Paytm founder and CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma was vocal about being disappointed with the way banks and the financial system in India work. ‘The financial system penalizes a sincere person, but if someone speaks the language of those in the power corridor, he takes a loan of Rs 600 crore and lives in London,’ said Sharma, taking a jibe at the other Vijay, Vijay Mallya.
Speaking at the India Today Conclave 2017 held in Mumbai, during a session titled Master Talk: The e-economy | From the Front-lines of Change, the Founder and CEO of Paytm said, Financial system in India is penalising for those who are sincere, who pay their taxes on time.
Talking about his hope that the RBI will give a nod to Paytm doing banking in the country, he said, ‘If the RBI blesses us, we will be able to have our bank by this month end.’ ‘What happened in 2016 was nothing short of revolution,’ Sharma said, talking about the demonetization drive.
When asked about the key to success of Paytm, Sharma said
The key to success for Paytm is that Paytm works. Paytm works when it is expected to work. Paytm works where it needs to work.
Talking some numbers, he said
Paytm currently has about 21.5 crore subscribers. SBI has 20.7 subscribers. Paytm does about 20 crore transactions while according to RBI all other e-wallets do 19 crore transactions combined.
Paytm’s net worth is around USD 6 billion. The company has seen exponential growth post-demonetization.
About India Today Conclave
Started as part of India Today’s 25th anniversary, India Today Conclave was designed as a meeting point for the best minds from India and around the world to map the geopolitical and economic future of the country. In its inaugural year the theme was India Tomorrow 2002: Opportunities and Threats with Vice President of the USA Al Gore as the chief Guest. The speakers who have been part of this conference each year are current and former heads of state, Nobel Laureates, spiritual leaders, industry captains, social workers, economists, authors, academics, scientist, strategists, activists, cine directors, actors and sportspersons. The past conferences can be accessed here
Ratul Puri, Chairman, Hindustan Power Projects Pvt. Ltd, kick-started the session titled The Disruptors: Technology and Opportunity on a promising note, when he spoke of twelve technologies which have been identified which are likely to add between USD 0.5-1 trillion to the Indian economy. IT was a fitting introduction to a session of young disruptors, who are paving the way for new developments in the space of technology to create opportunities.
Rohan Murty took over as he analysed the promises and challenges of artificial intelligence. He opened his presentation with an image of 18 women on the screen, who were professional computers. The word computer was a job title well before it was a machine, he said. He spoke of a telescope run by AI, which makes discoveries of the night sky, of haikus and artwork created by machines and revealed that through AI, a task completed by 1,000 people, could within 12 months, be completed by just nine.
However, he also spoke of the shortcomings of AI as it stands now-it cannot identify basic images, it does not have fundamental human traits, there are trust issues and he reminded the audience of a twitter account created by Microsoft, run by AI, which tweeted racist and bigoted tweets and eventually had to be taken down.
Ananya Birla introduced the importance of human-tech synergy, when she said that consumer behaviour was the biggest challenge when moving towards a cashless economy. Her micro-finance company Svatantra Microfinance functions on a completely cashless process and creates a link between the user’s adhar payment scheme and their bank account. The primary challenge to a cashless economy is consumer behaviour. People are so used to cash that they have trust issues and there are literacy problems, she said.
From demonetisation, the conversation moved to autonomous vehicles. While saying that the idea of autonomous cars is ‘cool’, Manasi Kirloskar dismissed any prospect of such cars in India in the foreseeable future. ‘70 per cent of electricity in India is generated from coal fire, which leaves harmful emissions. Electric cars are not eco-friendly‘, she said. She also expressed concern over issues of interrupted broadband systems, virus attacks and hacking, all of which could pose a serious threat to the efficient functioning of autonomous cars. She also brought up ethical concerns-‘In case of an accidents, who does the car protect? The passengers or the pedestrians?‘ she said.
While humans are better off behind the steering wheel for now, truly riving the retail sector is e-commerce, said Shashwat Goenka. ‘Ecommerce is the inevitable future, since we are impatient as consumers. But, we are Indians and our purchase psychology is tuned into touch and feel,’ he said. ‘Brick and mortar will continue to exist,’ he added. Goenka also spoke about the need for re-skilling employees in a tech enabled environment and how it’s the need of the hour. The women ended the session on an astute note. ‘We need technology that will facilitate the efficient access to food, water, shelter, education and healthcare,’ said Kirloskar. ‘The vision is to reach a platform where technology and human beings optimize each other’, Birla concluded.
Big Ideas
Artificial Intelligence
While artificial intelligence can take over a lot of conventionally human activities such as exploring their place in the universe, making art and improving efficiency [a task completed by 1,000 people, could within 12 months, be completed by just nine], it still lacks basic human traits and the lack of trust towards AI poses a great challenge.
Self-driven cars
It is necessary to create a system and set policies for self-driven cars. Presently, they are neither eco-friendly, nor does India have the physical or ethical infrastructure in place to make them a reality.
Going cashless
Consumer behaviour needs to be addressed in order for the country to go completely cashless. Trust, literacy and the need to touch and feel a transaction are impediments. Svatantra Microfinance creates a cashless process where Aadhar payment schemes are linked with the user’s bank accounts. They use the biometric system and eventually work towards reducing KYCs etc.
About India Today Conclave
Started as part of India Today’s 25th anniversary, India Today Conclave was designed as a meeting point for the best minds from India and around the world to map the geopolitical and economic future of the country. In its inaugural year the theme was India Tomorrow 2002: Opportunities and Threats with Vice President of the USA Al Gore as the chief Guest. The speakers who have been part of this conference each year are current and former heads of state, Nobel Laureates, spiritual leaders, industry captains, social workers, economists, authors, academics, scientist, strategists, activists, cine directors, actors and sportspersons. The past conferences can be accessed here
Setting the stage for Government of Andhra Pradesh’s ambitious initiative, #SpringConference 2017 was inaugurated at Novotel, Visakhapatnam today. Fintech Valley Vizag is Government of Andhra Pradesh’s flagship initiative that brings together industry, academia and investors to innovate, co-create & build the fintech ecosystem. The Fintech Spring Conference 2017 marks the beginning of this journey.
The primary objective of the event is to explore trends and opportunities in fintech. This is a platform where the finest minds of financial and startup community get to share mind-space with thought leaders, business leaders, artists, actors, musicians, futurists and entrepreneurs.
Offering full support to organisations, incubators, facilitators and start-ups, inviting anyone with disruptive ideas to be a part of Fintech Valley, on the edge of innovation, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Chandrababu Naidu interacted with delegates for an hour over video conference and took inputs from fintech community present at the Spring Conference.
He will chair The Fintech Valley Forum setup to focus on various aspects of the ecosystem creation. While addressing the gathering he said
The Fintech Valley Spring Conference is our step in joining the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is a spectacular combination of technology and Internet of Things [IoT]. In recent times, technology has started influencing our lives in a comprehensive manner. The demand for Fintech is growing each day. To meet this demand, we would need the support from Fintech and Cyber security companies. We also need the academic institutions to adapt curriculum that trains individuals to contribute to fintech sector. I extend my best wishes for the success of the initiative and hope it provides multiple opportunities to meet the futuristic requirements of our country and the global economy at large.
In his keynote address, Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor to the AP Chief Minister, J. A. Chowdary stated
Indian IT 1.0 is facing difficulties. The next flight towards IT 2.0 will be backed by fintech. The tectonic shifts this will cause and entail is captured by the expression ‘fintectonics’. It is a fintech culture we are creating here-a culture of doing something for the betterment of the common man, a culture of creating an ecosystem by getting the right industry linkages and finding the right formula for the critical manpower.
Present on the dais were Roy Teo, Director, Fintech & Innovation Group, Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS]; Utkarsh Palnitkar, Partner KPMG; George Inasu-COO, Fidelity Financial Services; Puneet Pushkarna, Chairman, TIE-Singapore & Joe Seunghyun Cho, Co-founder and Chairman, Marvelstone Group.
Keynote speakers at the conference
To accelerate the evolution of Fintech Valley, the Government of Andhra Pradesh [GoAP] has also initiated a fintech networking event every month, in addition to the annual fintech international flagship event. This year, on October 9-10, the government will host the Blockchain Technology International Event. The flagship Global Fintech Summit will take place on Feb 19th & 20th, 2018. This event provides the opportunity to participate in the $1 million global fintech award challenge and the INR 1 crore Indian fintech award challenge.
An invigorating Investment Panel Discussion on ‘Funding Fintech – wearing an investor’s hat‘ was moderated by P. S. Sreekanth, Investment Director, Hyderabad Angels; Sampath Iyengar, Partner, Forum Synergies; Abhinav Chaturvedi, Principal, Accel Partners; Prasad Vanga, Founder & CEO, Anthill Ventures; Utkarsh Sinha, Enterprise Technology Investor, Bitkemy Ventures; Puneet Pushkarna, Chairman, TiE-Singapore & Utkarsh Palnitkar, Partner and National Head IGS Advisory Management, KPMG. Beginning the discussion with the post demonetization scenario, the panelists sustained their dynamic dialogue in identifying fintech investment portfolios with high RoIs.
Additionally, the finalists’ demos and presentations for the ICICI Bank Start-Up Challenge & the HDFC Life Start-Up Challenge were showcased to the audience, wherein the competitors took questions from the judging panelists. Following this, another Banking Panel Discussion on Consumers and Marketplaces changing in an increasingly cashless world was moderated by Neha Punater, Partner and Head Fintech, KPMG. Key panelists Akhil Handa, Advisor to MD&CEO, Bank of Baroda; Shashi Bhushan, Managing Director, Investment Management Technology, Goldman Sachs India; Ramesh Loganathan, Professor, IIIT Hyderabad and Sudin Baraokar, Head of Innovation SBI discussed challenges faced by start-ups in being unable to identify and direct resources towards the accurate fintech problem area. They also proposed the need to create a consolidated industry-wide ‘use case’ library to facilitate innovation.
The first Fintech Valley Vizag Spring Conference brought together fintech companies, start-ups, researchers and key government officials working in the fintech sector and provided opportunities for disruptive business solutions.
The peaceful atmosphere offered by Visakhapatnam compared to other bustling tech-hubs in India, created a serene environment for igniting fintech innovation and disruption ideas at the Fintech Valley Spring Conference. Fintech Valley Vizag is rapidly becoming the epicenter of fintech disruption. Since the launch of Fintech Tower, the Andhra Pradesh government has signed numerous partnership agreements with renowned educational institutions, corporations and governments that share the state’s vision of becoming pioneers for building strong standards for fintech and mutually sharing the desire in working towards cooperative advancement through information and resource sharing.
About Fintech Valley Vizag
The Fintech Valley brings together public and private players, state of the art incubators and accelerators, innovation labs, mentorships, angel investors and anyone willing to break free from traditional processes. The self-sustained global Fintech Ecosystem provides more than just access to Fintech and its innovators; it nurtures an oasis in which cyber security, block chain, digital education and research thrive at international standards. For more information, please visit Fintech Valley Vizag
About Spring Conference 2017
Fintech Valley Vizag is Government of Andhra Pradesh’s flagship initiative that brings together industry, academia and investors to innovate, co-create and build the Fintech ecosystem. The Fintech Spring Conference 2017 marks the beginning of this new journey. Spring conference will have CXOs from Fintech companies, start-ups & financial services. For more information, please visit Spring Conference 2017
CNN International hosted the second edition of Asia Business Forum 2017 on 13th February 2017 in Bengaluru, which since last year has been an exclusive platform for leaders across the region. Around 200 business leaders came together to assess India’s position in a turbulent global economy, the event attracted a lot interest amongst business and technology leaders. Asia Business Forum 2017coincided with the start of the Indian government’s ‘Make in India Conference’.
Speakers at the event included Richard Quest, CNNMoney Editor-at-Large and anchor of Quest Means Business and Kristie Lu Stout, CNNNews Stream anchor will lead discussions with star speakers including EkStep Chairman and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, Air Vistara CEO Phee Teik Yeoh, Spicejet Chairman & Managing Director Ajay Singh, JetSetGo Co-Founder and CEO Kanika Tekriwal, and viral YouTube star ‘Rickshawalli‘.
Some of the notable sessions included India at 30,000 Feet-Exploring the world’s fastest growing aviation industry and Digitizing India-How technology is transforming the world’s biggest democracy.
CNN Asia Business Forum Panelistswith Ms Kristie Lu Stout on extreme right
Fellow blogger Jogesh Midha interviewed Kristie Lu Stout, CNN Anchor and host of News Stream on the lines of Social Media, Technology trends, entrepreneurial culture in India, etc. Below are the edited excerpts of the interview.
What has changed about the Technology Business & News Business since the last 15 years?
We have seen the rise of social media with Facebook being the pioneer of social media. It has impacted Retail, Political campaigns, businesses, etc. So arguably social media has been the biggest game changer both on the technology as well on social front. Big proportion of audience referrals to CNN come from Facebook and our job as journalists has become much meaningful because of it.
What are the technology trends of 2017?
It has to be Artificial Intelligence (AI). Last few months we have seen AI been able to out-bluff the best players in Poker, it has taken jobs away from real human beings. In fact in Japan, number of insurance claim workers lost their jobs to AI. AI is incredible!
However with technology advancements comes the ethical challenges, what happens when AI takes over jobs. This is the same issue that Elon Musk of Tesla raised a couple of months back and there lies the fundamental debate-How do you incentivise learning for children who know that they really do not have to learn since the computer does a better job there but there is still a reason why need to learn Math, Science, etc.
Electrification of transport, clean energy, human computer interface and brain implants are some of the trends that might evolve in 2017.
What are some of the Prons & Cons of social media, especially from the angle of journalism?
Good thing about social media is that you are able to engage with so many people across the world. Dark side is online bullying, cyber harassment and identity theft. Fake News spreads like wild fire primarily due to social media. I recently interviewed the founder of David Mikkelson, Snopes that has been in the business of debunking fake news since last 20 years and he told me that Fake News syndrome has been around since centuries but with social media, Attention Economy has grabbed the attention since it is all about CTR’s.
Your comments on the entrepreneurial rise in India, how do you compare the startup culture here vis-a-vis Silicon Valley?
The secret to success of Silicon Valley has been the access to the brightest minds that come from some of the best universities in America. In India also the emphasis has been on education especially IIT’s that have been the pioneers and many of the entrepreneurs are from IIT’s.
Impact of Blogging, YouTube and other mediums on traditional journalism?
Video has become the new killer feature especially with the advent of YouTube and Facebook Live. Many media companies including BuzzFeed are investing heavily on Video Content and video is what CNN has been doing since many years!
The solution to responsible content [or journalism] is not regulation but education via media literacy programs for consumers so that they can identify fake news and prevent sharing of fake news.
There is a highly recommended course Making sense of the news that every digitally literate person should take up in order to make sense of what we heard or read. Prevention of spreading of fake news is a joint responsibility of the media consumers, media houses, journalists, etc. and this is very important for the rising Social Media generation.
Your views on initiatives like Startup India, Digital India, etc. and it’s impact on the nation
Couple of weeks back when Apple CEO Tim Cook was in India he made it clear that India is where the action is taking place. Overall there are lot of opportunities, especially in Manufacturing in India. There is lot of excitement about India even though there might be a decline of the number of H1B visa holders [due to the bill passed by the Trump Administration]. H1B is always in demand since there is lack of skilled engineering talent in the USA and hence it requires engineers from countries like India. Decline of H1B visa holders might work in India’s favor as it could result into Return to India dream/Reverse brain drain 🙂
How serious is cyber security in today’s changing era ?
Some people can argue that cyber-security swayed the US elections, looking at the allegations of Russian Hacking, Wikileaks, etc. There is a lot to be lost in case of political security. We only hope that the world leaders and the policy makers are digitally literate. World leaders should be digitally savvy enough to understand the dangers posed by Cyber-security threats.
Enough has not been done in the awareness about cyber-security and there needs to be more discussions in organizations about Phishing, Digital & Cyber security, etc. Lot of work still needs to be done in strengthening the security of networks. The hindsight is that sometimes it is more about convenience and that which is the primary reason why most of us continue to use Google instead of Duck Duck Go, though we are aware that Google knows a lot about us. There is always a trade-off between right to privacy vs right to convenience. Unintended consequences of technology resulting in misuse & abuse of technology is the biggest threat to this evolving world of technology.
We thank Kristie Lu Stout for her time and hope that our readers enjoyed the interview…
It’s an opportunity not to be missed! Techstars, a US-based mentorship-driven startup accelerator, will be scouting for emerging innovative startups in the Internet of Things arena at the Internet of Things India 2017 expo to be held from 8~10 February 2017 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
The IoT India 2017 expo is co-located with South Asia’s largest ICT event-25th Convergence India 2017 expo. Techstars’ Internet of Things programme in partnership with PwC, Siemens, GE, Bosch, Verizon, and SAP sources tech companies from countries like Mexico, Germany, London to unlock their potential and accelerate their growth.
Techstars’ global ecosystem for entrepreneurs helps bring new technologies to the market across the world. It is also a venture capital fund with $265M AUM and over 750 accelerator companies to date. Selected companies will have the opportunity to participate in a three month long world class mentorship programme from the Techstars networks, the chance to pursue and fast-track partnerships within their partners, and up to $120k in funding.
Christopher Badaoui, who runs the programme with Managing Director and IoT Investor Jenny Fielding in New York City, will hold a workshop on IoT at the expo. He will talk about what it takes to get into the programme and what the future of IoT holds. He will also be meeting with ten of the most promising startups confronting some of the industry’s most challenging verticals such as manufacturing, warehousing and industrial.
The opportunities in IoT are limitless when technologies are sold to large corporations. Cost savings, data collection and analytics are the tools that will help us reshape the way the world works. I look forward to coming to India once again.
Showcasing some of the best technologies including video analytics, telecommunications, smart lighting, security, systems integration, M2M solutions, data science, cloud services, applications development and more under one roof, the IoT India 2017 expo will bring together leaders in the industry.
Badaoui, who is of British and Lebanese descent, has been in the industrial scene from the age of 16. Coming from a paint manufacturing background, and with a passion for tech, he has seen first hand how innovation is key for creating a more powerful infrastructure for the future.
Previously, he was responsible for business development at Forge, an on-demand platform for hourly labor. He has a background in growth and facilitating business development for startups and Fortune 500 companies.
He believes investing in IoT brings incredible opportunity, as well as incredible responsibility to all stakeholders. As consumers’ devices, homes, cars, cities, organisations, and lives become more and more connected, the safe use of their personal data is paramount.
To register for the program visit here, to view the Conference Program please visit here. The complete speaker list can be accessed here
About Internet of Things 2017 expo
The expo will showcase today’s disruptive technologies, and the evolutionary world of IoT. The range of products and solutions on display include wearables, video analytics, telecommunications, smart lighting, security, systems integration, M2M solutions, data science, cloud services and applications development, etc. This event includes the future of IoT in India, supporting the Smart Cities mission and implementation of the Digital India programme. For addition information please visit IOTIndiaExpo
DigitalOcean, a cloud platform focused on simplifying the complexities of infrastructure for software developers and businesses and Stockroom.io, India’s first curated platform for developers have partnered to launch Women Hack, an online coding challenge for women.
The women hack will consist of a series of challenging coding questions of various complexities. Participants are expected to solve these questions remotely in a given time frame. The top women developers who participate in the challenge will be featured and rewarded.
Women earn 57% of the country’s bachelor degrees and make up roughly half of the professional workforce, yet they represent less than 25% of science, technology and engineering employees. The time is long overdue to encourage more women to dream the possible dream. It’s not just about diversity at the workplace but also about encouraging and supporting more women to build amazing technology products.
Speaking about the partnership, Prabhakar Jayakumar, Country Manager, DigitalOcean said
We are happy to partner with Stockroom.io on the Women Hack initiative. We believe men and women are equally capable of being innovators in technology. In a progressive field like technology, events like these provide a good platform to foster innovation and we look forward to supporting women entrepreneurs and developers.
Though this is a small step together by Stockroom.io and DigitalOcean to celebrate women in technology, they plan to host women only coding challenges more frequently going forward.
The first women hack is scheduled to happen on January 7th 2017. Every participant of the challenge will receive free cloud credits from DigitalOcean and the winner will get some cool swag, additional cloud credits and a cash prize from DigitalOcean.
About DigitalOcean
Founded in 2011, DigitalOcean is a cloud platform that is simplifying the complexities of infrastructure for software developers. DigitalOcean has become the second largest and fastest growing cloud computing platform in the total number of public facing apps and websites, according to Netcraft.com. The company has raised $123 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Access Industries, IA Ventures, CrunchFund, and Techstars. The company is headquartered in New York City with data center regions throughout the world, including one in Bangalore (India). For more information, please visit DigitalOcean
Carnegie India, a public policy think tank is organizing its first Global Technology Summit in India on the 6th and 7th of December in Bengaluru. The summit is supported by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs apart from a host of Indian and foreign technology companies.
The two-day summit will see industry leaders, entrepreneurs, technologists, academics and policy makers from across the world getting together to discuss global technology trends, their impact on job creation, and finding the right balance between promoting innovation and effective regulation.
Speaking about the summit, Dr C Raja Mohan, Director of Carnegie India said
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has an instinctive sense for the unfolding technological transformation. But to turn his multiple initiatives-from demonetization to digital India-into effective national strategy, he needs a more intensive and sustained conversation with technology hubs like Bengaluru that are generating new possibilities for India’s transformation. Carnegie India’s Global Technology Summit is a step in that direction which will help to diffuse knowledge and develop new ideas by facilitating meaningful conversation between innovators, academia, regulatory bodies and governments.
Carnegie India visualizes the Summit as an initial effort to kick start its technology and policy initiative – one that explores perspectives from various stakeholders and provides research guidance on technology and regulation. We also aim to build conversation around the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, internet-of-things, block-chain, and other evolving technologies, so that governments and policy makers can plan ahead rather than play catch up. It is critical for the government to structure policies that will accelerate the pace of economic development through technological adoption. The Global Technology Summit is a first step in this direction.
The Summit will see technologists and technology regulators from all around the globe, including Bibop Gresta of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Ruslan Yunusov of the Russian Quantum Centre, Mark Skidmore who spearheaded drone regulations during his stint at the Australian Civil Aviation Authority, and Sopnendu Mohanty who drives fintech regulation in Singapore’s Monetary Authority. Providing perspective on India’s tryst with technology will be RS Sharma, TRAI Chairperson; S Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary; KT Rama Rao, IT Minister, State of Telangana; RV Deshpande, Minister for Industries, State of Karnataka; and Bibek Debroy, Member, NITI Aayog. The Minister of Science & Technology of Israel Mr. Ofir Akunis will be giving a special address while industry partners such as Intel, Ola, Volvo, Flipkart, Target and Dell EMC will share their perspectives through some of their senior leadership.
About Carnegie India
Carnegie India is a public policy think tank organization which was launched in April of 2016. It is the sixth international center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC. The center’s research and programmatic focus includes the political & economic reforms in India, public policy, foreign and security policy, and the role of innovation and technology in India’s internal transformation and international relations.
Carnegie India aims to work with various stakeholders in the private and public sector and undertake research to come up with new policy ideas and recommendations. The aim is to add to the pool of research and thinking in order to aid better policy decisions aligned to make India a compelling force in the world economic and political sphere. For more information, please visit Carnegie India
Accenture, in partnership with Yahoo, announced the winners of the fifth season of #Innovation Jockeys, the hunt for India’S most ‘Innovative Minds’. This year’s Innovation Jockeys contest was focused on finding the most promising technology innovations in three categories – detecting fraud and preventing business malpractice, creating an inclusive digital India, and empowering women – which could help drive a positive change in society.
The contest was open to students pursuing undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate courses in India. The intense competition received 3,600 idea submissions from 800 campuses across India, of which the top 16 entries were evaluated in the Grand Finale round.
Accenture also conducted a fast-track selection process for eligible students at the Grand Finale round. Students selected from this process will shortly receive offers to join the Accenture workforce in India.
The Grand Prize was awarded to the team Devoted Dudes from students of BITS Pilani. The students developed an SMS-based mobile biometric authentication system to help people in rural areas securely authenticate the services offered to them by micro-finance institutions, addressing problems such as forgery and fraud, and overcoming barriers such as limited internet connectivity in rural India.
Grand Prize Winners of Accenture Innovations Jockeys Season 5, Team ‘Devoted Dudes’ from BITS Pilani felicitated by (L) Mohan Sekhar, Senior Managing Director, Technology — Delivery Centers for Technology in India, Accenture and (R) Raghavan Iyer, Managing Director, Technology Delivery and Innovation Council lead for Accenture in India. The team won the Grand Prize for their idea SMS-based Mobile Biometric Authentication System.
The award for the Innovation to detect fraud and prevent business malpractice category was given to the team IAFC from IIT Kharagpur, for their idea Crowdsourced Corruption Database with a layer of Artificial Intelligence. The idea aims to provide an open platform for sharing cases of corruptions through crowd-sourcing, and quickly predict, prevent and solve such cases through Artificial Intelligence. The idea takes crowd-sourced data as input, processes it and provides structured information as output to fight the reported case of fraud/corruption.
The award for the Innovation to create a digital India category, was given to the team AirPure from IIIT-Delhi. The team devised AirPure as a revolutionary surveillance system that monitors indoor and outdoor pollution levels. Their mobile application offers a personalized health risk assessment based on data around the user’s health, gender and age. AirPure will also provide valuable data for research to help the government form informed policies to reduce air pollution levels.
The award for the Innovation to empower women category, was given to ‘Wayne Enterprises’ from CUSAT, Kochi for their idea ‘NeuroBuds’. NeuroBuds is a wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) device that acts as an interface between a user’s brain and a smartphone, and automatically detects panic in the user by analyzing brain wave data patterns and triggering an SOS call. It provides an automated and faster response time, replacing the need to manually trigger an SOS button.
The Jury’s Choice award was presented to the team Eyeluminati from students of Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad. The team’s idea ‘Griwaditi’ is an automated, non-invasive and easily accessible screening tool for Cervical Cancer. Griwaditi is a point-of-care portable imaging device which uses advanced optical techniques to produce high resolution magnified images of the cervix. It has a unique cervical cancer lesion detection algorithm to quickly screen cervical cancer. The remote diagnostic application allows images to be shared for consultation with experts around the world via a cloud-based tele-oncology platform.
The Employees’ Choice award was given to the team Warrior War, from Dronacharya College of Engineering, Delhi, for the idea Smart Farming System. This idea helps farmers who lack adequate knowledge in agriculture save water and increase crop-production by automating and digitizing farming techniques. It does this by using different sensors and techniques embedded in the application.
Members of the Grand Prize winning team each received an Apple MacBook Pro and an opportunity to visit either the Accenture Technology Labs (in Dublin or in Silicon Valley, California), or visit the Accenture Internet of Things (IoT) Center of Excellence in Singapore. Prizes for the category winners included Apple Watch, Bose SoundLink BT Speaker and Amazon e-vouchers. Participants in the Grand Finale round were assessed by a seven-member Jury panel
The entire awards ceremony was also live tweeted using #InnovationJockeys for all parents, college team mates and other contestants. For more information, please visit InnovationJockeys
