FedEx Launches FedEx Innovation Lab to Fuel Digital Capabilities for What’s Next

Investment and commercial partnership program designed to foster promising start-ups in India and build smart logistics for all

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) has launched FedEx Innovation Lab (FIL) to cultivate and collaborate with rising early-stage digital start-ups in the key market of India as well as the wider region.

FIL will make early-stage investments in these partnerships and bring additional value in terms of capabilities and speed to market to start-up firms through the FedEx network, resources, and global customer base. These collaborations will help expand FedEx advanced digital capabilities globally as it continues to evolve its operations and product offerings to meet the needs of the modern supply chain. The partnerships formed through FIL will benefit customers globally.

FIL’s first investment is in Mad Street Den, a computer vision and Artificial Intelligence (AI) company that is a leader in enterprise AI solutions. The start-up’s AI platform enables marketing, product and technology teams to improve and optimize efficiencies. Their products are deployed across several industries, including retail, healthcare, finance, media and entertainment, education, and more.

“India is at the core of innovation strategies for global technology leaders. Following the recent announcement of our plans to open the first Advanced Capability Community in Hyderabad, FIL further reinforces the importance we place on tapping new technologies and a wide range of talent,” said Kami Viswanathan, Senior Vice President, FedEx Express, Middle East, Indian Subcontinent and Africa region. “There is much mutual benefit that can be gained as well as a tremendous opportunity to help transform the global logistics industry. We would welcome any interest from innovators in India with a shared interest in our vision.”

FIL is looking for more collaborations to help create smart logistics for all. FIL’s primary focus is India, which is now home to the world’s third largest start up ecosystem and has progressed in the ranks of the Global Innovation Index. India provides a rich pipeline of early-stage digital logistics firms from which FedEx can curate a meaningful portfolio of partners. The wider region is also a hotbed of technological innovation and partnership opportunities. 

“Innovation is embedded in our business strategy. As we celebrate our 50th anniversary this year, the launch of FIL is another exciting step in creating What’s Next for our customers. We are committed to using advanced technology and data-driven insights to create smarter supply chains with differentiated offerings to deliver greater value and experience for customers,” said Kawal Preet, president, FedEx Express, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa (AMEA).

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) provides customers and businesses worldwide with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services. With annual revenue of $93 billion, the company offers integrated business solutions through operating companies competing collectively, operating collaboratively and innovating digitally as one FedEx. Consistently ranked among the world’s most admired and trusted employers, FedEx inspires its more than 530,000 employees to remain focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards and the needs of their customers and communities. FedEx is committed to connecting people and possibilities around the world responsibly and resourcefully, with a goal to achieve carbon-neutral operations by 2040. To learn more, please visit fedex.com/about.

Goa gets 'BITS BIRAC BioNEST' Incubator for Startups & Entrepreneurs in Healthcare and Environment Sector

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus and Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a Public Sector Enterprise of government of India’s department of biotechnology (DBT) have come together to launch 'BITS BIRAC BioNEST Lab', a state-of-the-art startup incubator facility.

BITS BIRAC BioNEST Lab, which will act as Incubator as well as Innovation Lab, has been set up with funding of Rs 3 crore from DBT and will be will be opened on January 3 by Goa University vice-chancellor Varun Sahni and director of BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus G Raghurama

The 3,500 sq ft facility will focus on helping startups in the health and environment sectors to find innovative solutions to issues in these areas. The start-ups will be assisted by the lab by providing them with equipment, space and support facilities to test their ideas and prototype in the lab, before taking it to the market.

The lab will focus on health and environment startups that can create products which will not only have great market potential, but also provide a solution to several pressing problems of the modern-day.

Incubation support includes work benches and equipment, office space and common infrastructure, legal & IPR services, mentorship and training, sample testing and analysis, and consultancy.

Notably, this is second new incubator in the state that is being launched within a month, as earlier this month an another incubator called Forum for Innovation Incubation Research and Entrepreneurship (FiiRE) was launched at Don Bosco College of Engineering, a Goa University affiliated institute established in 1970.

BITS Pilani, Goa campus has called entrepreneurs, investors, engineers and scientists to be a part of the network and participate in innovative thinking and help create forward-looking startups.

Any student, individual and budding entrepreneurs who need a nurturing environment to help bring their idea or product to market and for industries that need a platform for trying new processes or technologies.

Source - Times of India

Huawei To Set Up Innovation Lab in Gurugram, To build Smart City Solutions

After launching its largest R&D centre outside China in Bengaluru in 2015, Chinese tech giant Huawei is all set to open its first innovation lab in India to build smart city solutions along with its partners.

The lab is expected to come up in Gurgaon by May this year and will be separate from the Bengaluru's R&D centre.

The lab, which is under the umbrella of Huawei's Enterprise Business Group (EBG), will be the company's big investment in India. The lab will do joint testing, development for major smart city applications. Huawei's headquarters lab already has Honeywell, SAP among others as its partners. The company will bring them to India along with local independent software vendors, told Derek Hao, President, Enterprise Business Group, Huawei India, to a business daily.

The focus areas of the lab will be smart transportation, safe city, smart metering, smart lighting and smart parking solutions. However, these are just initial aspects of smart cities that Huawei will be focussing on and the company plans to add more modules going forward.

Huawei’s EBG unit is a fast growing unit within the company, growing at 45% year-on-year. Last year, Huawei revenues stood at $92 billion while its EBG at $8.2 billion. In India, the Huawei EBG unit is growing even faster than overall growth rate globally.

The above development was first reported in Business Line.

In 2015, Huawei opened its R&D lab in Bengaluru investing over US$ 170 million. The lab currently houses over 3,000 engineers.

Last year in March, Huawei India's EBG unit signed a global partnership agreement with Tech Mahindra to take Huawei’s enterprise products and services, and build solutions around various platforms and solutions in areas of Internet of Things such as Connect Care, Connected Car, Connected Factories and Fleet Management Solutions, and solutions in areas of Utilities such as Smart Cities, Smart Metering and Smart Grids. At the same time, Huawei also tied-up with Charities Aid Foundation India to equip select government schools with computers and internet facilities along with required learning material, software or tools to promote digital literacy in Telangana.

Most recently, Huawei unvieled world’s first smartphone-driven car under its “RoadReader” project at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. The car has technology that uses AI-enabled smartphone to drive a car that can not only identify objects on the road but take smart decisions to avoid collisions or hitting someone.

Huawei To Set Up Innovation Lab in Gurugram, To build Smart City Solutions

After launching its largest R&D centre outside China in Bengaluru in 2015, Chinese tech giant Huawei is all set to open its first innovation lab in India to build smart city solutions along with its partners.

The lab is expected to come up in Gurgaon by May this year and will be separate from the Bengaluru's R&D centre.

The lab, which is under the umbrella of Huawei's Enterprise Business Group (EBG), will be the company's big investment in India. The lab will do joint testing, development for major smart city applications. Huawei's headquarters lab already has Honeywell, SAP among others as its partners. The company will bring them to India along with local independent software vendors, told Derek Hao, President, Enterprise Business Group, Huawei India, to a business daily.

The focus areas of the lab will be smart transportation, safe city, smart metering, smart lighting and smart parking solutions. However, these are just initial aspects of smart cities that Huawei will be focussing on and the company plans to add more modules going forward.

Huawei’s EBG unit is a fast growing unit within the company, growing at 45% year-on-year. Last year, Huawei revenues stood at $92 billion while its EBG at $8.2 billion. In India, the Huawei EBG unit is growing even faster than overall growth rate globally.

The above development was first reported in Business Line.

In 2015, Huawei opened its R&D lab in Bengaluru investing over US$ 170 million. The lab currently houses over 3,000 engineers.

Last year in March, Huawei India's EBG unit signed a global partnership agreement with Tech Mahindra to take Huawei’s enterprise products and services, and build solutions around various platforms and solutions in areas of Internet of Things such as Connect Care, Connected Car, Connected Factories and Fleet Management Solutions, and solutions in areas of Utilities such as Smart Cities, Smart Metering and Smart Grids. At the same time, Huawei also tied-up with Charities Aid Foundation India to equip select government schools with computers and internet facilities along with required learning material, software or tools to promote digital literacy in Telangana.

Most recently, Huawei unvieled world’s first smartphone-driven car under its “RoadReader” project at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. The car has technology that uses AI-enabled smartphone to drive a car that can not only identify objects on the road but take smart decisions to avoid collisions or hitting someone.

Airtel's Massive Plan For AI, IoT, AR/VR and Collaboration Plan With Startups

India’s largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel, is in advanced stages to set up a digital innovation lab in Bengaluru to work on emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) as part of its broader strategy to develop strong in-house technology capabilities, reported Economic Times (ET).

Airtel has identified these technologies (AI, IoT, AR and VR) as a big focus area, and will establish the lab in Bengaluru under its digital innovation project -- Project Next -- for which it will invest $2,000 crore (~ US$307 million apprx.) over three years to bring digital solutions to the market, said the ET report.

The new innovation lab, which will house 150-odd tech specialists, will help the Airtel to develop and identify new use cases around AI, IoT and other emerging technologies.

Bharti Airtel, which is headed by Sunil Mittal, is also looking to collaborate with tech startups to share learnings from the lab and co-create solutions.

Additionally, Airtel is also looking at some of India’s top engineering colleges to get talent on board and may even tap talent from the Silicon Valley.

The ET report also said that Airtel is bringing the AI technology first in the call centres to really help Airtel customer-care executives to resolve customer issues by bringing predictability. With this, Airtel customer-care executives know the problem before the customers start to face it. In addition, there will be a lot of AI-based applications as well.

Bharti Airtel is also planning to enter the home automation or smart home segment with its IoT and machine-to-machine solutions in a move aimed at expanding its revenue base.

Airtel is currently transforming itself into a major digital operator in India especially at times when its 4G rival Reliance Jio, with its free plans, is fast outracing all other telecom operators in India

Notably, few days back Reliance Jio and Samsung Electronics have joined hands to set up a cellular Internet of Things (IoT) network across India. The companies have said they will continue their partnership to bring LTE coverage to 99% of the Indian population and significantly improve network capacity across India. Both the companies are touting it as India's first IoT Network.

To recall, last year in February, Tata Telecommunications and American multinational IT firm Hewlett Packard (HP) have had announced that both are working together to build an IoT network in India and this will be and this will be the world’s largest IoT network.

Coming back to Airtel strategies related to startups in the country, in June last year, the telco had rolled out a first of its kind dedicated digital platform to aid the development of SMBs and startups in the India.

Later in September, it launched 'Office-In-a-Box’, a suite of connectivity solutions specially designed for start-ups, available to over 1000 start-ups registered with the Karnataka Start-Up Cell.

Few months back from this, Airtel also acquired a strategic equity stake in Seynse, a fintech startup based out of Goa.

Top Image - Patronmanager.com

Airtel's Massive Plan For AI, IoT, AR/VR and Collaboration Plan With Startups

India’s largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel, is in advanced stages to set up a digital innovation lab in Bengaluru to work on emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) as part of its broader strategy to develop strong in-house technology capabilities, reported Economic Times (ET).

Airtel has identified these technologies (AI, IoT, AR and VR) as a big focus area, and will establish the lab in Bengaluru under its digital innovation project -- Project Next -- for which it will invest $2,000 crore (~ US$307 million apprx.) over three years to bring digital solutions to the market, said the ET report.

The new innovation lab, which will house 150-odd tech specialists, will help the Airtel to develop and identify new use cases around AI, IoT and other emerging technologies.

Bharti Airtel, which is headed by Sunil Mittal, is also looking to collaborate with tech startups to share learnings from the lab and co-create solutions.

Additionally, Airtel is also looking at some of India’s top engineering colleges to get talent on board and may even tap talent from the Silicon Valley.

The ET report also said that Airtel is bringing the AI technology first in the call centres to really help Airtel customer-care executives to resolve customer issues by bringing predictability. With this, Airtel customer-care executives know the problem before the customers start to face it. In addition, there will be a lot of AI-based applications as well.

Bharti Airtel is also planning to enter the home automation or smart home segment with its IoT and machine-to-machine solutions in a move aimed at expanding its revenue base.

Airtel is currently transforming itself into a major digital operator in India especially at times when its 4G rival Reliance Jio, with its free plans, is fast outracing all other telecom operators in India

Notably, few days back Reliance Jio and Samsung Electronics have joined hands to set up a cellular Internet of Things (IoT) network across India. The companies have said they will continue their partnership to bring LTE coverage to 99% of the Indian population and significantly improve network capacity across India. Both the companies are touting it as India's first IoT Network.

To recall, last year in February, Tata Telecommunications and American multinational IT firm Hewlett Packard (HP) have had announced that both are working together to build an IoT network in India and this will be and this will be the world’s largest IoT network.

Coming back to Airtel strategies related to startups in the country, in June last year, the telco had rolled out a first of its kind dedicated digital platform to aid the development of SMBs and startups in the India.

Later in September, it launched 'Office-In-a-Box’, a suite of connectivity solutions specially designed for start-ups, available to over 1000 start-ups registered with the Karnataka Start-Up Cell.

Few months back from this, Airtel also acquired a strategic equity stake in Seynse, a fintech startup based out of Goa.

Top Image - Patronmanager.com

PayPal Launches Tech Innovation Lab In Bengaluru And Chennai

To support projects in the field of machine learning, and artificial intelligence, global online payment company PayPal has recently informed that it has opened two innovation labs in India. PayPal, who has labs in the US and Singapore has opened its labs in Bengaluru and Chennai.

Commenting on the development, Mike Todasco, Director of Innovation, PayPal, told ET, “India is a hotbed for innovation given its evolving startup ecosystem, diverse merchant profiles and enormous talent pool. To cater to their needs in the most effective manner, we are delighted to announce the launch of our newest Innovation Lab in India, where the focus will be on fueling new age technology and giving rise to unconventional ideas with the potential to transform the ecosystem we operate in.”

Apart from supporting AI and ML, PayPal Labs will also work on internet-of-things (IoT), software defined radios and wireless communication, virtual and augmented reality, computer vision, penetration testing and robotics.

According to the media reports, the Indian labs will be integrated with the PayPal Incubator, to develop and nurture the next generation of fintech startups.

Earlier in December 2016, GetMeAShop, a Times Internet backed e-commerce platform has partnered with PayPal to enable small merchants to access international markets. Whereas in May 2016, PayPal has tied up with India’s branded hotel room aggregator OYO Rooms. Under the tie-up, PayPal helped OYO Rooms source payments from global consumers and allow Indian users to make international bookings.