saw a galaxy of speakers speaking on various aspects of innovation ecosystem – IP Index, clusters, Chinese exceptionalism, piracy, healthcare innovation, app economy, trade agreements, intersection of technologies, inequality among others. The interactive conference was attended by around 150 delegates representing industry, academia and the Government. This is the inaugural edition of such a conference organized by the Indian School of Business.

|In: Guest Blogging|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Cyber Security has always been discussed but never given the importance that it deserves in the boardroom. However the situation seems to be changing post 2017, which saw cyber breaches of global scale and magnitude. Myths such as – only Information Technology companies are prone to cyber attacks and that fairly advanced nations like the United States and United Kingdom would be the main targets of hackers whereas countries like India would not be victims – were broken. It is time to address cyber security as a business risk, and not just a technology problem.

Image Source – Cyber Insurance

2017 saw hackers take down a Power Grid in Ukraine, ransomware attacks like WannaCry, Petya and NotPetya caused business interruption at ports, hospitals in UK were made to turn down patients since they lost access to their systems and the Equifax breach led to the data of 143 million customers – a number higher than Mexico’s total population – being compromised. Mondelez Inc., the world’s second-largest confectionery company, said its quarterly revenue growth would be reduced by 3 percent due to a recent global cyber attack.

India too was put on the global map after becoming the third worst hit country from the WannaCry attack, with more than 40,000 computers being affected. An Indian food startup’s breach was the biggest globally in the first half of 2017, compromising data of 17 million users. The list just keeps growing.

The thing about cyber risk is that it is evolving at a pace which most companies will find hard to keep up with; attacks are getting more sophisticated – from distributed denial of service attacks to ‘man-in-the-middle’ attacks, the risk just keeps changing.

The popularity of crypto-currencies and their characteristics which prevent them from being traced back will only fuel further ransomware attacks in the future.

According to a recent report published by McAfee, the total cost of cyber crime globally is USD 600 billion, or 0.8% of global GDP. With the EU GDPR becoming effective in around two months, several global MNCs will be liable to report breaches within a set time frame and may be liable to penalties going as high as 4% of their global turnover, the cost of data breach is bound to go up.  As I write this, a fresh probe has been requested by the European Commission, asking data protection authorities to investigate Facebook’s data leak to data-profiling firm Cambridge Analytica, which uses psycho graphic profiling to change behavior, and may have used the data of 50 million Facebook users to help bolster Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

The increasing frequency of breaches and the costs associated with it demonstrate the need for companies to purchase cyber insurance. Let’s be clear, cyber insurance will not help a company prevent a cyber breach, but it will help it survive one. The amount of loss due to cyber attacks and its spiraling effects cannot be under-estimated. A typical breach would require the company to hire forensic experts to investigate into the breach and recover its lost data, appoint lawyers to communicate the breach to the regulators, customers and other stakeholders as per regulations.

Service of a public relations expert may also be required in order to handle the press and other media. All of these expenses can make a huge dent in the company’s bottom-line, especially to the small and medium enterprises, which may not be able to afford such costs. A standard cyber insurance policy would provide cover for all these costs, and further covers such as cover for business interruption, fraudulent fund transfer, PCI-DSS may be purchased depending upon the risk profile and needs of the customer.

The ever evolving nature of cyber risk poses an even bigger challenge for insurers, as they will have to work towards providing a wholesome risk mitigation product to customers. Such a product would help them not just cover the costs associated with a breach, but also help them improve their cyber security, provide vulnerability assessment and penetration testing services, and most importantly help educate their customer’s employees about threats such as phishing,  ransomware and others – since humans are still the weakest link in cyber security.

About the author

Sanjay Datta is the Chief underwriting, Claims & Reinsurance Head at ICICI Lombard. More details about her can be found here

|In: General|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Technology has become an integral part of our lives and to a huge extent, it has helped in making our life simpler. For example, with the advent of e-commerce, you no longer need to step out of your home for shopping, buying groceries or even for bill payment. In fact, with the increased internet penetration, push for Digital India and rise of Fintech, customers can now access financial products also at the click of a button.

Image Source – LivPure

There are many of us who use fitness bands, smartwatches, etc. also called as Wearable Technology products that have the capabilities to track your fitness, monitor sleep patterns, etc. however, there are very few gadgets that let you know when you are dehydrated or not consumed sufficient amount of water. In a nutshell, no matter how much data your wearable device analyzes and shells out to the user, it can only act as an enabler and the motivation to lead a healthy lifestyle still lies in the hands of the user. Timely water consumption is very important to stay dehydrated and hence you need to consume the right quantity & right quality of water so that you can also beat the heat in summer! In many cities, people are still consuming water from taps which is very risky since it might not be purified and could cause diseases. This is where Water Purifiers play a vital role in the purification of the water and ensure that consumers drink healthy and pure water[Source].

Water Purifiers use a technology called Reverse Osmosis [RO] that is used to remove a majority of contaminants from water by pushing the water under pressure through a semipermeable membrane while Ultraviolet [UV] water purification penetrates through harmful pathogens in your home’s water and eliminates their ability to reproduce. Drinking purified water is one of most essential things that keep us healthy. By examining these methods, LivPure contributes in providing clean water with a diverse set of water purifiers in India with their main products being RO and UV water purifiers. These water purifiers help remove everything from water, not only all bacteria, viruses, and germs but also dissolved chemicals that could be much more dangerous than germs.

LivPure has been instrumental in bringing pure water to consumer’s homes for many years and offer India’s first smart touch RO+UV+UF+Taste Enhancer at customer’s doorstep. Best purifiers in India are also available online at competitive prices, many other competitors worry only about germs in water, but LivPure offers the best water purifiers for home & commercial use. Their customer service is available on call, email as well on the mobile app. They have stringent quality checks to bring the best product to their consumers and believe in maintaining the highest standards of hygiene to avoid any contamination. Each water purifier is manufactured and assembled in a sterile environment and tested thoroughly at our quality control lab.

With advanced products LivPure, consumers can expect pure drinking water with 100% Sampurna RO Suraksha. If you are an existing LivPure customer, do leave your experience in the comments section…

|In: Guest Blogging|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

After receiving his degree in Electronic Engineering, Summit Shah expanded on his work to become one of the most successful technology experts and authors in the industry who has made many accurate predictions about the future of technology and IT. Technology experts are always in high demand and should see a continued level of growth in many areas as the success often achieved by experts in the technology field has expanded to include a range of new industrial sectors growing at a fast rate.

Image Source – Tech Jobs

Technology jobs were once frowned upon as simply fashionable forms of employment with little future but have now become some of the most impressive available as new forms of energy are produced and the ‘Internet of things’ moves closer towards becoming a reality; by 2024, it is estimated more than 12 percent of tech employment sectors will grow to make this one of the largest fields of employment in the world.

Renewable Energy Technician

Across the U.S., the performance of renewable energies looks set to outstrip that of coal and other fossil fuels which are slowly being phased out of the energy production sector. Perhaps the fastest-growing job in any technology field, a Renewable Energy Technician will not be affected by robotic updates or the use of artificial intelligence in the coming years as the installation and maintenance of PV panels and wind turbines is estimated to grow by 100 percent over the next ten years.

Artificial Intelligence Engineer

There are few areas of growth as fashionable or exclusive as Artificial Intelligence Engineer which has attracted some of the top names in the tech industry who are given salaries often matching sports stars and celebrities. Any tech expert or student looking to break into the latest area of growth should be looking for skills which can be applied to AI if they wish to match the top salaries seen in this sector.

Interface Design Director

The entire sector of Web Development may have been around for as long as the Internet but it still has the potential for growth in the coming years as the number of new jobs available grows by around 27 percent across the next six years. An Interface Design Director is responsible for planning the user interface of apps and Websites and implementing the design over the course of a Web-based project providing an average salary of over $160,000 in 2018.

Video Game Streamer

One of the new sectors of jobs which will become important in the coming years is that of Video Game Streamer for Web sites such as Twitch which has more than 25,000 members streaming video games and earning money. The so-called ‘gig economy‘ is driving the rise in those looking to establish a career in a technological environment which is always evolving.

Biomedical Engineer

As the population of most of the developed world continues to age the need for new equipment, techniques, and pharmaceutical options will also continue to grow. A biomedical engineer is responsible for developing a range of new products including replacement organs, limbs, and other medically-based equipment based on the technological needs; the forecast job rate for this role is 23 percent by 2024 and offers a median salary of over $95,000 in 2018.

Software Developer

A software developer is one of the most creative people in the technology sector who is required to spend a large amount of their time exploring new ways of developing programs for mobile apps and larger hardware to the specifications of a client. Developers are also responsible for amending existing programs and apps in a timely manner to keep them as up to date as possible.

Change Management Specialist

There are few roles in technology as new or innovative as a Change Management Specialist who spends their time exploring the best ways of enacting a change within an organization without negatively impacting the majority of a company. This role offers a growth rate over the next half a decade of more than 20 percent and an average salary of more than $130,000 for those willing to take on a position where the positive reinforcement of an organization remains key to the overall health of the brand they are working with.

Information Security Analyst

The cyber attacks taking place across the globe have had a positive impact on the industrial sector of the Internet security. An information security analyst is a role growing at a fast rate as every company and organization identifies the need for a high level of security across their group which is one of the major reasons for the U.S. unemployment rate of just 2.7 percent in this role. As attempts at cyber attacks become increasingly common in the 21st-century this role looks set to increase in importance across 2018 and beyond.

About the Author

Summit Shah is a specialist who has helped several companies integrate technology into their business. At present, he has helped over 20 companies in his several areas of expertise such as internet marketing, customer feedback solutions, data analytics, and product development. For more information about Summit Shah, visit him on his website,  Summit Shah Tech

|In: BlockChain|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Ever since the Punjab National Bank Fraud case has come to light, many believers of Blockchain have been saying that Blockchain could have stopped it.  Present company included.  I for one, very truly believe that Blockchain will become pervasive and not too far away.  But could it have avoided this huge fraud that has shaken the Indian Banking system? Well it’s hard to respond in the affirmative knowing that no technology is smarter than the human brain at its best. If the intent is wrong, loopholes are found or made. Just as in this case.

Image Source – BlockChain

What was the main reason behind this fraud? While there were multiple, like mal-intent of account holders, corrupt employees, audit failure, manual contracts etc., the key reason was un-integrated applications, i.e, the SWIFT gateway was not integrated with PNB’s Core Banking System. So transferring data from one to the other was a manual process! When money was lent by foreign branches of other Indian banks, based on the false LOU issued by PNB, no record was being made in the banks CBS.  Thus year after year, the fraud remained under cover. 

Could Blockchain have solved it?  Well the answer is yes and no. Blockchain definitely has much higher security capability built-in. The basic concept underlying Blockchain, is Distributed Ledger Technology or DLT. So the master data is maintained in every node of the distributed ledger and hence there is no dependence on a single source of truth. While today the banks CBS is the single source of truth for the bank, in a Distributed Ledger framework, each node would contain the same truth. So tampering one node would not be possible and would immediately bring to light any kind of malpractice. So technically speaking Blockchain technology does have security mechanisms to deal with these frauds. However the success of this would depend on how distributed the ledgers are and how big the chains are.

Anytime there is a gap or a break between the chains, or two or more chains are not integrated, demanding a human intervention, mistakes or fraud are likely to happen. So whether or not Blockchain technology could have stopped the PNB fraud, would depend on how integrated the Blockchain was. So even in a Blockchain scenario if the Bank and the SWIFT payment gateway were not connected by a single chain or two integrated chains and had it required a manual intervention, the problem couldn’t have been avoided inspite of Blockchain technology. So Blockchain technology alone, is not an answer to avoiding such problem, intentional or not.  The most critical requirement is for all stakeholders to be part of the Blockchain, with no breakage in the chain.

There are a few other necessary conditions to the success of Blockchain as well

  1. All Manual contracts of today will have to be converted into smart contracts to run some automated checks on them, whenever there is any transaction involving a contract.
  2. Since the security will be so much dependent on the technology itself, technology audits will have to become much more stringent and pervasive
  3. Finally in order for all stakeholders, no matter which industry they belong to, need to come together as part of the same or connected Blockchain, there needs to be common processes and protocols accepted and agreed on by regulators of all industries. Hence the Regulators need to come together to ensure the same.

So bottom line is no technology can eradicate fraud. People are much smarter than computers, being the inventors of all technology.  And people with mal-intent will be there. So while Blockchain has the technology built-in to improve security, it is definitely not the answer to all fraud.

About the author

Mohua Sengupta is the EVP & Global Head at Services at 3i Infotech Ltd. More details about her can be found here