|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our mobile phones offered a real-world approach to learning and recognized the world as we do ? What if a student’s imagination could come to life and become interactive on their mobile phone? Well, it’s going to be true !!!

Taking a leaf from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Digital India, Blippar, the leading augmented-reality and visual discovery platform announces its association with Avanti Learning Centers to make the periodic table in all Avanti books Blippable. Disrupting the education industry, like never before, Blippar utilizes its proprietary, best-in-class technology, to help understand, learn and interact with the chemical elements in the periodic table in a fun and quirky way. These books are available to Avanti students of class 9 through 12 preparing from courses ranging from the JEE and State Board exams to Olympiads and critical Scholarship Tests.

[Image Source – Blippar]

Blippar is making the periodic table, the backbone of modern chemistry, engaging and interactive by adding games, a quiz and presenting fun and interesting content in an animated format. Students simply have to hover their phone over the periodic table, Blipp it and bring to life the fascinating world of chemical elements !! Students can learn the history of each element, play interactive games and quick quizzes designed to help them learn more comprehensively and retain the specifics about the elements they interact with.

Arnav Ghosh, MD Blippar India said

We are very excited to associate with Avanti Learning Centres and engage students in an interactive way. It is a fact that learning becomes fun and easy with a real-world approach. Interactive periodic table will engage the students with the content in a way that sparks curiosity, experimentation, and creativity. We believe that going forward technology is going to change the way education industry functions today. Visual Discovery will play a very important role in adding fun to the content and enhancing the learning experience. The real world approach to teaching is the future of education system in India.

Akshay Saxena, Co-founder, Avanti Learning Centres said

Our blended learning approach emphasizes independent learning and critical thinking using pedagogical and technological tools. What Blippar has developed is a truly state-of-the-art augmented reality and visual discovery app, and it is exciting to be able to integrate it which our approach to making learning fun. This interactive periodic table encourages a sense of curiosity and exploration while providing deeper understanding of the concept.

Krishna Ramkumar, Co-founder, Avanti Learning Centres added

The key element to ensuring life-long learning for every student is encouraging the right approach to difficult concepts. By making the periodic table blippable we’re taking that approach through this augmented reality app into far corners of the country. We’re excited to be able to do that !!

For more information on Blippar, please visit Blippar.com

|In: India|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Hike Messenger, India’s first homegrown messaging platform, is enabling its 100 million Hikers to spread love for the most awesome people in the world, mothers!

Hike is launching its Mother’s Day micro-app that will enable you to show the world, how much your mother means to you by letting you post and share ready made stickers and cards dedicated to your mom.

For Hikers who love to express via stickers, the adorable Mother’s Day stickers will surely mush you up. And the expressive Mother’s Day cards will give an extra punch as they can be easily personalized; you can use them as they are or personalize them with an image, edit the quotes, add a message and so on.

You can then post these cards and stickers on your timeline or share amongst your friends, not only on Hike but also on any other platform of your choice! It is that simple!

Hike’s sending the Mother’s Day micro-app to all its uses on the eve of Mother’s Day, that is on 7th May evening. Expect a notification on your Hike app. Your Mother’s Day micro-app will be live for use for 2 days.

So go ahead spread love this Mother’s Day!

Hike’s Growth Story

  • Dec 2012 – Global launch
  • Feb 2013 – Messaging traffic grows 10X week on week
  • April 2013 – Hit the first 5M user milestone in just 4 months of its launch | Raised $7M from BSB
  • Feb 2014 – Hit the 15M user mark
  • April 2014 – Received $14M fresh funding from BSB
  • June 2014 – Crossed 20M user mark, launched first TVC
  • July 2014 – Hit #1 rank on App stores
  • August 2014 – Crossed 35M user mark, receives $65M fresh funding led by Tiger Global & BSB
  • November 2014 – Launches regional stickers on hike
  • January 2015 – Launched free Hike Calls
  • February 2015 – Launched Cricket Scores on hike
  • Aug 2015: Hike announces 20 billion messages per month and launched Hike News
  • Sep 2015: Launched Group Calling with upto 100 people

Additional information

You can download the app at – http://get.hike.in For more information, please visit the Hike Blog

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Hyderabad based Wisdomjobs, one of India’s leading end to end online recruitment and career solutions portals, has been declared as the Winner of the top 100 SMEs in India, 2016, by ‘India SME Forum‘. The forum is supported by Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India which is India’s largest SME initiative with over 76,000 members and over 500,000 registered SMEs. Wisdomjobs is India’s 1st job portal with an integrated online skill testing & rating system with a database of over 30 million profiles and 3,500 clients.

The Award Ceremony witnessed the presence of several eminent dignitaries including Mr. Kalraj Mishra, Union Cabinet Minister of MSME, Govt. of India, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Union Cabinet Minister of Railways, Govt. of India and Mr. Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Cabinet Minister of Steel & Mines, Govt. of India amongst others. The Award was presented to Mr. Ajay Kolla, Founder & CEO of Wisdomjobs by Mr. Narendra Singh Tomar.

[Image Credit* - Wisdomjobs]
[Image Credit* – Wisdomjobs]

Founded in 2010, Wisdomjobs.com emerged as one of the top 100 SME’s in the country out of more than 49,000 nominations. The eminent Jury members included Mr. Prahlad Kakkar, Advertising and Branding Guru, Dr. Anup K Pujari [IAS], Ex – Secretary, Ministry of MSME, Govt. of India, Mr. Tilak Raj Bajalia, Ex Deputy MD, SIDBI, Mr Ajay Thakur, Head, BSE SME, etc. The Winners were announced after a stringent evaluation of nominees score across parameters such as Financial Strength, Innovation, International Outlook, Corporate Governance and People Capital.

Upon receiving the award, Ajay Kolla, Founder & CEO, Wisdomjobs said

It is an honor to receive this recognition which reflects our intense dedication in making Wisdom Jobs one of the leaders in this industry. Our pioneering and unique products like Pragnya Meter and VConnect have played a key role in creating a niche position for us. This award is a testimony to the innovative work done by Wisdomjobs and will pave the way for a much higher growth for the company.

The third edition of ‘India SME 100 Awards’ was attended by several dignitaries including policy makers, senior bureaucrats, business leaders, experts and key functionaries of the Indian Venture Capital & Finance Industry.

About Wisdom Jobs

Started in 2010 and headquartered in Hyderabad, Wisdomjobs is one of India’s leading job portals providing end-to-end recruitment solutions to organizations and career opportunities to individuals. Wisdomjobs is India’s first job portal with an integrated online skill testing & rating system – Pragnya Meter.

Within a short span of 5 years, Wisdomjobs has developed a database of over 30 million profiles spanning experience levels, skill sets and industries, thereby providing a huge pool of relevant candidates to various organizations. Wisdomjobs is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company with a clientele exceeding 3500 customers including some of the prominent names of the industry. For more details please visit Wisdomjobs.com

|In: IIT Mumbai|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

SINE- Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship – the technology business incubator hosted by IIT Bombay, has just celebrated 12 years of its existence. What started as an IT incubation pilot project was formally set up as a non-profit society on 15th April, 2004, to incubate start-ups in all technology domains to address the lack of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Today, IIT Bombay has a number of entrepreneurship -related initiatives, such as the DS Centre for Entrepreneurship, which offers formal academic courses; eCell– a student-led centre, and several R&D centres aimed at translational research.

All these together with start-ups, entrepreneurs, investors, service experts outside the campus, rapidly are merging into what is being established as the “Powai Valley”. And SINE has today grown into a leading academic-linked incubator in India.

SINE has been the launch pad for over 80 product-based entrepreneurial ventures out of IIT-Bombay since its inception. More than half have graduated from incubation after becoming revenue-generating companies, several got acquired by larger companies, and some have also failed.

Many have raised one or more round of funding, offering exit opportunity to SINE’s equity stakes in the companies. SINE currently incubates 27 start-ups, and more are in its pipeline. Current start-ups are in varied areas such as fin-tech, med-tech, clean-tech, big data, security, media.

Entrepreneurship environment for technology product based start-ups is still far from being mature in India. To address this gap, SINE has focused on product & intellectual property- based technology start-ups. Out of the total start-ups incubated so far, 25 companies are direct spin-offs of IIT Bombay technologies, and 6 are focused on social innovation via technology. 22 are founded or closely mentored by IIT-B faculty.  Nearly half of its companies have been able to raise multiple round of funding, several have crossed valuation in multiple of 100 cr., and few have achieved or close to achieving revenue of Rs. 100 crore

Sharing her sentiments at the anniversary celebration, Ms. Poyni Bhatt, COO, SINE says

The entrepreneurship initiative started in early 2000 with SINE at IIT Bombay, has now become mainstream not only within the campus, but also influenced the environment around in Powai, Mumbai. The entrepreneurial risk appetite amongst students and faculty-interest in technology commercialization via start-ups have exponentially increased over the years.

SINE offers incubation support for up to 3 years. Incubated companies get workspace, seed support, easy access to IIT Bombay labs, technical and IP resources, business planning and mentoring, and expert services on softer terms. Association with the incubator also brings visibility and credibility for the startups, because of the due diligence and validation that happens prior to admission. SINE also offers prototype support to students in terms of money as also setting the first tinkerer’s lab at IIT Bombay.

The incubator is set to expand the depth and width of its activities. It aims to form partnerships with corporate entities as institutional mentors and financiers under their CSR initiatives. Plans are underway to enhance its capacity to house 50 plus start ups, and set up domain specific programmes in sectors such as bio/med tech and hardware products.

Details of a few graduate start-ups

For more details, please visit their website SINE IITB

|In: India|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

To evangelize the product design ecosystem in India, NASSCOM has partnered with Facebook to build a ‘Product Design Initiative‘ in India. This will be a flagship program of the NASSCOM Product Council and will aim to support 500+ product startups on product design and train 5,000+ product designers over a period of two years.

India is at an interesting inflection point – there is increasing focus on building technology products and solutions that enable innovation and access.  At the same time a key gap to spur innovation is the focus on design – product design that is simple, yet builds a powerful product and exemplifies customer experience. This initiative stems from the need to build design skills that will propel innovative thinking and approaches to build solutions in key sectors where technology can play  a transformational role.

Speaking on the announcement, R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM said

Design as a tool for innovation has developed rapidly in recent years. Design thinking, methodologies and tools enable solutions for complex and challenging issues and help re-imagine systems. With this initiative, NASSCOM plans to scale up the focus on product design and engage the young entrepreneurs into becoming problem solvers and solution builders.

Mr Ravi Gururaj, Chairman, NASSCOM Product Council said

India’s product landscape is rapidly maturing and innovative solutions are getting built across a spectrum of verticals and business needs. The Product Council has been running design workshops and an annual design summit to create awareness on product design and its imperatives. The Design Initiative will aim to build and diffuse a design culture across our ecosystem, link up with academia, recognize outstanding designs and overall ensure India’s software products delivery delightful customer experiences.

Julie Zhuo, VP, Product Design, Facebook said

The Product Design ecosystem is evolving swiftly and to seize this growth we need to solve a few challenges such as a growing need for skilled designers and better design tools to produce great designs more effectively. At Facebook, we are passionate about design and would like to work alongside industry to foster innovation in product design in India, a country known for great technology and engineering talent. We are pleased to join hands with NASSCOM and through this initiative support and mentor the design community in India.

This unique nationwide initiative by NASSCOM will offer focused programs to build awareness around product design, training on design tools, Design Lab, Awards, Design sprints and mentorship.

About NASSCOM

NASSCOM is the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPM industry in India. NASSCOM is a global trade body with more than 1800 members, which include both Indian and multinational companies that have a presence in India. NASSCOM’s member and associate member companies are broadly in the business of software services, software products, consulting services, BPM, e-commerce and web services, engineering services and animation and gaming. NASSCOM’s membership base constitutes over 95% of the industry revenues in India and employs about 3.5 million professionals.

|In: Digital|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Nikon India, the 100% subsidiary of Nikon Corporation Tokyo, leaders in imaging technology, has come up with a new DVC campaign #DiscoverYourself. The campaign is targeted at today’s millennial generation to encourage them to step out of their comfort zone and explore life.

The campaign is currently live on Nikon’s social media platforms with 1 million plus views and runs for duration of 6 minutes and 50 seconds. The DVC portrays a young couple who have taken the plunge of quitting their jobs despite being well performers, in pursuit of their individual dreams. The video also attempts to transcend traditional norms and notions for a young unmarried couple and the youth from 21st century encouraging them to seek soulful happiness. The campaign tagline ‘I AM A SEEKER, I AM NIKON’ states how the brand Nikon is encouraging individuals to pursue their goals and find their true selves.

Sajjan Kumar, Vice President – Imaging Division, Nikon India says

The DVC has been created to celebrate the enthusiasm of the new age generation, who is ready to undertake risks and fulfill their passion and dreams. At Nikon we believe in encouraging individualism and an entrepreneurial spirit among the youth today. The DVC reinforces our image as a unique driving factor for the people to accomplish their goals.

About Nikon India

Nikon India distributes markets and services the complete range of Nikon imaging products, the newly introduced Nikon Sport Optics & Nikon Instruments. The Nikon Imaging includes its Nikon D-SLR as well as its compact camera, the Nikon COOLPIX, the Nikon 1 camera system, a range of NIKKOR lenses & accessories. With offices in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Delhi and Gurgaon, Nikon is strengthening its Sales & Services network all across India. For more information, please visit Nikon India

|In: Funding|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is investing Rs. 171 Crores in Indian eye-wear company Lenskart, to help the company expand access to high-quality and affordable eye-care products in Tier-III, Tier-IV cities. IFC was the lead investor for the Rs. 400 crores Series D investment round which also saw participation from TPG Growth, Adveq Management and IDG Ventures. In addition, Ratan Tata & Kris Gopalakrishnan [Co-founder of Infosys)] invested in their personal capacity as part of this round. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor to this transaction.

Lenskart is into assembly, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and supply of high quality eye-wear products, such as eyeglasses, power sunglasses and contact lenses. Company plans to utilize the funds for strengthening its technology, supply chain, lens manufacturing, and expanding reach of its high-quality eye-wear products across 400 cities.

[Image Credit* – Lenskart]

Peyush Bansal, Founder and CEO of Lenskart said

IFC is a long-term partner with global knowledge and a broad network of Internet, technology and healthcare clients, including in the eye care space. We appreciate IFC for their support to our vision of ‘Lenskart glasses in every home’. We will be able to draw on IFC’s extensive global experience in the healthcare and manufacturing sectors, particularly in supply chain development and capacity building to realize its potential and develop best practices, he further added.

Pravan Malhotra, IFC’s co-lead for Global Internet Investments & lead for VC investments in South & Southeast Asia said

The Lenskart investment is a part of IFC’s Venture Capital group’s strategy to invest in innovative Internet, Healthcare and Technology companies across emerging markets. This investment will support a rapidly growing market leader in the Internet sector, while meeting a significant gap in the Indian eye care market As part of this investment, he will join Lenskart’s Board of Directors.

Lenskart has adopted a unique omni-channel approach thereby making eyewear truly accessible by making it available on desktop, mobile, hypermarkets, high streets, malls, hospitals and now even at home. The company conducts over 1,500 eye exams daily through its home eye exam service which it intends to make available for every home in urban and rural India.

Lenskart with its special focus on skill development and entrepreneurship development in India, gets people certified by National Skill Development Corporation [NSDC]. It runs skill development programs across four cities for training people on operating complex machinery required for manufacturing lenses as well as conducting accurate eye exams. It has over 100 business partners who run and operate stores and plans to partner with another 1000 entrepreneurs in the next three years. The company encourages women entrepreneurs under the Stand Up India scheme where it helps them get bank loans to become entrepreneurs.

Lenskart has been relentless about its focus on customer centricity. The company has built a strong leadership team, all of who work with the single mission of ‘creating enthusiastically satisfied customers all the time’. It has roped in professional stalwarts from retail, marketing and digital industries to head the respective divisions. The company will continue hiring great talent, particularly in technology.

About Lenskart

Founded in 2010, Lenskart is India’s largest online retailer of premium quality and stylish eye-wear, offering over 10,000 different styles to suit all pocket sizes and diverse consumer needs. With a unique click and mortar business model, Lenskart is revolutionizing the eye-wear industry by offering disruptive services like Free Home Eye check-up, 3D Try On, Free Home Trial and First Frame Free among others. Through innovative technology and a deep focus on consumer satisfaction, Lenskart has grown more than 200% year on year in the last 2 years, to be among the top 3 optical businesses in India. Lenskart has been funded by three venture capitalists till date, namely IDG Ventures ($4 million in October 2011) and Ronnie Screwvala-led Unilazer Ventures [$10 million in February 2013] and TPG Growth & TR Capital [$22 million in January 2015]. For more information, please visit LensKart

About IFC

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. IFC’s committed portfolio in India is over $5 billion as of June 30, 2015. In FY15, IFC committed $1.4 billion in new investments. In addition to strengthening local capital markets in India, IFC is focused on boosting financing in infrastructure and logistics, promoting financial inclusion, helping create conditions to attract increased private capital, and helping structure public-private partnerships.

In India, IFC’s venture capital group has supported a number of healthcare companies like Portea, EyeQ and Nephroplus. IFC is also building a portfolio of market leading internet companies that include BigBasket in India, Netshoes in Brazil, Souq in the Middle East and Hepsiburada in Turkey. For more information, please visit IFC

|In: Guerrilla Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments
Couple of weeks back, while having chai [tea] at local tea shop, I noticed an interesting thing, the shopkeeper offered me tea in a paper cup that had ‘OLA Branding’ on it!! When there was further probing from my side, he informed that OLA Marketing team had given the tea cups for free and the quantity depended on the locality & density of prospective OLA customers [based on research done by the OLA team].
The cups were given out for free with the expectation that more & more people would come to know about OLA [and in turn use it’s services] i.e. converting prospective customers into customers. It looked a very interesting case of Guerrilla Marketing where they could grab more eye-balls with less spend on marketing!! After couple of days, there were Swiggy tea cups lying in his shop though the intention of this exercise was also the same !!!
Few days back, we received a Press Release of a startup named GingerCup that specializes in offline-marketing and Paper Cup advertising is one of their specialties :), lets’s look into what it can do for businesses. While online marketers are playing it hard with their tactics, GingerCup still sticks to offline marketing and busts the idea of an ad getting unnoticed.
Essentially, GingerCup optimizes two interesting offline marketing platforms. So, what do they do ?

Paper Cup Advertising

GingerCup’s marketing strategy entails bringing a brand into the limelight through exquisitely designed printed paper cups used for tea/coffee. The strategically designed quality paper cups feature the client’s logo, website address, offer code, contact details etc. upon them. After getting designed, they are then printed and distributed for free where they are likely to come in contact with targeted audience.
The expert team at GingerCup first decides the right set of people to target, the quantum of cups to be distributed, and the places where the cups are to be distributed. A purposefully designed quality tea cup gets the brand noticed and spoken about. People seem to enjoy every sip of their kick-start drink [tea/coffee] and thus spend ample to have it. So, while having it, they see an alluring ad right in their hand. It is not only welcomed but also shared further through word of mouth.

Flyers

Not all the flyers in the world are distributed with a strategy. GingerCup does it purposefully. It is beyond someone’s imagination how the booming online world can be a boon for an offline marketing campaign. Right from shopping clothes to give them for laundry, from buying books to ordering a pizza, everything is done online. We know everything which is bought has to get delivered at a customer’s place.
GingerCup prints enticingly designed flyers that speak about their clients’ brand/product/service and all the essential information the targeted audience would require knowing about them. Having tied up with the delivery providers, GingerCup gets the flyers delivered at a place along with the products being ordered online. In a fit of excitement to open a newly bought item, people notice what comes along with it. It then makes it certain for the flyer to get read and create an impact about the advertised brand on the reader’s mind.

Carrying a distinctive strategic approach, these marketing methods are easy on the pocket and fertile enough to breed the desired level of brand recognition for an advertiser. Therefore, when there is every possibility of an online ad getting scrolled down, GingerCup’s potential ad weapons are hard to ignore. Indeed, it is something here to stay.
Though Paper Cup Advertising looks very targeted, it would have been better if they could have also added QR Code on the cup which when scanned would take you to the Play Store to download Client’s App. This would have resulted in better ‘Call To Action’
How can Paper cup marketing be used in more engaging manner, please leave your suggestions in the comments section.