by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Markets, Technology
New Delhi : Various technologies at Microsoft that began transforming the lives of individuals and communities in India last year will gain further momentum in 2018, the company’s President Anant Maheshwari said on Tuesday.
In a mission statement, Maheshwari said he is proud to play a role in the transformation of India’s core pillars of education, health care, agriculture and governance, among others.
Today, about 25 per cent students drop out from grade 10 to grade 11.
“We have partnered with Andhra Pradesh government to see how machine learning can help educators foresee signs of a student being on the risk of dropping out and take preventive action. In 2017, the government expanded the rollout of the programme to all 13 districts in the state,” Maheshwari said.
Microsoft has also initiated “Project Sangam” that aims to upskill the workforce to prepare it for jobs that exist now and in the future.
“The learning modules are hosted on the Cloud and are coupled with the power of LinkedIn to enable candidates to find jobs,” he said.
Along with the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Microsoft is using machine learning and historic weather data to predict the best time for sowing seeds and other stages of the farming process and pass on that information to farmers via SMS.
“In 2017, we not only increased the pilot to more farmers across additional states like Telangana, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, but also expanded the crops for which we can provide predictive information and saw increase in crop yields ranging from 10 per cent to 30 per cent,” Maheshwari informed.
Researchers at Microsoft India are also working on a project which uses low-cost ground-based sensors and aerial photography, along with data analysis systems that can provide even better predictive analysis for individual fields.
When it comes to health care, Telangana government is using Microsoft’s Cloud-based advanced analytics solution to screen children from birth to 18 years of age for major conditions affecting the health of children in the state.
“One of the insights from the screenings indicated that visual impairment was among the most prevalent health issues among children. This led Telangana government to adopt Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare (MINE), which was developed in partnership with LV Prasad Eye Institute,” Maheshwari said.
MINE uses machine learning and advanced analytics to predict regression rates for eye operations, enabling doctors to pinpoint the procedures needed to prevent and treat visual impairments.
While the rest of the world might be talking about self-driving cars, researchers at Microsoft India have devised ways on how low-cost tech can make drivers drive better.
“Project ‘HAMS’ uses a smartphone as an intelligent edge device that can track multiple events such as driver distraction, fatigue and gaze tracking, as well as vehicle ranging, which determines whether a safe separation distance is being maintained with the vehicles in front,” he added.
Researchers are now looking at Bollywood movie scripts to figure out how bots of the future will be able to understand how humans mix languages in a conversation.
“We are also breaking language barriers by adding more Indian languages in Microsoft Translator,” Maheshwari said.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, Markets, Technology
Anant Maheshwari
By Nishant Arora,
Gurugram (Haryana) : As over 50 million Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) in India look to move to a secure Cloud, Microsoft — with its end-to-end offerings with New-Age capabilities — is set to help them evolve and adopt an “intelligent” Cloud, says Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari.
Maheshwari, who believes that almost every company will eventually become a software one at some point of time with the fourth industrial revolution, an “intelligent” Cloud will chart their digital journey.
There are large enterprises that will have a dedicated infrastructure, teams and resources for Cloud adoption.
“And then, there is a large number of SMBs and in India, these SMBs could even tend to include many of our listed companies on our stock exchanges. A study summarises that it is upwards of 50 million. I am not going to debate that number. Whether it is 45 or 55 million, I don’t think the strategies will change in terms of what you do to move on to Cloud,” Maheshwari told IANS during a free-wheeling chat at Microsoft’s office here.
Microsoft globally, including in India, has been uniquely positioned and has done a lot of work over the last 40 years to build a massive partner eco-system that is serving SMBs.
“Microsoft has 64,000 Cloud partners globally and, just as a matter of perspective, that is more than the total number of partners the next three companies combined have. So that is the kind of strength that Microsoft has in terms of just partner collaboration,” Maheshwari said.
“In India, we have 9,000 partners and through them, we get to more than 250 cities,” he added.
According to a recent ASSOCHAM-Deloitte joint study, adoption of advanced business digital technologies can lead to increase in revenues by up to 27 per cent, increase in employment by up to 84 per cent, and enhanced access to international markets by up to 65 per cent for SMBs in India.
A big believer in entrepreneurship that exists in India, Maheshwari said with that kind of entrepreneurship partnering with 9,000 different companies is a huge asset that Microsoft has built over four decades in the country.
“You can’t do this overnight. This has to happen very consistently because these are the people who are making entrepreneurial calls, they are very good at choosing who their partner is and they have chosen Microsoft to be a partner for their own good and their own business,” Maheshwari told IANS.
To make the SMBs’ digital journey easier, Microsoft on Thursday flagged off “Future Decoded on Wheels” from Delhi — a coach that will traverse 25 cities and 80 key clusters and help the SMBs get in-depth knowledge of latest solutions, New-Age devices and access to business experts.
“We are targeting 25 cities where we will go and provide real-time experience to the SMBs. I am sure we will touch a single digit percentage of those SMBs over the 13,000 kms that we will cover,” Maheshwari informed, adding that this, in turn, will create opportunities for partners and customers.
According to the apex IT industry body Nasscom, India’s growing SMB segment is set to spend big to upgrade their digital infrastructure in the next few years.
“The Cloud capability is opening up new revenue opportunities for the SMBs. Think about it in many ways: The access the SMBs can have with these offerings which multiply in terms of what they can do and the kind of services they can provide,” stated the Microsoft India head.
Finally, the overall operations and efficiencies for these SMBs would change for better.
For Maheshwari, Microsoft Cloud services are helping the SMBs in three broad ways.
“Firstly, we are all moving to a modern workplace. India is a mobile-first, and in many cases, mobile-only country, especially for the growing SMB community. They are in a hurry to get the work done no matter where they are. That means a modern workplace with the combination of security and mobility,” Maheshwari stated.
Towards a modern workplace, Microsoft has brought together Office 365, Windows 10, Enterprise Mobility and Security — all packaged into a single offering.
“Now that I got my modern workplace going, I want to build business apps. I want my entire vendor ecosystem channelled so I have end-to-end capability for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and I also want it to link to my modern workplace,” Maheshwari said.
Thirdly, the SMBs have to put their data to work. That is where Azure Cloud capability with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) comes in.
“If you just think about Cloud as hosting, it is not an ‘intelligent’ Cloud. When you start making that cloud ‘intelligent’ with AI and ML, that is when you think continuously about new capabilities. That is where Azure is focused,” Maheshwari told IANS.
With a modern workplace, business apps, the AI infrastructure and Cloud coming together, it becomes an end-to-end play for SMBs to become truly software firms of the future.
Next on Maheshwari’s mind is to nurture the partner eco-system and start-ups.
“We are training, teaching, providing inputs and support, showing demonstrations, helping them show it to their customers and help them grow. ‘Future Decoded on Wheels’ is one way of making it easier for them,” Maheshwari said.
“Microsoft ‘Accelerator’ is among the best corporate accelerators that you see in the country. We have had many successes,” he added.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
