|In: Finance|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Travelling can be fun. But what if you took a trip by yourself just on a whim? Here’s what would happen – You would probably get lost in an unfamiliar city and you wouldn’t know where to go. And during this whole time, you would probably chide yourself for not planning ahead.

Image Source – Goal based investing

Sure, you may think that you’d meet your soulmate and the two of you may have a grand adventure. But unless you are in the middle of a Bollywood film, chances of this happening are very unlikely.

Investing without a proper plan can be quite similar to travelling without preparation. In this article, let us find out how goal-based investing can make your investment journey a lot easier.

Vague investments vs well-defined goals

Here are two investment approaches:

  1. I want to earn a lot of money
  2. I want to earn Rs 1 crore in the next 10 years so that I can buy a 2 BHK house

Can you spot the difference between the above two statements?

The first statement is very vague but the second one is a well-defined investment goal. When you have clear-cut investment goals, you are well aware of the finish line. You know how much money you need to earn and you are also aware of the deadline. With these inputs, your investment purpose becomes clear and you can work towards achieving it.

Identify the best investment choices

Let‘s continue with the above example of buying a house.

Here, you know that the financial goal is Rs 1 crore. The time limit is ten years. In this situation, where should you invest? There are many investment choices in the market but what is the best choice that can help you meet this goal in the best manner possible?

Unless you have a huge initial capital, debt instruments may be out of the question because the returns may not be high enough to earn the specified amount in the time period. On the other hand, you could invest in equity. Here, you have the ability to earn higher returns. For example, by investing Rs 40,000 per month in an equity mutual fund [at 14% per annum], you could end up with Rs 1.04 crore by the end of ten years.

Similarly, if you have a short-term goal like taking a vacation with your family in the next 12 months, it may be better to invest your money in a liquid fund or a short-term mutual fund. Identifying the right investment avenue becomes clear when you invest for specific goals.

Monitor your investment journey

There are a lot of investment choices available for you. Fixed deposits, bonds, mutual funds, stocks, real estate, gold and so on. For instance, even if you put all your money in a low-interest fixed income instrument it would be considered as an investment. But is that the best way to deploy your money? At the end of your career, you don’t want to find out that your retirement fund is not big enough.

Avoid this situation by identifying your investment goals and working towards them. You can go online and use an investment calculator to find out your future financial requirements. And during the investment journey, do not forget to regularly monitor if your investments are on the right track or not.

Segregate your funds for different goals

Everyone has different financial goals. However, not all goals are the same. You may have short, medium and long-term goals. In addition, each goal can differ in terms of importance and urgency.

For example, taking an exotic vacation may not be as important as clearing your credit card debt.  By identifying these differences, you can channel your funds more appropriately.

Here is another example. When people invest without specific goals, they tend to dip into their savings whenever any financial need arises. Your son needs money for a new course at college: dip! You need to renovate your kitchen: dip! Pretty soon, your fund amount doesn’t look as large as it used to be. This is not to say that you shouldn’t finance your child’s education. It means that you should explore all options in front of you. Perhaps, you could take an educational loan to pay for the course. This way, you protect your retirement fund while helping out your son at the same time.

To sum up, investing is good but goal-based investing is better. With this approach, you can clearly identify your financial goals and meet them comfortably at the right moment in time.

|In: e-commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Social commerce is a trend that is sweeping the online world and transforming the way we do business online. At its most basic definition, social commerce is the facilitation of ecommerce business through social media and social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Image Source – Social Commerce

Traditionally, social networking platforms were for sharing information and being nosy. This has now drastically changed, however, as businesses see these platforms as a potential tool to increase revenue and appeal to a wider audience – hence the creation of social commerce. This article looks at how social commerce is changing the world of online business.

A change in e-commerce platforms

Traditionally, ecommerce is carried out through dedicated websites. For example, you may log in to Nike.com or a third party retailer to make a purchase. Social commerce is changing this process. Users can now make purchases directly through their social media profiles, as there is no need to open up the suppliers’ website. You can do everything within the same browser, and be using the same social media site. Facebook marketplace, for instance, allows you to browse through various goods that others have posted and purchase them there and then.

A change in online payments

The way that we pay for goods is also changing. In ages behind us, you may have been able to add an item to your shopping cart, but then you may have had to visit a third party payment gateway, such as WorldPay, to process the payment.

Social commerce retail is all-encompassing. You can literally do everything within the social network site, including processing the payment. Typical accepted payment methods include credit and debit cards, and even digital payment methods such as PayPal and Skrill.

A change in customer service and interactions

Traditional online customer service involved several different methods of communication including email, live chat, and feedback forms. Social commerce has again opened up new possibilities and could potentially change the way customer service is carried out.

We are seeing an increasing number of businesses using social networks as a form of customer service channel, such as Twitter. Some companies respond directly to tweets from users, or directly to Facebook posts. This has given a more personal and direct feel to customer service.

A change in Digital Marketing

Finally, social commerce has brought a change in digital marketing. We are now seeing an increase in adverts and marketing through social media to advertise their social commerce products directly. We see many ad campaigns, paid advertisements, and direct social media posts such as Tweets, Instagram pics, Pins and Facebook statuses. Online retailers like eBay and Amazon use social media extensively to advertise all their promotions, so it’s pretty hard not to come across some sort of Amazon discount on their page at least once a week. In short, the methods of advertising have diversified and businesses have a greater number of marketing channels to use.

As you can see, social commerce has already made a huge impact. With more businesses starting to use this type of ecommerce, and more social networking platforms facilitating retail transactions, we should only see an increase in its usage. The infographic below provides some interesting facts and figures relating to social commerce

Infographic URL

|In: Mobile|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. announced the launch of the world’s first Artificial Intelligence based brand engagement platform – JioInteract. The first of many services to be launched on this platform is the Live Video Call that features India’s favourite celebrities. To kick-start, Jio has on-boarded none other than Bollywood’s biggest star, Amitabh Bachchan, who will promote his upcoming comedy-drama film ‘102 Not Out’ in the most innovative way.

Image Source – Reliance Jio

With Jio’s base of over 186 million subscribers and another 150 million smartphone users, JioInteract is poised to become the largest platform for movie-promotion and brand engagement. Over the next few weeks, Jio will introduce services such as video call centres, video catalogue, and virtual showrooms to the forefront redefining customer experience.

Such use of artificial intelligence is a first across the world and will reposition the way brands and customers think of engagement.

About JioInteract’s Live Video Call

JioInteract’s first service ‘Live Video Call’ will allow all Jio and other smartphone subscribers to make a video call with their favourite superstar, Amitabh Bachchan anytime during the day, starting on 4th May 2018.

Users can ask questions related to his upcoming comedy drama film, 102 Not Out and even book their movie tickets in real-time through the ticketing-partner BookMyShow.

How to use

To experience JioInteract,

  1. Download MyJio app
  2. Click on JioInteract icon inside the MyJio app
  3. Start your video call and chat with Amitabh Bachchan
  4. Additionally, subscribers can also share their video call experience with their family and friends using the ‘Share’ option.

This unique and innovative service uses a powerful AI based platform to listen to user questions and respond to them in the most appropriate way. In addition, the platform has a unique auto-learning feature that helps improve the answering accuracy. Leveraging the strength of Jio’s strong mobile video network and its 186+ million strong subscriber base along with new technologies like Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, JioInteract has created a compelling brand engagement solution for businesses.

Positioned as VCBaaS [Video Call Bot as a Service], JioInteract with its full scale multimedia capabilities attempts to democratize Artificial Intelligence & Video Call technologies in a simplified way for effective brand engagement. This technology has wide scale applications across B2C space. Using it, Jio is also tapping developer ecosystem to create innovative applications like virtual showrooms, product demonstrations, ordering cart for e-commerce, etc.

|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Setting an example on how grass-root level innovation propelled by disruptive technologies in the traditional banking space, can simplify complex financial procedures for the entire nation, Rubique Technologies Private Limited, India’s largest online financial matchmaking platform has today announced the start of its new journey with Rubique 2.0; unveiling its new brand identity. Currently, clocking $7.2 Mn [INR 47 Crore] revenue in March 2018, with a monthly revenue of INR 3.5 Crore, the company aims to reach an INR 100 crore month on month revenue by 2021 and plans to break-even by 2019.

Laying out its 2.0 vision, as initial steps, Rubique will sharpen its focus on creating a robust technology based financial ecosystem in the markets, earlier untouched by Fintech and further strengthen its technological and analytics capabilities to expand its credit product offerings to deepen its reach to small enterprises and underserved micro enterprises. As a part of its ambitious growth targets, the company has planned to heavily invest in newer products and partnerships under its Insurance segments, and further expand its product distribution into 100 more cities in India this year.

Bringing alive its renewed brand identity, Rubique Technology has unveiled its new logo which enshrines its core values and mission statement, to fulfill every financial aspiration in the Simplest, Shortest & Speediest way possible. The new logo represents the three pillars of the company- FIs, Customers and influences: Integrating deep technology and domain expertise, Applying insights from across industries, and Consistently delivering world-class integrated, end-to-end solutions for all financial services. It also highlights Rubique’s strong technology heritage, signifying a higher level of engagement and brand permission that helps all stakeholders leverage its technology expertise to address their business and financial requirements and drive future opportunities in this digital era.

Speaking on the occasion, Manav Jeet, MD & CEO, Rubique, said

Almost around four years back we started a journey with a vision to disrupt Indian banking sector with cutting edge technology and frugal innovation to simplify finances for individual and MSMEs. We stumbled, learned and grown into one of the foremost success stories driving India’s rapidly-growing digital financial services sector.

We now introduce, the second leg of our journey, Rubique 2.0, leapfrogging into the future of banking with a renewed and re-imagined focus; delving deeper into newer and underserved markets with the power of technology enabled financial inclusion. Rubique 2.0 encapsulates what we do and mean, for our partners – FIs, Customers and Business Associates – and these values find expression in our new brand identity.

In its constant endeavour to stay ahead of the technology innovation curve and bring a symbiotic relationship between traditional lending institutions and technology, the fintech major plans to develop technology products for the ecosystem to add push for digital adoption & facilitate new technologies into banking e.g. TAB solution facilitating finance for SME customers, alternate data based credit scoring mechanism to facilitate underwriting for first time borrowers using machine learning and big data analytics; create infrastructure to mitigate fraud with deepen security and data privacy and leverage alternate data, image recognition and video analytics on SPOT to automate data filling and verification thus making customer on boarding seamless and hassle free.

Established in the year 2014, Rubique with its technology thinking of financial services, has proven itself as one of the fastest growing Fintech companies in India, witnessing 4x growth YoY. Currently, serving more than 2 Lakh customers with offerings varying from Loans, Credit Cards to Insurance, the company has helped facilitate a massive disbursement of INR 2,670 crores and over 82,000 credit card setups, till date through its platform, almost 65% of which is targeted to SMEs in India.

Speaking on the renewed brand identity, Sheetal Mayekar, Founding Member and Strategic & Commercial Intelligence, said

The new brand identity marks our journey of transformation in the digital world. Our brand refresh signals an even closer engagement with customers, focusing on millennials with greater innovation in bringing advanced technologies to access deeper markets and ease credit access to the country and focus on entire ecosystem growth working as a collaborator.

With constantly innovating & evolving industry, the futuristic technologies such as Blockchain, Big Data and AI used by Rubique analyses multiple data points to assess the creditworthiness of the customers and provide them the offers they are eligible for, thereby removing the manual efforts in the loan processing system.

Suraj Agarwal, CTO – Rubique added

The digital access to finance will continue to massively impact all individuals and businesses in the country. Undoubtedly technology will play a vital role in uplifting the Indian economy over the next five years, and therefore Rubique has taken a holistic approach to introduce tech intervention at all possible touch points. Implementation of disruptive technologies blockchain. Smart KYC & Paperless loan process is nothing but one step towards creating a unified flow of information to make the transactions simpler, and reduce the processing time for customers.

With the recent close of its new funds led by two of the world’s largest corporate and investment firms, the investment subsidiary RSP India Fund, LLC of Japan’s Recruit Co. Ltd. and Russian venture capital management company, Emery Capital, along with Blacksoil and existing investor Kalaari Capital, Rubique is planning to invest heavily in Data Science methodologies and leverage insights generated to build stronger business propositions.

The company has recently built a data science team which leverages its rich customer data and bank credit policies to build a proprietary AI based Matchmaking and ranking algorithm that provides a customized list to each consumer based on his/her needs and profile.

Focusing on maintaining a tech-led asset-light model, while remaining unit economics positive at the transaction level, Rubique 2.0 to have a renewed focus on innovation, marketing and strategic partnerships, particularly in the B2C segment, bring advanced technology features at every stage of loan processing cycle through its Online Plus Model, Improving operational efficiency & reducing cost of acquisition, creating easy access to finance with a focus on bridging financing gap and make finance easy  & accessible to the customers. 

About Rubique

Rubique was formed in November 2014, with a vision to fulfill every financial aspiration in the customer’s life cycle in the simplest, shortest and the speediest way through a wide range of loan, credit card and insurance products. Built on a proprietary AI based recommendation engine, Rubique’s marketplace platform has been integrated with financial institutions’ systems for real-time processing and providing online approvals to the customers. The advanced technology solution not only reduces the processing time significantly, but the data analytics done on multiple data points helps bring predictability and assess creditworthiness offering best deals to the customers.

|In: Social Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

In its effort to bridge the learning gap in India, Google.org – Google’s philanthropic arm, has announced additional grants of $3 Million to Central Square Foundation and The Teacher App. Together with the partner NGOs, Google.org will help them scale their existing initiatives and fund content creation and teacher training, through tech-based learning solutions.

Image Source – Google.Org

The reasons behind the lag in learning levels are varied and complex, but limited access to quality materials, under-resourced teachers, and barriers to learning outside the classroom are among the many challenges. As per the data shared by the Ministry of HRD, there are 11 Lakh teachers currently teaching in schools that are not properly trained and according to a World Bank report, there are approximately 1,30,000 single teacher schools in India. The annual ASER 2017 report also points out the need to help students in 14 to 18 age group, to acquire foundational skills like reading and basic arithmetic.

With a grant of a $1 million to The Teacher App in India, Google.org aims to empower teachers with the right training and resources on concepts of math, science, language, and pedagogy, for a more holistic learning experience. The funds will be used to scale the platform to reach 500,000 teachers in two years.

Nick Cain, Education Lead, Google.org, said

The success of our existing partners has given us the confidence to expand our efforts in India. We strongly believe that technology can play a powerful part in solving the learning gap in India, and we are expanding our investments in India to ensure that all teachers and students are able to benefit from it. These new funds will help contribute in building more locally relevant solutions and content for students and teachers.

With online video emerging as a popular medium of learning, Google.org will provide a $2 Million grant and technical assistance from the YouTube Learning team, to the Central Square Foundation to aid the expansion of high quality, curriculum-aligned educational video content. The grant will support a minimum of 20 content creators to produce at least 200 hours of quality Science, Technology, Engineering and Math content in Hindi and vernacular languages.

In addition, it will also work to scale its reach by developing a hub to share best practices – such as tips on how to create engaging videos and guidance for aligning lessons with curriculum and standards — with the sector at large. Interested educators or content creators can get in touch through this form.

Commenting on the occasion, Satya Raghavan, Head of Entertainment for India said

With growing connectivity and affordable data, YouTube is emerging as a popular destination for learning in India. Globally, learning and educational content drives over a billion views a day and we believe there is a huge opportunity for creators in India to enhance education and learning through YouTube.

These new projects are in addition to Google.org’s existing projects that were funded last year in India. Four NGOs – Learning Equality, Million Sparks Foundation, Pratham Books StoryWeaver, and Pratham Education Foundation got a total grants of $8.4 Million to add scale to their existing efforts and help provide access to quality education and learning for all. Since receiving Google.org funding last year, the grantees have reached more than 800,000 students and teachers with their tools and programs across India.

  • Pratham has scaled its tablet based learning program to more than 3,500 villages over the last year, and are now active across 21 states. Moreover,after a year in the top level of the program, the proportion of fluent readers in their mother tongue increased by 10 percent, while 60 percent of the children in each of the lower four levels moved up at least one level of reading. Pratham observed similar progress in English.
  • Pratham Books’ Storyweaver platform has added 5,000 new stories in 40 new languages over the last year alone, and today reaches more than 630,000 unique users.
  • And Million Sparks has managed to scale its ChalkLit app to reach 20,000 teachers, after starting from just 1,000 a year ago. And 95% of teachers who complete a training module on ChalkLit report shifting away from relying only on lecture and toward a more active, project-based teaching style.

India was among the first country to receive grants from Google.org’s global $50 Million commitment to support nonprofits who are building tech-based learning solutions that tackle education challenges in developing countries. With the additional grants, Google.org’s total grant for NGOs in India to support learning and education efforts stands at $11.4 Million.

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Xploree AI Keyboard [earlier review here], a smart mobile app powered by KeyPoint Technologies, announced that users can now follow the T20 2018 on the Xploree AI Keyboard app. A first of its kind initiative taken by the mobile keyboard, users can now watch T20 matches seamlessly while multitasking. This new initiative will take the users’ experience of watching cricket matches on a mobile device to a new level altogether.

Xploree AI keyboard has a unique cross app feature that enables users to do different kinds of things simultaneously, without having to leave the current activity on mobile. This comes as a boon to all, who keep using several features on their mobile phones at the same moment. They can now chat, browse and follow T20 matches seamlessly, in real time. Users can access multiple apps and still stay connected to T20 without any interruption.

Speaking on this development, Nutan Chokkareddy, CEO, KeyPoint Technologies said

We are delighted to announce that customers can now follow T20 matches through Xploree. The keyboard’s ability to understand and communicate in 28 Indic languages will enable users to type in their native language and stay updated with T20 scores in real time. Our aim is to proactively provide the latest updates to users, without having to download or tap multiple applications.

Keeping the T20 fervour in mind, Xploree has also launched T20 themes on the keyboard. Users can now reflect their mood, show support for their favourite teams on the keyboard. Xploree has added 8 new themes, dedicating each of them to every team.

Deepti M Saxena, VP Product, Sales & Marketing, KeyPoint Technologies, said

Themes are an exciting way to engage users on the keyboard app. Approximately 1.5 lac users change their keyboard themes on the Xploree app, in a short span of one month. This encouraged us to build topical keyboard themes, this time, based on the T20 series. We are sure users will love this new addition.

Xploree is the world’s first mobile keyboard application that understands user’s intent and gives real time recommendations. Currently, on 20 million devices, Xploree allows users to receive relevant recommendations and content while they chat, search, browse apps, etc. The keyboard understands and identifies user intent, preferences, interests and maps them to real time discoveries. The app’s brand partnerships and the ability to bring value to users with 150 global and Indic languages, is being leveraged by brands across all verticals, to establish direct engagement with consumers, including those associated with this T20 season.

About Xploree AI Keyboard

Xploree is world’s first AI powered mobile keyboard application that understands user intent & suggests recommendations in real time. KeyPoint Technologies is the leader in AI, NLP, input & language technology space. We are trusted partners to OEMs, Operators, and App Developers for developing intelligent interfaces, engines & input experiences. Xploree AI Keyboard app for Android can be downloaded from here.

|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Breaking new grounds in the formal finance sector through innovative and dynamic use of technology, Rubique Technologies Private Limited, India’s largest online financial matchmaking platform has raised an undisclosed amount funding led by Japan’s Recruit Group and Russian venture capital management company, Emery Capital. The funding round saw participation from Blacksoil Group & existing investor Kalaari Capital.

The funds from this round will enable Rubique to further strengthen its technological and analytics capabilities. The company also aims to expand its credit product offerings to deepen its reach to small enterprises and reach out to underserved micro enterprises.

Established in the year 2014, Rubique has demonstrated how frugal innovation, propelled by disruptive technologies in the traditional lending space, can simplify complex financial procedures to fulfill every financial aspiration in the simplest, shortest and speediest way possible. Since its inception the company has already facilitated loan disbursement worth approximately Rs. 2,670 crores and over 82,000 credit card setups through its platform.

The involvement of Recruit Group and Emery Capital, both having an international expertise in facilitating adoption of newer technologies across sectors and geographies, as well as its existing investors, underlines the trust that Rubique has generated in the global market.

Speaking on the announcement, Manav Jeet, MD & CEO, Rubique said

The success of the latest funding round is a strong indication of the trust our investors have in our vision, our technology-thinking of financial services as well as in our strong focus on robust unit economics model. We have managed to successfully stand out in the fintech space as an innovator par excellence and one of the genuine success stories of the domain through our unique asset light business model.

With the domain expertise our investors bring on-board, we look forward to leveraging their insights as we build a leading platform for digital lending in India. We would also like to thank our existing investors for continuing to support us in our growth journey.

Apart from this round we are also in the final stages of closing another tranche’ of funding, to be led by couple of marquee investors. We are excited about our next phase of growth and will continue to develop superior technology products for the ecosystem players thereby aiming to bring a symbiotic relationship between banks and technology, bridge India’s credit gap.

Rubique has recently closed 200K customers and have generated revenue of around $7.2 Mn [INR 47 Cr], clocking a revenue of around 3.5 Crores Month on Month. With a consistent growth, Rubique has been unit economics positive at the transactional level and will be aiming to break-even in 2019 & going for Rs. 100 Crores revenue by 2021.

Speaking on the fund raise, Ivan Savelyev from Emery Capital said

Rubique’s unique business model and technology thinking has an impressive ability to hit the ground running to build a financially strong nation with easy access to credit to all sectors of the society – Businesses and Millennials.

We believe that the deployment of technology to develop scalable and accessible financial services platforms, incorporating big data analytics and machine learning, will be critical to any lending business serving the under-banked and underserved customers in India. We are committed to supporting Rubique on its journey to become a leading fintech player in India and also help and share our experience with similar models in other continents & explore synergies to work with them.

With the world constantly innovating, the advanced technologies such as Blockchain, Big Data and AI used by Rubique analyses multiple data points to assess the creditworthiness of the customers and provide them the offers they are eligible for, thereby removing the manual efforts in the loan processing system. The company has recently built a data science team which leverages its rich customer data and bank credit policies to build a proprietary AI based Matchmaking and ranking algorithm that provides a customized list to each consumer based on his/her needs and profile. This offers manifold advantages in terms of higher approval rates, better customer satisfaction and improved sourcing to its financial partners.

Eyeing the future growth of the company, Rubique envisions becoming the largest online financial matchmaking platform in India and aiming for entire ecosystem growth including customers, financial institutions & influencers. With focus on maintaining its model asset-light, Rubique is planning to invest in Data science & leverage insights generated to build stronger business propositions.

About the Recruit Group

Founded in 1960, the Recruit Group creates and provides platforms that connect companies and consumers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, the Group offers a wide range of services in a variety of areas including human resources, education, housing and real estate, bridal, travel, automobiles, dining and beauty. The Group has more than 45,000 employees and operates in more than 60 countries. For more information, please visit Recruit Group

About Rubique

Rubique was formed in November 2014, with a vision to fulfill every financial aspiration in the customer’s life cycle in the simplest, shortest and the speediest way through a wide range of loan, credit card and insurance products. Built on a proprietary AI based recommendation engine, Rubique’s marketplace platform has been integrated with financial institutions’ systems for real-time processing and providing online approvals to the customers. The advanced technology solution not only reduces the processing time significantly, but the data analytics done on multiple data points helps bring predictability and assess creditworthiness offering best deals to the customers.

Named as ‘The Most Promising Brand’ by The Economic Times and selected among the top 20 lending fintech players in India by the Financial Express’ Best Bank Awards Jury recently, Rubique has also garnered a lot of international recognition and accolades.

|In: Internet|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Subex, a pioneering entity in the cyber-security space, hosted the first edition of its Cyber-security Symposium with Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University [NTU]. The Symposium aimed towards creating a collaborative platform for the industry and academia to discuss ideas and initiatives around cyber-security education.

Image Source – Cyber Security

Representing NTU Singapore was esteemed NTU Academician and cyber-security practitioner Prof Lam Kwok Yan, who provided his overview of the cyber-security landscape in Singapore and perspectives on how the lessons learnt can be applied to the Indian ecosystem.

Also taking place on the same day was the launch of Subex’s IoT Security Lab, which will solve threats specific to IoT Industrial Control Systems [ICS] and IT Systems. Using the world’s most comprehensive IoT and ICS focused honeypots of over 400 different architectures and over 4000 devices, Subex IoT Lab collects threat intelligence across multiple verticals including Telecom, Academics, Enterprises, Defense and Smart City projects.

As part of the lab inauguration, Subex also announced that it will be opening its lab up to Public-Private Partnerships with universities such as NTU and other colleges in Bengaluru with a goal to create specific IoT security threat detection and prevention mechanisms for IoT ecosystems.

The Cyber-security symposium also witnessed the formation of a Cyber Security Academic Forum with the objective of establishing an ecosystem in the country for cyber security research to emerge and grow, with the main mission to foster ‘A Safer Cyberspace’. This forum will provide a unique opportunity to meet and discuss the current issues of cyber disruption and the ever-changing landscape of cyber security and IoT security related threats.

Speaking at the Cyber-security Symposium, Vinod Kumar, CEO and MD, Subex said

With increasing threats in the Indian and Global cyberspace, we believe that education and awareness around cyber-security will play an important role towards preparing and securing our critical assets against these threats.

However, the topic of cyber-security is yet to gain prominence within colleges in India, leading to gaps in the available talent pool. We are extremely proud to be partner with NTU Singapore to host the cyber-security symposium, and play a part in addressing this gap. The symposium witnessed collaborative discussions and brainstorm sessions between the industry and academia to identify ways to improve cyber-security education in the country. Having Prof. Lam Kwok Yan provide his expertise on the topic was of tremendous value.

Further, we also inaugurated our IoT Security Lab that will now be open to public-private partnerships with universities. The lab provides research opportunities on IoT Security threat intelligence using a one-of-its kind honeypot network. This along with the continuous monitoring of over 8.5 million customer devices have enabled us to obtain 30% more IoT and ICS threat signatures and thereby offer a comprehensive IoT threat intelligence and prevention solution to our customers.

About Subex

Subex is the market leader in the products Security and Fraud Management market, with over 180+ customers in total. Subex is a pioneering entity in the Cybersecurity space involved in multiple public and private partnerships in India. The company runs the world’s most comprehensive IoT and ICS focused honeypots of over 400 architectures in 32 locations around the world.