WEF report states that more than 1 billion people worldwide experience some form of disability stopping them from completing their education or, getting them employed. Microsoft strongly believes that technology has the potential to empower people to achieve more, help strengthen education opportunities, and make the workplace more inviting and inclusive for people with disabilities. Accessible technologies, enabled by AI, help people with disabilities unlock their full potential at school, work, and home.

In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Microsoft is underscoring its commitment to make technology more accessible for everyone. In her most recent Microsoft on the Issues blog post, Chief Accessibility Officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie explains how ‘making accessibility part of how we do business around the world is essential. Thinking about it as a cultural shift, and how we manage a business is core to achieving this goal.’

At Microsoft, accessibility and inclusion are essential to deliver mission of empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft puts accessibility at the heart of design to make products and services that adapts to each user’s unique situation, device capabilities and human abilities to learn, use, build and master. Microsoft 365 is an example that helps make people accessible with disabilities to make them more productive. Similarly, using AI enabled technologies, Microsoft is creating robust solutions such as real-time speech-to-text transcription, visual recognition services and predictive text functionality.

Leveraging technology, Microsoft is building accessible & inclusive solutions to empower people with disabilities through the following:

Empowering through Windows 10

• Eye control enables you to type with an on-screen keyboard, communicate with people, and control the mouse with just your eyes.
• Magnifier makes part or all of your screen bigger so you can see words and images better.
• Narrator reads text on your screen aloud and describes events, such as notifications or calendar appointments, so you can use your computer without a display.
• Learning Tools improves reading and writing for learners regardless of their age and ability. The tool is offered in Word, OneNote, Edge and Outlook.
• Xbox Adaptive Controller was designed to empower gamers with limited mobility. Every aspect of the controller, including the packaging, was designed in close partnership with the accessibility community.
• Seeing AI – an app that narrates the world for people who are blind or have low vision. What began as a hackathon project has evolved into an app that has helped people with more than 10 million tasks.
• Soundscape re-imagines how technology can enhance independence and mobility to empower people who are blind or have low vision

To know more on Microsoft’s approach to accessibility, please visit here.

Nutanix, Inc., a leader in enterprise cloud computing has revealed that the financial services Industry, FSI, outpacing other industries in the adoption of hybrid cloud, with the deployment of hybrid cloud reaching 21% penetration today, compared with the global average of 18.5%.  The findings were announced in the enterprise cloud leader’s Enterprise Cloud Index Report for the financial services sector, measuring financial firms’ plans for adopting private, public and hybrid clouds.

Financial services firms today are facing mounting competitive pressure to streamline operations while delivering a differentiated experience to their customers, including leveraging new technologies such as blockchain. This FinTech revolution, combined with the growing burdens of regulatory compliance, data privacy, and security issues are pushing CIOs to fundamentally transform the technological underpinnings of their institutions. The report reveals exactly how the financial services industry is embracing the capabilities of cloud computing to address these needs.

It is also abundantly clear from the survey results that many financial organizations are still struggling with modernizing their outdated legacy IT architectures and processes, resulting in inefficient operations and potential vulnerability in regard to data breaches. In fact, the report revealed financial services run more traditional data centres than other industries, with 46% penetration. Despite their progressiveness on the hybrid cloud front, financial organizations have lower usage levels of private clouds than any other industry, at 29% penetration compared to the average of 33%.

Like other industries, the financial services sector cites security and compliance as the top factor in deciding where to run its workloads. Nearly all respondents also indicated that performance, management, and TCO are critical factors in the decision. However, more than 25% cited these same factors as challenges with adopting public cloud. In other words, as is often the case with new IT solutions, the most important criteria are also the most difficult to achieve. This could account for part of the disparity between the high desire to adopt hybrid cloud, and today’s relatively low hybrid cloud penetration levels of just 21% in the financial services sector.

Sankarson Banerjee, CIO, RBL Bank, commented

Legacy systems and processes are significant impediments to the agility that today’s business demands. The BFSI segment in India has been a trailblazer in adoption of new tech such as HCI, Hybrid cloud, AI and ML. At RBL, Hybrid Cloud is at the forefront of our IT vision and strategy for driving agility in responding to business and customer needs across channels and products.

The bullish outlook for hybrid cloud adoption globally and across industries is reflective of an IT landscape growing increasingly automated and flexible enough that enterprises have the choice to buy, build, or rent their IT infrastructure resources based on fast transforming application requirements.

Other key findings of the report include

The financial sector values application mobility across clouds

Application mobility is the ability to move apps and workloads back and forth across private and public cloud infrastructures as workload type or economics warrant, while enjoying unified management and operations. Both financial companies and other industries chose application mobility between clouds second most often as the number one perk to hybrid cloud, and the financial sector chose it 3% more often than the average. 63% of financial industry respondents said they considered inter-cloud application mobility ‘essential’.

Financial services companies control cloud spend better

Another motivation for deploying hybrid clouds is likely enterprises’ need to gain control over their IT spend. Organizations that use public cloud spend 26% of their annual IT budget on public cloud, with this percentage set to increase to 35% in two years’ time. More than a third [36%] of organizations using public clouds said their public cloud spending exceeded budgets. In comparison, 33% of financial respondents reported being over budget, revealing that they are doing marginally better than others at managing public cloud expenses.

IT skills are a barrier to adopting hybrid cloud in the financial industry

While 88% of respondents said that they expect hybrid cloud to positively impact their businesses, hybrid cloud skills are scarce in today’s IT organizations. These skills ranked second in scarcity only to those in artificial intelligence and machine learning [AI/ML]. Financial services respondents generally reportedly slightly greater deficits in skillsets across all categories except for AI/ML.

91% of financial services organizations surveyed said that hybrid cloud was the ideal IT model. This belief in hybrid cloud, and the fact that the sector has higher than industry average adoption of hybrid cloud, is likely driven by the recognized need for digital transformation. Yet conversely, the data shows a lower adoption of private clouds than the global average across industries. This might be explained by the fact that portions of the financial services space have been change-averse and also an indication of the overall complexity of modernizing existing legacy infrastructures.

Neville Vincent, Vice President A/NZ, ASEAN and India, Nutanix, said

Increased competition combined with more stringent regulatory and compliance environments is forcing the entire industry to re-assess the capability and relevance of its current IT infrastructure. Today’s new normal is an environment where customers expect personalized and tailored services delivered where they want it, when they want and the way they want it.

The good news is the industry is already seeing the customer and company benefits of hybrid cloud infrastructure, the concern is that at just over 20%, there is still a long way to go to satisfy increasingly sophisticated and demanding customers and achieve the ultimate customer experience.

Nutanix commissioned Vanson Bourne to survey more than 2,300 IT decision makers, including 333 worldwide financial services organizations, about where they are running their business applications today, where they plan to run them in the future, what their cloud challenges are and how their cloud initiatives stack up against other IT projects and priorities. The survey included respondents from multiple industries, business sizes and geographies in the Americas; Europe, the Middle East, Africa [EMEA]; and Asia-Pacific and Japan [APJ]regions.

To learn more about the global report and findings, please download the ‘Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index 2018’, here.

ACTICO, a global leader in providing software for intelligent automation, announced the launch of ACTICO Machine Learning in India, a first-of-its-kind of software platform that enables integration of the ‘predictive’ capability of Machine Learning models in the decision making process in a business. This platform enables companies to quickly generate machine learning models through automated data analysis, combine them with business rules and operationalize both for AI-powered automation.

The predictive models generated can be used to optimize business outcomes in case of numerous
intelligent automation scenarios across business life-cycle, like product recommendations, fraud detection & risk management. A key benefit of the ACTICO Machine Learning platform is that it enables machine learning models to be automatically retrained and facilitates their rapid deployment.

There are two kinds of pricing options available, to cater to diverse customer requirements and ensure that the product is equally lucrative for both large as well as small. Companies can either license the technology or take an annual subscription. This flexibility in pricing makes the product equally lucrative to both large as well as small companies.

Speaking on the launch, Ajit Shah, Managing Director- APAC, Middle East and Africa, ACTICO, said

This integration or ‘operationalization’ of Machine Learning is a unique approach to the application of this cutting-edge technology. Our platform overhauls the conventional approach of using machine learning in standalone systems and integrates it to the business by combining expert knowledge and data knowledge. The ACTICO Machine Learning platform provides support throughout the entire process – from data preparation to using the trained machine learning models in production systems.

During our pilot projects, we have observed that using ACTICO Machine Learning can potentially help in reducing default rates by 30~40%, improve product recommendations by 50%+ and ensure 40% more efficient compliance case clarifications, across a wide range of customers. In the first phase, we will be targeting banks and financial institutions in India and are pleased to share that we are in the process of signing our first ACTICO Machine Learning customer in India. We also have plans of extending our offering to other industries, in the near future.

About ACTICO

ACTICO is a leading international provider of software for intelligent automation and digital decision making. It provides best-in-class software solutions and tools with applications from financial services to manufacturing and retail to healthcare, enhancing day-to-day decision-making and end-to-end automation. ACTICO operates through fully owned subsidiaries in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Its customers include companies across continents, ranging from small/mid-sized firms to Fortune 500 companies.

Looking at the upcoming trends globally and across industry ‘Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning [AI/ML]’ tops the charts. Generally, first thing which comes to mind is machine/cyborg taking over human elements and this has been depicted to various degree in many sci-fi movies. While, the reality is far away from that, it will be unjust to ignore how healthcare is evolving and adopting AI in real life to reduce cost and improve patient outcomes.

In current context, AI means simulation of human elements by machines/computers, where they acquire information [learning], process it to reach reasonable conclusions [action] and adapt themselves to situations [course corrections]. AI leverages various technologies like Machine/Deep learning, Vision, NLP, Robots, or autonomous machines etc.

As per Gartner, most organizations are in early stage of AI adoption. Only around 6% have it in use and more than 60% organizations are still trying to understand it. It will take a while before real benefits of AI can be leveraged. Below are areas where AI has already made its way or can bring in difference in future.

1. Leveraging vision, deep learning on sensor based vital data, physicians will be better equipped to diagnose ailments. Medical imaging can be taken to new levels where AI on top can accurately diagnose and in some cases even predict diseases. Blood smears will use vision to count cells and anomalies. ECG & cardio data can pass through AI to predict outcomes and assist physicians in accurate diagnosis.
2. Hospital re-admission has been a grave concern and millions wasted due to lack of post operation care. AI can help predict situation like this and can assist providers take extra precautions.
3. Based on the patient case and required procedures, AI can help in planning surgery, help doctors in accurate measurements, and assist during surgery by tracking vital and other data. AI can help surgeons understand surgery outcomes better based on correlations from similar cases.
4. Using NLP and vision, AI can assist doctors with diagnosis, running pharmacy correlations with other drugs, allergy, food etc. AI can help physicians with transcripts and voice assisted case management. All these integrated with EHR system will bring in the best of the best values.
5. Virtual health assistants are tools like chat bots or a conversational service using smart speakers helping customer answer health related quires, symptoms checker or assist them with appointments etc.
6. AI can assist hospitals in better management of assets, emergency management and better planning of the hospital processes and functions.
7. In the field of telemedicine, AI can bring wonders by enabling accurate remote health monitoring, predictive diagnosis leading to cheaper & effective remote/rural health management.

If we flip to other side of healthcare, i.e., ‘insurance’, AI can bring many value added services together with care side to bring down the overall healthcare spending globally.

1. Outcome, risk and cost comparison for similar cases in different hospitals/cities will help insurance companies compare cost and better optimize the plans offered and their premiums.
2. Predictive element of care can assist providers in better reach out to patients and proactive care management, which can save significant amounts for both sides.
3. Predictive AI for care, claims and other information can also help providers come up with health plans, which are cheaper and more effective.
4. AI systems can sift through clinical and claims data to highlight errors in diagnosis, payments, frauds and workflow issues, thus providing a true value based care system.

The real test for AI system will depend on solutions’ ability to integrate with the hospital or doctors’ workflow. AI systems should not be perceived as extra process, as that will reduce the value such systems can potentially bring. Adoption of AI in healthcare, both clinical and insurance will be slow and will face some challenges like:

1. Ethical concerns due to reduction in Hu element – who takes the liability for a negative event?
2. Regulation & compliance will play a big role in adaption of AI as they will govern the process and procedures that are followed.
3. Initial adoption both by physicians and patients will see hiccups mostly related to trust factors, till the time both parties build confidence in such systems.
4. Lack of requisite skill – sets for technology adoption, followed by trainings of end users.

Finally, AI or any new age technology adaption will face ‘Iron Triangle’ of healthcare [access, quality, and cost] test to prove its worth. For an industry which has always lacked skilled manpower to manage everyone’s health, AI can do wonders in times to come.

About the author

Sanjay Pathak is the head of Insurance & Healthcare Solutions at 3i Infotech. You can more about him here.

The quality of groundwater is deteriorating with each passing day and the main cause of deterioration can be attributed to the presence of harmful impurities present in the water. In many states of India, high concentrations of fluoride, arsenic, iron, and other toxic metals are present in the groundwater. Consumption of such kind of impure water can result in water-borne diseases and other serious health implications.

Hence in today’s time, consumption of tap water directly is not a safe practice as it may contain impurities. Many Indian households boil the water since they are under the impression that once the water is boiled, the water is 100% pure. However, this is a wrong notion since boiling may reduce the hardness of water and remove some of the minor impurities in water. A better solution would be to make use of RO Water Purifier since RO [Reverse Osmosis] is a proven technology which is capable of removing soluble, insoluble, chemicals and other types of impurities present in the water.

In the Reverse Osmosis [RO] purification technology, a partially semi-permeable membrane is used for purifying the incoming water. It removes the suspended impurities, dissolved impurities, and in some cases, even softens the water. It is also effective in removing larger molecules, dissolved salts, and other types of impurities like bacteria. Many RO water purifiers are also equipped with additional purification mechanisms like UV [Ultra Violet] and UF [Ultra Filtration] which adds another layer of purification. RO Water purifiers are popular in Indian households and are also used in a large setup like a company, factory where higher storage of purified water is required.

There might be some cases where you may want to enjoy pure drinking water but do not intend to buy RO water purifier. Such a situation can arise when you are travelling to a new city [for a personal or official visit] and might be staying for a couple of months. There is no point in going through the process of selecting the right RO purifier, getting it fitted in the house and re-selling the same once you move out of the city. What if there was an option where you pay for the amount of water you consume i.e. pay per consumption? Livpure, the world leader in water purification technology has come up with a disruptive concept called Livpuresmart where you can live a hassle-free life, with the assurance of RO purified water at affordable rates.

With interesting plans from Livpuresmart; you would incur zero installation charges, zero machine cost, and zero maintenance costs on RO purifier. Since the newer generation is an ardent user of ‘pay-per-use’ kind of concept, Livpuresmart is something that can solve their water woes. Consumers do not have to buy the water purifier but they would pay for the amount of water they consume from the RO water purifier. With the Livpure Smart Plan, a customer has to pay Rs. 1.2 per 542 liters of water being consumed per month. With such a scheme, customers can enjoy RO purified water without having to invest in an RO purifier. There is a real-time water quality check and filter health life check for every drop from the RO water purifier. Since the customer does not own the water purifier, (s)he does not pay anything for the annual maintenance. This plan is economical when compared to costs involved in purchasing Ro water purifiers or purchasing water jars from neighborhood shops.

The details about the health & status of the RO water purifier which would be fitted in the customer’s premises as a part of the Livpure Smart Plan can be accessed using the mobile phone since the purifier leverages the power of the Internet of Things (IoT). There are different subscription plans – Silver plan, Gold plan, Platinum plan, and Titanium plan. You should choose the best plan according to your requirements. You can also opt for RO water purifier online and their technicians would visit your premises to give you a demo.

Customer trends are changing at a rapid pace and such a concept not only helps customers save overhead costs involved in buying & maintaining RO water purifier but also lets them enjoy safe purified water at sub-optimal costs.

Clairvolex, the global Intellectual Property (IP) asset management firm,  announced the launch of LEAP – the first AI & ML enabled unified IP portfolio development & management platform, incubated in India and engineered jointly with the Silicon valley, for global markets.

Patent development is a USD 18 billion market opportunity in the hi-tech space alone. Further, patent licensing is a much larger market, estimated at a value of USD 180 billion. These are two extremely siloed business systems in the global industry. Patent portfolio development is an expensive and tedious process, with large patent holders spending hundreds of million dollars to develop and maintain them. Licensing is complex, in the absence of a market place for inventions and patents.

LEAP addresses these challenges, helping businesses enhance the value of IP and patent portfolios. Powered by ML, AI and automation, and with an extensive data at its back-end, LEAP offers enhanced patent development & monetization capabilities, helping companies build patent portfolio strategies with potential for higher monetization at half the current level of investments. LEAP solutions have access to over 12 million patent data records at the back-end, more than 30,000 IP specific rules and at least 130 automated standard operating procedures.

According to the International IP Index released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center [GIPC] in February 2019, IP is taking center stage in international trade discussions. The report concludes that there is a need to improve the systemic efficiency of IP rights administration and the ability of IP owners to leverage their rights to finance innovative and creative activities.

Manoj Pillai, CEO of Clairvolex, said

More than 80 per cent of all hi-tech patents bring ‘0’ returns to patent owners, despite companies spending millions of dollars to keep patents alive. The current market model for building and managing massive global patent portfolios is hugely inefficient. LEAP offers a credible solution, in a somewhat disruptive market model, using AI-enhanced solutions for patent development & monetization.

LEAP is currently deployed for 20 early adopters, who are large patent holders based in the US and Europe market. Clairvolex estimates that LEAP would manage 10~15% of patents of top 50 tech IP owners by 2025. For more information on LEAP, please visit here.

About Clairvolex

Clairvolex Inc. is a global Intellectual Property (IP) asset management company. It is a strategic patent portfolio development partner to some of the world’s most innovative companies such as General Electric, Ericsson, Philips, Amazon and Qualcomm. With offices in multiple US locations, Clairvolex has a global team of experts who offer expert-IP solutions to customers using the LEAP technology platform. LEAP is backed by investors such as Agnus Capital, Indus Age Partners and Walden Riverwood Ventures. For more information about Clairvolex, please visit Clairvolex.