All Posts by Himanshu Sheth

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Reinforcing its commitment to accelerate the startup ecosystem in India, Microsoft launched the 100X100X100 program for B2B SaaS startups in India. A first of its kind program in India, this initiative will bring together 100 committed companies and 100 early and growth startups that have enterprise-ready solutions to offer. Each participating company will commit to spend $100K over a course of 18 months on solutions provided by the SaaS startups. More than 50 startups are part of the program at launch.

Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, said

India has one of the largest B2B SaaS startup ecosystems in the world, and it’s growing exponentially. This initiative will help build scale and create amazing opportunities for startups. Businesses can now fast-track their digital journeys through easy adoption of enterprise-grade solutions. We’re excited to see the outcomes of these partnerships.

The initiative is open to Microsoft co-sell enabled startups associated with Microsoft India with Startups. As part of the program, these startups will also have access to regular speed-contracting sessions with prospective customers at Microsoft industry and customer events. The program will be conducted with the support of ecosystem partners and industry associations including the Delhi and Mumbai Chapters of The Indus Entrepreneurs [TiE].

Microsoft is committed to helping entrepreneurs build and scale their companies, by leveraging the cloud platform, enterprise sales team and partner ecosystem. Microsoft India with Startups opens doors for startups from the country by helping make them enterprise ready.  Microsoft has evolved its approach from ‘partnering to partnership’, both technical and commercial, guiding startups through every stage of growth. This includes providing them

  • The power of Microsoft’s technology platform, allowing them to innovate and build on their own terms. Azure credits, comprehensive training programs and technical support aim to ensure competitiveness.
  • Mentorship, deep technical expertise and immersive industry experiences focused on business outcomes, delivered at Microsoft and industry startup events.
  • Access to partners. Working with the entire ecosystem (startups, Venture Capitals, accelerators, incubators) helps startups in connecting with the right players who can accelerate their development
  • Support for streamlined go-to-market [GTM] activities across the globe.

 

Microsoft for Startups allows early stage B2B startups to leverage Microsoft’s Azure marketplace, enterprise sales team, and rapidly growing partner ecosystem. Under this initiative, the Microsoft ScaleUp program is designed for Series A-C startups.  Through its cutting edge technology expertise, strong focus on Microsoft for Startups, a growing partner ecosystem, and the venture fund M12, Microsoft is uniquely positioned to help startups evolve from being market ready to enterprise ready.

Launched under the aegis of Microsoft for Startups, the 100X100X100 program will help enterprises fast track their digital transformation through faster adoption of SaaS solutions. It will make available a variety of curated, ready to launch, enterprise grade solutions from startups with a proven track record.  At the same time, it will aim to create a profitable domestic market for the fast growing Indian B2B SaaS startup segment by increasing their revenue and customer base.

|In: Finance|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

One of the important terms that you will come across when picking mutual funds is NAV. NAV stands for Net Asset Value and refers to the fund’s per unit market value. It is the cost at which an investor purchases fund shares from a fund company and redeems the same by selling it to a fund company. NAV essentially denotes the price of per share of the fund. As with stocks that have a share price, mutual funds have Net Asset Value.

How does NAV work?

Unlike share prices that fluctuate or change throughout the day, NAV does not. The Net Asset Value is updated at the end of the trading day. It is calculated by dividing the total value of all the assets, minus the total number of liabilities. The reason it is calculated at the end of the day is because it takes into consideration the closing market prices of the securities that are held by the funds. It is usually in the later hours of the evening or any time before 9 pm.

Importance of NAV

NAV is a factor of great importance when tracing share price movements. Albeit, it does not aid in clearly gauging and acquiring an overall view of the fund’s performance. The reason behind this is that at least 90% of the realized capital gains and income is divided among investors each year. This distribution leads to a reduction in the NAV. Thus, NAV should be considered as one factor but not the only concern. While it may reflect a drop, in actuality the net value of the investment remains unchanged.

When investing in mutual funds, you must be certain about the different aspects related to mutual funds. It is important that you effectively define your objectives and investing goals. If you are looking to derive returns to be used over a latter period, then a long-term goal is best suited for you. It is advisable to choose a financial advisor who can guide you through the path of investment. Remember, mutual funds are subject to market risk. You must ensure that you make informed choices when investing in the same.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

In a 360 degree connected world in which all audiences, including customers, stakeholders, investors, and employees are on a single platform, social media offers a crucial avenue for brands to develop direct relationships with their audiences.

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Customers are more likely to engage with brands that deliver humanized solutions. From a marketing perspective, it’s important to create content that connects with people personally rather than a one size fits all approach.  Relationships with customers can be strengthened by providing customer support channels through social platforms.

Helping customers on their terms, in their preferred application, helps improve brand loyalty and provides an opportunity to win back a customer that had a poor experience with a product or service.  Lastly, brands can utilize social conversation to offer incentives to targeted individuals, ensuring high penetration amongst the customers you are trying to attract. All these efforts on social platforms are proven today to increase brand loyalty, win back dissatisfied customers and help in conquest marketing campaigns.

Social media has become a very important feedback tool for brands as it helps them to avoid blind spots around brand perception, product challenges/successes and reputation. It allows industries to identify opportunities and to drive customer engagement around certain topics based on sentiment or perception. From identifying market readiness for the product launches and campaigns to proactively combating misinformation and managing crisis, social media is helping brands to identify and manage customers’ perceptions through effective social conversation and intelligent digital marketing.

Social media has opened up a marketing channel that no one could have envisioned 15 years ago.  The direct access to existing customers and potential customers in an environment of their choosing is unconscionably effective.  The potential to go viral with little spend feeds social marketing budgets.  But that yearning for virality has risks.  An unforeseen messaging conflict or overlooked politically incorrect tone can result in devastation for a brand.

Marketing managers are required to create strategic approaches to take advantage of the benefits, while minimizing the risks.  Some of these framework strategies are listed below:

  • Develop creative, personalized content; don’t come across as promotional
  • Generate synergistic partnerships with like-minded brands or influencers
  • Develop communities for unbranded opportunities
  • Leveraging social platforms to enhance traditional or digital campaigns
  • Evaluate all content for political correctness, its intersection with current events and for cultural sensitivity

ATCS is using the power of AI to analyze social conversation to provide qualitative and quantitative insights. Through social listening, we are advising customers on strategies for driving company reputation campaigns, product launch strategies, unbranded initiatives, and community development. Through storytelling, we are helping our clients understand their customers’ journeys with their brand or competitors, identify gaps in the market or in offerings, engage with their customers to provide value and connectivity and also to identify new opportunities in the market for new products.

Our programs help clients at any stage of the journey in their broader social initiatives. For example, in initial stages we have monitored for reactive listening based on crisis situations. We have also recommended monitoring unbranded conversation around relevant client topics and provided actionable metrics for campaigning.

If the client has achieved a certain degree of maturity when it comes to social listening, we help drive intelligent decisions based on customer insights. In this phase brands are provided with deep insights to support for market launches, market gaps, customer pain points, gaps in awareness and mapping customer journeys. At this stage we also provide a closed loop picture of the customers’ digital performance based on customer behavior across public social media, search and .com analytics.

As storytelling comes to the forefront of understanding customer behavior, ATCS India will take their social listening and insights development to the next level by enabling customers to realize their strategies through Marketing Automation. Insights are best used when applied to tactics and Marketing Automation is the next logical path for ATCS to take forward. As a partner of Salesforce, ATCS is able to leverage best in class tools within the Salesforce digital marketing suite to help clients create a comprehensive picture of their target audience and provide actionable insights for brand teams.

The presence of a skilled workforce and rapidly developing market in India positions ATCS to play a strategic role in the region. Overall, the Asia-Pacific region is brimming with economic dynamism and India is often viewed as the gateway. ATCS is already prepared to benefit from this economic environment with a strategy that focuses on the development, support and proliferation of MarTech.

ATCS has developed a digital marketing IT development and insights driven COE in India that can now serve the APAC region cost effectively and more aligned with time zones.  To be able to provide intelligent and actionable social marketing insights from India is a rare commodity that demonstrates ATCSs commitment and confidence in the APAC region.

About the author

Rucha Pandit is a Principal Consultant at Advanced Technology Consulting Solutions Inc. With over 6 years of experience, Rucha has managed multiple roles at ATCS. She is currently at Montvale, New Jersey where she is responsible in enabling enterprise scale social media strategy for clients across industries and markets, supporting innovative capabilities, such as command centers, across clients, using social media trends and KPI in order to optimize client’s business insight and decisions. For more information, please visit her profile.

|In: Finance|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

So you want to open a demat account. Banks and brokers have made demat account opening quite simple. But it would not hurt to gain some familiarity with the steps involved. Knowing how it all works could smooth out the demat account opening process for you.

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The word ‘demat’ is short for ‘dematerialised’. If you invest in shares or other financial securities, you can hold these in your demat account in dematerialised form. This means the security certificates are maintained in electronic form in your account. No need to bother about physical certificates anymore.

In any case, the Securities and Exchange Board of India [SEBI] has mandated that only dematerialised securities can be bought and sold on stock exchanges. There is no scope for buying or selling shares in the physical form. That means for those wishing to trade or invest in the stock market, having a demat account is essential. If you don’t have a demat account yet, here’s what you need to know about the demat account opening process.

Steps to follow to open a Demat Account

1. Contact a registered Depository Participant [DP]

A depository helps investors and traders to buy and sell securities like shares, bonds, debentures, and mutual fund units by holding them digitally. Supporting the depository in carrying out its functions are registered DPs. These could be banks, brokers, or other financial institutions. You can get a list of DPs from the websites of India’s two depositories – National Securities Depository Limited [NSDL] and Central Depository Services Limited [CDSL].

2. Complete the paperwork

Once you select a DP, it is time to fill in the demat account opening form. You can download the form from the DP’s website. At this stage, you will also have to furnish the Know Your Customer [KYC] documentation.

Demat account charges

Some DPs levy a demat account opening charge, but the amounts tend to vary and the amount charged may be refundable in some cases. You could also shop around for a DP that will open an account for you free of charge.

Among the other charges are an annual maintenance fee and a custodian fee for holding your digital certificates securely. You would also incur transaction charges, though this too would vary from one DP to another. The transaction charge could take the form of a flat rate. Or it could be a variable charge based on the number of transactions you make.

Common demat account opening questions

Q. Is it possible to open multiple demat accounts under one name?

Yes. You can open and operate more than one demat account with the same DP or with different DPs. However, the KYC process has to be carried out each time you open a new account.

Q. What is the minimum balance requirement?

You are not obliged to maintain a minimum number of securities in your demat account.

Q. Can a minor hold a demat account?

The parent or court-appointed guardian of a minor can open a demat account in the child’s name. Here, two KYC forms will have to be filled – one for the minor and one for the parent or guardian. The parent or guardian has to operate the account until the minor turns 18. At that time, the old account will be discontinued and a fresh one will have to be opened.

Q. Why KYC is important for demat account opening

SEBI has made the KYC process mandatory for opening a demat account. When you provide the complete KYC documentation, the authorities are able to track the flow of funds to and from your account. The KYC norms help curb illegal practices like money laundering, fraud, and funding of terrorist activities.

Once you complete your KYC, the data is stored in a centralized database. The authorities can access this by entering your PAN. It also simplifies the filing of tax returns, since your stock market transactions are easily linked with your bank account and tax returns.

KYC norms for opening a demat account

To complete the customer identification process, you will need to provide the following KYC documents:

  • Proof of identity [e.g. PAN card with photograph, passport, voter’s identity card]
  • Proof of address [e.g. PAN card with photograph, passport, voter’s identity card, ration card, utility bills, bank account statement]
  • Bank account number
  • PAN card

Summing up

A demat account can add an extra layer to your financial planning. Now that you have the option of investing in the stock markets, take your wealth creation plans up a notch. Besides, holding securities in electronic form certainly beats having to maintain physical certificates. Dematerialised securities are safe, as well as easy to buy, sell, or transfer.

To open a new demat account, simply approach a DP like Kotak Securities, fill out the account opening form, provide the KYC documentation, and you’re done. You should get your account details within a week or two. To ensure a smooth account opening process, simply ensure that your KYC documents are in order.

|In: Finance|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Investors seeking long term capital appreciation with moderately high risk appetite can consider investing in mutual funds. Mutual funds are a modern investment tool which collects money from investors sharing a common investment objective and invests this pool of funds in various asset classes including equity, debt, government securities, corporate bonds and other money market instruments.

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There are two ways in which investors can invest in mutual funds, either through lump sum or SIP. Lump sum payment is ideal for those who have a surplus amount parked in their bank account and wish to invest this amount for better gains. In lump sum payment, the investor pays the premium at the beginning of the investment cycle.

Systematic Investment Plan or SIP is a systematic approach where an individual can give their investments a disciplinary touch through systematic and regular investing. SIP is an electronic payment process where all an investor needs to do is instruct his/her bank and every month, on a predetermined date a fixed amount is debited from their account and transferred to the mutual fund account.

SIP investments are the best way for anyone who wants to inculcate the discipline to save regularly. If you wish, you can also buy SIP online. The best part about SIP is that you can start investing with an amount as small as Rs. 500 per month.

However, there are certain things for investors to keep in mind while investing in SIP. Building your mutual fund portfolio is one thing, but avoiding mistakes and managing risk is an entirely different aspect. Here are a few steps to avoid risk in SIP investments.

  • SIPs do help in averaging out costs, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that SIP investments will all give investors positive returns. If the market performs well, SIPs will give good results, but if there is a downfall in the performance of stocks, there is no way for SIPs to overcome losses. To avoid losses, it is advisable that investors keep periodic checkups and compare their fund’s performance with other funds in a similar category.
  • Technically, there is no such thing as SIP giving good returns or bad returns. Either the fund you invested in through SIP is underperforming or outperforming. If your fund has been underperforming for a long time, it is better to redeem your units and invest them in another fund. If you wait for too long, there are chances of you losing out on your initial investment also.
  • SIP investments in mutual funds are exposed to market volatility, making them a high risk investment. Hence it is better that you identify your risk appetite and also understand what type of investor are you before investing in mutual funds through SIP. If you are more of conservative types who do not wish to exposes their finances to the vagaries of the market, it is better than you reconsider investing.
  • No investment is risk-free, and investors should be ready to bear losses, especially when the market becomes extremely volatile. The sensible thing to do here for investors is to invest within their boundaries and avoid over investing. That last thing you want is to become bankrupt and hence, always have a diversified portfolio and avoid investing beyond your risk appetite.

If you are investing in mutual funds through SIP, make sure that you have a long term investment horizon. That’s because equity investments tend to outperform only when held for the long term. If you have a short term investment objective, SIP investments might not be ideal for you. It is better that you look for other investment options rather than banking on SIP to get you closer to your ultimate financial goal.

These were some of the things every investor should keep in mind if they have to avoid risk in SIP investments. Make sure you stick to an investment strategy and do not drift away from it. It is only then that you stand a chance to make some profits from your SIP investments.

|In: Finance|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Investors seeking long term capital appreciation through equity investment can consider investing in equity mutual funds. These are a mutual fund category which predominantly invests in equity and equity related instruments along with investment in other money market instruments like government securities, debt bonds, etc.

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Investors should, however, remember that mutual fund investments are subject to market risk and returns are never guaranteed.

But this doesn’t mean that you are bound to lose your money through mutual fund investments. If you know your financial goal, your risk appetite, your investment horizon, and if you manage to invest in a scheme which shares the same investment objective as you do, there are chances of you making some decent profits.

So if you are someone with a moderately high risk appetite who wishes to invest in an equity fund which has a diversified portfolio, you can consider investing in multi cap funds. To find out more about multi cap funds, read on:

What are multi cap funds?

In SEBI’s own words, A multi cap fund is ‘An open ended equity scheme investing across large cap, mid cap, small cap stocks. Of the total assets, a minimum of 65 per cent investment is made in equity and equity related instruments‘.

Multi cap funds let you take advantage of all the three caps by diversifying your investments is small, mid and large cap company stocks. Diversification means less risk, which also means that your investments stand a chance to reap some benefits too.

Here are few things about multi cap funds which an investor must know, especially if they are planning to invest in these funds:

1. Investment objective – Multi caps fund usually aim to generate long term capital appreciation by investing in a diversified portfolio of equity and equity related instruments across market capitalization. So if you are an investor who shares a similar investment objective, you can consider investing in multi cap funds. Multi cap mutual funds aim to offer investors an ideal mix of equities in an attempt to provide long term returns while minimizing risks associated with market volatility.

2. They offer great flexibility – Multi cap funds usually offer a great amount of flexibility, especially for the fund manager who can switch the portfolio composition depending on the market conditions to maximize profits. For example, if mid cap stocks are underperforming, a fund manager has the liberty to change the asset composition and invest in large and small cap stocks to give the fund some stability.

3. There are some risks involved too – Remember that multi cap funds are equity oriented funds. And, investments made in the equity market are subject to market volatility. Hence, returns are never guaranteed. So investors should first identify their risk appetite, and only if they have some risk appetite, they should consider investing in multi cap funds.

4. Investment horizon – Equity investments tend to outperform and beat their benchmarks if stayed invested for the long run. The same applies to multi cap funds, and hence, if you are someone with a long term investment horizon, chances of you benefiting from your multi cap investments are higher. Bear in mind that wealth creation or building of a corpus takes times, it cannot happen overnight. It is hence advisable to have a long term investment horizon when considering investing in multi cap funds.

5. They are ideal to invest through SIP – There are two ways to invest in multi cap funds- either through lump sum payment or payment through SIP. If you have surplus money parked and wish to invest all at once, you can opt for lump sum payment. On the other hand, if you wish to give your multi cap funds a systematic approach, you can consider opting for SIP. Systematic Investment Plan or SIP is a payment method, where an investor can instruct their bank, and a fixed amount is debited every month on a predetermined date, and then the money is transferred to his / her multi cap fund. If you too wish to reap benefits of SIP, we recommend you begin investing soon.

We hope that the above pointers about multi cap funds help come in handy while making an investment decision.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

To compete and succeed in a world where digital is everywhere, companies need a new focus on balancing ‘value’ with ‘values’, aligning their drive to create business value with their customers’ and employees’ values and expectations, according to Accenture Technology Vision 2020.

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The 20th edition of Accenture’s annual report predicts the key technology trends that will redefine businesses over the next three years.

According to the 2020 report, ‘We, The Post-Digital People: Can your enterprise survive the ‘tech-clash?,’ even though people are embedding technology into their lives more than ever before, organizations’ attempts to meet their needs and expectations can fall short. As companies enter the decade of delivering on their digital promises – and in a world where digital technology is everywhere – a new mindset and approach is required.

While some have referred to today’s environment as a ‘tech-lash’, or backlash against technology, that term fails to acknowledge the extent to which society is using and benefiting from technology. Rather, it’s a tech-clash – a clash between business and technology models that are incongruous with people’s needs and expectations.

Of the more than 6,000 business and IT executives worldwide that Accenture surveyed for the Technology Vision report, 83% acknowledge that technology has become an inextricable part of the human experience. As part of the research this year, Accenture also surveyed 2,000 consumers – 70% of whom expect their relationship with technology to be more or significantly more prominent over the next three years.

Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology & innovation officer, said

Dazzled by the promise of technology, many organizations created digital products and services just because they could, without fully considering the human, organizational and societal consequences. Today we are seeing a tech-clash caused by the tension between consumer expectations, the potential of technology, and business ambitions – and are now at an important leadership inflection point.

We must shift our mindset from ‘just because’ to ‘trust because’ – reexamining our fundamental business and technology models and creating a new basis for competition and growth.

According to the report, continuing with existing models doesn’t just risk irritating customers or disengaging employees, but could permanently limit the potential for future innovation and growth. But tech-clash is a challenge that can be solved.

The Technology Vision identifies five key trends that companies must address over next three years to defuse tech-clash and realize new forms of business value that will be driven in part by stronger, more trusting relationships with stakeholders:

The I in Experience

Organizations will need to design personalized experiences that amplify an individual’s agency and choice. This turns passive audiences into active participants by transforming one-way experiences – which can leave people feeling out of control and out of the loop — into true collaborations. Five in six business and IT executives surveyed [85%] believe that competing successfully in this new decade requires organizations to elevate their relationships with customers as partners.

AI and Me

Artificial intelligence [AI] should be an additive contributor to how people perform their work, rather than a backstop for automation. As AI capabilities grow, enterprises must rethink the work they do to make AI a generative part of the process, with trust and transparency at its core. Currently, only 37% of organizations report using inclusive design or human-centric design principles to support human-machine collaboration.

The Dilemma of Smart Things

Assumptions about who owns a product are being challenged in a world entering a state of ‘forever beta’. As enterprises seek to introduce a new generation of products driven by digital experiences, addressing this new reality will be critical to success. Nearly three-quarters [74%] of executives report that their organization’s connected products and services will have more, or significantly more, updates over the next three years.

Robots in the Wild

Robotics are no longer contained to the warehouse or factory floor. With 5G poised to rapidly accelerate this fast-growing trend, every enterprise must re-think its future through the lens of robotics. Executives are split in their views of how their employees will embrace robotics – 45% say their employees will be challenged to figure out how to work with robots, while 55% believe that their employees will easily figure out how to work with them.

Innovation DNA

Enterprises have access to an unprecedented amount of disruptive technology, such as distributed ledgers, AI, extended reality and quantum computing. To manage it all — and evolve at the speed demanded by the market today — organizations will need to establish their own unique innovation DNA. Three-quarters [76%] of executives believe that the stakes for innovation have never been higher, so getting it ‘right’ will require new ways of innovating with ecosystem partners and third-party organizations.

Disrupters are already taking steps to address the gap between people’s expectations and today’s standards. For example, startup Inrupt is working on a data-linking architecture called Solid, which is designed to give people more control over their personal information by allowing them to store and use their data across the web through ‘pods’.

People could decide where their pods are hosted and determine which companies or machines can access them – revoking or deleting their information at any time, catalyzing Inrupt co-founder Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision of a web of opportunity for everyone. This is precisely the kind of human-centered approach that will define leading organizations in the future.

For 20 years, Accenture has taken a systematic look across the enterprise landscape to identify emerging technology trends that hold the greatest potential to disrupt businesses and industries.

The complete report can be downloaded from here. For more information, follow the conversation on Twitter with #TechVision2020.

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Day two of Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Summit and Expo on AI Application & Digi-Tech, kick started with a thought-provoking panel discussion on AI in Public Service. The session highlighted the benefits of AI interventions in Agriculture, Smart Cities, Healthcare, Skilling, Education, Public Utility Services, Judiciary, and Governance.

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Sameer Dhanrajani, CEO, AIQRATE, said

In India, we are seeing a great opportunity for AI to support various processes both in the public and private entities.  One of the areas where AI can be most effective is in the country’s judicial system. Currently we have 33 million legal cases pending in India. 84% of which has an average pendency of 13 years.

AI can be used to deal with all previous cases that we have in our repository by extrapolating it by means of text-mining, multilayer perceptron [MLP] and deep learning. Leaving the legal system to focus on their core job, which is to solve and close cases on an agile basis.

Globally, AI has seen $45 to $58 billion investment during the last year. It is growing at the fastest pace of any exponential technology. The AI segment will be worth over $100 billion by 2025. This gives ample indication of the scale and opportunities in this sector. According to Mr. Dhanrajani, the companies that have adopted AI will take away $1.2 trillion worth of business from their competitors. In 2019 alone AI startups have received $14 billion investment across 600 funding events.

Realizing the importance of AI currently, 28 nations around the world are curating or drafting AI policies and strategies. India is one among them however where the country lags behind is in research. In India we have only 2000 to 2500 research papers submitted every year and China has 10 times more. Out of 34.8 million students coming out of our higher education system in the country only 18% are employed. The job opportunities in the new age will require skills that are not taught in our educational system and this needs to change.

India is uniquely poised to be a global leader in AI, and this is due to the diversity of our population generating a diverse set of data. Attaining a premier position in AI will require convergence of all stakeholders. Towards this, India need to focus on 3 broad areas i.e. Education – infusing new age courses and adapting personalized learning powered by AI, Enable – create an open innovation platform, a pipeline of AI centric solutions and their adoption and Ethics – Draft an operating framework within which AI can be developed, Mr. Dhanrajani elaborated.

The panel discussion highlighted the sectors in India where AI can make the most difference:

  • Agriculture – AI holds the key to unlock massive value from India’s agrarian economy by leveraging data to better predict and improve farm yield, speeding up agricultural finance, crop insurance, Kisan help centres and helping predict demand for agricultural produce. I.e. AI sensors in ponds help farmers to gain maximum value from shrimp farming through predictive maintenance.
  • Smart Cities – AI driven interventions can add substantial value in analyzing local intelligence to improve traffic conditions and providing predictive intelligence on infrastructure development. It can be used to decentralized and decongest major cities and play a key role in predictive maintenance activities.
  • Skilling – Utilizing AI to predict demand for skills and equip educational institutions with insights to train the future workforce.
  • Swachh Bharat – AI and specifically computer vision can help substantially improve the success of Swachh Bharat. AI is already being used in the campaign in a big way. There is a WhatsApp number outside every sanitation facility. The user can send photographs of unhygienic conditions without providing any details. The photo will be processed at a central command centre and a call will be made to the vendor within 45 seconds to fix the facility. This is all being done at a cost of Rs 2 crores a month only.
  • Healthcare – India’s high and diverse population makes it fertile ground for population health studies. AI can be employed to provide evidence-based treatment options and analyzing clinical notes to suggest a treatment procedure.
  • Governance – AI can power several governance initiatives ranging from security threats, RTI, potential fraud and corruption to improving the legal system, curbing human trafficking and tracking of missing persons.

With an objective of identifying and showcasing the best Start-up with the most Innovative scale deployment of Artificial Intelligence & Industrial AI in a large corporate environment CII in association  with Accenture Ventures held the ‘CII AI Challenge’ which felicitated the best startups in each of the segment.

AskSid has been recognized as the Best Start up for Innovative deployment of Artificial Intelligence in large scale corporate environment. Qualitas Technologies has been recognized as the Best start-up for Innovative deployment of Industrial AI in large scale corporate environment.