The government of Telangana announces that it intends to use artificial intelligence to aid government schools in formative assessments.
Select Government school complexes in the state will be able to apply artificial intelligence-based solutions to automate time-consuming and resource-intensive tasks, including formative assessments, marking attendance, and logging mid-day food data, among others.
The new education policy of India made formative assessment mandatory for all schools, allowing teachers to evaluate each class once a week and create a report detailing who grasped the idea and who did not.
By monitoring students’ body language, expressions, attentiveness, and the types of questions they ask in class, experienced teachers can determine who is comprehending the information.
According to the plans, the artificial intelligence tool that will be deployed in schools will consider all the attributes mentioned above to help teachers better assess students’ progress. The tool will provide a report that teachers can use to plan additional support for pupils who have received a low grade.
The Prof Raj Center at IIIT-H is working to develop technology solutions for the general public, and these artificial intelligence-based tools will be used as a pilot project in selected school complexes in Moinabad.
IIIT-H Co-Innovation Professor, Ramesh Loganathan, said, “We plan to meet the concerned people once again and make specific plans for the technological interventions possible. We want to keep the technology ready for the coming academic year.”
He further added that these would be three- to six-month projects to address difficulties as soon as possible. Additionally, the government also plans to use AI-powered tools to teach English to students and slowly expand its capabilities to teach multiple other languages.
“For each lesson in English, there will be a set of sentences that the system will speak, and then the class or individual students will repeat,” added Loganathan.
Technology giant Meta announces that it has started hiring for Meta AI’s second cohort of Rotational AI program, RAISE.
It is a full-time rotational program that lasts 18 months and offers participants full-time employment with the Meta AI team. The 2022 program is being offered in Menlo Park, Seattle, New York City, and Remote in the United States.
Meta has meticulously developed this unique program to bring together a broad group of software engineers with little or no prior artificial intelligence experience from various industries and backgrounds.
All participants become full-time employees during the program, giving them access to all of the benefits of working as a software engineer at Meta. “RAISErs start together as a cohort and follow the same overall program timeline to share experiences and build connections with others in the program,” mentioned Meta in a blog.
A mandatory norm is that all the new engineering hires at Meta must first complete a 5-week Bootcamp to learn about Meta engineering. One of the most interesting aspects of RAISE is the opportunity to collaborate on a variety of artificial intelligence-related topics if participants so desire.
Meta’s program will allow selected participants to acquire hands-on experience with frameworks such as PyTorch and internal Meta tools, as well as construct state-of-the-art models and apply research to production.
Meta is currently accepting applications for the program, and interested candidates can apply from the official website of meta till 15th April 2022. Meta expects the new heroes to start the program in May 2022. Meta is also organizing a virtual session on 31st March to provide a better understanding of the RAISE program to interested participants.
On this year’s International Women’s Day, Analytics Drift takes a deep dive into highlighting how the mentioned women entrepreneurs are contributing their part into building better AI-powered today and tomorrow.
Geetha Manjunath, Niramai
AI has been a blessing to the field of medical imaging due to its ability to detect difficult-to-trace anomalies. After a personal tragedy, committed to offering early-stage breast cancer diagnosis in a non-contact, non-invasive, and privacy-conscious manner, Geetha Manjunath founded Niramai health-tech firm. Niramai is an artificial intelligence-driven diagnostic platform that uses patented thermal image processing and machine learning algorithms for reliable and accurate breast cancer screening. Women of all ages can benefit from this low-cost, easy-to-use product, making cancer screening possible in all clinics.
Thermalytix, a cloud-hosted analytics tool built by the health tech firm, employs big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning algorithms for early breast cancer detection. Thermalytix’s solution primarily consists of a high-resolution thermal sensor device that captures thermal pictures and a cloud-hosted analytics system that analyses and screens for breast cancer.
Niramai provided Home Breast Health Screening for high-risk women and cancer survivors who needed monitoring during the Covid-19 outbreak. Earlier, it had also received money from the CDC UK to create a FeverTest screening for recognizing Covid-19 symptoms. NIRAMAI FeverTest has capabilities that recognize and identify non-compliance with mask-wearing standards, which can help restrict the spread of COVID-19. Morgan Stanley, Kotak Bank, and various RMZ business parks across India were among the popular adopters of this solution.
Geetha has been listed among India’s top women achievers by Forbes in 2020.
Meghna Saraogi, StyleDotMe
Starting her career as a graphic designer, Meghna Saraogi founded StyleDotMe, which was seed-funded by the Indian Angel Network in 2016. StyleDotMe is an augmented reality (AR) platform; its flagship product, mirrAR, allows customers to try on jewelry digitally. The software was first introduced in 2017 as an in-store inventory management solution, with a web version following in January 2020. The technology enables jewelry makers to expand their reach by giving customers additional product selections, the chance to examine numerous jewelry items on themselves in rapid succession, and instant fashion guidance from experts. MirrAR can also be integrated into any platform, whether on a device like an iPad or on the web, allowing for offline and online use.
With instant polls and voting options, users can access instant fashion advice from not only friends and followers, but from professionals all across the world. StyleDotMe had teamed with jewelry company Tanishq for a virtual jewelry try-on experience zone at Delhi and Bangalore airports after launching mirrAR at Bridal Asia in August 2018. Today, its clientele includes several international and domestic brands like PC Jewellers, Farah Khan Jewellery, Amrapali, and several small retail jewelers.
Barkha Sharma, Bash.ai
While the rest of the world was gradually embracing automated solutions, Barkha Sharma saw that HR functions were becoming obsolete. Therefore, Barkha created Bash.ai in her living room in 2017 in an effort to automate HR operations and thereby aid in providing better and consistent employee experiences. Bash’s user-friendly front-end interface allows businesses to automate discussions with employees in real-time with great accuracy. It includes modules such as post-hire orientation, ticketing, HR helpdesk, employee engagement, organizing HR operations, and answering inquiries about payslips and business regulations. This allows the HR team to be more efficient, motivate employees to be more productive, and save the company money by retaining personnel.
Bash’s chatbot is available on a variety of platforms, including Facebook, Messenger, and Slack.
Pooja Rao, Qure.ai
While India has hundreds of radiologists, most of them are centered in metro or Tier I cities. As a result, residents from the suburbs are left with the option to either drive considerable distances to a healthcare center or rely on third-party radiologists at hospitals. Both of these options are unpleasant as well as ineffective.
Qure.ai, situated in Mumbai and co-founded by Pooja Rao in 2016, employs artificial intelligence to make healthcare solutions more inexpensive and accessible. It employs deep learning algorithms to analyze medical pictures and scans in seconds, such as chest X-rays, head CT scans, POQUS, chest CT scans, and so on. The startup has already worked with AstraZeneca to employ AI for lung cancer screening in 2020.
Qure.ai is also a part of NVIDIA’s Inception startup accelerator program. The AI technology qXR from Qure.ai aids triage decisions in COVID patients by monitoring illness development and providing a risk score. Last year, Qure.ai obtained its first FDA approval in the United States. Its technology has also been recognized by the World Health Organization, which has recognized AI as an effective method for diagnosing TB, particularly in places where healthcare professionals are scarce. The firm has partnered with the NITI Aayog, the Piramal Foundation’s Piramal Swasthya program, and the PATH NGO in India.
Gazal S. Kalra, an alumnus of IIT Delhi, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is a co-founder of Rivigo, a trucking AI-based logistics platform financed by Elevation Capital and Warburg Pincus, among others. During a coffee meetup with co-founder Deepak Garg, Gazal noticed that transportation is a major aspect of India’s operations for businesses as broad as manufacturing, FMCG, and eCommerce. Trucks are often outdated, exposed to harsh weather conditions where tarpaulin serves as cover, and poorly maintained, with no insight into when a truck would arrive at its destination after leaving the origination point.
Rivigo uses a relay trucking model, in which truck drivers do not run their cars for more than five hours at a time and return home the same day, owing to AI taking care of routing and pilot assignment. Rivigo’s trucks are IoT-enabled, allowing for real-time monitoring of the vehicle’s status. This helps to ensure reliability by reducing breakdowns. The IoT-based monitoring proved even more useful when Rivigo launched refrigerated vehicles for the fresh produce market. Clients of Rivigo can check the temperature in real-time and even modify it remotely using the mobile app which is available in more than ten languages.
Further, despite the high unemployment rate, people were unwilling to take up the occupation of the truck driver as they had to travel large distances to deliver the shipments and goods single-handedly, often resulting in delays and staying away from their families for a long time.
Megha Gambhir, Stupa Sports Analytics
Table tennis is a fast-paced game with a lot of spin and quick ball exchanges, which makes it difficult to analyze. Megha Gambhir had spent a significant amount of time seeing that her husband, an ardent Table Tennis fan and player, was having difficulty finding a tool to help him with his task of and tracking players’ performance. This prompted her and her husband to co-found Stupa Sports Analytics.
While there are other sport analytics companies, Stupa Sports is the world’s first AI-backed sports analytics firm for table tennis. Unlike other sports analytics systems, it also does not require high-speed cameras to gather and review player performance. Stupa uses low-cost technologies like a smartphone camera to provide AI-enabled ball tracking and video analytics. The solution offers advanced video analytics that can monitor a very tiny ball moving at over 100 kilometers per hour.
The central idea is extracting data from matches or training to the smallest detail, then processing and mining it with appropriate statistical and analytical data to produce interactive AI-enabled analysis backed up by sliced video snippets. Coaches and players can access all of this input and analysis using a mobile application. Stupa offers real-time match and training analysis, as well as ball trajectory detection, speed tracking, and heat map derivations.
In addition, Stupa has collaborated with the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and has expanded into 226 nations. The USATT, Hungary, Sweden, and Portugal federations have joined forces as their exclusive analytics partner for their national teams and athletes.
Ashwini Asokan, Mad Street Den
Ashwini Asokan is the co-founder of Mad Street Den, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup, with a professional degree in Visual Communications from India and a Master’s in Interaction Design from the United States. Mad Street Den was co-founded by her husband, Anand Chandrasekaran and she, in 2013 with the goal of bringing a human element to AI and creating meaningful AI applications that may positively impact both the business and consumer lives. Vue.ai, the company’s first product, was created in 2016 to enable intelligent retail automation. Vue.ai includes seven different products, viz., VueTag, VueModel, VueStyle, VueCommerce, VueMail, VueFind and VueStudio, to offer retailers a unified system.
Users can utilize this AI-based system to identify face emotions or expressions, as well as capture smiles, among other things, using their smartphone cameras. This aids retail shops in lowering operating expenses, increasing product exposure, and making quicker decisions.
Blox.ai, another of its products, offers businesses machine vision and NLP- (Natural Language Processing) driven corporate solutions that address issues ranging from data organization and structure to prediction and personalization. This solution is leveraged predominately in education, entertainment, finance, and healthcare.
Niyati Agarwal, Morph.ai
Social media content and marketing have become instrumental parts of a business brand’s online visibility. To help companies with these, Morph.ai was founded by Niyati Agarwal (current Director Product and Strategy at Gupshup) and three coworkers in March 2016. Based in Gurgaon, Morph.ai has huge names like YES Bank, Estee Lauder, Yamaha, HSBC, and Manchester City Football Club among its core customers in less than two years of operation.
This B2B SaaS company enables marketers to utilize messaging as a marketing channel and create personalized interactions between businesses and consumers in order to generate up to double the high-quality leads with the same ad expenditure.
The Morph.ai chatbot achieves this by reaching out to a business’s potential consumers in real-time and automatically qualifies them with regular follow-ups, resulting in high-quality leads for the brand. Morpha.ai also allows for chat-based content marketing, where it segments and targets a brand’s audience to offer them engaging tailored content from the brand’s newsletters, YouTube, Blog, and other content channels and help lead conversion.
Global eCommerce giant Amazon has launched the #SheIsAmazon campaign to highlight female employees, associates, and partners who have overcome societal, cultural disability, and economic barriers to achieve their goals.
The announcement was made a day before International Women’s Day as a part of the company’s celebration.
Amazon is launching a coffee table book as part of the new campaign, giving people a glimpse into the professional and personal lives of these women, as well as their journeys of struggle, hope, and success.
The book mentions stories of multiple superwomen in the industry, including Ananya Ghosh, Nimisha Dhanda, Deepa Karthik, Suchitra Terdalkar, and many more.
Director, DE & I, International Markets, WW Consumer, Amazon, Swati Rustagi, said, “At Amazon, inclusion is at the heart of all our decision making, and we believe that it’s not only good for society but also for business. ‘SheIsAmazon’ is a simple effort to recognize the stellar work done by many women across Amazon India.”
She further added that every day, thousands of women break stereotypes and succeed in unconventional roles and profiles, and she is grateful to all of these remarkable women for helping to shape Amazon into an inclusive and progressive workplace.
Amazon India stated that it had made efforts to increase workplace diversity through pioneering initiatives and inclusion programs such as Amazon’s rekindle, which offers and supports opportunities for women to professionally re-integrate themselves and resume their corporate careers.
Another such initiative is ‘Amazon WoW,’ which helps engineering students build long-term careers in technology by allowing them to interact with Amazon leaders, participate in workshops, connect with alumni on career experiences, and apply for roles at Amazon.
Sindhu Mary from Amazon India Fulfillment Center said, “I am so glad to be treated as an equal at my workplace. Honestly, I want to tell all my community members that when the right platform is offered to you, grab the opportunity and give it your best.”
Global technology giant Microsoft India announces that it plans to establish a new data center region in Hyderabad.
Microsoft’s commitment to helping clients succeed in a cloud and AI-enabled digital economy is reflected in this key investment, which will become part of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure.
The Hyderabad datacenter region will join the existing network of three Indian datacenter regions, which include Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai.
According to Microsoft, the first phase of the newly announced data center region is expected to start its operation by 2025. As per IDC, Microsoft data center regions in India generated $9.5 billion in revenue between 2016 and 2020. In India, Jio, Inmobi, Infosys, TCS, Apollo Hospitals, State Bank of India, and Flipkart are among the company’s customers.
Minister of State for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Electronics & Information Technology of India, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said, “Today’s commitment to the people and businesses of India will position the country among the world’s digital leaders. A Microsoft data center region provides a competitive advantage to our digital economy and is a long-term investment in our country’s potential. The cloud is transforming every industry and sector.”
He further added that investing in skill development will benefit India’s workforce now and in the future.
Microsoft says that the data center region will provide the entire Microsoft portfolio for enterprises, start-ups, developers, education, and government institutions, including cloud, data solutions, artificial intelligence, productivity tools, and customer relationship management (CRM) with advanced data security.
Additionally, Microsoft Cloud services will provide opportunities for local businesses to innovate. Microsoft is also working with the Telangana government to accelerate the adoption of cloud, artificial intelligence, IoT, and cybersecurity solutions for governance.
“The new datacenter will augment Microsoft’s cloud capabilities and capacity to support those working across the country. It will also support new entrepreneurial opportunities while meeting critical security and compliance needs,” said President of Microsoft India, Anant Maheshwari.
Technology giant NVIDIA announces that it has acquired Israel-based data storage startup Excelero.
The companies did not provide any information regarding the valuation of the acquisition deal, but sources estimate it to be nearly worth $35 million. NVIDIA will benefit from Excelero’s technology, technical talent, and block storage expertise.
NVIDIA will bring Excelero’s engineering team to Israel, where the chipmaker employs about 2,800 people in seven R&D centers, including Yokne’am, Mellanox’s headquarters, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ra’anana, and Beersheba in the south.
Excelero previously worked with NVIDIA to accelerate their storage software using RDMA, which is a critical component of both InfiniBand and RoCE (Ethernet) networks.
Senior Vice President of Software Architecture at NVIDIA, Dror Goldenberg, said, “The company and its talented team brings extensive experience and deep technical expertise in accelerated software-defined storage and networking.”
He further added that with Excelero joining their fast-growing software department, they would be able to support their efforts to extend NVIDIA Israel’s areas of activity.
Additionally, NVIDIA announced plans to establish a new design and engineering group that will lead the development of next-generation CPUs focused on AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and NVIDIA’s new platform Omniverse, which allows for virtual world simulations.
Israeli data storage startup Excelero was founded by Lior Gal, Ofer Oshri, Omri Mann, and Yaniv Romem in 2014. The company is best known for developing NVMesh, a software platform that manages and secures virtual arrays of NVMe flash drives as block storage available across public and private clouds.
To date, the firm has raised around $35 million from investors like Battery Ventures, Western Digital Capital, and many more over four funding rounds.
“The Excelero team is joining NVIDIA as demand is surging for high-performance computing and AI. We’ll be working with NVIDIA to ensure our existing customers are supported, and going forward, we’re thrilled to apply our expertise in block storage to NVIDIA’s world-class AI and HPC platforms,” said CEO and Co-founder of Excelero, Yaniv Romem.
Indian EdTech company PurpleTutor announces the launch of its new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered live classes for students. According to the company, its new artificial intelligence feature will not only help learners but also teachers by enabling them to effectively impart knowledge to class attendees.
This is a one-of-a-kind feature as most of the other EdTech platforms omit the role of their teachers entirely and solely focus on student convenience.
PurpleTutor claims that the AI component operates in real-time, providing feedback to teachers and assisting them in making decisions that are in the best interests of the student, resulting in a highly personalized class experience for the student.
The AI-driven live lessons were created to scale the platform and close the gap in instructor delivery quality and engagement. Earlier this year, PurpleTutor, which specializes in skill development for children, received funding from IvyCap Ventures and other well-known investors.
CEO and founder of PurpleTutor, Gaurav Perti, said, “We have spent the initial few months last year on conceptualization and beta testing. We launched the AI-driven classes from July last year in a phased manner, and now they are inflow.”
He further added that in their AI-powered live classes, every child would receive identical explanations and exercises from the teacher, preventing the children from developing their own learning path.
Mumbai-based EdTech firm PurpleTutor was founded by Gaurav Perti in 2019. The company specializes in offering coding/computational sciences coaching to kids in the age group of 6-16 via live online classes. To date, PurpleTutor has raised a total of $300 thousand in one funding round. The company has a sizable operation with hundreds of teachers and over 2,00,000 registered students across the world. Interested candidates can book a free demo session from the official website of PurpleTutor.
Kerala Police announces that the department will receive training in artificial intelligence and data analytics to enter the next generation of police. India’s first on-campus digital university,
The Digital University Kerala (DUK), has introduced a specially developed training program for the police department called Capability Constructing in Accountable Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics.
Last week, the training program was launched at the university’s campus located in Pallippuram.
The goal of this new AI and data analytics training program is to reduce officers’ burden in police stations, allowing them to deliver better services to citizens.
This new development is part of the department’s effort towards its digital transformation. The first training batch would include up to 15 police officers from the police department.
Vice-Chancellor of DUK, Saji Gopinath, said, “We are looking at a series of projects for various government departments that are much more deep and hands-on with technology as a major component.”
He further added that they are elated to start this series with the Kerala Police department. Industry experts and researchers will lead the 150-hour training program in a classroom setting.
The police department would be able to develop software features that are critical for next-generation police using artificial intelligence and data analytics.
During the launch event, Inspector-General of Police (South Zone) P Prakash stated that the department is now developing iCoPS, new software that will allow the department to exploit the vast amount of crime data stored in the Crime Criminal Tracking Network & System (CCTNS).
Director of Kerala State IT Mission, Snehil Kumar Singh, said, “The entire e-governance initiative was about introducing different applications, hardware, and products so that the governance improves in general. Now it is time we start onboarding people who have certain ideas in data analytics and AI so that governance itself improves.”
He also mentioned that while AI and Data Analytics may appear to be far off in the future, the reality is that they are currently exploring the possibilities of using these technologies in governance.
Technology giant Microsoft acquires conversational artificial intelligence company Nuance in a recent deal. According to officials, the acquisition deal was worth a whopping $16 billion for $56 per share, about 23% above its closing price.
Earlier Microsoft shared its plans to acquire Nuance for $19 million, but the deal’s valuation changed after required regulatory approvals.
This new development is Microsoft’s one of the most significant acquisitions in recent years, following the acquisition of leading video game developer, publisher, and distributor Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.
Microsoft and Nuance will empower enterprises across industries to accelerate their business goals with our outcomes-based AI using Nuance’s security-focused, cloud-based solutions integrated with strong, vertically optimized artificial intelligence.
Executive Vice President of Cloud + AI Group at Microsoft, Scott Guthrie, said, “Completion of this significant and strategic acquisition brings together Nuance’s best-in-class conversational AI and ambient intelligence with Microsoft’s secure and trusted industry cloud offerings.”
He further added that the acquisition would enable healthcare providers to provide more inexpensive, effective, and accessible treatment while also helping businesses of all sizes develop more personalized and engaging customer experiences.
Customers will now be able to enjoy the benefits of better consumer, patient, clinician, employee experiences, and improved productivity and financial performance.
United States-based conversational AI company Nuance was founded by Ronald Croen in 1992. The firm specializes in providing solutions that understand, analyze, and respond to people – amplifying human intelligence to increase productivity and security.
CEO of Nuance, Mark Benjamin, said that Nuance’s deep vertical expertise and proven business outcomes in healthcare, financial services, retail, telecommunications, and other industries, combined with Microsoft’s global cloud ecosystems, will enable Nuance to accelerate its innovation and deploy the solutions more quickly, seamlessly, and at scale. “As Microsoft and Nuance come together as one organization, we are excited about the opportunities ahead for our technology, employees, customers, and partners,” added Benjamin.
Photonic chip developing company Luminous Computing raises $105 million in its recently held series A funding round.
Multiple veteran investors, including Bill Gates, 8090 Partners, Neo, Modern Venture Partners, Third Kind Venture Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Strawberry Creek Ventures, Horsley Bridge, and others, participated in the funding round.
Luminous Computing will utilize the funds to fuel its mission of creating the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence-enabled supercomputer. The fact that Luminous is constructing practically every aspect of the stack from the ground up, integrating expertise from a variety of fields, is what sets it apart.
Luminous Computing’s engineering team will be doubled, and the company will begin developing unique chips and software in preparation for commercial production. Photonics designers, digital and analog VLSI engineers, packaging and system integration engineers, and machine learning experts are all being sought by Luminous.
Co-founder and CEO of Luminous Computing, Marcus Gomez, said, “AI has become superhuman. We can interact with computers in natural language and ask them to write a piece of code or even an essay, and the output will be better than most humans could provide. What’s frustrating is that we have the software to address monumental, revolutionary problems that humans can’t even begin to solve.”
He further added that most hardware designers believe that in order to boost performance, you either sacrifice programmability and cost-efficiency or just switch to a higher-density silicon node.
United States-based chip designing company Luminous Computing was founded by Marcus Gomez, Michael Gao, and Mitchell Nahmias in 2018.
Luminous Computing specializes in offering an artificial intelligence training and inference chip that combines the computational capacity of supercomputers onto a single chip, allowing organizations to bypass major bottlenecks that traditional processors confront. To date, the company has raised a total of $115 million over our funding rounds.
