|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

U2opia Mobile announced the launch of Reycreo, a platform geared to help game discovery and adoption in frontier markets. The Reycreo vision has been tailored to provide a progressive gaming experience for early adopters in these markets.

Subscribers to Reycreo have an option to dive into an all–you–can–eat offering of over 500 browser-based bite-size games. This also serves as a simplified initiation to the world of gaming. The platform has games across categories including – Action, Arcade, Adventure, Puzzles, and Logic. Users can play all the games on any browser anytime without downloading. A wide range of games can be played on any device, anywhere, any number of times. With multiple language support, users get a great gaming experience on their mobile data or Wi-Fi connection.

Reycreo is currently live in South Africa, India, Malaysia, Cameroon, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bissau and Kenya. The mobile gaming market has huge potential in the frontier markets. By 2020 the mobile gaming industry is expected to cross USD 2bn in MEA and USD 30bn in Asia Pacific, which indicates that in next three years, the market may grow up to 60%.

U2opia is actively signing up strategic partners to introduce downloadable freemium and premium games with a specific focus on localized gaming content along with global favorites.

Sumesh Menon, Co-Founder and MD, U2opia Mobile said

With Reycreo, our ambitions are to handhold first-time gamers through the exciting myriad world of game content. We are cognizant of challenges of high-speed bandwidth, handset compatibility and access to payment channels that are in some ways curtailing rapid game adoption. Reycreo is working towards solving for these systematically.

About U2opia Mobile

A pioneer and innovator in mobile technology working towards accelerating the growth and usage of the internet across the globe. U2opia Mobile collaborates with the world’s largest and most innovative mobile operators and is managed by an experienced team with deep understanding of consumer, internet and mobile ecosystems. Engaging a variety of customers, across generations of handsets, the company addresses a global user base of over 1 Billion users in emerging markets. The company is backed by marquee investors Matrix Partners and Omidyar Network. For more information, please visit U2opia Mobile

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Industree Foundation launched its new initiative ‘Mission Creative Million‘ at a round table, during the World Economic Forum’s India  Economic Summit. Shri Chandrababu Naidu, Honourable Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh, launched the initiative at an event that was held Hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi.

Established in 2000, Industree Foundation addresses the root cause of rural poverty in India by establishing ownership-based manufacturing enterprises for majority women micro-entrepreneurs in the farm and off-farm sector. Industree assesses the traditional skill base of communities, organises them into production units, develops products that appeal to modern markets, and creates consistent demand, opening up the 40 billion dollar global market for these entrepreneurs.

Industree Foundation has already trained 30,000 women artisans in India and Africa through collaborative efforts with organisations like Future Group, IKEA, the Commonwealth Secretariat, Grassroots Business Fund, and National Skill Development Corporation. Industree has also directly impacted over 2,000  producers and tripled their incomes, having built two of India’s largest off-farm producer companies.

‘Mission Creative Million’, Industree’s latest initiative designed to empower entrepreneurs and create jobs, aims to impact one million creative producers in the next 5 years, dramatically scaling up outcomes.

According to Neelam Chhiber, Founder and Managing Trustee

With the right training and tools, producers can become owners of their own businesses and leaders in their communities. That is why we have developed a model that empowers producers with skills training, market linkages and the professional management support they need not only to build sustainable futures for themselves but also create hundreds of new jobs.

Creative Million projects are already in various phases of execution in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha, and are in the planning phase in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. This is in partnership with the Ministry of Textiles, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh state governments, along with companies such as Sonata Software, Mindtree, Mercuri Urval and impact organisations like MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth, British Asian Trust, Social Venture Partners, Womanity, Dasra and UNDP.

The first few pilots have impacted more than 75,000 producers. Industree also partners with organisations like Fair Trade Forum India, All India Artisans and Craftworkers Association, to ensure the reach extends to a million people.

Speaking about the initiative, Shamina Singh, President of Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, a key partner, said

Unlocking the potential of artisan producers to earn, save and invest is critical to ensuring that India’s economic growth is inclusive and sustainable. We are proud to partner with Industree, government ministries and other private sector leaders to realize the promise of the creative million business model.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Uber, the ridesharing app that connects riders with drivers to provide convenient, reliable and affordable rides at the push of a button, strengthened its commitment to decongest Indian cities and reduce emissions over time by expanding uberPOOL, an innovative offering, in 3 cities – Chandigarh, Jaipur and Ahmedabad this week, taking the national tally to 12 cities.

The expansion strategy is an effort to promote shared mobility in India with uberPOOL allowing people heading in the same direction to take the same ride. Post the successful adoption of the product in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Guwahati, Chennai and Kochi, uberPOOL went live in Chandigarh [3rd October] and Jaipur [5th October] followed by Ahmedabad, which will go live tomorrow.

Designed to offer first and last mile connectivity, and improved reliability,uberPOOL will also help contribute towards reducing congestion in cities. With more people in fewer cars, uberPOOL aims to decongest roads and reduce emissions and pollution over time. As of March 2017, with 48,259,398 kms of travel saved, uberPOOL has helped in reducing Co2 emissions of 5,352, 000 Kgs.

Speaking on the launch, Prabhjeet Singh, General Manager, North, Uber India, said

At Uber, we are constantly working towards redefining the urban mobility landscape in Indian cities which involves initiatives towards reducing congestion and pollution. We believe that uberPOOL is the future of urban mobility that allows ridesharing using technology, and in the process helps decongest cities by getting more people into fewer cars, letting riders move around their city more affordably and enables first/last mile connectivity. We have received positive feedback from other cities and are confident that as Chandigarh, Jaipur and Ahmedabad embark on their uberPOOL journey, the same will help contribute to the future that we have envisioned – smarter cities.

According to Uber’s Green Index 30% of rides in Mumbai are on UberPOOL, 28% in Delhi, 29% in Hyderabad, 25% in Bengaluru, 18% in Chennai and Pune and 15% in Kolkata. Uber’s ridesharing product has been able to deliver a significant impact in reducing congestion and pollution in several cities.  In order to highlight several such examples from across India and advocate the merits of ridesharing, Uber launched a nationwide initiative, Decongest India, which aims to draw the attention of policymakers on how utilising cars for ride-sharing can complement stressed and overburdened public transport to be part of the solution – rather than the problem.

How does uberPOOL work

Selecting the uberPOOL option connects the rider real-time with 1~2 passengers heading in the same direction.

  1. Set your pickup location and destination
  2. Select uberPOOL for the carpooling option and get a fixed fare upfront, so you know exactly what you’re going to pay
  3. Click on ‘Confirm Uberpool’
  4. Click on ‘Confirm Pickup’
  5. Select how many seats you need 1 / 2
  6. Confirm seats! You might get matched with other passengers heading in the same direction
  7. Regardless of whether you are matched or not, the fare will be less than traveling solo
  8. You can choose to use Cash, PayTM, Credit or even a Debit card

|In: Mobile|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

NI, the provider of platform-based systems that enable engineers and scientists to solve the world’s greatest engineering challenges, announced the release of NI Trend Watch 2018. The report examines the technological advances propelling our future faster than ever before along with some of the biggest challenges engineers face looking ahead to 2018.

As per Shelley Gretlein, NI Vice-President of corporate marketing,

As we advance through the 21st century, our customers demand higher quality devices, faster test times, more reliable networking and almost instantaneous computing to keep their organizations moving forward. Not only is NI prepared to help customers keep pace by exploring the trends impacting our industry, we also provide actionable insights backed with an open, software-centric platform to accelerate the development of any customer-defined test, measurement or control system.

NI Trend Watch 2018 explores the following topics:

  • Machine Learning Puts Data to Work – Intelligent systems create and rely on data, but the ever-increasing quantity of data exacerbates the Big Analog Data Challenge. Discover how machine learning addresses the problem head-on, so engineers can focus on finding and solving the next grand challenge.
  • 5G to Disrupt Test Processes – 5G innovation doesn’t stop at design. Test and measurement solutions will be key in the commercialization cycle, but 5G requires a different approach to test than previous wireless technologies. Find out what it’s going to take to make 5G a reality.
  • 3 Mandates of the IIoT – The proliferation of smart and connected ‘things’ in the Industrial Internet of Things [IIoT] provides tremendous opportunities for increased performance and lower costs, but managing these distributed systems is often an overlooked challenge. Explore the three necessities for successfully managing your ‘things’.
  • Effects of Electrification – The vehicle electrification trend goes deeper than a global shift from internal combustion and hybrid vehicles to fully electric powertrains. Consider implications beyond the increasingly complex vehicle itself, including new demands on supporting infrastructure.
  • Breaking Moore’s Law – The constant pace of innovation has tracked remarkably close to Moore’s law for decades, despite a few minor revisions and much talk of its death. But now, the more than 50-year-old observation is facing health challenges again. Find out what that means for the future of the semiconductor market.

Review the complete report here.

|In: CloudComputing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Marico Limited, India’s leading consumer products company in the wellness and beauty space, has recently adopted Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse to improve their business productivity. The adoption of the fully-managed, highly-elastic, petabyte-scale, warehouse-as-a-service cloud-based relational database has helped Marico increase their data processing speed by over 150%.

In the FMCG space, the volume of data being generated fluctuates greatly during certain periods, especially the month beginning and ends or during season and festival time. This puts unforeseen burden on the existing IT infrastructure in managing the data flux. The window for extraction, transformation and loading of huge amount of data is limited to a few hours.

This deployment has freed Marico from regular hardware refresh owing to data volume variability, and provided the flexibility of scale-up or scale-down on demand. They now have an end-to-end data solution [database, data warehouse, big data, visualization, advanced analytics] that unlocks insights from any data. This has given Marico complete control of data management and more agility for business decision-making during critical times. They have also overcome the need for creating disaster recovery or backup infrastructure.

Mukesh Kripalani, Chief – Business Process Transformation & IT, Marico said

With the growing surge of data, and the burden that used to come along with it, Microsoft has helped us in eliminating the need for over-provisioning. We wanted to gain control over the churn and speed of data, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse has not only helped achieve this but also helped us gain business insights from big data and advanced analytics.

Peter Gartenberg, General Manager, Enterprise Commercial, Microsoft India, said

The deployment at Marico addresses the current FMCG market need for an integrated, intelligent cloud-based database management system. The solution will help Marico stay ahead of the market with faster and more accurate decisions. We have always aimed to reduce complexity and redundancy, and ensure data privacy and security through the Microsoft Cloud. We are excited to be associated with the growth of Marico.

In India, numerous FMCG customers are leveraging Microsoft Azure as their cloud platform to develop cutting edge digital and data analytics capabilities. Microsoft’s commitment to deliver enterprise-grade cloud platform that is open, flexible, affordable and secure has resonated strongly with Indian companies.

|In: EduTech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

To celebrate 20 years in India and a legacy cutting across learner segments, Pearson, the world’s learning company, announced the launch of its new brand campaign #WeArePearson. Aimed at making learning more accessible, fun and experiential for everyone, the campaign personifies the over 20 years Indian legacy of Pearson, and takes us back to an era where legends like Albert Einstein started inspiring the world and changing the face of education.

Image Source – Pearson

The campaign will engage people through contests, videos and live interactions to get them to think about their own innovative and fun ways of learning in today’s digital age. Pearson will bring exclusive experiences for customers as part of the celebration which will be revealed soon on the Pearson’s website.

In a journey that started in 1997 in India, Pearson has set benchmarks by finding the new ways to recognise teachers’ extraordinary contribution & inspire students by combining world class content and finest authors. The brand has harnessed the power of technology in bringing newer ways of learning and delivering on its core philosophy of ‘Always Learning‘.

Vikas Singh, Managing Director, Pearson India, said

We are extremely excited and proud as we celebrate 20th anniversary in India. In the last two decades, we have come a long way in becoming the preferred partner for educators and learners alike, by bringing our global learning platforms and practices to India. We have a formidable presence across all segments of education and now we are looking at the next generation of courseware and digital solutions which aims to transform the face of the Indian education system.

We continue to strive towards our goal to help students make measurable progress in their lives through learning. With our new campaign, we aim to spread the joy of learning and empower the next generation with the resources they need to be future ready.

As a future-facing organisation, Pearson offers solutions across the spectrum that leverage technology for better education. The company has continually improved, thoroughly researched and expertly developed world-class products to India across three core verticals of K-12, Higher Education and Vocational [and Professional] education.

|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Foreign exchange buying and selling is now a transparent and convenient process with the rates aggregation platform from Nafex India. Nafex India has collaborated with more than Nine hundred RBI approved money changers and authorised dealers, who bid real-time for any individual currency, prepaid forex card or remittance requirements put up on the platform.

Image Source – Nafex

Rates comparison allows consumers to compare rates offered, proximity of the money changer, and make an informed decision to get the best deal for their forex requirements. This is a significant shift from the traditional model of rates dictated by banks, travel agencies, and grey market operators.  The reverse bidding for currency exchange, forex cards and outward remittances is uniquely available only on the Nafex India platform.

According to Annie Kumar, Co-founder and Managing Director, Nafex India

The money changer market in India and several parts of the world is going through a disruptive phase. Monopolistic rates controlled by few agencies is no longer working out with consumers. Flexibility, transparency, convenience & value are emerging as key considerations for forex buyers and sellers.  Nafex India endeavors to safeguard interests of consumers and build trust in transactions.

The promoters of the company, Jeethmal Mutha and Annie Kumar, have spent two decades in the forex and travel & hospitality industry. The company has tied up Pan India Money changers like Weizmann, Poundwize, UAE Exchange, Spice Money, Centrum along with several hundreds of  regional money of changers are participating in the reverse auction. Leisure travel, education, medical treatment are key areas of focus for Nafex India.

Nafex India platform includes currencies from US, Canada, UK, Australia, Europe, UAE, Saudi, Singapore, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand. From its launch, the Nafex India platform has witnessed 100,000+ transactions worth USD 40+ Mn in currency alone apart from Forex cards & remittance.

Nafex plans to add more features to the platform such as B2B & to build end-to-end expertise for enterprise and individual money changing solutions globally. Currently present in 100 cities, Nafex plans to rapidly launch its services in other Indian cities.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Matrimony.com, India’s first pure play Consumer Internet Company  listed on the stock exchanges, announced that its marriage service MatrimonyMandaps, the largest wedding venue booking platform in India to find best Mandaps &  Banquet halls, recently expanded to three other states in southern India – Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala.

Image Source – Matrimony

Besides the cities serviced earlier – Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Trichy, in Tamil Nadu, now Matrimonymandaps has its presence in Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Cochin & Bangalore, with over 2,000 mandaps and banquet halls listed on the platform.

MatrimonyMandaps helps customers to find the right wedding venue, check availability, get the best price quote and easily book the venue, by leveraging the relationship built by MatrimonyMandaps with the wedding venue partners. Offering comprehensive information of about 60 features on each venue, it helps customers search, compare & shortlist the venue for weddings.

Photographs of the venues & 360-degree videos shot by professional photographers provides a great visual experience of wedding venues in the website, with multiple images capturing the key aspects of the venue, helping customers and their family members to take a collaborative decision.

The service team of MatrimonyMandaps helps customers book the venues that suit them by guiding the customer through every step, based on the requirements provided by the customers.

Speaking about the expansion, Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder & MD – Matrimony.com, said

A key strategy for driving monetization is to increase the length of our relationship with our customers and increase the amount of revenue earned from our customers by offering additional marriage services to our online matchmaking user base. A majority of the categories of marriage services in India are unorganised and highly fragmented, presenting a potential opportunity for an organised aggregator to provide these services.

In this regard, we have leveraged our brands, user activity on our platforms and our online matchmaking client base to diversify into marriage services to take advantage of the lack of organised services. MatrimonyMandaps is our latest foray into the huge marriage service market and we’ll offer better choices to customers.

About Matrimony.com

Matrimony.com is India’s first pure play consumer internet company to be listed on the stock exchanges. It’s a signature internet conglomerate, managing marquee brands such as BharatMatrimony, the largest and most trusted matrimony brand that has also established a considerable retail presence with over 140 self-owned retail outlets across India. The company delivers matchmaking and marriage related services to users in India and the Indian diaspora. The company has pioneered several new business models such as EliteMatrimony, MatrimonyPhotography, MatrimonyBazaar, MatrimonyMandaps, MatrimonyDirectory & CommunityMatrimony, a consortium of over 300 community matrimony websites.