Binance Marks Bitcoin Pizza Day in Bengaluru with 2,000+ First‑Time Learners in Immersive Blockchain Education Drive

• Interactive learning activation focuses on responsible digital asset literacy amid growing regional interest

Binance, the world’s largest digital asset exchange and leading blockchain ecosystem, marked Bitcoin Pizza Day with an educational activation at Forum Mall, Bengaluru, that drew more than 2000 participants eager to learn about blockchain technology and digital asset fundamentals, with 88% attending their first-ever digital asset education event.

Held on 23-24 May, the initiative transformed a high-footfall shopping destination into an immersive blockchain learning zone aimed at demystifying Web3 through gamified and easy-to-understand activities. The activation featured a Binance engagement booth strategically placed within the mall, where visitors participated in quizzes, educational missions, and onsite mini-games designed to make blockchain and digital asset concepts more accessible to everyday users. Through the initiative, Binance aimed to address the growing knowledge gap as global digital asset adoption accelerates and interest in blockchain technology continues to rise in India.

Education must come before adoption," said SB Seker, Head of APAC at Binance. "In markets across South Asia, we see tremendous curiosity about blockchain, but limited access to reliable, responsible information. We're focused on ensuring communities have the knowledge and resources they need particularly in markets where awareness is growing faster than understanding.

Attendees engaged with a series of interactive experiences including live blockchain quizzes, educational challenges, guided learning missions, and onsite games designed to make Web3 concepts more accessible to everyday users. To mark Bitcoin Pizza Day and raise awareness of one of the most iconic milestones in digital asset history, attendees participated in community activities, received Binance Swags, and enjoyed complimentary pizza treats inspired by the transaction that helped demonstrate Bitcoin’s real-world utility. The activity covered blockchain basics, risk awareness, and scam prevention, with attendees completing the full educational journey in an average of 8 minutes.

SB Seker, Head of APAC at Binance, added, “Bitcoin Pizza Day has become one of crypto’s most celebrated traditions because it captures something essential: innovation happens when someone is willing to try something new, even if it seems impractical at the time. In 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz used Bitcoin to buy pizza because he believed digital currency should have use cases not just sit in a wallet. Today, we are seeing that vision materialize at scale. Stablecoins are processing trillions in monthly volume and users globally are discovering crypto’s practical applications from everyday transactions to wealth creation and preservation. Bitcoin Pizza Day celebrates the moment crypto moved from theory to practice, and reminds us that the real work is making that utility accessible to everyone.”

Binance continues to advance blockchain literacy and responsible digital asset adoption across South Asia through Binance Academy, which offers accessible educational resources on blockchain technology, Web3, digital assets, and online safety. Complementing these efforts are localized content, media and community engagement initiatives including Binance Blockchain Yatra, the Binance Case Challenge and Binance Square that help build awareness and make Web3 education more accessible for emerging digital-first audiences across India and the broader region.

Binance Launches "Build For Bharat"; First DeFi-focused Hackathon in India

: Binance, the global blockchain company behind the world’s largest digital asset exchange, today launched ‘Build for Bharat’, a twofold program with a hackathon and acceleration opportunities for blockchain developers and startups in India.

The hackathon is sponsored by Google Cloud, along with leading technology companies Matic Network, Marlin Protocol, Band Protocol and Ankr cloud infrastructure, while the acceleration comes under Polaris, an initiative by the Blockchain for India 50M fund, launched by Binance and WazirX in March 2020.

Spanning over a few months  -- from 24th August to 31st October 2020 -- the Build for Bharat hackathon will be open to creators, innovators, startups, and BUIDLers from all over India working on unique and creative products utilizing digital assets and blockchain technology. The solutions will be centered around decentralized finance (DeFi) such as mini-Tokens, micro-financing products, blockchain datasets, blockchain-AI solutions and more.

“India has been one of the most interesting countries Binance has tapped into!” said Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). “We’ve seen entrepreneurs create robust blockchain-based solutions from scratch and scale it. With the second-largest blockchain developer base in the world - India has already kickstarted the revolution of decentralization and we’re here to fuel it!”

Selected participants will undergo three stages of filtration with 100 teams shortlisted in the first cohort, 20 teams in the second, and five teams in the final cohort. The finalists will receive rewards from a pool of 30,00,000 INR while the winning teams stand a chance to secure additional investment and mentorship opportunities under the Polaris accelerator, an initiative by the Blockchain for India fund.

To apply for Build for Bharat program, head over to the event registration website. Registrations for the program are open from today till 11th September 2020.

[The event is managed by Lumos Labs (Formerly known as IBC Media) - A Singapore-based innovation management platform.]

About Binance

Binance.com is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Binance Exchange serves users from 180+ countries and regions. Binance’s dual-chain architecture comprises Binance Chain & Binance Smart Chain that empowers the developer community to build their own decentralized apps and digital assets on one blockchain, while also taking advantage of the fast trading performance offered on the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX).

Wipro and Uniper Collaborate to Implement a Blockchain-based Small-scale Liquefied Natural Gas (ssLNG) Trading/fulfilment Platform

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting, and business process services company, today announced the successful implementation of a blockchain-based small-scale liquefied natural gas (ssLNG) trading/fulfillment platform for Uniper Global Commodities SE and its 100% LNG-for-trucks subsidiary Liqvis GmbH. Uniper SE is a leading international energy company headquartered in Germany.

The platform built in collaboration with Uniper utilizes a consortium model for all ssLNG market participants to help transform the trading market space resulting in market efficiencies and significant cost savings for traders.

Uniper selected Wipro to build the blockchain platform to address the complexity of the European ssLNG market. As a result of the implementation, commodity flow management is simplified in a market characterized by extensive manual and paper-based transactions and high operational cost. The platform implemented by Wipro involves multiple peer-to-peer trading cycle participants, enables order and supply placement, delivery of goods, validation of the state of goods and bill settlements. It further helps Uniper streamline trade by reducing turnaround time, effort and inefficiencies, enables scalability and brings visibility, transparency and trust in all stages of LNG trade. Strategically, it paves the way for Uniper to become the market maker for low-carbon modern supply of alternative fuels and decentralized energy solutions.

Dr. Grigory Shevchenko, Senior Account Manager Gas Supply and Origination, LNG Business Development, Uniper said, “Uniper’s strength is its customer-centricity, product creation and market development. Building upon that when we enter more downstream logistics-heavy markets, we encourage the use of innovative technologies to optimize our processes and operations. Blockchain will enable business volume growth without needing a lot of additional headcount to manage transactions. This will be true for us and our counterparts that will engage with Uniper through the paperless blockchain platform. The ssLNG trading platform provides for easy scalability and enhancements based on the growing marketplace. To achieve this, we jointly deployed the required building blocks such as security, distributed computing and node network.”

Sarat Chand, Vice President and EMEA Utilities Business Head, Wipro Limited said, “We are delighted to build and implement the Small Scale LNG blockchain platform for Uniper and support their initiative to promote LNG as an advanced and environmentally friendly fuel alternative. The platform helps Uniper’s LNG-for-trucks subsidiary Liqvis ensure that LNG is always available when and where it is needed and achieve price security through Uniper’s long-term LNG supply contracts and seamless supply chain execution. This is a landmark partnership between Wipro and Uniper. Our Utilities ETRM business competency combined with industry leading blockchain expertise has enabled Uniper to modernize its trading platform, reduce friction, improve process efficiency and simplify settlements in business processes.”

Krishnakumar N Menon, Vice President - Service Transformation and Blockchain Theme Leader, Wipro Limited said, “The trading/fulfillment platform for ssLNG market leverages blockchain to simplify the LNG trade process with greater efficiency, transparency and security. Smart contracts used in the platform automate processes such as demand creation, trade confirmation, shipment creation, bunkering, invoice generation and settlement, leading to lesser manual interventions. The blockchain-based platform benefits Uniper and its customers in their trade cycles by enabling digitization and exchange of documents; real-time sharing of information and alerts for an immutable audit trail of activities performed.”

Wipro is a recognized leader in implementing blockchain technology for its clients, providing strategic advisory and consulting services combined with a strong portfolio of industry solutions, platforms and patents paired with an ecosystem of technology partners, consortia, industry regulatory bodies, and academia. Wipro is committed to creating strong blockchain communities while developing talent for building extensive technology expertise across multiple leading blockchain platforms such as Hyperledger Fabric, Etherum, Quorum, Corda, Multichain, Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Sawtooth. The company is also involved in a number of distributed ledger technology consortia and alliances including the Hyperledger project, the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, the Energy Web Foundation and the Blockchain in Transport Alliance. To learn more, click here.

Election Commission Exploring to Use Blockchain Tech for Remote Voting

To overcome the geographical barrier while casting votes, the Election Commission of India is exploring the potential of using blockchain technology to cast vote remotely.

Hoever, Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra expressed concerns over transparency and voter security with blockchain’s distributed consensus mechanism. He said that various industries have tested blockchain technology but there are divergent views on scalability.

Chandra said, “How can we set up special remote polling stations when suppose a person is in a different place than their voter registration? This is a departure from a conventional polling station… Can we think of a machine which can generate a dynamic ballot paper? …We can look at the distributed consensus mechanism. How transparent is this? Is my vote a secret?”

However, Principal Scientific Adviser to the government, K VijayRaghavan is optimistic about blockchain’s potential in remote voting. According to the Indian Express, he cited research from Northeastern University in the US, saying, "I don’t see major pitfalls in using this system in major locations. I would urge that the EC could try this out as a mock exercise in some locations on a small scale and keep having stress tests to ensure it is durable."

Voting using blockchain is a not new thing in India, but will be unique when it comes to voting within world's largest democracy with 911 million eligible voters (2019 stats). Elemential Labs, which is a Matrix Partners backed startup, has built a blockchain-based e-voting solution for National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE), in September 2018.

To recall, in 2017 it was speculated that Election Commission was intended to use Blockchain technology in Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) to solve tampering of both EVM's software and hardwares.

Later in August 2018, Australian Blockchain organization, MiVote, which calls itself as an international direct democracy NGO, had signed a deal with Democratic Party of India (DPI), a registered political party with Election Commission of India, and with this DPI became the first Blockchain enabled Political Party in Asia.

Telangana launches B-PoST - A Blockchain based Solution for Loan Disbursement, Repayments to Poor Women

Stree Nidhi, which is promoted jointly by Telangana Panchayat Raj and Rural Development (PR and RD) and Federations of Self Help Group (SHG), has launched B-PoST, a blockchain technology based solution to provide loans and repayments to poor and underprivileged women.

A flagship of Telangana government, StreeNidhi provides timely and affordable credit to the poor SHG members as a part of the overall strategy of the state government's SERP (Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty) for poverty alleviation.

The new blockchain platform, B-PoST (Blockchain – Protection of Stree Nidhi Transactions), will allow record keeping of loan disbursement and repayments of Stree Nidhi for all of its 1.5 lakh members. The Self-Help Group (SHG) member-level credit rating will be derived from these blockchain transactions. The SHG Members may now leverage their credit rating to avail other financial instruments from banks and other institutions.

Currently launched as a pilot project, B-PoST is implemented by Cognitochain, which is a startup based out of Hyderabad. The pilot phase will include 1.5 lakh SHG members of Rajanna District of Telangana.

Notably, Telangana Government and Tech Mahindra along with IBC Media have partnered together to access the Indian Tech startup ecosystem for the T-block accelerator program, that allows startups, that are leveraging strong blockchain use cases, to come up on investible stage.

Source - Telangana Today

India'a 1st Blockchain Platform to Digitize COVID-19 Records & Data Goes Live

BelfricsBT, a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-headquartered global blockchain startup, along with YoSync, a startup incubated at IIITB-IMACX Studios, has signed a research collaboration in agreement with International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIIT Bangalore) to jointly develop India’s first COVID-19 blockchain platform, BelYo.

Funded by Mphasis F1 Foundation - the CSR arm of Mphasis, BelYo uses the BelfricsBT Belrium blockchain platform to convert Covid-19-related clinical and vaccination data of citizens currently from the physical form into digital assets, which can be retrieved by contact tracing apps like Aarogya Setu via application programme interface (API).

Using these APIs, an individual can scan and retrieve data (colour-coded results) through a QR code and the process would be 100% contact-less and seamless at any point of entry during and post Covid-19 period. This project has been funded by Mphasis F1 Foundation as part of their larger outreach programme to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic in India.

Currently, the BelYo platform is being tested in a few clinics and aims to reach out to over 700 government labs and about 270 private labs starting August second week.

BelYo plans to issue certificates for Covid-19 clinical records and immunisation certificates on blockchain at a cost price of less than ₹20

BelfricsBT is the blockchain development arm of the Belfrics Group - a fintech firm present in over 10 countries spanning Asia, Africa, Middle East and Europe.

Praveenkumar Vijayakumar, Founder & CEO of Belfrics Group said, “COVID-19 infections are on the rise both within India and across the world and there is a need to use technology to deal with this grave situation. With the help of this financial support, we would be able to expedite our platform rollout, expand our operations and onboard testing centres (hospitals and private labs) by the end of 2020. Going forward, BelYo is looking at a 5 percent market share by 2023 of the total 100,000+ clinical labs in India which would help us to reach a gross revenue target of $200 million within 5 years. We are also currently in talks with more investors to raise our Series A by the end of 2020.”

SOURCE - CNBCTV18

Digital Freight Forwarder Shipwaves joins Maersk-IBM developed Blockchain-based TradeLens platform

The Mumbai-based digital freight forwarder will leverage TradeLens’ solutions to accelerate secure digitization in ocean logistics

Shipwaves, an industry-leading digital freight forwarder has joined Maersk-IBM developed TradeLends platform. The association between the front-running blockchain-powered supply chain solution provider and digital freight forwarder is aimed at accelerating the digitization of the ocean logistics space, especially in India and the Middle-East. 

Having recently allowed shipping bill of lading to be filed over a blockchain platform, India has been betting big on blockchain-enabled solutions to digitize its maritime supply chains. Along the same vein, TradeLens provides controlled, permissioned access to secure and immutable transportation documents while bringing together stakeholders such as shipping carriers, ports, customs offices, and other players in the ecosystem through its blockchain-led platform.

Through this linkage, Shipwaves will be able to provide timely end-to-end supply chain visibility, secured sharing of digital shipping documents, and data directly from partners. This will enable the forwarder to improve efficiency and decrease operational costs by a significant margin. Additionally, the smart-contract based workflows will automate and digitize multi-party interactions, which will result in improved efficiency.

According to Bimal Kanal, Head of TradeLens in South Asia, “TradeLens is an industry-wide neutral platform aiming to spur innovation in the complex logistics industry. We aim to build a digital ecosystem that will drive benefits for all on the platform. With Shipwaves collaborating with TradeLens, we have an important supply chain enabler furthering our joint desire of removing manual tasks and enabling digitized workflows in the logistics industry."

Commenting on the association, Sajid Mohammed, COO, Shipwaves, said, “Our  working with TradeLens marks a significant milestone which will enable us to digitize our customers’ operations and lead them into the blockchain era of global trade. While we were one of the early innovators in the digital freight forwarding space, the ongoing pandemic taught us that, this alone is not enough. One also needs collaboration to enhance competence and expand capabilities. Our SaaS products helped us gain deep insights into the inner universe of clients’ IT systems and how they interact with their logistics teams and stakeholders. We believe that the TradeLens platform will truly elevate our value proposition, allowing us to  interconnect with shippers, carriers & other stakeholders. The best part is that all this will be done using the innovative technology that ensures security, trust, and transparency."

Enabling freight forwarders with data direct from the source to enhance their offering to their clients is a key tenet of TradeLens. Having directly connected with over 160 entities ranging from ocean carriers, ports, shippers, inland providers, and more, the granularity of data offered includes over 120 supply chain events including transportation plans, estimated and actual events. Leveraging this in-depth data to bolster steadfast digitization, the development is set to unlock the next phase of growth in the ocean logistics ecosystem. 

About Shipwaves Online Private Limited:

Founded in 2015, Shipwaves is Asia's first Digital Freight Forwarder. It prides itself in being a logistics company fully built around the needs of shippers, and delivers solutions through technology and logistics expertise. It helps shippers around the world to plan, book, and manage their shipments by offering instant rates, quick quotes, online booking, and real-time visibility. It also offers value-added services like customs clearance, marine insurance, and advanced data analytics to lower freight costs.

Additionally, Shipwaves provides SaaS offerings to global Enterprise customers to automate their end-to-end shipping processes. It uses the latest technologies, automation tools, and predictive analytics to provide its customers with visibility and control over the entire shipment lifecycle. The intuitive platform seamlessly connects shippers, carriers, and their partners to integrate and collaborate across the entire supply chain gambit. The company has multiple offices in India and the UAE and has tie-ups with several shipping, air cargo, trucking, and Fintech companies.

About TradeLens

The TradeLens platform has been jointly developed by Maersk and IBM. TradeLens is an open and neutral industry platform underpinned by blockchain technology, supported by major players across the global shipping industry. The platform promotes the efficient, transparent, and secure exchange of information in order to foster greater collaboration and trust across the global supply chain.

About Maersk 

A.P. Moller - Maersk is an integrated container logistics company working to connect and simplify its customers' supply chains. As the global leader in shipping services, the company operates in 130 countries and employs roughly 76,000 people.

MeitY, STPI Launches Blockchain CoE in Gurugram, Targets Incubating 100 startups in 5 Yrs

Yesterday, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) has launched Apiary, a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in blockchain technology at STPI Incubation Centre, Gurugram.

STPI Apiary is launched in association with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Haryana Government, Government Blockchain Association, IBM and Intel. Apiary has also tied up with top tier academic institutions including Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT- IIT Delhi) Sonepat Campus.

The objectives of opening this CoE is to boost start-ups in the field of Blockchain Technology and to contribute to “Make-in-India” & “Digital India” programmes of Govt. of India by reducing imports of such services.

Apiary aims to encourage R&D, innovation, Entrepreneurship in the Blockchain Technology in India by providing physical infrastructure and support services for prototyping, developing, testing & marketing.

Targeting 100 start-ups in the next five years, the Apiary CoE, which have 80-seater state-of-the-art incubation and IBM platform, will incubate start-up units to create innovative solutions to meet the existing and emerging needs of sector; to provide business and technological mentorship & guidance in the domain; to provide networking services linking up with funding sources; to enable the creation of IPs domestically.

The Coe has also partnered with Venture Funding Agencies inlcuding Indian Angel Network, Vinners Angel Group, Padup Syndicate and Venture Catalyst.

STPI Apiary is now inviting applications from the Startups/ Entrepreneurs for Idea challenge Program in Blockchain Technology domain. The theme of Idea Challenge Programme is “AATMANIRBHAR”. The Start-ups are expected to solve the problems in the following domains using Blockchain Technology.

• Supply Chain
• Agriculture
• Finance
• E-Governance use cases pertaining to Land Records, Public Health, Labour, Service Record, Pension Delivery and Law Enforcement & Evidence Management.

The last date to apply is August 14th, 2020.

Indian Ports to Use Blockchain Solution of Ethereum-based CargoX for Lading

Slovenia(EU)-based blockchain company CargoX has announced that it is starting to digitalize Indian ports' bills of lading and other trade documentation workflows as one of the last missing elements within India’s electronic Port Community System (PCS).

A Port Community System (PCS) is an electronic platform that connects the multiple systems operated by a variety of organisations that make up a seaport or airport community.

The Indian PCS, offering the P-CaSo curated marketplace of specialized services, was built by Mumnbai-based Portall Infosystems (Portall), and it has integrated CargoX’s Platform for Blockchain Document Transfer (BDT). Portall has built the Indian PCS from the ground up within a record time of 6 months, with complete implementation in 13 major Indian ports - it is currently operational in 19 ports with 16,000+ corporate stakeholders. The B2B marketplace (P-CaSo) for the ecosystem is integrated into the Indian PCS to bring various niche services with curated service partners, including services such as blockchain document transfer (BDT).

Out of 199 ports, the dozen major ports in India handle approximately 60% of the country’s total cargo traffic. In 2019-20 that was close to 705 million tonnes of cargo, and 20,837 vessels that were handled by these ports.

The CargoX Platform, which is built atop public Ethereum blockchain technology, was developed for contactless, secure, fast, and cost-effective original document transfer in supply chains and adjacent industries, such as trading, manufacturing, finance, energy, services, regulators, and governmental agencies. The platform enables companies to avoid manually handling heaps of shipping and business paper documents.

The Platform for Blockchain Document Transfer (BDT) has been successfully tested by Portall Infosystems and India’s global shipping stakeholders to transfer electronic bills of lading. CargoX and Portall Infosystems have entered into a partnership to digitalize the processing of bills of lading and the transfer of trade documents. The CargoX Platform can be accessed by stakeholders through the P-CaSo services marketplace, integrated into PCS 1x.

To comply with the Indian Ministry of Shipping’s initiative, Portall and CargoX engaged their partners to test the CargoX Platform for EXIM with Indian companies. Proof-of-concept tests and simulations were run with various use-case scenarios, including breakbulk and container shipments, export, and import from and into India.

The Indian Ports Association (IPA) and the trade bodies in the Federation of Indian Logistics Association (FILA) have emphasized the importance of digitalization in light of the current global pandemic. The Government of India accordingly started evaluating ways to implement electronic bills of lading, electronic delivery orders, certificates of origin, letters of credit, and other trade documentation across all EXIM transactions in India.

Earlier in Februsary this Year, CargoX becomes the first public blockchain (Ethereum) Bill of Lading provider approved by the International Group of P&I Clubs, an unincorporated association of the 13 principal underwriting Protection & Indemnity (P&I) Associations, which between them provide liability cover for approximately 90% of the world's ocean-going tonnage.

India Now has Its Own Blockchain Platform 'VAJRA' for Automated Payment, Clearing & Settlement

 

Reserve Bank of India promoted National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has recently announced its permissioned blockchain-based platform, Vajra, to make the payment process easier, faster and more transparent.

Vajra is a permissioned blockchain platform which means its an closed-ecosystem platform or say "an invite-only" members club. Such permissioned blockchain network is not accessible to any random participants. Only a registered party under the network administrator can be part of the blockchain network. There will be three types of nodes on the platform.

The team at NPCI researched 'Distributed Ledger Technology' (DLT), a new technology that promises to provide highly secure and tamper-evident transactions stored in a distributed and immutable database which is also versatile enough to be adapted to various case.

The Vajra framework aims to derive advantage from the Blockchain framework to achieve the following goals -

1. Zero/Minimal - Vajra framework will reduce manual processing, FTE for reconciliation.


2. Dispute Redcution - Vajra framework provides faster resolution of disputes.


3. Increased Security - Vajra framework implements cryptography, which will increase the security of payment transactions.

Vajra platform uses the notifications or otherwise can be called the distributed ledger transaction (DLT) message for handling the communication between the nodes.

The current clearing and settlement lifecycle was assessed by NPCI, post which it defined a DLT based processing that focuses on automation of clearing and reconciliation process at NPCI and its partner banks/ASPs.

How Clearing & Settlement works on the DLT platform

Use of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Vajra platform, says NPCI, detect frauds using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) as well to connect to external Fleet Risk Management System (FRM) systems. These are external API’s which are going to execute against ledger data.

Other Important Features

• Permissioned Vajra network will use cryptography security for protection of data.


• Transactions to be encrypted by digital signatures (public and private keys) to prevent unauthorized parties from reading or corrupting transaction data.


• Communication between Vajra and external users to be encrypted to make Vajra data unintelligible to the latter.


• Use of off-chain DB for storing confidential data and storing only the hash pointers to those data on the DLT ledger will ensure data privacy

To recall, in March this year IBM launched IBM World Wire, a blockchain based real-time global payments network for regulated financial institutions.

Last year in October, India's ICICI Bank became only bank from India to have joined JP Morgan's proprietary blockchain platform called Interbank Information Network (IIN), which is built using Quorum, a permissioned (closed ecosystem) variant of the Ethereum blockchain.

Genesis DevCon mobilises 850+ aspiring Blockchain Developers from across India with its 1st Edition

The inaugural edition of India’s largest confluence of Blockchain developers, leaders, evangelists, and students - Genesis DevCon, 2019, concluded its two-day event in IISc, Bangalore with a footfall of over 850+ participants and 45+ speakers. The conference commemorated the concluding chapter of the Genesis developer program, which included a six-month-long hackathon with an objective to address the need to develop a rich pool of quality blockchain developer community in India.

The two-day conference included 20 tech talks, five-panel discussions and multiple workshops with eminent leaders in the emerging technology space. The speaker panel at Genesis DevCon covered a wide range of topics where blockchain technology is set to change the world as we know it: implication and adoption of blockchain in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain technology in the start-up ecosystem, FinTech and Supply Chain.

Some of the subject matter experts who shared their insights into the applications of blockchain technology were: Yanislav Malahov - Founder of the Aeternity Blockchain, (also known as the Godfather of Ethereum); Dilip Krishnaswamy - VP - New Technology Initiatives, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd; Avinash Pitti - CTO, Nucleus Vision; Sanjeev Narsipur - Managing Director-Blockchain, Accenture; Satya Lokam - Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research Lab.

Speaking on the success of the DevCon, Mr. Raghu Mohan, Co-founder, and CEO of IBC Media said, “The Genesis DevCon is truly the genesis of our efforts to create a cohesive blockchain ecosystem in India. It is great to learn and understand the ways Blockchain can redefine how we interact and do business and can enhance business outcomes. We truly believe this can be a powerful platform to bring synergy in the ways in which blockchain is adopted in India. We are thankful to all our sponsors and partners for helping us put together the brilliant two days of pure learning.”

The conference also saw the launch of the Global Starfleet Accelerator program by Aeternity Ventures for early-stage blockchain companies in India, opening more opportunities to the blockchain developer community in India, second only to the USA, in the world. Companies who complete the program qualify for a chance at a receiving direct investment from AE Ventures.

Nucleus Vision, an IoT & Blockchain technology-focused company in the retail industry, also launched their GIDC (Global Identity and Consent) blockchain network for consent-based data access management that allows users to control access to their data at the Genesis DevCon, 2019.

About IBC Media:

IBC Media, co-founded by Raghu Mohan, CEO and Kaavya Prasad, COO in 2018, strongly believes that Innovators are the key factors that decide the future and by enabling them to overcome their obstacles, we aim to pave the way for Socio-Economic progress in India. After identifying an evident lack of awareness and a surplus of underutilized talent when it came to emerging technologies and through painstaking trials and errors, IBC Media has discovered a number of effective ways to inspire awareness, adoption and innovation. Our last year has been studded with some rewarding milestones like Asia's largest Blockchain conference, The Genesis Developer programme, partnerships with multiple state governments, an association with the Policy Think Tank of the Government of India, and we're hungry for more. Simply put, if you're an innovator looking to reach the top shelf, we've got the ladder.

Digital Gurukul becomes India’s 1st Institute to offer Blockchain Powered Certificates

Digital Gurukul awarded Asia’s Best Digital Marketing Institute from Indore partnered with Germany Based Company - Certif-ID to issue blockchain powered Certificates to its students - a feat that has yet to be achieved by any other Digital institutes in India, and among the very few to have taken this disruptive step globally.

The rollout of the diplomas on Blockchain will allow the students of Digital Gurukul and their prospective employers to access the diploma from any geographical location, without any need to send or present physical certificates. All students graduating from Digital Gurukul will now be able to share the credential of their diplomas with future employers and higher education institutions around the world without any hassle.

[caption id="attachment_138248" align="aligncenter" width="757"] Dr. Raj Padhiyar - Founder & CEO, Digital Gurukul interacting with media[/caption]

Dr. Raj Padhiyar - (Founder & Director, Digital Gurukul) said, "Having forayed into the quest for continuous innovation in Digital education, it is due to its propensity for technical breakthroughs that today Digital Gurukul stands on a strong foundation of technological platforms across its systems and processes. Following this legacy, Digital Gurukul is now set to disrupt yet another age-old system of providing paper diplomas to its graduating students."

The prospective employer or other parties do not require additional software or specialized equipment, all they have to do is to scan the QR code which is printed on the certificate. The block created for the graduate will include their educational qualifications, portfolio, projects and even attendance.

"The adoption of Blockchain Technology is still in its infancy in the education industry, but we believe it can help make the Indian education system more dependable and trustworthy. We, at Digital Gurukul are very excited about the adoption of Blockchain to issue our diplomas and are sure it will be a move that every other education institution adopts soon," Dr. Raj Padhiyar further added.

About Digital Gurukul 

Awarded Asia’s Best Digital Marketing institute & 15+ National & International awards - It has trained 7850+ students, working professionals & entrepreneurs all over India.

Today Digital Gurukul has uniquely positioned itself as India's only Classroom based Digital Marketing Institute drawing from the strength and diversity of the fast evolving global corporate world. With an edifice built on Innovation, Research and Technology, coupled with its philosophy of learning Beyond Education, Digital Gurukul is well on its path to create a globally networked, corporate savvy, research-driven Digital Marketing Institute which moves beyond traditional forms of Digital skills dissemination to a Practical & Project based delivery framework to create Industry Relevant Digital Marketers - an agile group of Digital professionals equipped to operate in today's technology-driven business environment.

As a result of that over the years, more than 50+ startups/brands/organisations have absorbed our students, both during final placement and internship. Our students have earned rich accolades for their achievements and a large number of them are star performers within their organisations. Our students, both during final placement and internship. Our students have earned rich accolades for their achievements and a large number of them are star performers within their organisations.

~ Newsvoir

BirthVenue Launches Blockchain Training Program for Young Professionals

BirthVenue Growth Solutions Pvt Ltd has launched a new Blockchain training program for young professionals working out of coworking spaces or any company offices. After a recent entry in the education market, BirthVenue has started expanding its up-skilling services from college students to early & mid stage professionals across sectors.

After PES University in Bangalore successfully adopted their Blockchain training program, many more colleges have been looking to implement a similar training curriculum from the next semester commencing from January. Their first program has been specially designed for the needs of university students to understand the fundamentals of Blockchain and adopt it as a career.

To help the community further and increase the impact, BirthVenue is now expanding its training services to working professionals in corporate, startups, and anyone situated out of centers like co-working spaces. The delivery model of this new program is quite different for professionals for reasons such as heavy focus on practical hands-on applications, and a good peer group of friends and colleagues in the same location.

Through BirthVenue's skilled team and latest partnerships, they have the potential to scale their services and offer this much sought after course to a broader audience. The biggest blockchain training provider, IBM, has officially partnered with BirthVenue for their development and training services. What this partnership means for BirthVenue is great support in terms of curation, network of blockchain experts, latest updates in the blockchain industry, and most important - internationally recognised certifications.

"Learning something is a lot like downloading a computer program into your memory. The simpler it is, the more effective your skills would become. The more personal it is, the higher will be your retention of the same. Hence, we strongly believe that offline + online combination is the right way to go about deep tech training like Blockchain." said Rohit, Director of BirthVenue.

BirthVenue aims to differentiate itself from other Blockchain training providers by focusing on a balanced combination of offline and online. Specifically, to control the quality of the program, there is a cap on the maximum subscription for each batch. The delivery of the training in universities is quite straightforward as once the university is on board, they only need to provide space for the training and will almost certainly have a confirmed number of subscription for each batch.

For this purpose, BirthVenue has partnered with a couple of centers in Delhi & Bangalore to provide training to the people who work out of those places.

On trying to understand the demand for blockchain training in India, they have identified that offline models often make more of an impact that online models. A lot of the members subscribing to their Blockchain training program have previously taken some form on online training to upskill and have found it inefficient or lacking intensity.

So in order to keep the program relevant, industry-focused, and hands-on, BirthVenue’s main focus is on providing in-person, face-to-face training by accomplished industry experts. It is clear from this business model that Birthvenue intends to provide quality focused training and becoming the go-to blockchain training providers in India.

Signzy and Primechain Technologies Partner for AI-led Smart Banking Solutions

India’s leading RegTech startup Signzy today said it has partnered with globally leading Blockchain startup, Primechain Technologies, to co-develop AI (Artificial Intelligence) -led smart banking solutions for banks and financial institutions. The first pre-integrated solution is expected to be launched by December 2019 and will fast-track the digital transformation of banks and financial institutions in India and around the world.

The smart banking solution from Signzy and Primechain will integrate AI and Blockchain technologies to automate and fully-digitize back-office operations, widely considered to be the most complicated process for banks to manage and digitize. It will allow banks to achieve unprecedented efficiencies in operations and simultaneously deliver a superior customer experience across a range of products: loans, insurance and retail banking services.

“This partnership combines our respective leadership in Artificial Intelligence and blockchain-based digitalization technologies targeted at the BFSI industry. Together, we aim to develop and launch integrated solutions that can radically transform the way banks and NBFCs operate and serve their customers,” said Ankit Ratan, co-founder and CEO of Signzy.

Shinam Arora, founder & CEO of Primechain Technologies said, “Banks and NBFCs today have at least a thousand discrete back-office processes, which explains why digitization and automation of the back-office hasn't yet picked up. Primechain and Signzy’s smart banking solution is being developed precisely to solve this problem through a plug-and-play product. We are very excited with the capabilities of this solution and believe it will significantly speed up the digital journeys of banks.”

Mumbai-based Signzy is a leading provider of AI-based digalization and automation solutions to the BFSI industry and counts globally leading banks and NBFCs (Non-Banking Financial Companies) as its clients, including Mastercard, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Mahindra Finance.

Pune-headquartered Primechain is a global blockchain startup and operates the BankChain community of banks for implementing blockchain solutions, with 37 members, including leading banks in India and abroad.

Wipro-AWS launches Co-Innovation Center in Bengaluru to exhibit AI, ML, Blockchain, and IoT Solutions

Wipro Limited, a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today unveiled the Wipro-AWS Launch Pad, a state-of-the-art immersive co-innovation center in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Wipro, with its skilled team of AWS-certified employees, is an innovation-led technology partner for clients in their continuous business transformation journey.

This state-of-the-art ‘innovation-in-action’ center, located in Wipro’s campus at Kodathi, Bengaluru, will enable Wipro to develop and showcase its offerings on AWS Cloud for clients across industry sectors. The center will serve as a multi-disciplinary customer showcase hub for specialized teams to ideate, collaborate, develop and deliver futuristic solutions, leveraging AWS Cloud services in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, augmented and virtual reality, among others.

This center allows an integrated delivery approach that facilitates accelerated cloud adoption for enterprises, and will help clients improve agility, security and optimize costs to drive superior business performance.

From developing and creating leading-edge solutions to achieving Premier Consulting Partner status in the AWS Partner Network (APN), Wipro has developed deep expertise in AWS Cloud services to deliver transformational cloud programs. This center further reinforces Wipro and AWS’s shared commitment to deliver innovative solutions and provide exceptional customer service.

Ramesh Nagarajan, Senior Vice President - Cloud, Wipro Limited said, “The Wipro-AWS Launch Pad showcases what we do best - envisioning the future and creating transformative solutions for our customers. With our expertise in AWS Cloud Services, we are excited to support our customers’ continuous business transformation journey through the Wipro-AWS Launch Pad.”

Ed Lenta, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Amazon Web Services added, “Wipro is raising the bar with the Wipro-AWS Launch Pad by demonstrating the truly innovative experiences that can be developed on AWS. As an AWS Partner Network (APN) Premium Consulting Partner driving some of our largest and most transformational projects, it’s great to see Wipro’s powerful vision for customer experiences come alive in such an engaging and immersive way.”
About Wipro Limited

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. We harness the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help our clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, we have over 175,000 dedicated employees serving clients across six continents. Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots to build a better and a bold new future.

~ Business Wire India

The Government Blockchain Association (GBA) to Enter Indian Subcontinent through Collaborative Intelligence

The Government Blockchain Association (GBA) is making inroads into the Indian marketplace, through the establishment of a dedicated localized chapter within the country. The organisation functions as a Not-For-Profit enterprise that will look towards the education, adoption and adaptability of ledger based solutions in India. The GBA-India Chapter is spearheaded by Mr Sharat Chandra, who is renowned as a ‘Top 20 Thought-leader’ in GovTech.

GBA is an international non-profit association helping government, public sector professionals, and organizations around the world to understand, implement, and benefit from blockchain technology related technologies and capabilities.

Blockchain technology has witnessed impressive traction over the last couple of years, with successful startups and projects focused around Green Energy, Agriculture, FinTech, SCM & Logistics, Manufacturing and Land Registry. These ventures have shown impressive results and are presently being scaled for wider adoption.



Despite being at the focal point of the South Asian market, India has been moving at a relative snail-pace with regard to blockchain adoption. Hence, the GBA-India Chapter was established. The organisation will look towards guiding startups in the blockchain space, as well as help local government bodies develop adequate regulatory policies and charter laws for ledger based solutions. Another important feature behind the organisation’s conception was the burning need to educate the masses and upskill them technically for the domestic blockchain ecosystem.

Ms Debajani Mohanty, Blockchain consultant and author of 4 bestselling books, serves as an Advisor for the GBA-India chapter. She quoted that “The GBA-India Chapter was founded with a vision to bring Blockchain to the mainstream by educating the mass, working closely with start-ups, advising them on their Blockchain strategy, practices and connecting them with the right set of investors. GBA is also conducting sessions and workshops in some of the most prestigious educational institutes of India to prepare students for emerging technologies today that most curriculums do not cover. I am proud to be part of this eminent team, preparing India for NextGen technologies.”

The organisation has also added industry veterans like Dr Paritosh Basu, Prasanna Lohar and Gokul Alex to its list of eminent advisors.

Mr Prasanna Lohar, Head of Innovation and Architecture for DCB Bank, said that

“Partnerships between competitive banks, technology companies, Academia, Fintech and Regulators will bring benefits to consumers and the financial system. Collaboration among these driving forces will bring on multiple innovative & cost effective use cases, such as Data Protection, KYC/AML and Identity Management. Post Demonetisation, UPI, GST and many other movements, Blockchain is set to become the ‘Radical Change Agent’ in India.”

First on its itenary, the GBA-India Chapter will be conducting a Blockchain Workshop in association with IIM-B, on the 26th of July. All participants will receive a certificate of completion for the workshop.



Ex-CFO of Reliance, Dr Paritosh Basu, has gone on the record to state that “The internet has transcended geographical boundaries, Blockchain will have to break sovereign boundaries. It should be grounded on the humane foundation of sustainable shared values. Blockchain technologists cannot become just another Technology-tribe. They should become the harbingers of development, shared with the masses for inclusive happiness, irrespective of globalisation or protectionism for any country.”

The GBA-India chapter will also be conducting the Bangalore Blockchain Conference on the 27th of July, in Bangalore city. The summit will feature an array of 20 renowned speakers like Mr Manish Jain, Partner for Digital Consulting at KPMG; Mr Venkat Raghavan, Director of Analytics for the Boston Consulting Group; and Mr Kevin Lally, VP of the Crypto Valley Foundation.

Asia's 1st Blockchain Digital Commercial Paper Issuance by Yes Bank, Vedanta and MonetaGo

Financial technology solutions provider MonetaGo has today announced that a commercial paper has been digitally issued in Asia for the first time using blockchain technology. MonetaGo completed this transaction through a partnership with banking services provided by YES Bank and the issuer Vedanta, a natural resources conglomerate.

India’s highly-regulated commercial paper market involves huge amount of paperwork to be prepared by the Issuer for every transaction.

Issuances are on the increase as more businesses manage their short term cash needs through this products however absence of a streamlined digital process makes this entire process cumbersome resulting in many man hours being wasted.

The transaction was delivered using Corda Enterprise technology from R3, along with a robust set of standardized workflows to deliver a solution that will rapidly scale across markets and geographies.

MonetaGo moved to Corda Enterprise in February 2019, joining R3’s growing ecosystem of over 300 diverse companies utilising Corda to build applications for a range of uses across different industries.

Speaking on the implementation, Asit Oberoi, Senior Group President and Global Head Transaction Banking Group and Chief Experience Officer, YES BANK, said,” YES BANK is proud to implement Asia’s first Commercial Paper issuance over Blockchain technology for the Vedanta Limited. This solution is a yet another milestone in YES BANK’s endeavor to remain ahead of the innovation curve & enhance end client experience. Apart from reducing operational risk and costs, this technology solution lays the foundation for a more transparent and efficient process to cater to India’s growing Commercial Paper market.”

GR Arun Kumar, Group CFO, Vedanta, notes that “Vedanta will benefit from the digitized and simplified workflow which shortens the laborious process running into hours to just few minutes and complete transparency that this platform offers to all stakeholders.”

MonetaGo CEO Jesse Chenard, said: “This is a real milestone for our company, for the technology, and for the Indian Banking Community.”

“We’ve been working with YES BANK and Vedanta very closely and have been continuously impressed with their ability to leverage technology to bring about large scale change. These are big corporations with the ability to move like start-ups, something very rare indeed especially when dealing with a market this size.”

David E. Rutter, CEO of R3, comments: “The issuance of these instruments is a complex process and current models have long been recognized as being inefficient. Enabling parties to collaborate and maintain accurate shared records of the underlying agreements is precisely what Corda is great at doing. This marks a big step forward for the industry and demonstrates clear advantages of over existing processes.”

MonetaGo provides enterprise solutions for financial operations. The MonetaGo product suite is compliant with existing regulations and designed to improve the efficiency and security of financial products.

Built to support multiple technologies and interoperate seamlessly with existing financial infrastructure, institutions can integrate MonetaGo's products with minimal disruption and cost. MonetaGo is involved in a number of distributed ledger technology consortia and alliances including the R3 Partnership Network and the Hyperledger project.

RBI's arm Building Model Platform for Blockchain Apps for Govt in Banking

In August last year, it was reported that India's central bank, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), had set up a unit to supervise, oversee its efforts in emerging technologies including cryptocurrency, blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI). However RBI denied the reports later, but in April this year it was announced that National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which was incorporated by the RBI, is working on to develop highly scalable blockchain based payment solution to further strengthen digital payments in the country. Though the cryptocurrency part was missing in the later report.

Now, in a latest to this, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), an arm of RBI that that exclusively focus on banking technology, is working on development of a model blockchain platform to cater to the needs of banks.

AS Ramasastri, Director of IDRBT, has told a business daily that IDRBT is working on a model platform for blockchain applications for the government in banking and the same will be documented and developed next year.

The upcoming blockchain platform will put up all available blockchain applications with features like inter-operability, among others.

“While there is huge scope for deployment of blockchain applications, a cautious approach is very much needed,” said Ramasastri, pointing at the current situation where despite of the fact hat banks and financial institutions are do referring to blockchain technology already but real deployment of bloockchain applications has not been attempted so far.

to recall, a Infosys-Finacle survey report of 2017 had suggested that almost 50% of banks globally have already invested in the blockchain technology or were contemplating to do so in that year.

IDRBT, who is also in the process of setting up a 5G Use Cases Lab for banks, is speeding up its activities of the Fintech Forum launched a few months back with an aim of providing a continuous innovative platform to fintech companies, start-up ventures and banks, in order to enhance the co-innovation and reduce the on-boarding time for new technologies.

In the past, www.indianweb2.com covered various stories on how the technology is invading financial institutions like banks (Read Here) and electronic voting systems in several countries (Read Here), including India. In fact, not only banking and voting, Blockchain is also blurring the lines between technology and nature through a new species called Plantoid, a new digital plant, which is designed to reproduce itself via transactions made on the blockchain.

Law as An Enabler for Blockchain Adoption in India

Officially endorsed by the Maharashtra Government, Trescon’s 11^th edition of World Blockchain Summit assembled India’s key policymakers, government authorities, blockchain experts, enterprises, IT giants and startups to pave the way for India to be the next blockchain epicentre of the world. Vivekdeep Gupta, N.S. Nappinai, Sharat Chandra and Dr. N. Rajendran were some of the top speakers who keynoted the summit.

In a bid to bolster an enterprise-grade blockchain adoption roadmap for businesses and governments in India, the internationally-acclaimed global tech event series World Blockchain Summit, with the support of the Maharashtra Government, gathered over 300 senior professionals from enterprises and government agencies and global blockchain experts to share their deep experience and understanding of how the nation can benefit from the revolutionary technology, at Taj Santacruz, Mumbai on 20 June 2019.

When talking about the regulatory environment of blockchain in India, N.S. Nappinai, Advocate & Cyber Law Expert, Nappinai & Co., Advocates, had quoted in her keynote speech, “For any innovation, you need to come to a tipping point where it has grown exponentially and organically. However, for it to grow further, one of the differentiators could be law as an enabler.”

Dilip Krishnaswamy, Vice President, Reliance Jio Infocomm; Dr. N Rajendran, CTO of National Payments Corporation of India; Vivekdeep Gupta, Country head, R3; Dr. Paritosh Basu, Senior Professor, The NMIMS University School of Business Management; Sharat Chandra, President of Government Blockchain Association, India Chapter and Jaideep Reddy, Leader, Nishit Desai Associates among others, addressed the summit on key areas such as the ‘legal and regulatory landscape of blockchain in India’, ‘adoption challenges of blockchain for enterprises and its impact on the BFSI Sector and real-world industry use cases of Blockchain that can transform governance and Indian industry verticals.

Among the several exhibitors at the summit, Refine Medium, a blockchain-based media platform had quoted. “We decided to attend World Blockchain Summit to hear industry leaders share their views about the blockchain space. There is a significant advantage that can be gained from using platforms such as World Blockchain Summit for outreach. The summit has enabled us to get access to our immediate market which are active people in the blockchain space.”

The summit also partnered with top regional and international investors that included Artha Venture Fund, Chance River (USA), Anthill Ventures, Unicorn India Ventures, Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, to name a few.

LetsEndorse – A digital collaborative ecosystem that engages in co-creating problem-solving, holistic and high-impact social projects, triumphed the Startup Grand Slam Pitch Competition, a fund-raising platform where companies get to pitch in front of global investors including VCs, angel investors and key government authorities, to launch or expand their businesses.

Other sponsors and exhibitors of the summit included: Kanerika, Osiz Technologies Private Limited, Refine Medium, Alo Agri Tech Pvt. Ltd, LetsEndorse and TrustWorks.

About World Blockchain Summit -

World Blockchain Summit is a global series that takes place in 10+ destinations across the world. The summit connects global blockchain gurus and technology players in this space including emerging startups – with regional businesses, government authorities, IT leaders, tech entrepreneurs, investors and blockchain developers – all under one roof. 

About Trescon:

Trescon is a global business events and consulting firm specialised in producing highly focused B2B events that connect businesses with opportunities through conferences, road shows, expos, investor connect and consulting services.

 

Govt of India's SWAYAM is Offering Free E-Course on Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies

SWAYAM -- a programme initiated by Government of India -- is offering a free computer science course on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and blockchains.

The 12-week undergraduate course named "Blockchain Architecture Design and Use Cases" is a joint venture from academia and industry, where the target is to cover both the conceptual as well as application aspects of Blockchain, including the fundamental design and architectural primitives of Blockchain, the system and the security aspects, along with various use cases from different application domains.

The online course runs from 29th July to 18th October and the exam will be on 17th November for those wanting to obtain a certificate from the course. The curriculum of the course include Hyperledger, IBM Blockchain Cloud, Ethereum development tools & Quorum, and for self-study SWAYAM website refers to books including "Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies" by Andreas Antonopoulos among others.

As per SWAYAM, "The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centers."

The certification exam is optional and costs ₹ 1000. The certificate received will have the logos of NPTEL,IBM and IIT Kharagpur. NPTEL or "National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning" is an initiative by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for creating course contents in engineering and science.

The exam will be conducted in various cities across the country which will be revealed at the time of signing up. Cities that have held exams for other Swayam courses include Lucknow, Kolkata, Guwahati, Mumbai, Thane, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Thiruvananthapuram.

Launched in August last year, SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) aims to provide one integrated platform and portal for online courses. The program, backed by the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development, seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.

At present about 1550+ MOOCs courses are listed on SWAYAM of which 800+ courses are already delivered. About 34 Lakhs students have enrolled in these courses.

It is intended to host about 2000 courses and 80000 hours of learning material, within two years: covering school, under-graduate, post-graduate, engineering, law and other professional courses. It is expected to support 3 Crores users in the next few years.

Via ~ Bitcoin.com