"While We Welcome AI, We should also Realize its Implications and Consequences - Suresh Prabhu at World AI & RPA Show

The recent announcement of corporate giants Reliance Jio and Microsoft coming together in a 10-year partnership to provide digital solutions to Indian startups has shown us that India is getting serious about going digital. While technology is evolving at an exponential rate, most Indian industries are led by the fear of being left behind when it comes to having the competitive advantage of leveraging emerging technologies in their businesses. The growing interest of Indian organizations in deploying 5th generation technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is likely to drive significant growth in investments in this space. According to Accenture, AI has the potential to add US$957 billion, or 15% of India’s current gross value in 2035, and with the RPA market growing immensely at 63.1% to US$846 million last year, research firm, Gartner predicts that by the end of 2022, 85% of large organisations will have deployed some form of RPA.

In India, RPA is finding itself to be most significant in the BFSI, BPM and F&A sectors, with the highest adoption rate through multi-process use case implementations. Indian banks such as State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda are already betting big on AI. However, being the IT capital of South Asia and a leader in producing IT infrastructure and manpower, where does India stand as a potential contender in the race for AI and RPA leadership among top countries like South Korea, the United States, Germany, Singapore and Japan? 

NITI Aayog’s plan to establish a National Program on AI spells out the government think tank’s AI strategies that are set to roll out in critical areas such as agriculture, healthcare, education, Smart Cities and Infrastructure and Smart Mobility. 

At the global AI conference, World AI & RPA Show that was hosted in Mumbai recently, Suresh Prabhu, India's Sherpa to G7 and G20 and former Union Minister for Commerce and Industry stressed on the importance of India’s national strategy to leverage AI for economic benefits. In his keynote, he added, “Even the most developed economies are still trying to comprehend how to deal with artificial intelligence. We must look at the ethical side of emerging technologies and make sure that while we welcome AI, on one hand, we should also realise its implications, consequences and how to deal with it in a rational manner.”  

The conference hosted close to 550+ top C-level executives that included AI & RPA business solution providers, innovative startups and investors who came together to contribute to the global conversation on AI and India’s stake in the AI revolution.

As one of the most attractive destinations for startups, the conference also hosted the Pegasus Tech Ventures Startup World Cup Regionals that provided a platform for nine startups in the tech space to pitch their innovative solutions to global investors. Bengaluru–based drone and Data Analytics organization, AeroLogiks triumphed as the winner of the pitch competition. 

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Traders' Body CAIT Demands Govt to Launch E-Marketplace to Help Small Traders

Traders' body for for small traders and businesses in India, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has urged the government to launch an e-commerce marketplace portal in partnership with trade associations where small traders, artisans and women entrepreneurs can sell their products in a 'fair and transparent manner'.

CAIT has also sent a letter to India's Union Minister of Commerce Suresh Prabhu alleging "that the e-commerce business in India is highly vitiated and has been gripped by a few big online companies who are indulging into predatory pricing, deep discounting and loss funding" against the FDI (foreign direct investment) guidelines of the government.

"The government in association with trade associations should launch an e-commerce marketplace portal where small traders, artisans, women entrepreneur and others can sell their products in a fair & transparent manner," CAIT said to Prabhu.

In the letter to Prabhu, the traders' body also demanded early announcement of an e-commerce policy and formation of a Regulatory Authority to monitor the e-commerce business in India.

In September too, CAIT had written to the Commerce Minister urging him to take serious action against e-commerce firms including Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal etc. for disregarding FDI norms listed for such players by engaging in retail trading activities. In the official complaint, CAIT has claimed that the e-commerce companies are indulging in a "blatant violation" of the FDI (policy).

It is to be noted in order to promote small traders in India amid uprise of big e-commerce players, CAIT -- back in November 2015 -- had also launched its own e-commerce portal named as "e-Lala" and back then, the portal was inaugurated by the then Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu. However, the portal did not worked as expected and tanked eventually, unable bring considerable businesses for small traders in India.

Source - Firstpost

WhatsApp Announces Startup Challenge to Invest $0.5 Mn in Indian Startups

Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has announced its partnership with India's official investment promotion agency, Invest India, to launch 'WhatsApp Startup Challenge' to help the growth of startups and SMBs in India. The program will focus on the proliferation of startups, promoting economic growth and generating employment opportunities in India, announced Ministry of Commerce & Industry, today.

According to Startup India, this is one of the largest partnerships Invest India has made till date.

WhatsApp will invest quarter of a million dollars ($250,000) as seed funding to the top 5 winners of the 'WhatsApp Startup Challenge' and an additional $250,000 will be directed to a select few from the entrepreneurial community to promote their WhatsApp business number on Facebook and drive discovery of their businesses. This way customers will be able to find the business and start talking to them on that WhatsApp number.Invest India is also working with WhatsApp to drive awareness about its business tools in around 15 states impacting over 60,000 businesses in the coming months through tools such as Startup India 'Yatra' program and other in-person training events.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Chris Daniels, Vice President, WhatsApp said that India has a great ecosystem of startups which are making huge impact in all sectors of the Indian economy. Mr. Daniels further said that small and medium businesses are the back bone of India’s economy, employing 100 million people and contributing to a 3rd India’s GDP. WhatsApp cares deeply about helping businesses connect with customers and grow. The more opportunities that are given the more startups will become engines of India’s economic growth.

India's Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu, who were also present in the launch, said that WhatsApp is a startup that has grown into a community and is an example of how an idea can grow to become an integral part of our day to day life. The Minister went on to say that Indian startups in order to be successful have to learn to convert an idea into a business plan. He further said that the Startup community is the future of India and will be the platform through which the millions of youth of this country will be gain fully employed.

Launched on 16th January 2016 by the Prime Minister of India, Startup India, set-up under Invest India, is a flagship initiative of the Government of India and is intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation & Startups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.

In the last 2 years at the Startup India programme, there are over 13,000 startups registered with Startup India program that spread across 448 districts covering all 29 States and 6 Union Territories.

Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ramesh Abhishek and CEO & MD of Invest India, Deepak Bagla, were also present on the occasion.

Govt. e-Marketplace (GeM) May Soon Open to Private Buyers; May Also Sell Stakes for Equity

Government e-Marketplace (GeM), the National Public Procurement Portal, which is currently being used ONLY by various government departments/organizations/PSUs, for their online procurement of common use goods & services they require on day to day usage, may soon open for private buyers.

The GeM currently has no access to private buyers outside the government and its various entities. Most state governments now buy requirements such as laptops, car rental services, and medicines for anganwadis using the GeM platform.

However, the government is now contemplating on allowing private buyers or companies outside government to buy on the government e-marketplace platform in order to help lower the cost of goods and services for governments and raise online transactions with figures of $25 billion, said India's commerce minister Suresh Prabhu.

"If somebody else wants to buy on the GeM platform, they will also be allowed to do so. If volume increases, price will also come down and this will benefit both the government and private parties," said Prabhu, while inaugurating the National Mission on GeM in New Delhi for increasing awareness among buyers and sellers.

For registering private buyers on GeM, government is planning to put a system that make sure that buyers make payment in 10 days guaranteed.

The government essentially wants to raise its online transaction over GeM and decrease the cost of goods & services. Currently, GeM records transactions worth $1.5 billion And government is aiming to raise this figure to $25 billion in three years. Amazon India and Flipkart, including Myntra, record online transactions of about $12 billion at present.

"GeM will be doing transactions worth $25 billion in three years and $100 billion in seven to eight years," said the trade minister, Suresh Prabhu.

Surprisingly, the minister also speculated about probable valuation of GeM, which means selling equity of GeM, which is a not-for-profit Section 8 Company registered under the companies Act, 2013. And, this does not allow government to sell its equity in open market. However, in future, if the government wishes to do so then it has to change the nature of the company into a for-profit one.

In April 2017, to replace the public procurement wing called the directorate general of supplies and disposals (DGS&D), Union Cabinet chaired by the PM Narendra Modi had set up the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called as Government e-Marketplace GeM (SPV), which is the owner of GeM platform and builds, operates and maintains GeM platform.

Since its launch in 2016, GeM has recorded more than 725,000 transactions worth more than ₹11,250 crore and established itself as an open, transparent, efficient and inclusive platform providing huge savings to the government.

The portal has nearly 27,000 buyer organizations registered and about 137,000 sellers and service providers offering more than 465,000 products and services for online purchase and contributes to approximately 20-25% average overall savings to the government.

News Sourced from - LiveMint.com

Ask Anything To Commerce Minister on #StartupIndia at Twitter Via #AskPrabhu Hashtag

In a major step to boost entrepreneurship in India, the Narendra Modi-led government has planned a live session to take on questions from the public. The session will be organised on Twitter, and those interested can send in their questions using the hashtag #AskPrabhu. “Dear friends I will be answering questions on #StartupIndia in a live session on 16th May. Send in your questions using hashtag #AskPrabhu .Select questions will be answered. Look forward to a fulfilling engagement,” Commerce and Industry minister Suresh Prabhu tweeted.

Dear friends I will be answering questions on #StartupIndia in a live session on 16th May. Send in your questions using hashtag #AskPrabhu .Select questions will be answered.Look forward to a fulfilling engagement pic.twitter.com/dawlcla40d

— Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) May 11, 2018

Recently, Bibek Debroy, who is currently serving as the Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), said that 95% of the entrepreneurial attempts fail in India. He said that the small farmer or the street vendor showed more entrepreneurship skills than corporates in India

In March, we reported that a survey conducted by Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), revealed that only 5% Indian adults take-up establish own business, underscoring that the Narendra Modi-led government’s dream to transform India into a hub of start-ups and innovation remains elusive. The recent survey further highlights that only 11 per cent of India’s adult population is engaged in “total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA).”

The Narendra Modi-led government had launched the 'Startup India' campaign in January 2016 which provided various incentives such as tax exemptions, patent reforms, and incubation programmes aimed at providing the much needed thrust to start-ups. However, number of recent revelation in last 4-5 months, the campaign efficiency is at questions and this proved a wake-up call for the government.

In the same month, a report called Asia’s startup-friendly countries list, stated that India stands at 8th rank -- behind China and even Malaysia -- in startup friendly list of countries in Asia because of the very fact that it is still the poorest country in Asia with GDP per capita of $1,710, in 2017 and a high unemployment rate.