by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Sumeer Chandra
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : PC and printing major HP Inc is witnessing tremendous growth in the Indian market across product lines and, in 2019, the education sector will be the key pillar for the company, says Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director, HP Inc India.
For fiscal 2018, HP reported net revenue of $58.5 billion – up 12 per cent from the prior-year period. The net revenue for the fourth quarter was $15.4 billion – up 10 per cent – and the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region grew 17 per cent.
“In APJ, India grew faster than expected in fiscal 2018. HP’s India performance is in line with the global and regional growth. We strengthened our presence in the A3 printer space, introduced 3D printing and bet big on PC gaming in the country,” Chandra told IANS in a free-wheeling interview.
The Indian economy, he added, is going through interesting dynamics at the moment — especially on the exchange rate front — amid some uncertainties such as the general elections due next year.
“However, we have our strategy areas ready for next year and providing digital education to the masses will be a key growth engine. Technology, I believe, can truly transform fundamental education in India,” Chandra emphasised.
For him, education intersects what is good for business as well as for society.
“Education meets both the objectives. To empower students, we are driving new price points in our products. We recently launched an affordable mini desktop to help students learn and collaborate in schools and educational institutions across the country,” Chandra said.
Starting at Rs 19,990, the HP 260 G3 desktop is enabling schools and institutes set up or upgrade computers at their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) labs at a minimal cost.
When paired with HP Integrated Work Centre and HP EliteDisplay, teachers can read and present files effortlessly. With the wide range of input display connectors, documents can also be shared across multiple monitors.
“The idea is to help schools either refresh or create digital labs for students. We also have back-to-campus programmes where we organise discounted sales for our products so more schools can afford PCs,” the HP India executive noted.
Another key HP initiative is in the form of self-contained, Internet-enabled digital inclusion and learning labs on wheels, to take digital literacy to every nook and corner of the country.
Called “HP World on Wheels” (WoW), the buses are already driving digital literacy in rural India.
“There are 20-odd PCs in one solar-powered, Internet-enabled bus with a TV at the back, helping students augment their education, driving youth to learn New-Age digital skills and providing digital literacy to rural women,” said a beaming Chandra.
People in rural India are also using the facility for Aadhaar and to access other citizen-related services.
“We have 19 such buses that have reached over 50,000 people so far. We plan to launch another 12 buses by March and will have a total of 48 buses soon. In the next six years, we plan to reach 6,500 villages and empower close to 15 million lives,” Chandra told IANS.
Next on his agenda is to reach many more students via HP’s wide network.
“Affordability and accessibility are on top of my mind. Via HP’s widest network, 600 HP World stores and tens of thousands of retailers selling HP products, we can reach many more students,” emphasised Chandra.
The company also has “Smart Learning Hubs”, in collaboration with Microsoft, at 600 HP World stores that are engaging customers and non-customers with edutainment.
HP has organised 160 programmes covering 5,000 school-going children at these stores where they take coding lessons, learn how to make a YouTube video or create a blog, etc.
“Parents and children are excited and so are we. We will take this initiative to smaller cities as well to impart digital literacy to many more children,” said Chandra.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Interviews, Large Enterprise, Markets, Online Marketing, SMEs, Technology
Werner Vogels
By Nishant Arora,
Las Vegas : For the first time since launching its Mumbai region services two years back, retail giant Amazon’s Cloud arm Amazon Web Services (AWS) has seen a 70 per cent increase in the accounts of Indian companies, says Amazon Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Werner Vogels.
In an interview with IANS, Vogels said AWS has been a preferred choice for both big and small businesses in the country which are currently undergoing digital transformation.
“Most importantly, we have seen a significant growth in India. For the first time since launching the Mumbai region, we have seen 70 per cent increase in the accounts of Indian companies,” said a beaming Vogels after delivering a marathon keynote address at the company’s annual “ReInvent” conference here.
The company launched AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region with two availability zones in 2016 and has seen stupendous growth in adding new customers in the region.
AWS currently has 19 AWS Global Infrastructure Regions and five more are coming soon.
“We were fortunate that even before the opening of Mumbai region, AWS had seen a significant growth in India,” added Vogels.
One of the interesting things in India and other similar countries, said Vogels, is that young entrepreneurs are looking to build long-term businesses.
“Digital entrepreneurs in India are looking to build really long-term sustainable businesses and are taking a different path. They want to have tight control over expenditure and how they are actually growing. AWS is an ideal choice for them,” the Amazon CTO told IANS.
“If you do not take massive investments and want to build and grow on a slower pattern, AWS is here for you,” he added.
On the other hand, AWS is also powering several big businesses in India.
redBus, the world’s largest online bus ticketing platform, runs on AWS and has created hassle-free travel experience for people in India who uses low-cost phones.
“redBus put so much engineering into making their Web pages lightweight so these could open very fast on any type of device. This has created a difference in the lives of so many people in India with low-end phones,” said Vogels.
Tata Motors is another big customer for AWS.
“They have put sensors for preventive maintenance on their trucks and all that runs on AWS. Several media companies in India run on AWS. Online travel company MakeMyTrip runs on AWS. There are many such successful examples,” Vogels told IANS.
According to him, Amazon learns from all their customers and looks for unique patterns as every company is different and does development differently.
“We are an ideal choice for both big and small businesses in India,” he added.
Vogels echoed AWS CEO Andy Jassy who earlier said that the Asia-Pacific region has huge potential to write the next growth story for AWS, with India playing a key role in Cloud adoption among both enterprises and the governments.
“The business in the Asia-Pacific region is very broad and is growing very quickly. The business is growing rapidly in China, India, Singapore, Australia and South-East Asian countries,” Jassy noted.
AWS which registered $27 billion in revenue and 46 per cent growth (year-on-year) globally is an undisputed Public Cloud leader with 51.8 per cent share in Cloud infrastructure market globally, followed by Microsoft at 13.3 per cent and Alibaba at a distant 4.6 per cent.
In India, Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL) is a subsidiary of the Amazon Group which undertakes the resale and marketing of AWS Cloud services in the country.
(Nishant Arora was in Las Vegas at an invitation from AWS. He can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Interviews, Social Entrepreneur
Kailash Satyarthi
By Nivedita,
New Delhi : Kailash Satyarthi’s life has been converted into a film named “The Price of Free” directed by Derek Doneen and produced by Davis Guggenheim whose previous project includes “He Named Me Malala”.
The Nobel Peace Laureate says that one of the biggest endeavours of this film is to reach out and inspire the youth of this world to stand up for the rights of the not-so-privileged children.
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, “The Price of Free” (formerly titled ‘Kailash’) is a suspenseful yet intimate look at one man’s groundbreaking struggle to liberate every child possible from slavery.
Talking about how important the film is for the world to see, Satyarthi told IANS, here: “‘The Price of Free’ has a strong message for corporate, consumers, law makers and enforcement agencies alike to do their bit for the most marginalised children who are languishing as child labourers and have been left out of the photo frame of socio-economic development.
“As you read this, there are 150 million child labourers with their hopes dashed and life being wasted. Out of these nearly 73 million are in severely precarious conditions as victims of trafficking, child slavery, sexual exploitation, child marriages, forced beggar and as child combatants among others.”
He said that one of the biggest endeavours of the film was to reach out to, and inspire, the youth of this world to stand up for the rights of the not so privileged children. “The cause of 100 million for 100 million campaign that we launched earlier in 2016 is linked with the message that ‘The Price of Free’ wants to convey to the youth who have the power, idealism, strong will and leadership qualities to help create a child friendly world,” he said.
“This film engages, sensitises ad inspires the youth. The documentary also emphasises for united and coherent efforts of various constituencies like children, youth, teachers, parliamentarians, faith leaders, businesses at a global level to ensure that rights of all children are upheld and no one is left behind,” he added.
Satyarthi also feels that ‘The Price of Free’ is in fact the most powerful tool to vitalise the global movement to end violence against children.
“This film signifies hope, optimism, possibilities and gives solutions for the problems faced by the most marginalised children of the world. I strongly believe that if one is not a part of the solution then one is the problem itself,” he said.
Building a strong rationale and argument against child labour and exploitation, the film calls upon everybody to stand up for the rights of the children. “I strongly feel that this film will instil a deeper moral responsibility particularly in Indians as they will get to learn more about the worldwide struggle initiated and led by another Indian,” he said.
The film project started around three years back when producer Guggenheim, who also won an Oscar for “The Inconvenient Truth”, approached Satyarthi for a film on his life and work. He had attended the Nobel Prize ceremony in 2014 and fell in love with the subject.
Guggenheim’s team led by director Derek Doneen, followed Nobel Peace Laureate and his colleagues for nearly two-and-a-half years to observe his work and film raid and rescue operations for freeing children from slavery and exploitation.
YouTube Original documentary released the film on November 2 in New York and November 9 in Los Angeles, before its launch on the platform on November 27 in India. The film has received 1.5 million views in two days.
Talking about how India had moved towards eradicating child slavery, he says, “India has made substantive headway in addressing the issue of child labour and slavery.”
With efforts of governments (central and state), law enforcement agencies, civil society, teachers and youth organisations and trade unions the number of child labourers had significantly come down after the turn of this century.
“India has some of the best and most progressive laws against child exploitation but the challenge lies in effective implementation of these laws. There is a huge pendency of trials in crimes against children in our courts of law. Children trapped in slavery cannot afford to wait and so shouldn’t we. All of us have to join hands in emancipating children and ensuring their freedom, health, safety and education,” he said.
Talking about what he had to suffer during his struggle to save children, Satyarthi says that “someone will have to pay the price of freedom” for the most marginalised persons.
“It won’t come served on a platter. I feel humbled to be able to empower the children. In my mission to free the children, many people may have become my enemies over the last four decades but the fact remains that I have made millions of friends as well,” he said.
(Nivedita can be contacted at nivedita.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
By Nivedita,
New Delhi : Seeing a Muslim porter carrying a Hindu pilgrim on his back — something that speaks a lot about India as a country — left a seed in Abhishek Kapoor’s heart and mind to tell a tale of “harmony” with his forthcoming Hindi film “Kedarnath”.
A firm believer of Lord Shiva, Kapoor has urged those opposing “Kedarnath” to have patience and faith in him. Reacting to the ‘Love Jihad’ controversy that the film has been caught up in over the romance between the lead characters — a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy — he says the movie is his “pure attempt to create harmony and more understanding”.
A BJP leader had sought a ban on “Kedarnath” for promoting ‘Love Jihad’.
Was he prepared to face such concerns while he was shooting the film?
Kapoor told IANS during a tete-a-tete in the capital: “You do consider stuff like that can happen, but the idea is not to titillate them (movie-goers) in a certain sense or the idea is not to create a controversy. This film is genuinely a very pure attempt to create harmony and more understanding amongst ourselves.”
However, he feels that if someone is going to find faults and tries to take advantage of the situation, he can’t help it.
“One’s attempt is to do something (with a film) that has not been done before and you have to have some courage. To answer all those people out there who are skeptical, they should know that there is nothing that they should worry about. We have not made a film that will offend anyone. If at all, they will see each other with more understanding and more love.
“I would request them to have patience, to have faith in me because the way they love Hindu religion and want to protect it, I also want to do the same. I am also a follower of Lord Shiva and love Hindu religion like anyone else. Hence, I won’t do anything that will disappoint people,” Kapoor said.
Written, directed and co-produced by Kapoor, the film tells the story of a Hindu girl who takes a pilgrimage to the historic Kedarnath Temple in the Uttarakhand mountains, where she meets and falls in love with a Muslim boy who becomes her guide.
As they grow closer along the journey, they face many obstacles, including familial disapproval and contrasting backgrounds. When the sudden rains of the 2013 Uttarakhand floods devastate the region, the couple are forced to survive against the elements and face the ultimate test of their love.
It’s not just the ‘Love Jihad’ controversy that the film has run into as the project has overcome many hiccups in its making. It was salvaged after Ronnie Screwvala took over the film from former producers Prernaa Arora, Bhushan Kumar and Ekta Kapoor.
In hindsight, Kapoor said: “There was fear and to put it lightly, they (the ones who were making it before) were just not qualified to run the show with me. They sounded pretty good in the beginning but in the longer run, I realised that they were not qualified for it.
“A movie has so many careers and so many lives at stake and once I am the owner of this film and I have brought the partner, I have to detach from them and secure my film. Tomorrow whatever the fate the movie will be — whether it is a hit or a flop, people will like it or dislike it, but as a filmmaker and as a person who is going to carry this burden, my duty is to secure the film to the end.”
Releasing on December 7, “Kedarnath” will launch Sara Ali Khan, the daughter of actor Saif Ali Khan and his former wife Amrita Singh. She has been paired with actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
Kapoor hopes the film brings “healing”.
“The intent is pure. The story is true and the characters and the actors have performed really well as I see it. The audience will decide what they have to decide but my conviction is pure,” he said.
Was Sara always in mind for this film?
“I never actually look at the cast before I have the story in place. The story did emerge first. As a kid, I used to go to Vaishno Devi very often and I didn’t have that much of faith then. So after my last movie, I had a trip there. On one such trips, to see a Muslim porter carrying a Hindu pilgrim on his back, was a vision. If you look at it and see what it stands for, it tells you what this country is all about.” Kapoor said.
(Nivedita can be contacted at nivedita.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, Markets, Networking, Social Media, Technology
Jack Dorsey
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : Stressing that data localization is an irrelevant debate in an era of Cloud, the deliberations must be in the direction of how people own and control their data, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has said.
In an e-mail interview with IANS, Dorsey, who is in India on his maiden visit, said that in their business, “Internet is trending towards where data sits to be irrelevant”.
“The Cloud allows data to be everywhere. I think the more important question is whether people own their data and how they control it,” replied Dorsey when asked about the Indian government’s demand from the tech companies to store data locally so it remains within the law of the land.
According to Dorsey, there must be a conversation on data ownership, not localisation.
“That’s the conversation that I think we need to have rather than where exactly the data sits. It’s more about the ownership by the individual,” Doresy told IANS.
Dorsey arrived in India the last weekend and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi during his Delhi leg of the tour.
Even as the Twitter CEO was busy meeting with top leaders, the government pulled up the social network for being “slow” in removing “objectionable content” from its platform.
Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, in his meeting with two top Twitter executives — Vijaya Gadde, Global Head of Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety, and Mahima Kaul, Public Policy head in India — asked them “to ensure a 24×7 mechanism for prompt disposal of requisitions of law enforcement agencies for deletion of unlawful/objectionable content from their platform”.
Twitter replied that it was committed to working with governments around the world, including in India, to encourage healthy behaviour on the platform.
Currently, there is no Grievance Officer from Twitter in India. To report a violation, the Indian users have to contact Jeremy Kessel in Dublin, Ireland.
Twitter’s European headquarters is in Dublin, as are those of Google and Facebook, where the Data Protection Commission is strongly enforcing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into existence on May 25 this year.
According to Dorsey, he came to India to find out where the gaps are.
“One of the reasons why I’m here in the first place is to understand how to do that and understand where the gaps are,” Dorsey told IANS.
“We certainly have heard a lot about language support and that’s something I’ll be looking into. Access, in terms of data speed, is something we’ve been working on,” he added.
In his meeting with Rahul Gandhi, Dorsey discussed various steps the social network was taking to curb the spread of fake news and boost a healthy conversation on its platform.
Admitting that fighting fake news was no easy task, Dorsey told a meeting at IIT-Delhi said the social network was taking “multi-variable” steps, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), to curb the spread of misleading information ahead of 2019 general elections in India.
“We think there is a lot of opportunity in India. We love the conversational nature of the society and culture. We’re really excited to make Twitter viable to more and more people in the country,” the Twitter CEO, who also visited Mumbai and met superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Oscar-winning music composer A.R. Rahman, told IANS.
According to Dorsey, the company launched Twitter Lite (a lighter data-friendly version of the main app) not too long ago, specifically for India, to reach people who don’t have access to hi-speed or costly data.
“India remains a top priority market for us and we’re making sure we understand how people use it here so that we can make it better.”
When it comes to monetising Twitter and further tapping the Indian market, Dorsey has his focus clear.
“We do have a very healthy data business, so we’ve monetised beyond ads already. We’d like to bring all of our revenue lines to all of our markets,” Dorsey told IANS.
“We’re always looking for opportunities to continue to build a business model that aligns with the interests of the people that we’re serving.”
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
