In an innovation nation

Technology and innovation are at the heart of transforming India. A notable feature of this landscape is that the focus is not restricted to any single sector or group.

India has certain inherent strengths that support a vibrant startup culture. First, robust economic growth and a demographic dividend have created a large domestic consumer base with rising purchasing power. Second, a large number of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) graduates are eager to take part in India’s technology revolution.

Third, many entrepreneurs are keen to address the opportunities and challenges that India offers. GoI, too, has focused on easing the business environment for startups, removing regulatory barriers for MSMEs, and building infrastructural platforms to facilitate technology solutions. In this environment, more than $40 billion has poured into the Indian startup ecosystem since 2014. The high level of investment emphasises global and domestic investors’ confidence.

Take the financial services sector. The development of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) — a real-time payment system that works across banks — has been a game-changer. Together with initiatives like RuPay to support electronic payments, it has democratised access to finance for a large section of India’s population.

UPI, launched initially with 21 banks onboard, today has 114 banks on the platform. It has crossed 400 million transactions in volume as of September 2018. In addition to enabling domestic startups to build payments solutions for India, it has incentivised large global technology companies such as Google, Amazon and Samsung to jump head first into the Indian payments markets.

Other components of the financial services ecosystem have also bloomed. For example, technology-powered credit solutions have emerged as one of the most well-funded and rapidly growing segments in fintech, helping MSMEs realise their business potential.

Healthcare faces the challenges of access, affordability and lack of quality practitioners and hospitals. Technology can help address these issues to a critical extent. SigTuple is addressing the issue of access through intelligent screening solutions aiding in quick diagnosis. It has developed a low-cost system for performing basic screening and advanced diagnosis of blood samples, x-rays and retinal scans. SigTuple’s AI algorithms can analyse patient samples, send them to a pathologist for review and return final results to the point-of-care within five minutes.

Tricog, another startup, uses AI for real-time cardiac diagnosis. Through its cloud-based electrocardiogram (ECG) machines installed at health centres, Tricog helps doctors detect heart complications faster than conventional methods.

Within education, firms are using technology to address the lack of quality teachers, access to infrastructure as well as diverse pedagogical needs. For example, Embibe, which uses advanced AI for personalised learning platform, is disrupting the education sector by improving learning outcomes at the individual student level.

Embibe’s ‘relative quartile jump’ methodology works on students’ behaviour traits and sets goals for improving behaviour. Using a smart test generation system combined with intelligent content ingestion, the platform generates learning paths and curves to improve students’ learning and scoring capability.

Home-grown innovation has the potential to help India be a global leader. For example, a team from IIT-Madras has developed an indigenous microprocessor, Shakti, based on Risc-V architecture. The microprocessor has the potential to alter the face of computing. Developed at the Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) laboratory at IIT-Madras, Risc-V can process commands faster and in fewer cycles than existing microprocessors. It can be a key catalyst in the Fourth Industrial Revolution by providing infrastructural support for AI, robotics, 3D printing, and augmented and virtual reality.

India’s agriculture sector is in imperative need of technology-enabled solutions. SatSure uses a combination of satellite and weather data and information captured through IoT devices and drones to provide answers on crop volume, crop health, yield and suggested harvesting dates. It recently developed an emergency flood portal for the Kerala floods and built models for crop damage due to Cyclone Titli in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh, for mid-season calamity crop insurance payments.

Another agri-tech company, Vasar Labs uses AI and IoT to develop water management and agriculture advisory services. It uses satellite-based, weather advisory and soil moisture data, and other IoT sensors, to predict the amount of water needed for normal yields, date of sowing advisory, pest and diseases forecast, and cop acreage estimates.

Haptik has built one of the world’s largest conversational AI platforms. It’s a 24×7 chat-based personal assistant. For instance, one can book a cab or flight tickets, recharge phones, pay utility bills or web check-in for a flight through the app. It now reaches over 100 million devices each month. The company has processed over a billion interactions till date and helps firms leverage the power of AI to automate critical business processes and improve overall customer experience.

Source: The Economic Times 26 Nov, 2018

Better People Analytics

“We have charts and graphs to back us up. So f*** off.” New hires in Google’s people analytics department began receiving a laptop sticker with that slogan a few years ago, when the group probably felt it needed to defend its work. Back then people analytics—using statistical insights from employee data to make talent management decisions—was still a provocative idea with plenty of skeptics who feared it might lead companies to reduce individuals to numbers. HR collected data on workers, but the notion that it could be actively mined to understand and manage them was novel—and suspect.

Today there’s no need for stickers. More than 70% of companies now say they consider people analytics to be a high priority. The field even has celebrated case studies, like Google’s Project Oxygen, which uncovered the practices of the tech giant’s best managers and then used them in coaching sessions to improve the work of low performers. Other examples, such as Dell’s experiments with increasing the success of its sales force, also point to the power of people analytics.

But hype, as it often does, has outpaced reality. The truth is, people analytics has made only modest progress over the past decade. A survey by Tata Consultancy Services found that just 5% of big-data investments go to HR, the group that typically manages people analytics. And a recent study by Deloitte showed that although people analytics has become mainstream, only 9% of companies believe they have a good understanding of which talent dimensions drive performance in their organizations.

Source: HBR Nov-Dec,2018

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Children's Day : A tribute to childhood

Children are like precious gems

Children are adorable. They are like divine gifts that parents get from the almighty. Their eyes are full of innocence. They smile when they receive love and admiration, they cry when it is their first day at school away from their parents, they giggle when they mingle with their buddies, and they signify nothing but the pure and faithful love. They truly symbolise god.

The values and disciplines learned as a child are responsible for the kind of adulthood one has. Thus childhood is special and should be celebrated. Children's Day is to remind all young and adults about children's right to enjoy their childhood without any boundaries and to be educated adult in the future. Children's Day is to revise the right methods of raising children.

Children's Day
Children's Day celebration is the tribute to childhood. Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future. We cannot hide the fact that many children in India are not getting basic privileges like education. Many children are earning money instead of playing with toys. The true essence of children's day is to understand the significance of childhood in our lives.

Children's Day is celebrated on 14 November, on the birthday of the first Prime Minister of independent India, who was fondly called Chacha Nehru (Uncle Nehru) or Chachaji (Uncle), and who emphasized the importance of giving love and affection to children, to give him tribute. After the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in 27 May 1964, it was unanimously decided to celebrate his birthday as Bal Diwas or Children's Day in India.  The day emphasises on the importance of giving love, attention and affection to children. “The children of today will make the India of tomorrow. The way we bring them up will determine the future of the country,” said Nehru.

Prior to this, much like other countries, Children’s Day was celebrated on November 20, that is the Universal Children’s Day as declared by the United Nations.

Children's Day celebration

On this day, many schools organize fun activities for students such as games, competitions, museum or zoo visits etc. Additionally, government and non government organizations, NGOs, private bodies and others (like housing societies) conduct a variety of competitions as well as events for children to let them know about their rights and make them happy and cheerful. TV channels also air interesting programs for children on 14 November. Parents take part in this event very enthusiastically to make their children happy – they distribute sweets and/or greeting cards to their kids, go on picnics, and in general enjoy the day with their children.

If you have never failed you have never lived

We start this post with an video which shows an important aspect of life failure, Please go through the video...

Success and failure are two sides of the coin known as life If you have never failed you have never lived. Life is a learning process, we succeed and we fail, and we learn from our failures.

Napoleon Hill, one of America’s first and greatest writers on the topic of success, said:  “One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.”

The antidote?  Patience and perseverance … regardless of the obstacles in your path.

Lets analyse some other aspects of Failure

Failing at something does not mean you are a failure

Steve Jobs reflected on this when he said in 2005: “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”

On inventing the incandescent light bulb Thomas Edison said: “I didn’t fail 10,000 times, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Oprah was fired as anchor in Baltimore’s WJZ-TV because she was supposedly too emotionally invested in news stories, and therefore labeled “unfit for television news.” This led her to a role on a daytime TV show, People Are Talking.

Someone’s inability to see your brilliance is not failure

Did you know that at the age of 22, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star (a Missouri newspaper) because “he lacked creativity and imagination and had no good ideas.” It certainly took courage for Walt Disney to continue to pursue their dream after that prescription.

Thomas Edison was home schooled because his elementary school teacher told him he was “too stupid to learn anything.”

Rejection is not failure

Walt Disney was rejected over 300 times by bankers who thought his idea of Mickey Mouse was ridiculous.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was rejected by publishers about 27 times before Dr. Seuss was on the shelves.

It have been seen that the greatest achievements in history were all made possible by a pioneers, trailblazers, inventors, explorers, creatives that did not stop believing and had the courage to pursue their dreams against all odds.

They ultimately achieved great success by viewing defeat as a temporary state and responding with tenacity, hard work and an abiding faith in themselves.