Four Scions to Watch Out For

John Paul JoyExecutive Director, Joyalukkas
For John Paul Joy, inspiration was always right across the dinner table. In less than 25 years his father Joy Alukkas (No. 99) had built a $2 billion business, based in the UAE, which straddled jewellery, money exchange, air charter and malls. “My father would talk and discuss his ambition… I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him and that is what inspired me,” he says in an emailed reply to Forbes India. Even while pursuing his MBA from Manipal University, John would take every opportunity to visit retail outlets of Joyalukkas and make rounds of company offices.

The 28-year-old formally joined the family business in 2007 and is now the executive director overseeing the Middle East, Singapore and London operations of the group. He focuses on the group’s flagship jewellery business. “I’m currently working towards growing the jewellery retail chain from a 90-showroom chain to a 100-showroom chain by end of 2014. Today we have a customer base of over 10 million and my objective is to first retain this client base and then keep growing this to a much larger base.”

With father Joy Alukkas already announcing his intention to hang up his boots by 2015 and “hand over everything to my son”, John knows his task is cut out.

Rohan Murty Executive Assistant to Chairman, Infosys
It’s entirely possible that NR Narayana Murthy (No. 37) meant every word when he said he wanted his son Rohan Murty (30) to join the chairman’s office simply because he himself would become more effective. After all, he had taken on a task that many in the industry acknowledged was difficult to pull off: Make Infosys what it used to be—a fast-growth, high-margin business. The papers made references to Steve Jobs’s second coming at Apple.

Yet, Rohan Murty tagging along with him struck a discordant note, not least because the senior Murthy has always professed that founders’ children will never enter Infosys. What’s worse, there were attempts to make Rohan Infosys vice president in the following months —a move that rankled company watchers. It was a sad way to begin one’s career, especially for someone with Rohan’s academic background—a degree in computer science from Cornell, a PhD from Harvard, and a string of fellowships from Siebel Scholars to Harvard Society of Fellows. He is also involved with the Murty Classical Library of India, which funds translations of Indian classics to English—a reflection of his interest in philosophy, history and the classics.

After his PhD and his marriage to Lakshmi Venu, daughter of Mallika and Venu Srinivasan (of TVS and Amalgamations Group), Rohan started helping his father with his venture fund Catamaran. After Murthy’s move to Infosys, Rohan followed him. One Infosys executive describes him as “very thorough, very data-driven, and very likeable”.

While there are theories about whether and how his role within Infosys will expand, no one’s sure if he’ll continue in the firm once Murthy leaves. But one thing’s clear: Investors and analysts are likely to be more forgiving if Infosys regains a good measure of its past glory and performance.

Adar Poonawalla
Executive Director, Serum Institute of India
Cyrus Poonawalla (No. 16) is known as much for his expensive tastes—vintage cars, classic paintings, prize race horses—as for the wealth he made by selling low-priced vaccines across the world. His son Adar (32) inherited many of these traits: He loves fast cars and horses, and flies in a private jet.

In the business, though, Adar has shown much more aggression than his father. He led Serum Institute’s entry into new markets such as Russia, Argentina and Nigeria, restructured the company and stepped on the gas with revenues. While Cyrus was sentimental when it came to his employees—even when they made mistakes—Adar is more businesslike about firing people.

The youthful aggression apart, Adar has imbibed much from his father, with whom he has been working closely since he finished his university education from the UK. Cyrus says: “His style is fairly similar to mine as he joined me at an early age, when I was able to incorporate certain values and certain principles in him that we as a family-run business use every day. So far this has been very successful. For example, knowing what proposals to pursue and what to drop, being thorough and going into detail and not just scratching the surface—a CEO should be able to question any department on the spot and provide a solution.”

Rishabh Mariwala
Founder, Soap Opera N More
Children of business families, if they don’t land a job in their family-owned firms straight out of college, tend to work outside for a few years before staking their claim. Rishabh Mariwala’s journey took a slightly different course. After graduating from the Frank G Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University in New York, he joined his family business as operations manager of Kaya Skin Clinic, Marico’s venture into the services sector.

After three years with Kaya, in 2011, Rishabh decided to start something of his own—but not without the privileges of being the scion of a family that’s worth $1.45 billion. His business of hand crafted soaps was funded by his father, Harsh Mariwala (No. 44), and the products were designed by his mother Archana.

Yet, this move is not without precedents. In 2011, his elder sister moved out of Marico to pursue research in sociology. His father had started Marico in 1987 by spinning consumer products out of Bombay Oils. Rather than learning the trade in bits and pieces, this exposed Rishabh to the whole range—and gave him a sense of what it means to build something from scratch. One of the reasons he could do this with relative ease is because his father has been driving Marico towards becoming a family-owned but professionally-managed firm. Marico’s nine-member board has just two family members, and the individual businesses are run by professional CEOs.

NIIST, private firm to tie up for business

The National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), a constituent laboratory of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) here, is planning to enter into an agreement with CSIR-Tech, a private limited company, to commercialise the technologies developed by the institute in various areas.

 

Set up in 2011 to promote entrepreneurship among Indian scientists, the company facilitates technology transactions and creates spin-off business by forging partnerships with scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, business people, and investors.

 

Under the terms of the proposed agreement, CSIR-Tech will look at the existing technologies and Intellectual Property (IP) opportunities at CSIR-NIIST and identify business opportunities. The company will display the marketable knowhow on its database to attract potential partners and investors. CSIR-Tech will also assist in licensing the technologies and creating start-up enterprises. The company has concluded agreements with 12 CSIR laboratories and is working on eight more deeds.

 

Amitabh Shrivastava, CEO, CSIR-Tech, toldThe Hinduon Monday that the scheme permitted CSIR laboratories to invest knowledge base as equity in the enterprise or spin-off. He said it facilitated mobility of researchers between industry and the scientific establishment. “As one of the most productive laboratories in the CSIR network, NIIST offers the scope for identifying technologies that can be commercialised,” he said.

 

R.S. Praveen Raj, Scientist (IPR and Technology Transfer) at NIIST, said the agreement would let scientists at the institute have an equity stake in scientific enterprises or spin-offs. This, he said, would empower them to benefit from commercialisation of technologies developed by them. “The mechanism has effectively promoted scientific entrepreneurship in countries like the US,” he said.

He said the general memorandum of understanding between NIIST and CSIR-Tech would be signed soon. This, he added, would be followed up by separate agreements once the potential technologies were identified.

India stands to gain from GE's digital business ramp-up, says John G Rice

MUMBAI: Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, didn't come to India in the late 1980s to
sell outsourcing. He had jet engines and plastics on his mind. But meetings with  top Indian  government advisors and CEOs quickly convinced him about India's invaluable  status as a low-cost, offshore destination for outsourced services. A series of  decisions led to the creation of Gecis (today's Genpact) and the rest, as they say, is  history.

Today, GE is also unrecognisable from the company Jack Welch ran in the late 1980s. From an  industrial infrastructure powerhouse, it became a financial services giant in  the boom years of 2002-2008 and is now on the threshold of another big change, a  revolution in complex algorithms, sensors and communication that will make  machines smarter and trigger big productivity gains. GE still makes those big machines that require millions of dollars of investment such as the wind and gas
turbines  the jet engines that power the A380s and medical equipment which fight and  detect cancer. But in the coming years, these machines will become smarter, be  able to talk to each other and provide massive amounts of data for GE analysts  to pore through and detect possible problems and dangers.

The industrial internet, or big data, is GE's  next big bet and India, which benefitted immensely from a GE-led foray into  outsourcing in the late 1980s, may get a big part to play in this transformation.

 

John G Rice, vice chairman and president and CEO of GE global growth and  operations, says
complex software and sensors that improve a machine's  performance will be big  business for the company in the coming years.

 "GE is a software giant, we already are. It is embedded in our business, people don't notice it," Rice
says. "The opportunity this unlocks is enormous. Because in the past we were just squeezing productivity out of an engine, such as lower noise, higher fuel efficiency etc. Now, that is certainly very valuable but a relatively small piece of the whole system. Now, we are starting  to get into the rest of the system. Think about the downtime on a big pipeline if one compressor goes down."

So, what is industrial internet, or the internet of all things? And why is it so important for GE? Every year GE produces jet engines, gas turbines and other industrial equipment that find a  place in many infrastructure . GE wind turbines power windmills and GE built locomotives ferry goods on
railtracks around the world.GE has also developed software and sensors  that monitor their performance on a real time basis. Mountains of data stream are streamed from these machines every day and it helps GE analysts and managers  track performance, predict problems and suggest solutions.

"For 15 years, we have been developing sensors and tech to monitor equipment performance
in situ," says Rice. We have 250 sensors in gas turbine streaming data back, we monitor 1,800 around
the world every day. We are understanding every vibration, heat, and we can see an incipient failure or problem before people on the ground can see it. That's all software."

For example, GE is a big producer of jet engines. Tracking its performance can help engineers understand potential problems and vulnerabilities and suggest solutions before something catastrophic happens. "I see a,b, c, d and e that means f is going to happen. You have to stop this machine, and go do something before f happens."

But predicting itself will only get you thus far. GE wants to go beyond that and suggest recovery solutions. For instance, how do you get a replace ,how do you get a replacement aircraft quickly enough if one has to be grounded due to an engine inspection. It is soon going to introduce an application for the aviation industry that will check air traffic patterns, weather and wind patterns and suggest the amount of fuel that should be used in an aircraft.

"Over the years, we have created a company of almost 10,000 software engineers. If you look at the world software companies, we would be in the top 20 in terms of size," ..

So what is in it for India? Rice says India's software engineers are already  working on many of the complex algorithms used to transmit and analyse data. GE could increase its investment in R&D facilities and hire more software engineers as demand grows for its digital business.

"In terms of software engineers, India has to be one of the top five places, globally. We already do some of the work in Bangalore where we have a huge research facility," Rice says.

GE has just invested about $200 million in a facility in Pune, which will combine manufacturing of all its business divisions under one roof. Since some businesses are not so big to have a standalone plant, this facility will provide space and skilled workforce. This model facility will soon be taken worldwide and adapted to other conditions.

The investment comes at a time when India's governance is being severely criticised for its slow pace of execution and failure in taking decisions. Rice says he won't single India out as most developing countries have similar problems. "You play the hand that you are dealt in a country like this. We want to move faster, but we are not going anywhere."

For India's software engineering community and start-ups that mine data, GE's digital business ramp-up could be a huge opportunity both in terms of employment and business deals.

 

A guerrilla attempt in film financing

Back in the 1980s, Malayali filmmaker John Abraham and his Odessa Collective team went around villages in Kerala asking for money to make a ‘people’s film’. They entertained villagers with music, street plays and skits. In return, thousands of people chipped in small sums of money, bought food for John and his team and took care of their stay.

 

The result was the 1986 cult film Amma Ariyaan. The film broke all conventions of film-making, distribution and exhibition. Made in the pre-internet era, it was the first crowd-funded South Indian movie.

 

Today, a group of creative people are in the process of making the first crowd-funded Malayalam movie with online contributions. “Oraalpokkam has no producer in the conventional sense,” Sanalkumar Sasidharan, who directs the film, told Business Line. “The money will come from people who are fascinated with our project and who trust us.” Oraalpokkam (meaning ‘as tall as a man’ in Malayalam; but Sanalkumar translates it as ‘six-feet high’) will be a 90-minute movie that will trace the travels and travails — internal and external — of one partner after a couple splits up.

 

Kazhcha Film Forum has tied up with Springr (www.springr.me), which is a ‘crowd-funding platform and community-building tool for creative projects and ideas’ for sourcing funds for the film. Springr promises to help creative people ‘access funding beyond official channels by talking directly to consumers, fans, peers and like-minded strangers.’ Those fascinated with the film idea can go to the Springr website and make a funding commitment. Those paying more than Rs 25,000 will have a unique way of redeeming their investment — they will get the internet rights of the film. They can screen the film and keep a half of the proceeds for themselves.

 

“In terms of funding, ours is a guerilla attempt,” Sanalkumar says. “Oraalpokkam will be a low-budget movie, with just Rs 35 lakh as the cost,” he said. “The creative people associated with the film will not take fees,” he said.

 

Crowd-funding (Wikipedia defines it as the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organisations) of movie-making is gradually picking up in India. Until recently, it confined itself to documentaries, mainly for public interest. Many environmental documentaries have been made with the help of this platform. However, because of their high cost and complex nature, feature films could not attract crowd-funds.

 

Chennai-based poet-activist Meena Kandasamy will don the female lead role in Oraalpokkam while actor and filmmaker Prakash Bare will be the male lead.

Indian entrepreneurs have potential to build next Google: Eric Schmidt

India’s entrepreneurial innovators have the potential to build the “next Google” if the country “plays its cards right” and ensures Internet access for millions of its citizens, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has said.

 

In an essay written for the book ‘Reimagining India: Unlocking The Potential of Asia’s Next Superpower’ edited by global consulting firm McKinsey, Schmidt dubbed India “an Internet laggard” saying he feels Internet in the country today is like where it was in America in about 1994 — four years before Google was even born.

 

He said India must increase its Internet penetration across towns and cities, a move that will have a positive impact on its economy and society.

The former Google CEO said he witnessed the creative potential of India’s people all around him in Silicon Valley where India-born entrepreneurs account for 40% of start-ups.

“Just think what will happen when India’s entrepreneurial innovators are able to create great global companies without leaving their country. They will change the world. Hundreds of large firms focused on the Internet will be founded and will succeed by focusing purely on Indian consumers, Indian taste, Indian style, Indian sports.”

 

“Can anyone of those companies ultimately become the next Google? Of course.” “That may not happen for quite a few years. But if India plays its cards right, we will soon see Indian engineers and small businesses tackling Indian problems first, then exporting the solutions that work best,” Schmidt said.

 

With a total population of 1.2 billion, India has over 600 million mobile-phone users but only about 150 million people regularly connect to the Internet.

 

In 2011, India’s Internet penetration rate was 11%, “far below” that of developed nations where penetration rates average 70%. India’s Internet penetration rate is less than a third of China’s penetration ratio of 38% and less than half of those in developing countries, which average 24%.

“By any reasonable definition, India is an Internet laggard... In spite of its well deserved reputation as one of the world’s leading IT and software development hubs, India is far from being the connected society many foreigners imagine,” Schmidt said.

 

The number of India’s broadband users, 20 million, is even smaller, Schmidt said however adding that India is on the cusp of a connectivity revolution.

“I believe India has the chance to leapfrog its current connectivity challenges, bring Internet access to a majority of its citizens — and even raise its penetration ratio to 60 or 70% within the next 5-10 years,” he said.

Perspective Plan aimed at putting sheen back on Kerala Development Model

Interview with K.M. Chandrasekhar, Vice-Chairman, Kerala Planning Board

Kerala Perspective Plan 2030, drafted by the State’s Planning Board, is aimed at attaining development parameters of high-income counties over a two-decade period. The board claims KPP 2030 represents a “move away from traditional planning processes to outcome-based strategic planning.”

The draft plan has been formulated in consultation with policy-makers, administrators, academicians, NGOs, civil society members, and public and private enterprises. Creation of a knowledge-based economy is claimed to be central to the plan. And, productively using the huge remittances sent in by Keralites overseas (over Rs 60,000 crores last year alone) is a huge challenge.

In an interview to Business Line, State Planning Board Vice-Chairman K.M. Chandrasekhar discusses the vision behind the plan. Excerpts:

What is the rationale behind the Kerala Perspective Plan?

Kerala’s achievements in terms of Human Development indicators such as education, health, and demographic features have been globally acknowledged. Kerala has undergone the first stage of economic transition from primary to non-primary sector. The second stage of structural transformation is characterised by intra-sectoral restructuring from low to high value added activities.

In 2010, Kerala’s per capita GSDP (gross State domestic product), in 2005 PPP dollars, was about $4763, which is equivalent to the lower middle-income category as per the World Bank classification. However, growth has not been accompanied by the structural transformations in terms of GSDP. The Kerala economy seems to be trapped in low value adding activities.

If Kerala continues on the business-as-usual path, the scenario for 2030 looks grim. A major growth challenge is to pull the economy out of the vicious cycle of low productivity, poor quality, high unemployment and social and environmental degradation to a virtuous circle of high-quality growth.

The challenge is to increase competitiveness and productivity by reforming the investment climate through infrastructure reforms. Kerala needs to reconsider its development strategy in order to gain considerable autonomy in growth and become a major player in the national and global economy.

The Kerala development model has already lost its sheen. How will the perspective plan bring back its glory?

The core idea is to carry forward the Kerala development model to position Kerala in the international market in the case of health and education (human capital). Necessarily, this will upgrade human capital to grow at that level, accelerating Kerala growth and benefiting its people.

Kerala’s healthcare system had until recently been known for its public-funded, low-cost hospitals and primary health centres. This has now largely been replaced by a high-cost private healthcare system. What is the plan going to do to strengthen the public system?

KPP 2030 specifically emphasises the role of public investment in the health sector. According to the Plan, public investment in health sector is the basic requirement for sustainable development. It is proposed in this document that public sector investment in the health sector must increase up to 5 per cent as a proportion of GSDP by 2030.

This target can be reached in a phased manner. In the current Five-Year Plan of 2012-17, the government can target to spend around 1-2 per cent of its GDP on healthcare. This can be increased to 2-3 per cent in 2017-21, to 3-4 per cent in 2022-26 and finally 4-5per cent in 2027-31.

‘Emigrants as development partners’ is a lofty ideal, but how can this be put into practice?

The Perspective Plan suggests special funds such as Infrastructure Development Fund, Kerala Fund etc to be formed by mobilising resources from Non-Resident Keralites. These funds will exclusively focus on developing infrastructure and institutions which will enable implementation of the KPP 2030. The strategies suggested in KPP 2030 will be converted into suitable projects at the stage of implementation in due course.

In a State where the LDF and UDF administrations alternate every five years, wouldn’t the continuity be lost as each has its own approach to development?

This is a Perspective Plan for the State. It will be linked with Five Year Plans and will be implemented for the progress of the State. The fact that it is being put up for public comment is in itself indicative of the government’s desire to build a consensus on the board future development strategy.

What makes Israel with just eight million people, an innovation hub

The presence of thousands of startups, and more engineers per capita than anywhere else in the world, makes Israel a natural hub for innovation.

Best known for defence- and - military-inspired technologies, entrepreneurs across the nation are now focussed on building the next generation of healthcare applications. Helped by government support, societal acceptance and the presence of large numbers of multinationals eager to buy innovative technology from startups, Israeli companies are building a wide range of products and services.

Using artificial intelligence and digital technology, they are creating applications for diagnostics, tools for the visually, physically and mentally challenged as well as products that can improve farm output. "Many visually disabled people are old people who don't care about smartphones," said Yonatan Wexler, vice president for research and development at OrCam, a startup launched in 2010 by Amnon Shashua, a computer science professor at Hebrew University.

Using technology developed by Shashua, Wexler and another faculty member, Shai Shalev-Shwartz, they have created a device that can be clipped onto spectacles, making it possible for a blind person to read, find an item, catch a bus or cross the road. "For us the issue of innovation is not a hobby. It is basically about who we are and what our economy is built on," said Avi Hasson, chief scientist at the ministry of economy. "This was a country selling oranges to the world and not high tech. We have now decided to build our economy around the knowledge industries." Currently half of all Israeli exports come from the technology industry.

So, what is Israel's "secret sauce" that has made it a global startup hub? Experts said the "bottom up" approach of the government to fund innovative projects is unique in the world of early-stage research and development funding. For India's nascent startup ecosystem, the Israeli experience offers several valuable lessons.

Israel's research and development expenditure account for approximately 5% of the country's $260 billion (Rs16 lakh crore) GDP, higher than any other western country. This excludes the spending on defence R&D. The office of the chief scientist has a budget of $450 million (Rs2,800 crore)annually and always co-invests along with the private sector. "We do not try to replace the private sector, but rather complement it; we like risky projects," said Hasson, who worked as general partner at Gemini Israel Funds.  Typical grants are in the range of $30,000 to $6 million (Rs18 lakh to Rs37 crore).

There are also around 300 multinational companies in the country which are a big part of the ecosystem. Many of them, including Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, General Motors and GE, have set up research and development facilities to use the local talent and come up with breakthroughs.

"You have 20-year-old kids here; their education is not to follow instructions, but to lead and solve problems," said Yossi Matias, managing director of Google's Israel R&D centre and a top computer scientist. In June, Google bought Israeli mapping startup Waze for over $1 billion (about Rs6,200 crore).

In 2012, M&A deals involving Israeli and Israel-related companies were valued at $9.74 billion (Rs60,700 crore), an 88% increase from $5.2 billion (Rs 32,000 crore) in 2011, according to Israel's IVC Research Center  database. Besides acquisitions, many of these multinationals provide space for entrepreneurs to meet and help them to bootstrap their ideas. In 2012, six of the 10 largest acquisitions involved venturebacked targets.

 

Per capita, Israel has attracted over twice as much venture capital investment as the United States and 30 times more than all the members of the European Union  combined. An example of Israel's farsightedness is the fact that it set up a seed fund called Yozma more than two decades ago. Today, there are about 70 active venture capital funds in Israel, of which 14 are international.

Around 575 Israeli high-tech companies raised $1.92 billion (Rs12,000 crore) in 2012, a 10 % decrease from 2011 levels, but up 52% from 2010, according to IVC. The country's emphasis on education is manifested in its 57 colleges and eight universities which over the last 10 years have produced six Nobel Prize winners. Israel has 135 engineers, scientists and PhDs per 10,000 people in the work force, the highest in the world.

"All Israeli kids know that their mother will tell them, 'After all that we've done for you, is asking for one Nobel Prize really too much?'," said Yossi Vardi a serial entrepreneur who is most famous for being the first investor in ICQ—the first internet-wide instant messaging system which AOL acquired in 1998 for $400 million (Rs2,500 crore).

Seventy-one-year-old Vardi, who is regarded as the godfather of Israel's hi-tech industry is of the view that Israel's success as an innovation hub is not about technology alone. "This is a cultural phenomenon and the value system that kids learn," said Vardi, who has invested in 80 startups, of which 27 have failed. "In a society which does not tolerate failure, entrepreneurship cannot thrive there," said Vardi. "In Israel, if you have not failed, that is a sign of shame," said Amir Shevat, Google's developer relations program manager in Israel.

Community spaces are also made available for startups. One public library in Tel Aviv has been converted into a coworking space for startups. Instead of hotels, an old train station on the Jaffa-Jerusalem line has been restored by the municipality and hosts startup conferences.

Startups constantly network with top entrepreneurs, industry leaders and investors at coffee shops for advice, money and mentorship. "They are so open that you can just walk up to them and talk. I find this missing back at home," said Ronak Kumar Samantray cofounder of Hyderabad-based technology startup NowFloats, one of the finalists at a Tel Aviv startup competition.

"It is useful to be part of community and learn from the mistakes of other entrepreneurs," said Avner Warner, director of global economic development at Tel Aviv Municipality. "As a society, we respect people who work in a startup."

 

Hot startup Windward: The Tel Aviv way of keeping sea pirates at bay

Whenever a ship sails in any ocean of the world, Windward, a Tel Aviv-based startup, detects its location, speed and behaviour. In an office tucked away in a lane opposite the city's Great Synagogue, Windward looks at global vessel traffic drawn from commercial satellites as well as maritime data. It then automatically alerts its customers, mostly government authorities across the world, about illegal fishing or oil vessels and ships that engage in smuggling and other suspicious behaviour.

"Satellites until five years ago were like magic, only the United States had them," said Ami Daniel, 29-year-old cofounder and chief executive of Windward. "Satellite data stopped being the secret sauce of the government and started being commercialised, only recently."

A former naval officer, Daniel cofounded the company in 2010 along with colleague Matan Peled. MarInt, Windward's proprietary satellite-based maritime analytics system, maps global maritime activity based on data collected from various sources, including commercial satellites, open-source data bases and other sensors.

Fishing fleets annually lose $50 billion (about Rs3.1 lakh crore) due to depleted stocks, poor fishery management and little supervision.

The cumulative global loss of wealth over the past three decades is estimated at $2.2 trillion, according to World Bak report. Windward's technology said Daniel "allows its customers to focus on the small number of suspicious vessels, while ignoring the large number of wellbehaved vessels".

The startup, which has a team of 12, has received a total of $7 million (about Rs43 crore) in venture funding, including the latest round by venture capital firm Aleph announced this week. "In Windward, we see bright, blue ocean markets," said Eden Shochat, a general partner at Aleph.

Daniel believes the company's innovative technology will be able to provide a clear indication of crude oil origins and prevent oil thefts as well as help in search and rescue missions. Last December, it found a Russian fishing vessel drifting in the Sea of Japan, reportedly due to engine failure. The Japanese coast guard commenced a search and rescue mission and towed it to safety.

Windward processes over two million ship transmissions daily. The company expects to close this year with "multiple millions of US dollars in revenues" and post profits as well.