Eight Indian start-ups to join Pitney Bowes accelerator programme

Pitney Bowes Inc an American technology solutions provider, said on Monday that eight Indian start-ups will be a part of its accelerator programme in India, which is part of software lobby body National Association of Software and Services Companies’ (Nasscom’s) “10,000 Start-ups” initiative launched in March 2013.

An accelerator programme is designed to help start-ups refine business ideas and reduce risks. Such programmes accelerate, or speed up, the development process of start-ups by providing a number of business support resources and services.

 

The Pitney Bowes programme, which was launched in May focuses on start-ups in the space of data analytics, location-based services and ecommerce management, such as Audianz Network Pvt Ltd—a location-based advertising platform; Heuristics Info Systems Pvt. Ltd—a GPS-based vehicle tracking system; Ideata Analytic Software Solutions Pvt ltd—a data intelligence provider; and Teritree Technologies Pvt Ltd—a customer experience management provider.

 

The eight start-ups will have access to Pitney Bowes’ software, application programming interfaces (APIs), or tools for building software applications, and data for the duration of the programme. They will also receive training, technical guidance and mentoring from a team of engineering and innovation leaders of Pitney Bowes and from software industry experts.

 

“Each of these companies is working on innovative ideas and solutions that complement our own technology solutions,” Manish Choudhary, vice-president, worldwide engineering, for Pitney Bowes Inc. said in a statement on Monday.

 

Other than Pitney Bowes, Indian start-ups are also getting a leg up from firms like GSF Accelerator, a technology accelerator based out of Bangalore that launched a global incubation programme that started in April this year.

 

On Monday, Microsoft Ventures and Desphande Foundation, too, announced the launch of Sandbox Startups—a Hubli-based incubator to provide entrepreneurs of tier two and three cities with business services support and mentoring.

 

Last week, Mint reported that Bangalore-based software product lobby body, the Indian Software Products Industry Roundtable, or iSpirt, added 50 members to its core 30-member “Founders Circle”, taking its core membership to 80 companies.

 

The report added that the money raised will be used to scale up existing activities and fund newer ones, giving an additional fillip to the about 4,000 product start-ups in the country.

Why Startups Are Going To Change The World

It’s not like we don’t say this often enough, but startups – driven by ambitious, usually young founders with a great vision for the future – are going to be the main catalyst to change the world. Startups encapsulate the ideas of focus, cooperation and innovation, and these are traits that set th
But if you’re not convinced of that, here is an infographic from the team at Modis highlighting the various reasons why startups are destined to change the world in which they operate, as well as look at various startups that are likely to not only disrupt the industries they’re in but also help boost the economy:

Antibiotics in your chicken!

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) lab study found residues of antibiotics in 40 per cent of the samples of chicken that were tested.

Large-scale unregulated use of antibiotics in the poultry industry could be contributing to Indians developing resistance to antibiotics and falling prey to a host of otherwise curable ailments, according to the results of a new study released on Wednesday by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

 

In the biggest study done in India to test residues of antibiotics in chicken the CSE lab study found residues of antibiotics in 40 per cent of the samples of chicken that were tested.

Releasing the findings of the study which has been conducted by CSE’s Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML), Sunita Narain, director general of the Centre said: ``Antibiotics are no more restricted to humans nor limited to treating diseases. The poultry industry, for instance, uses antibiotics as a growth promoter. Chickens are fed antibiotics so that they gain weight and grow faster.”

 

The test results

PML tested 70 samples of chicken in Delhi and NCR: 36 samples were picked from Delhi, 12 from Noida, eight from Gurgaon and seven each from Faridabad and Ghaziabad. Three tissues — muscle, liver and kidney — were tested for the presence of six antibiotics widely used in poultry: oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline and doxycycline (class tetracyclines); enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin (class fluoroquinolones) and neomycin, an aminoglycoside.

Residues of five of the six antibiotics were found in all the three tissues of the chicken samples. They were in the range of 3.37-131.75 μg/kg. Of the 40 per cent samples found tainted with antibiotic residues, 22.9 per cent contained residues of only one antibiotic while the remaining 17.1 per cent samples had residues of more than one antibiotic.

 

In one sample purchased from Gurgaon, a cocktail of three antibiotics — oxytetracycline, doxycycline and enrofloxacin — was found. This indicates rampant use of multiple antibiotics in the poultry industry.

 

CSE researchers point out that antibiotics are frequently pumped into chicken during its life cycle of 35-42 days: they are occasionally given as a drug to treat infections, regularly mixed with feed to promote growth and routinely administered to all birds for several days to prevent infections, even when there are no signs of it.

 

``Our study is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more antibiotics that are rampantly used that the lab has not tested,” added Mr. Bhushan.

 

Large-scale misuse and overuse of antibiotics in chicken is leading to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the chicken itself. These bacteria are then transmitted to humans through food or environment. Additionally, eating small doses of antibiotics through chicken can also lead to development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans.

 

To ascertain the linkage between overuse of antibiotics in poultry farms and antibiotic resistance in humans, CSE researchers reviewed 13 studies conducted by various government and private hospitals across the country between 2002 and 2013. They found that resistance was very high against ciprofloxacin, doxycycline and tetracyclines. These are the same antibiotics that were detected in the chicken samples.

 

The problem is compounded by the fact that many essential and important antibiotics for humans are being used by the poultry industry.

 

In India, there is growing evidence that resistance to fluoroquinolones such as ciprofloxacin is rapidly increasing. Treating fatal diseases like sepsis, pneumonia and tuberculosis (TB) with fluoroquinolones is becoming tough because microbes that cause these diseases are increasingly becoming resistant to fluoroquinolones.

 

The CSE study found two fluoroquinolone antibiotics — enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin — in 28.6 per cent of the chicken samples tested.

 

Worldwide governments are adopting regulations to control the use of antibiotics. But only those countries have shown signs of improvement that have taken stringent actions. EU, for instance, has banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that antibiotics that are critical for human use should not be used in animals.

CSE researchers point out that the poultry industry in India is growing at 10 per cent per annum. Poultry constitutes more than 50 per cent of all the meat consumed in India.

 

Noted Mr. Bhushan: ``India will have to adopt a comprehensive approach to tackle this problem. The biggest problem is the emergence of resistant bacteria in animals and its transmission through food and environment. Till the time we keep misusing antibiotics in animals, we will not be able to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance. For India, therefore, the priority should be to put systems in place to reduce the use of antibiotics in poultry and other food animals.

App to order Palakkadan Matta in Kerala

A traditional farm launches a mobile app that lets customers place orders for the rice.

 

A mobile app that lets one order Palakkadan Matta rice has been launched.

 

Tapping into the popularity of the rice variety, which has a distinct taste, among Malayalis, a traditional farm cultivating the Palakkadan Matta has launched the mobile application, making the rice accessible to gourmets anywhere in the country.

 

Daksh Farm in Palakkad, which started receiving orders for the Palakkadan Matta rice a few weeks ago through its website, has now gone for the mobile application to make the rice more popular and accessible.

 

People across the country can now download the farm app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.phonegap.bjp) and order the quantity of the rice they require.

 

It was only six years ago that the Palakkadan Matta got the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for being a rice variety with a distinct taste. Under the registry, there are 10 varieties of the Palakkadan Matta: Aryan, Aruvakkari, Chitteni, Chenkazhama, Chettadi, Thavalakanna, Eruppu, Poochamban, Vattan Jyothy, and Kunjukunj.

 

The Palakkadan Matta is described as a bold red rice with a unique taste because of the geographical area it is grown in and the peculiar weather there owing to the eastern wind. “The Daksh Farm was born out of our passion to protect the rich legacy of the Palakkadan Matta, which is stable and healthy. Owned and operated by our family with centuries of farming tradition, the farm was christened Daksh only recently. We are selling the whole grain brown rice through our website and app,” says Prabhal Mohandas, an Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode graduate and co-grower of the farm.

 

“The rice is produced 100 per cent organically. We treat the soil, air, and water as important resources, respecting the delicate balance of nature. We are also committed to being a catalyst for positive change in our kitchens and our environment,” he says. Apart from the whole grain Matta rice, the farm also distributes Matta rice powder, whole grain Matta rice flakes, and rice ‘frylets.’ Hay can also be ordered online.

 

“In whole grain Matta rice, the rice is not polished after removing the outer layer. All the nutrients remain in the unpolished rice, whereas you don’t find any of them in polished rice. By polishing, all the useful ingredients are lost, leaving only the carbohydrate,” he says. The farm has tied up with India Post to make the rice available across India.

Sin tax can help fund a dozen AIIMS

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan is pleased with the tobacco tax imposed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the recent Budget. Not just because young people may be forced to give up smoking as cigarettes have become prohibitively expensive, but also because the ‘sin tax’ could be used to fund hospitals.

 

Speaking toBusinessLine, Harsh Vardhan said that the money coming in from the tax could fund a dozen AIIMSs (All-India Institute of Medical Sciences), while pricing cigarettes beyond the reach of young people.

 

Jaitley had increased the excise duty on cigarettes by 11-72 per cent in the Budget. The Health Minister had been a leading voice in the run-up to this change, along with other experts, who had called for higher taxes on tobacco products.

 

The math

The increased tax on tobacco could bring in about Rs. 3,000 crore annually, says Vardhan. And that would mean Rs. 15,000 crore in the Government kitty after a full five-year term. Divide this by the cost of setting up one AIIMS, about Rs. 1,200 crore, and you could fund a dozen such institutes across the country, he says.

 

And as each institute saves the lives of millions of people, the tobacco tax becomes a tool, a two-pronged strategy, he adds.

 

Though happy with the hiked tax on cigarettes, a health expert points out thatbeediscontinue to escape the net. Taxing tobacco is the best way to kill consumption, but it needs to be done on all tobacco products to be effective, he added.

Smoking alone results in about a million deaths in India annually. And about 70 per cent of these deaths occur in the productive, 30-69 years age group.

Centre to expand India Inclusive Innovation Fund to $1 bn

The central government is looking at expanding its India Inclusive Innovation Fund aimed at promoting grass-root innovations to deliver modest social and economic returns, to $1 billion, according to Raghunath Mashelkar, chairman of National Innovation Foundation-India.

“The new government that has come in, has committed to increase the fund and, in fact, has made a provision towards this in the new Budget. It has progressed in completing the process and I hope that it will be implemented soon,” he told mediapersons on the sidelines of an event held in Hyderabad on Sunday.

At present, the India Inclusive Innovation Fund is restricted to Rs 500 crore. It invests in sectors like healthcare, water, energy and agriculture.

Earlier, delivering his keynote address at the LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), Mashelkar said the one word that he absolutely disliked was ‘Jugaad’ (a term applied to a creative or innovative idea providing a quick and alternative way of solving or fixing a problem).

“Jugaad has created a wrong image for India. It is about getting less from less. What we need is getting more for less, which is possible through affordable excellence,” he said.

LVPEI’s Innovation Centre-Srujana on Sunday inaugurated ReDx: Engineering the Eye workshop here. The centre was funded through the support of Cyient (formerly Infotech Enterprises Limited). About 100 engineering and design students from all across India will work on prototypes for their innovations at the week-long workshop.

Bangalore entrepreneur bags Rolex award with device to detect hearing problems in infants

Neeti Kailas, a Bangalore-based entrepreneur who runs a project to increase the screening of new-born babies for hearing problems, has been awarded the Rolex Award for Enterprise with four others. They were selected from a global pool of over 1,800.

 

Kailas, a National Institute of Design alumna, runs the Sohun Innovation Lab in Bangalore with her husband Nitin Sisodia, an engineer. The couple is set to continue clinical trials of a device they have developed to measure the auditory brainstem response of new-borns.

 

The device is currently at the prototype phase, and they plan to start marketing it in 2017. They expect to price it at around a fifth of the rate for devices already on the market.

 

User-friendly

The device is portable, battery-operated and non-invasive — all factors Kailas hopes will increase awareness of the need for an auditory test, as well as access to it.

 

She is hopeful these features will see it used even in areas with limited health-care resources and skilled health-care workers. The device also has an inbuilt algorithm to filter out ambient noise to ensure it is effective even in noisy places.

 

Kailas points out that even today there is little focus on hearing problems, which affect four-six of every 1,000 births in India.

 

“We need to get the message out there that if we can provide timely treatment, your child can learn to speak and lead a normal life,” she said in London, where the awards were announced.

The project has received support from the Department of Biotechnology, the All India Institute for Medical Sciences, as well as the Centre for Innovation in Global Health in the US, and Canada’s Grand Challenge.

 

Kailas hopes the device will be used in around 2 per cent of births in its first year of use, and rolled out widely thereafter, beyond large tertiary hospitals.

 

Adoption challenge

Expansion will be one of the project’s challenges given that over 50 per cent of births in India take place outside hospitals or other healthcare institutions. But Kailas hopes to build a network of paediatricians, healthcare workers and maternity homes. Even entrepreneurs who rent out the device will increase its reach.

 

The Rolex awards, instituted in 1976, recognise projects in areas ranging from applied technology and the environment to science and health with an award of 50,000 Swiss francs. Among last year’s winners was Sumit Dagar, also from the National Institute of Design, who developed a Braille smart-phone.

 

Diebedo Francis Kere, one of five jurors for the awards, said Kailas’ project had appealed on an emotional and practical level, not least for its ability to be used in other resource-stretched healthcare systems.

 

“The screening system she is developing will have an impact across the world.”

Free incubation by Kozhikode IT collective for startups

 The Calicut Forum for Information Technology (CafIT), a unique collective of 40 small software companies based in Kozhikode, is offering free incubation to startup entrepreneurs.

“Each of our members will take in two young entrepreneurs, mentor them for six months and provide them access to our ecosystem so that they can prove themselves,” Charles Thomas, President of CafIT, said. “This is part of our objective of promoting Kozhikode as a sought-after IT destination and to provide guidance to startups.”

MT Ramakrishnan, CEO of CafIT, said the select would-be entrepreneurs would be hand-held by veterans, would have access to ‘100 man years of collective expertise’ for funding opportunities, guidance to business basics and opportunity to attend industry events. Desk space for six months would be free.

 

CafIT, born in 2008, is a rare form of cooperation and mutual help in the cut-throat world of IT. Back then, a few young entrepreneurs got together to share their ideas, exchange notes, seek collective guidance and comfort each other in times of failures and setbacks.

“It was not a club, not a trade union, not an association, but just a collective of young professionals ready to help each other,” said Thomas, who runs Ontash India Technologies. Nasscom views the collective as a role model.

 

Common space

Six years later, 12 member enterprises are moving into a common 30,000 square feet space called ‘CafIT Square.’ Each of these companies would have independent office space, but there would be a lot of common areas, facilities and amenities for fostering the cooperation of the entrepreneurs, professionals and staff. The number is expected to go up to 20 in a year. Initially, the 12 companies would host two young startup entrepreneurs selected by a screening committee.

Ramakrishnan notes that the collective has helped members to develop business, source markets, handle the ticklish issue of dealing with government agencies at various levels, find export orders and technical help. “If I get a work offer and my firm cannot execute it, I immediately put it on our group mail so that one of our members can lap it up,” Thomas said. “But, there is a strict no-no on poaching either of business or staff,” Ramakrishnan insists. But there is healthy competition, too.

CafIT organises events that benefit its own members as well as outside technology entrepreneurs. Recently it conducted a seminar on ‘Technology business opportunities in Malabar.’

 

Turning point

Thomas feels that the opening of CafIT Square, the dream collective space, will be a turning point in Kozhikode’s IT scene. There are around 100 software companies in the area — mostly doing under ₹5-crore business a year — who will all want to join the collective. Kozhikode is now home to a talent pool of IT professionals and thousands of them are working in Bangalore. The opening of the huge Uralunkal Cyber Park and a government IT park later is expected to woo many back from Bangalore.

 

CafIT, which is a non-profit organisation, would be moving closer to its objective of ‘building a conducive ecosystem for technology entrepreneurship in Malabar’ with the free startup incubation programme.

Mindtree launches cloud-based technology platform for waste pickers

Mindtree a global technology services company, has launched ‘I Got Garbage' (IGG), a cloud -based platform aimed to simplify waste management and transform every waste picker in Bangalore into an entrepreneur through a structured and governed waste management framework.

India’s garbage is mixed waste and the lack of segregation makes it difficult for efficient recycling. Fragmented communities of waste pickers manage waste by working in hazardous and inhuman conditions. Today, waste pickers go to the garbage heaps, segregate it and sell it to the waste collectors for recycling. The unhealthy working conditions led to waste pickers lead a life with an average life expectancy of 39 years with 1 in 3 infant mortality. To add to this, waste pickers do not have access to the mainstream supply chain of waste thereby reducing their daily income to less than a dollar.

IGG partners with social businesses to transform waste management into an organised sector and provide dignified living and working conditions for the waste pickers. It enables waste pickers to offer waste management services by organising themselves into franchises and participate in online marketplaces where waste generators (households, apartments, offices) can procure waste management services. It also engages urban communities in solving the solid waste issues, and facilitates access to social security schemes for the waste pickers.

I Got Garbage offers capabilities such as an ERP for waste pickers, social engagement platform for citizens, marketplace for waste management services, and a waste picker benefits tracker. The initiative is a result of collaboration between Mindtree, Hasiru Dala, Waste Wise Trust and seven other social businesses.

Nalini Shekar, Co-Founder, Hasiru Dala, a member-based organisation of waste pickers, said, “Mindtree is helping us build structure and processes into our model which enables us to scale and provide more dignified employment to waste pickers. Over the last six months, we have been using the platform and are seeing the positive impact of technology.”

Prashant Mehra, Chief Architect of Social Inclusion, Mindtree, said, “Our aim is to collectively dignify the livelihood of waste pickers by helping them setup micro-businesses and ensure less landfills for all. With the rollout of I Got Garbage, we are building a single window for Bangalore citizens to explore specific solutions to the issue of waste management.”

The first poster boy of Indian IT industry

Narendra Patni was a pioneer who inspired a whole generation of entrepreneurs to plunge into the software services business, say captains of the IT industry.

 

For those who knew him, Naren was an intense man who valued the depth of his relationship with clients.

 

The co-founder and former CEO of the erstwhile Patni Computer Systems (PCS) passed away following a cardiac arrest in the US recently. He was 71.

 

“He was a doyen of the industry in the true sense… when we started Mastek in 1982, the Patni story was a beacon light for us,” said Ashank Desai, Founder and Chairman of Mastek.

 

Naren went to the US in 1964 on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology fellowship and he had made the country his base ever since.

 

“I had known Naren since 1964. He was as humble as he was bright. He was at the forefront of the software revolution, not only in India but also in the US,” said Lalit Kanodia, Chairman of Datamatics Global Services, and himself a pioneer of the IT offshoring model.

Naren and his wife took the first steps towards the offshoring business when they started operations from their US apartment in 1972.

 

In 1978, Naren started PCS along with brothers Ashok and Gajendra as a reseller of Data General’s mini-computers.

 

It then got into writing software solutions for Data General customers. Naren picked up NR Narayana Murthy to head the software division in August 1977.

 

Murthy, in turn, built a software team of six people who went on to become the founders of Infosys.

 

Trust factor

Naren was well known for his clout with customers.

 

“I have seen Naren interact with customers and the trust factor was extremely high. That was because of the value he attached to his word,” said Abhay Havaldar, General Atlantic’s Advisory Director.

Havaldar was on the board of PCS between 2002 and 2011 as GA had a stake in the IT company. “It was not so much about the contract, but it was more about what Naren had committed to the client,” said Havaldar.

 

Atul Nishar, Chairman of Hexaware Technologies, said Naren was not only a pioneer of the IT sector, but also one of the finest persons in the industry.

 

The Indian IT industry went through a complete change in 1999-2000 and companies such as Infosys and TCS focussed on two major opportunity cycles: the Y2K bug and the ERP implementation wave. However, Patni did not capitalise on these prospects and was compelled to play catch up.

 

What also slowed Patni’s growth were disagreements between the promoters. While Gajendra and Ashok wanted to cash out, Naren wanted to stay put.

 

Finally in 2011, the brothers reached a common ground and agreed to sell out to Nasdaq-listed iGate which went on to acquire PCS.

 

“Patni was a company that Naren truly loved. He told me he would have preferred to be on the buy side and not the sell side (of the Patni-iGate transaction), but circumstances did not permit him,” said Phaneesh Murthy, who was then CEO of iGate.