LTIMindtree and IBM Collaborate on watsonx CoE for Generative AI

LTIMindtree and IBM have joined forces to establish a Generative AI Center of Excellence (CoE) in India. This collaborative initiative combines the power of IBM's watsonx AI and data platform with the engineering skills of LTIMindtree, a global technology consulting and digital solutions company.

The CoE aims to drive open innovation and accelerate the adoption of generative AI solutions by organizations. The joint Generative AI Center of Excellence (CoE) in India, a co-innovation center combining the power of the IBM watsonx AI and data platform and the engineering skills of LTIMindtree.

LTIMindtree brings its expertise in data and machine learning model customization, along with full-stack engineering capabilities. The CoE leverages IBM's watsonx technology suite, including watsonx.ai, watsonx.data, and watsonx.governance, as well as AI assistants.

The center, located in India, will focus on building point solutions that help clients adopt generative AI more effectively.

Benefits to Clients

LTIMindtree offers watsonx.governance integration with the Canvas.AI platform. This collaborative toolkit enables organizations to strategically incorporate AI governance frameworks throughout the entire AI lifecycle, ensuring compliance with ethical standards and responsible AI practices.

The CoE provides an enterprise data modernization and warehouse augmentation service powered by watsonx.data. This service enhances existing data warehouse capabilities using IBM's technology and LTIMindtree's tailored solutions.

This collaboration represents a significant step toward advancing AI technologies and empowering businesses to achieve success with robust governance. By funneling the latest AI research andsolutions innovations into real-world , LTIMindtree and IBM are poised to make a meaningful impact in the field of generative AI.

Industrial IoT Software Co. NRV DesignX Raises $200K Seed Round from Modulor Capital

DesignX specialises in migrating and bridging manufacturing companies to Industry 4.0. It achieves this through its TechFiles and Hectos products. Techfiles is a SaaS product that is deployed by manufacturing firms to digitise manual paperwork, and further machine digitisation is achieved through its IoT device Hectos. Machine data integrates with TechFiles platform via its proprietary middleware.

According to Wikipedia, “Industry 4.0" factories have machines which are augmented with wireless connectivity and sensors, connected to a system that can visualise the entire production line and make decisions on its own. In essence, industry 4.0 is the trend towards automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and processes which include cyber-physical systems (CPS), the internet of things (IoT), industrial internet of things (IIOT), Cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence.

"Modulor's investment is a validation of our capabilities and strategy that, somewhere in between brown-grass & green-grass machines lies the perfect shade of Industry 4.0," said Rajat Srivastav CEO of DesignX.

"The company plans to use the funds to focus on building a comprehensive Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) software portfolio with a focus on Asset Performance Management leveraging Edge devices," said Nishant Srivastav, COO of DesignX.

"As an early leader in IIoT, DesignX has built strong capabilities in IT-OT integration with its manufacturing customers thanks to deep domain knowledge and software expertise," said Bhavish Sood General Partner at Modulor Capital and incoming board member.

"What attracted us to investing was the quality of client references and their ability to solve outcomes for the most asset-intensive industries," said Neeran Chhiber, General Partner at Modulor Capital and incoming board observer.

Venture Garage, an advisory firm for early-stage startups, served as financial advisors to DesignX for the transaction. “DesignX has a strong clientele of global manufacturing companies. With Modulor coming on board the product offering and the traction will get a boost,” said Vineet Sagar, Co-founder & Managing Partner at Venture Garage.

Everis Consulting served as financial advisors and Sequitur as legal advisors to Modulor Capital.

What is Industry 4.0

Bernard Marr

Forbes Contributor

www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/09/02/what-is-industry-4-0-heres-a-super-easy-explanation-for-anyone/#27a355f59788

Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0

About DesignX

DesignX is reimagining how industries install, operate and maintain their assets, unlocking machine data to turn valuable insights into powerful business outcomes. DesignX's portfolio includes the leading Asset Performance Management Solution that covers assets's manual checks, machine data, maintenance schedule & complete life cycle management helps its customers to utilise assets to the best of its performances. Powered by leading cloud platforms & TechFiles: The Complete Factory Operating System for the Industrial Data Management, DesignX enables industrial businesses to operate faster, smarter and more efficiently, wherever their operations require. DesignX has offices in New Delhi and Ahmedabad.

For more information, please visit: designx.in.

About Modulor Capital

Modulor Capital is a technology and health-tech focussed micro VC fund. We invest in startups that have achieved product-market fit and are in the early stages of building out their businesses. As active co-investors, our strength lies in leveraging our proprietary Quagrow TM playbook to help build commercial scale for early-stage startups. Modulor has offices in Seattle, New Delhi, and Chandigarh.

Rockwell Automation Acquires Pune-based MESTECH Services

US based Rockwell Automation, the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information, announced on October 1 that it has acquired MESTECH Services, a Pune-based manufacturing IT consulting firm.

Founded in 2008, MESTECH Services is headquartered in Pune, India with operations in Germany and the United States. The company touts itself as a one-stop​ technology shop for needs such as Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Digital and Smart Manufacturing, with specialization in the Life Sciences, Process, Automotive and Discrete Verticals.

The acquisition transaction is not expected to have a material impact on Rockwell’s 2020 financial results.

Matthew Fordenwalt, Vice President and General Manager, Systems & Solutions Business, for Rockwell Automation, said,"The acquisition of MESTECH expands our capabilities to profitably grow Information Solutions and Connected Services globally and accelerate Rockwell’s ability to help our customers execute digital transformation initiatives.'

"India is one of Rockwell’s fastest growing markets and MESTECH’s footprint and expertise will enable us to implement solutions faster, helping our customers increase their connectivity, efficiency, and productivity," said Fordenwalt.

It was in August, Rockwell, in its India event, has announced that it will help partner manufacturers in India equip their workforce better in working with changing technologies and bridge Industry 4.0 skill gaps by offering e-learning, instructor-led courses, certificate programs, and training workstations.

At the same time, by joining the Rockwell family, MESTECH will be able to leverage Rockwell’s products and solutions in the areas of control, process, power information solutions and industrial IoT, including FactoryTalk Innovation Suite, powered by PTC, in order to help customers develop the best possible solutions while minimizing risk."

Yatin Sankholkar, who is Managing Director at MESTECH, said in a press release statement, "We are excited about our future with Rockwell Automation, which will enable us to help more customers simplify their industrial transformations and accelerate their production timelines."

"Over the past decade, we have grown MESTECH into one of the world’s leading manufacturing execution service providers, with a focus on Technology Consulting and Software Implementation for managing manufacturing operations. By joining forces with Rockwell, we will be able to expand our market access and offer more customers the benefit of our strong industry expertise," said Yatin Sankholkar.

Industrial IoT Startup SwitchOn Raises $1 Mn in Seed Funding from pi Ventures, Axilor and Others

SwitchOn, an Edge-AI enabled Industrial IoT company, today announced that it has raised $1 mn in seed round of funding led by pi Ventures, India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Blockchain focused early stage venture fund. Along with pi, Axilor and eminent angels from The Chennai Angels have also participated in the round.

Founded by Aniruddha Banerjee and Avra Banerjee in 2017, SwitchOn is an Industrial tech company that helps manufacturing industries identify plant-level bottlenecks and improve equipment efficiency. Industries can create digital twins of their heavy assets, monitor and predict availability and performance bottlenecks in advance, thus ensuring better Efficiency for the Equipment as well as the Plant.

The Company graduated from the Axilor Accelerator Program in 2018. The Automotive and FMCG Discrete Manufacturing are the key industries that SwitchOn has seen significant traction in both India and APAC markets. The fresh funds will be used for strengthening the edge-compute architecture, expanding the team and market adoption in India and other countries in the EU and APAC region.

Aniruddha Banerjee, Co-Founder, SwitchOn said, “SwitchOn is leveraging deep expertise in hardware and software design to create state-of-the-art edge solutions for increasing transparency, reducing turn-around, and improving quality on the shop-floor of manufacturing industries to ultimately achieve operational excellence. We are very excited about the new investment and the deep expertise of our investors in scaling IP-led hardware-software businesses. We believe that our customers will benefit heavily from our expanded global footprint and deep technology differentiators."

SwitchOn has a proprietary set of algorithms which combines vibration data, electrical data and other signals to give accurate and relevant Digital Twin of the machine. This leads to a variety of outcomes for their clients across the globe - from transparency of the operations to increasing the availability of the machine to predictive maintenance. SwitchOn has their own hardware which attaches on top of the machine (non-intrusive) along with the ability to carry out complex number crunching. The implementation of their technology reduces the need to transfer gigabytes of data to the cloud thus saving valuable dollars and achieve a faster turnaround on the insights. The solution is implemented very simply - it almost attaches itself like fitbit and does not need a deep integration.

[caption id="attachment_131236" align="alignright" width="259"] Manish Singhal, Founding Partner at pi Ventures[/caption]

Manish Singhal, Founding Partner, pi Ventures, added, “What attracted us to invest in them was their clear understanding of the technology and customer needs. Another winning point was their minimally intrusive solution, the need of the hour in the Industrial IoT space. We are happy to partner with a brilliant team working hard at addressing a crucial need."

SwitchOn with their solution are well poised to be a dominant player in the Industrial IoT space which is expected to be >$200B by 2023. Industrial operations for a large part are still highly manual with only 8% of the pre-existing sensors in the machines are connected to the internet. With ample opportunity and need to automate various aspects of a machine to achieve a reduction in downtime, improve operational efficiency and maximize asset utilization, the industrial IoT market is set to advance rapidly.

Last week, an another Industrial IoT startup Sparkyo Technology Pvt. Ltd., which owns and operates Syook, a real-time location intelligence System, had raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), an early stage investing platform and a sub-initiative of CXO Genie.

Before that, Pune-based Altizon Inc, which is also an Industrial IoT platform addressing the manufacturing industries, had closed its series A+ funding round of $7 million led by TVS Motor Company (Singapore) Pte. Limited, the Singapore based Subsidiary of TVS Motor.

pi Ventures is India’s first Applied Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT and Blockchain focused early stage venture fund. pi is a $33 Million fund based in Bangalore, India, and invests around $1 million per startup. pi Ventures focuses on healthcare, logistics, retail, fin-tech and enterprise sectors. Backed by some of the leading entrepreneurs globally, pi Ventures brings hands-on product and entrepreneurial experience to the India venture investing ecosystem.

In April, pi Ventures had invested in Bengaluru-based ten3T Healthcare, a health technology startup that has commercialized patented technology for the early detection and prevention of medical episodes to patients in hospitals, during transport, and at home. Prior to that, pi led the $4.2 million seed round of FrontdeskAI, a developer of artificial intelligence assistants for small businesses.

Industrial IoT Startup Syook Raises Fund from Inflection Point Ventures

Bangalore-based Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) startup Sparkyo Technology Pvt. Ltd., which owns and operates Syook, a real-time location intelligence System, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Inflection Point Ventures (IPV), an early stage investing platform and a sub-initiative of CXO Genie.

The startup plans to use the fresh capital to scale up its operations in India, apart from expanding to the Southeast Asian market, reported VC Circle.

Founded in 2016 by Arjun Nagarajan (IIT Guwahati), Saurabh Sharma and Aman Agarwal (IIT Madras), Syook is an Industrial IoT solution that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to generate highly-accurate location data of all your resources, both assets and people, at much lower costs than comparable technologies.

The startup's flagship product, 'Syook InSite', is a real-time location system that allows businesses to visualize their operations. Based on Syook's proprietary Indoor Positioning Engine, it provides information that translates into a positive impact on the bottom-line through productivity gains, safer environments and better compliance.

Founded in 2017, IP Ventures is a sub-initiative of CXO Genie, a networking platform for executives. Its founding members include former Myntra CFO Dipanjan Basu and BookMyShow finance head Mitesh Shah. Currently, it has 250+ angel investors including CXOs and HNIs.

Based out of Gurgaon, IP Ventures' portfolio of investments include Fitso, Intugine and Wishup ammonng others.

To recall, an another Industrial IoT startup, Altizon Inc, had recently closed its series A+ funding round of $7 million, which was led by TVS Motor Company (Singapore) Pte. Limited, the Singapore based Subsidiary of TVS Motor Company Limited, with participation of existing investors The Hive, Wipro Ventures, and Lumis Partners.

Last month, TagBox, a Bangalore-based IoT and Analytics solutions startup catering Cold Chain Logistics supply chain market, also raised $3.85 million in Series A round of funding, which was also led by TVS Motor.

IoT Startup for Cold Chain Logistics Tagbox Raises $3.8 Mn from TVS Motor

Just a week after investing in Pune-based Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) startup Altizon Inc, TVS Motor Company today announced that it has invested $3.85 million in Series A round of funding of TagBox, a Bangalore-based IoT and Analytics solutions startup catering Cold Chain Logistics supply chain market, reported Business Line.

The fund round was led entirely by TVS Motor Company and its Singapore-based subsidiary TVS Motor (Singapore) Pte. Limited, which led the $7 million series A+ funding round of Altizon, in late last month.

TagBox plans to use the funds to strengthen product innovation and R&D, while expanding its global footprint. The startup, which uses IoT, Machine Learning and Automation for its solutions offerings, will continue to invest in its BoxLens and AssetLens platforms and develop new predictive analytics and automation solutions to solve various customer use cases.

Tagbox was founded in 2016 by Adarsh Kumar, Sameer Singh and Saumitra Singh. It was started with the vision of enabling organizations to make their Supply Chains more reliable using IoT based monitoring, Advanced Analytics and Automation & Control. Accordding to the company website, the name 'TagBox' itself comes from the fact that the company wants to cost-effectively and reliably tag any supply chain shipment at the highest level of granularity (box), monitor its health real time and ensure that the shipments’ quality is not compromised.

The startup is working with Retail, Pharma, F&B, Dairy and Glass companies in India and APAC.

speaking on investment in Tagbox, Rajesh Narasimhan, Board Member of TVS Motor Company, and CEO of TVS Motor (Singapore), said,"We evaluated many companies providing IoT solutions in the Supply Chain and logistics space and found TagBox’s product offerings and solutions to be an unique blend of IoT, Machine Learning and close-loop AI."

TVS Motor's investment in Tagbox is part of the initial set of investments being made in strategically relevant digital startups. In August last year, Bengaluru-based electric vehicle (EV) startup, Ultraviolette Automotive Pvt Ltd, had received an additional investment of ₹6 crore from TVS Motor, who bought a 14.78% stake in Ultraviolette Automotive Pvt Ltd., in December 2017.

Internet of Things (IoT) To Help Save Air and Water

A few weeks back, we shared a story on how Internet of Things (IoT) is being used to salvage the food wastage epidemic plaguing the entire planet (Read Here). But did you know, IoT can also be used to help save air and water, two of the most important elements that people on Earth need for survival.

According to experts, even though Air and Water are two of the most important elements needed for human survival but they're also two of the most neglected elements by the human population. As long as we're getting a continuous supply, we really do not care about the quality we're consuming and quantity left for future consumption. This in itself is an alarming frame of thought.

This negligence is the reason that every year, millions of people lose their lives to diseases caused by air pollution and water contamination. The world's air and water challenges are growing by every second of the day and there's an urgent need to address them if we need longevity of human life on Planet Earth.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which is mainly known for helping organisations monitor industrial assets can prove to be a great asset when it comes to performing environmental monitoring.

Experts claim that robust IIoT technologies can effectively help in air and water monitoring if done through via proven-in-the-field sensors and technology, like adaptable power sources, and industry-standard sensor protocols and languages (RS-232, 4-20mA, 0-10V). For example, the IIoT can be powered by 110- or 220-volt standard mains power to monitor air and water for human safety.

IIoT technologies makes organisations situationally aware to encourage better productivity. For example, if they're getting into the danger zone of a hydrogen sulfide or an industrial refinery leak in an area, Or is the danger zone coming to a particular community in the form of flash floods. This not only helps the organisations but it also helps protect the safety and health of human beings since IIoT connectivity options are extremely flexible in nature. All an organisation has got to do is select an appropriate Internet cloud gateway connectivity for a particular deployment.

Nowadays, the options of power and Internet connectivity have become plenty, which has resulted in making remote monitoring of air and water easier than ever. Hence, one no longer has to risk human lives or waste precious time in driving for hours to the field to measure pressure transducer level sensors, water wells and flow meters logging data on water usage.

IIoT Web-based dashboards give organisations the power to gain instantaneous data from any part of the world right from the comfort of their smartphones, laptops and tablets. This helps them in getting quick alerts in a scenario when an automatic response has to be generated if an environmental sensor threshold is crossed. For instance, urgent inspection requests can be sent to help fix any issues or problem that may arise in real-time.

It is high time that the mankind starts releasing their duty towards planet Earth and lay extra focus on the air and water challenge that is becoming more critical each second. Monitoring air and water can prove to be a great first step in this mission and IIoT has a crucial role to play in the whole scenario.

Internet of Things (IoT) To Help Save Air and Water

A few weeks back, we shared a story on how Internet of Things (IoT) is being used to salvage the food wastage epidemic plaguing the entire planet (Read Here). But did you know, IoT can also be used to help save air and water, two of the most important elements that people on Earth need for survival.

According to experts, even though Air and Water are two of the most important elements needed for human survival but they're also two of the most neglected elements by the human population. As long as we're getting a continuous supply, we really do not care about the quality we're consuming and quantity left for future consumption. This in itself is an alarming frame of thought.

This negligence is the reason that every year, millions of people lose their lives to diseases caused by air pollution and water contamination. The world's air and water challenges are growing by every second of the day and there's an urgent need to address them if we need longevity of human life on Planet Earth.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which is mainly known for helping organisations monitor industrial assets can prove to be a great asset when it comes to performing environmental monitoring.

Experts claim that robust IIoT technologies can effectively help in air and water monitoring if done through via proven-in-the-field sensors and technology, like adaptable power sources, and industry-standard sensor protocols and languages (RS-232, 4-20mA, 0-10V). For example, the IIoT can be powered by 110- or 220-volt standard mains power to monitor air and water for human safety.

IIoT technologies makes organisations situationally aware to encourage better productivity. For example, if they're getting into the danger zone of a hydrogen sulfide or an industrial refinery leak in an area, Or is the danger zone coming to a particular community in the form of flash floods. This not only helps the organisations but it also helps protect the safety and health of human beings since IIoT connectivity options are extremely flexible in nature. All an organisation has got to do is select an appropriate Internet cloud gateway connectivity for a particular deployment.

Nowadays, the options of power and Internet connectivity have become plenty, which has resulted in making remote monitoring of air and water easier than ever. Hence, one no longer has to risk human lives or waste precious time in driving for hours to the field to measure pressure transducer level sensors, water wells and flow meters logging data on water usage.

IIoT Web-based dashboards give organisations the power to gain instantaneous data from any part of the world right from the comfort of their smartphones, laptops and tablets. This helps them in getting quick alerts in a scenario when an automatic response has to be generated if an environmental sensor threshold is crossed. For instance, urgent inspection requests can be sent to help fix any issues or problem that may arise in real-time.

It is high time that the mankind starts releasing their duty towards planet Earth and lay extra focus on the air and water challenge that is becoming more critical each second. Monitoring air and water can prove to be a great first step in this mission and IIoT has a crucial role to play in the whole scenario.

Three Things In Industrial IoT That Everyone’s Talking About

Industrial IoT (IIoT) is being pitched as the next big thing. According to experts, by the year 2020, the industry could be worth a whopping $151bn. Since the industry is still in its nascent stage, the topics that are being hotly debated right now in IIoT has the potential to shape the industry's entire future.

Here’s IndianWeb2 providing you deep insights into three main topics that are currently shaping the IIoT industry:

Security

Security is considered as an important vertical when it comes to the implementation of Industrial IoT. A lot of debates are currently happening around if enough measures are being taken in the field of cybersecurity. The recent DDoS attack that successfully managed to take down the so-called secure sites like Twitter, Spotify, and Netflix, which was caused partly by Internet of Things devices, these debates have become hotter than ever.

The question of standardisation takes a central role here: what kind of framework needs to be developed so as to ensure the security of individuals and of organisations? The issue is that such attacks have the potential of getting by unnoticed when it comes to the industrial sector. But, according to experts, for the hackers the B2B sphere holds more value, hence it is important for the IIoT to get this particular thing right.

Data ethics

When it comes to ethics surrounding data collection and analysis, things are a little hazy. To be really truthful, it is very hazy. Though we know that most of the data being collected through the Internet of Things devices is anonymised metadata, but the crucial questions still remain unanswered : What do the businesses actually do with all the collected data and who does it belong to?

According to industry experts, there is a need to treat data ethics as an important industry-wide obligation, and fortunately, the IoT industry has an opportunity to do this right from the beginning.

There is a need to have more transparency when it comes to data being collected from individuals, and then what is being done with it to create smarter products and services. Experts suggest that each company should have an ethics panel where they can debate and guide through all the data-related issues .

Testbeds

The fact of the matter is, that in order for us to understand the real effects of all the technological developments happening in the IIoT, they will have to be tested for. All of the concerns of the public and business leasers around the uncertainty of what the future might look like can be easily put to rest by putting the industrial internet to the test. This is the very reason that testbeds have been playing an extremely vital role in the industry. Some of the successful IIoT testbeds examples include Telefonica’s work with Fiware to make real-time measurements of water quality in fountains and a smart airline baggage management solution developed by GE, Oracle, Infosys and M2MI so as to reduce baggage losses and damages at the airport.

[Top Image- steelguru.com]