Information Technology (IT & Software) – Page 3

Bengaluru set to add 46 new unicorns in next few years: Hurun India

These 46 soon to be unicorns come with a cumulative valuation of $18.4 billion

Bengaluru, the startup capital of India and the world’s third largest startup ecosystem after the U.S and China, is likely to witness the emergence of 46 new unicorns in the next two to four years, as per predictions made by Hurun Research Institute on Wednesday.

Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2022 said 122 new unicorns would come up in the country in the next two to four years and Bengaluru alone would add 46 of these soonicorns to its existing tally of 33.

The pack of 46 soon to be unicorns that comes with a cumulative valuation of $18.4 billion would be led by city-based Ninjacart, a fresh produce supply chain firm, according to the report.

The long list of city’s soonicorns also include startup Juspay that got noticed with a Softbank-led $60 million fundraising round. Founded by Vimal and Ramanathan, the fintech currently supports BHIM App, an Indian mobile payment app developed by the National Payments Corporation of India, based on the Unified Payments Interface. The firm has been building foundational infrastructure by unifying and enhancing hundreds of diverse payments options.

Bengaluru is key driver in GST backend operations

E-way bill and e-invoice is driven from the city by a small team from National Informatics Centre

As the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime is set to complete five years in a few days, Bengaluru has contributed to its nationwide operation. The backend operations for the crucial e-way bill, mandatory to move goods across the country, and the e-invoice that helps in input credit, is driven from the city by a small team from the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

In the four years since its inception, the country has seen over 273 crore e-way bills being generated to move goods and over 163 crore e-invoices having been generated. While the transition from the Value Added Tax (VAT) regime to GST regime took place on July 1, 2017, the e-way bill was introduced on April 1, 2018, while the e-invoice was introduced in October 2020. In fact, the e-Sugam launched by the Karnataka Commercial Tax in 2010 morphed into the e-way bill under the nation-wide GST regime. In the VAT regime, Karnataka was generating 1.2 lakh e-way bills a day.

36% increase

Since its introduction in 2018 April, the number of e-way bills generated daily has seen a 36% increase from about 22 lakh a day to 30 lakh a day. If 55.8 crore e-way bills were generated in 2018-2019, it has shot up to 77.4 crore in 2021-2022.

In case of e-invoice, the numbers have shot up by 92% since October 2020 when 26 lakh invoices were generated daily to about 50 lakh invoices daily now. If 4.95 crore e-invoices were generated in October 2020, it has reached 12.18 crore in April 2022. The numbers have also increased as the e-invoice mandate has been extended to those reporting above ₹500 crore turnover annually when the e-invoice was introduced in October 2020 to include those reporting turnover of over ₹20 crore in April 2022.

The NIC, sources in Commercial Tax Department said, has been managing the entire operations from Bengaluru with a staff of around 50. Sources also said, “It is heartening that the 24/7 software and hardware support from Bengaluru has been such that there has been no incident of the software glitch where an e-way bill generation has been delayed over the past four years.”

Bengaluru ranks 5th on global stage for tech venture capital investment

Tech firms have attracted VC funds worth $7.5 billion in the first half of 2022

Bengaluru has emerged as the top fifth city on the global stage for venture capital investment in tech startups in 2022, behind Bay Area (San Francisco), New York, London and Greater Boston, as per Global Startup Genome Report.

Tech firms in Bengaluru have attracted VC funds worth $7.5 billion in the first half of 2022, considerably higher than the previous record of$5.2 billion in the corresponding period last year, the report said.

C.N. Ashwath Narayan, Minister for IT/BT, told The Hindu that “Our city is a hub of the world’s top talent and our startups are very promising and growth-centric. This gives global investors confidence to invest in our companies in Bengaluru. Therefore VC and PE investment to city ventures are on the rise.’’

“Silicon Valley of India now attracts more investment than other global hubs like Singapore, Paris and Berlin and is trailing closer behind Greater Boston and New York,’‘ the report further said.

The Bay Area attracted $44.5 billion, New York $15.4 billion, London $ 11.3 billion and Greater Boston $8.9 billion.

The report highlighted Bengaluru’s formidable status with an ecosystem value of $105 billion, higher than Singapore ($89 billion) and Tokyo ($62 billion). Bengaluru’s massive growth in 2022 was largely attributed to greater access to funding with major funding rounds in 2022 forscale-up tech companies, including $55.7 million Series D for Ather Energy and Swiggy’s $700 million round in January.

Courier aggregator Coreyo set to expand services

Coreyo, a two-year-old Bengaluru-based aggregator of courier companies, is set to expand its operations by integrating more service providers, and introduce an option for customers to insure their articles.

Currently, there are four service providers — Delhivery, Shadowfax, Ecom Express, and Criticalog. Six more, including Amazon Shipping and India Post, are in the process of being integrated, said Vince M. Jose, co-founder and director of Coreyo. On the hyperlocal side Dunzo has been integrated.

“Coreyo is a pure-play courier aggregator platform with an end-user focus where people and enterprises get easy access to the right choice of services with instant enablement. It makes courier booking simple, less expensive, and fast; as easy as booking a cab,” said Mr. Jose.

In order to send a parcel, a customer has to go to www.coreyo.com, and key in the pin codes of the origin and destination of the parcel shipment. The dimensions and the weight of the parcel have to be filled in. The user is then taken to a page that lists the available service providers, along with the price. The customer can choose the provider and make the payment.

Ayushman Bharat digital tech centre comes to Bengaluru

The National Health Authority (NHA) will set up its Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) tech centre at Arogya Soudha in Bengaluru, which is expected to give a significant push to the mission’s progress in Karnataka that has been lagging so far.

Bengaluru is being chosen to house the ABDM tech centre as it is the digital hub with most of its service providers from the city.

Dr R S Sharma, Chief Executive Officer of NHA, which commenced the ABDM in September 2021, said at the NHA-NASSCOM Conclave 2022 on Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission – Revolutionizing Digital Health, on Monday that Karnataka is ranked 13th in India in the number of Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHAs).

Andhra Pradesh is leading with 2.99 crore ABHAs among the all-India figure of 22.33 crore, while Karnataka has only 64,42,081 ABDM accounts.

The highest number of accounts created are in COWIN followed by Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY).

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Infosys Foundation launches 4 mobile medical labs

Laboratories to provide cost effective diagnostic solutions and curb the spread of communicable diseases primarily among the rural population of Karnataka

Infosys Foundation, the CSR arm of Infosys, has launched four mobile laboratories to provide cost-effective diagnostic solutions and curb the spread of communicable diseases primarily among the rural population of Karnataka.

The Infosys Foundation had signed an MoU with the Rotary Bangalore Southwest Charitable Trust (Rotary Trust), to support with a grant of ₹4 crore to make these mobile medical laboratories, called ‘Lab Built on Wheels’, said a media release.

The Rotary Trust has collaborated with Saicorp Health Technologies (SHTPL) who have set up these labs in accordance with BSL level 2 safety standards. Each mobile lab will be equipped with a medical unit, pharmacy, and a minimal invasive emergency care unit, as per the statement.

Krish Shankar, Executive Vice-President, Group HR Head, Infosys & Trustee, Infosys Foundation said, “This is part of a continuous effort by Infosys Foundation to ensure that the underprivileged people in India have affordable, on-time access to clean, hygienic, and appropriate medical treatment and healthcare.’‘

These mobile laboratories were handed over to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai by representatives of the Infosys Foundation and the Rotary Trust here on Monday.

Smadja & Smadja launches first of its kind “India Global Innovation Connect (IGIC)” in Karnataka (June 02, 03)

Dr. Ashwath Narayan, Minister for Higher Education, IT & BT, Science & Technology, Skill Development, Govt of Karnataka, Mr N.R. Narayana Murthy to attend the inaugural meeting of the India Global Innovation Connect
The annual international event to showcase Bengaluru’s growth as the new global innovation hub

Bangalore : In a bid to promote India’s start-up ecosystem, Smadja & Smadja, a strategic advisory firm founded by the former Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, is organising the inaugural edition of the India Global Innovation Connect (IGIC) in a strategic partnership with Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) and the support of founding sponsors Catamaran Ventures and Tata Digital, in Bengaluru at Hotel Conrad on June 2 and 3, 2022.

As a unique global annual event deemed as the first of its kind in India, IGIC is emblematic of India’s emergence as a global innovation and entrepreneurial hub. The inaugural meeting will host more than 80 speakers from India and countries like Singapore, Israel, Switzerland, the US, Japan, Korea, and Germany. A by-invitation-only event, the two day conference will have 22 sessions with more than 40 international speakers deliberating over themes relevant to entrepreneurs, innovators, and top venture capitalists.

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US IT firm Pure Storage opens new India R&D centre

US-based IT firm Pure Storage on Thursday inaugurated its new Research and Development Centre in Bengaluru that will focus on innovations that transform storage and data management.

State Minister of IT and Skill Development, Dr CN Ashwath Narayan, said that Pure Storage is providing an opportunity for Indian talent to contribute to technologies that are in demand around the world.

“With data continuing to grow in volume and complexity, the skills to manage, protect and move it around in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, will become even more in demand and it’s important for Karnataka to be involved in this movement,” he said during the inauguration of the R&D centre.

A recent study by Pure Storage with management consulting firm Zinnov indicated that there are over 700,000 professionals in India with the relevant data management skills.

This is around 14 per cent of the total technology workforce in the country and is poised to grow further.

** IISc develops device to improve data encryption

‘This will provide better protection for digital data such as credit card details, passwords etc.’

A team at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has developed a true random number generator (TRNG), which, the team says, can improve data encryption and provide improved security for sensitive digital data such as credit card details, passwords and other personal information. The study describing the device has been published in the journal ACS Nano.

“Almost everything we do on the internet is encrypted for security. The strength of this encryption depends on the quality of random number generation,” explained Nithin Abraham, a PhD student who is a part of a team led by Kausik Majumdar, Associate Professor at ECE, which has developed the device.

** UK-based IoA offers to train 1,000 engineering college students in analytics and data sciences

The Institute of Analytics (IoA), an UK-based not-for-profit organisation for analytics and data science professionals, has come forward to offer a programme for 1,000 engineering graduates from government colleges of Karnataka. This is in addition to a fully-funded data literacy programme for schoolchildren.

Clare Walsh FIoA – Head of Education, and Rosie Sweeney, Head of Memberships from IoA, met C.N. Ashwath Narayan, Minister for Higher Education, on the sidelines of the World Education Forum summit in London and made such a proposal.

According to a communique from the Minister’s office, they said that the programme for select engineering graduates will be undertaken in association with the International Skill Development Corporation (ISDC).

Dr. Clare has also proposed to provide IoA membership to 100 government employees working in the Department of Information Technology. In this regard, an exclusive programme on data literacy among the government employees will be executed to help them improve their analytics skills, she said.