Archive: August 9, 2022

Legrand signs MOU with GLA University, sets up Centre of Excellence in UPS maintenance

New Delhi, August 9, 2022: Legrand, the global leader in electrical and digital infrastructure, today signed an MOU with GLA University at Mathura, under its CSR initiative, to set up a centre of excellence for UPS maintenance program. The centre of excellence is instituted by Numeric, a group brand of Legrand, leading UPS manufacturer in the country.

With rapid digitalisation and the evolution of technology in various growth segments, UPS has become a critical infrastructure across industries, especially data centers, and the domestic segment. To meet the growing demand, Numeric, the leading UPS brand with the largest service infrastructure in the industry and technical expertise in the UPS segment, has instituted the Centre of Excellence, under Legrand CSR.

Commenting on the partnership, Ms Abida Aneez, Associate Vice President – CSR, Group Legrand India said “As part of our Group CSR initiative, we have been focussing on skill development to bridge the gap and meet the demand for skilled professionals in our sector. Considering the huge talent pool in the country, we are sure that the partnership with GLA University, Mathura will help bring out industry ready talent.”

The state-of-the-art Center of Excellence (CoE) by Numeric, a group brand of Legrand, will help improve the skills and future employability of the students,” she added.

Hon;ble VC Prof. Phalguni Gupta said “this MoU commits us to work together more closely toward our common goal, the pursuit of the internationalization of education. I am confident that through our efforts and commitment, we will be able to achieve more and to be able to continue to develop even stronger relationships and friendships between Legrand, the global leader in Electrical and Digital infrastructure with GLA University, Mathura.”

The MOU was signed by Abida Aneez, AVP- CSR, Legrand India and Prof. Dilip K Sharma, Dean Academic Collaboration, GLA University, Mathura in the presence of Prof. Phalguni Gupta, Hon;ble Vice-Chancellor, GLA University, Mathura and Satpal Singh, CEO Numeric.

Legrand, under its CSR program plans to extend the industry-academia partnership for UPS maintenance program to other regions as well, in the coming months.

On International Youth Day: 5 organisations empowering Indian youth

India’s young population is the country’s most valuable asset. This group not only drives the culture of innovation, entrepreneurship and diversity but is also a large market and workforce. With the country fast transforming into the world’s leading and most resilient economy, there lies a great chance ahead to link India’s youth to future opportunities by empowering them with skills, knowledge and resources.  On the occasion of International Youth Day, let us look at some of the organisations which are already driving this change and empowering the Indian youth with their noble endeavours.

​1. Reliance Foundation: With a focus on creating ​positive ​changes in areas such as health, education, sports, disaster response and others, Reliance Foundation has been actively leading the cause for social welfare with a comprehensive development approach. Reliance Industries Limited and the Athletics Federation of India have formed a partnership with an aim to discover, nurture and develop Indian athletes from across the country. It is providing them world-class facilities, coaching and sports science and medicine support. The partnership​focuses on girl athletes to bridge gender divides and enable them to achieve their dreams.

​​​2. Dell Technologies: Understanding the role of technology and need of upskilling for growth, Dell Technologies is empowering the Indian youth with skill-based and technology-enabled learning. The company is focusing on preparing the youth for a digital future by enabling their access to technology and resources. It also has the Dell 2020 Legacy of Good Plan under which it has prepared an outline to support the young population to become ready for the digital world.

​​3. mPokket:  Realising that young college students and young professionals often find themselves in a cash crunch for their last-moment or necessary expenses, mPokket is empowering them by offering instant loans without any collateral. It grants them quick loans ranging from Rs. 500 to Rs. 20,000 without any long-term EMI commitments and flexible payment options. The company believes that no one should remain deprived of higher education and thus, it also offers scholarships to college students to help them fulfil their academic​ dreams.

​​4. DCM Shriram Ltd: To empower youth in the field of sports, DCM Shriram Ltd. a leading business conglomerate organises Fenesta Open National Tennis Championship every year to give encouragement to budding tennis players to exhibit their prowess to reach greater heights. With this, the conglomerate envisions India as a leader in the global sports scene. The tournament which has seen a rise in its popularity over the years has witnessed its participants getting selected for leading tournaments in India and abroad. Moreover, great impetus has been received by young players who have been noticed in the Fenesta National Tournament.

5. Wipro:One of leading global IT firms Wipro has launched its sustainability education program Wipro earthian for schools and colleges. This program is aimed to encourage ‘sustainability thinking’ among the young minds.  Under this initiative, activities are designed to bring awareness and initiate actions on pressing issues such as pollution and socio-economic activities. Its annual award program further leads to better engagement with children and young adults.

Sterling Holiday Resorts records a PBT of Rs. 28 Cr. in the first quarter….

9th August 2022, Mumbai: One of India’s leading leisure hospitality brands, Sterling Holiday Resorts Ltd. recorded a profitable first quarter as on June 2022 with a total income of 102.6 Cr and Rs 28.3 Cr. PBT. Riding on the positive recovery in the economy and leveraging on an increased average room rate (ARR), focused increase in guest spends on food & beverage and taking advantage of the cost-efficiency measures taken in the previous year the company topped its pre-pandemic performance on almost all key indicators.

The leisure hospitality brand saw a 35% growth in the average room rate compared to pre pandemic levels, and the occupancy reached 73% as compared to 52% in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, the new additions in Membership also doubled compared to the same quarter in the previous year. The down payment of Membership also touched 47%, an increase of 10% over the previous year.

Talking about the performance in the first quarter of the Financial Year, Vikram Lalvani, MD and CEO of Sterling Holiday Resorts Ltd said, “We have seen the first, full summer season since 2019, as we lost the season in the past 2 years to the pandemic. We were geared to leverage the anticipated demand upswing and that helped us clock a Rs.100 crore quarter for the first time. We will continue to expand aggressively and grow organically to leverage the great start to this financial year!” 

Sterling Resorts is expanding its distribution network into Tier 2 and 3 towns aggressively. It has developed a proprietary platform called “Sterling One” that enables partners engage with Sterling and book Sterling holidays for their clients online in real time.

Sterling has also taken up several initiatives to control costs including virtualization of its acquisition processes and increase in membership sales from onsite locations, resulting in higher margins.

In line with its vision to aggressively expand on an asset-light model, Sterling opened resorts in Madurai and Kalimpong in the first quarter and signed on several other properties that it plans to open in the near future.

No-Code DevOps platform Humalect raises $ 750k in seed round led by StartupXseed Ventures

Mumbai, August 09, 2022 – Humalect, a no-code platform helping organizations automate DevOps, has raised USD 750K from early-stage investors StartupXseed Ventures, which has previously backed top companies such as Darwinbox, Jobiak, CloudSek, Bellatrix and Aarav Unmanned Systems (AUS). The raised funds will be strategically utilized to build the team efficiently and extend product features.

DevOps is the combination of practices and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver software and services at high velocity. DevOps is a must-have for scalability of any organization. However, organizations usually avoid DevOps in early days due to the complexity, cost, and time involved.

Humalect is trying to fill this gap by automating end-to-end DevOps and getting it running in less than 30 minutes. Humalect enables organizations to be Kubernetes ready from their early days. This helps organizations save on their engineering efforts and focus on business goals by reducing the requirements of managing infrastructure. Humalect also helps organizations lower cloud bills by right-sizing infrastructure.

Humalect Co-Founder Rajesh Tilwani points out, “Goal of DevOps engineering is to improve developer productivity, but it never happens as intended. Most companies spend precious developer hours managing and maintaining this behemoth process. Typically, development teams spend at least 25% of their time setting up the cloud and managing the infrastructure, which could be utilized to build and launch their products in the market. That is why we built Humalect, focused on automation, flexibility, and the highest security standards for development teams, product teams, and business owners alike.”

Vishal Saugat, Humalect Co-Founder, adds, “Humalect would save developer team’s time spent on cloud management by 100 folds and it can bootstrap infrastructure, pipelines and deployment in minutes. It fits any tech stack without downtime, and does not impose any lock-in or migration debts. With the help of investments raised, we aim to build further and strengthen our team and extend our product features.”

Speaking about the Investment, Mr. Ravi Thakur, Co-founding Partner at StartupXseed, said, ”We know how complex the DevOps function is in organizations, and we spotted Rajesh and Vishal at the right time to solve that problem. We are bullish on their growth plans and are putting in our best efforts to make it happen.”

The challenges organizations face with DevOps are many. Every company avoids DevOps in the early days, but after an untoward incident like a security breach or downtime, DevOps becomes a reactive priority. The process of set-up is iterative and sometimes even takes months to complete. DevOps is important, and Humalect aims to empower organizations to scale and deploy their products across multiple cloud providers with their quick set-up DevOps platform.

BCIC Alliances with Brigade Group to form Brigade-BCIC Skill Development Academy

BCIC hosts their 45th Annual General Meeting and elects Dr. L Ravindran as the new president for the year 2022-23

Bengaluru, 08th August, 2022: The Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) organized their 45th Annual General Meeting on 5th August, 2022. During the meeting, past president, Mr. K R Sekar handed over the baton to Dr. L Ravindran in his last presidential address. On the occasion of AGM, BCIC signed the MoU with Brigade Foundation on a ‘Skill development program’ in the presence of Shri Basavaraj Bommai, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Karnataka and Shri Ashwath Narayan, Minister for Higher Education, IT/BT and Skill Development, Government of Karnataka.

The program will cover six major sectors that seek development such as – Real estate, Infrastructure, Tourism, Hospitality, Manufacturing and Retail. The agreement was signed between Brigade Group Chairman Mr. M R Jaishankar, Chairman & MD, Brigade Group and BCIC outgoing president, Mr. K R Sekar to form Brigade-BCIC Skill Development Academy where BCIC will serve as a knowledge partner.

BCIC also organized the 2nd Women Leadership Conclave and Award Ceremony earlier the same day with an aim to felicitate the achievements and to recognise the contribution of women leaders as change-makers and trailblazers who offer innovation to a variety of disciplines. The Chief Guest for the event Smt. Vani Ganapathi, Renowned Bharatanatyam Exponent Founder, Sanchari Dance Academy and Ms. Nirupa Shankar Executive Director Brigade Enterprises Ltd felicitated the winners at the ceremony.

In his last presidential address Mr. K R Sekar expressed how successful the last year has been for the chamber and said, “BCIC has successfully worked with all other chambers and with the Government of Karnataka. BCIC has contributed to direct and indirect tax reforms. With the prediction of the $5 trillion economy, BCIC believes that the next decade will belong to India and BCIC will continue to contribute to the government and the economy in the future as well”.

Dr. Ashwath Narayan in his address to the gathering exclaimed, “Namma Karnataka – Gateway for future India is an excellent tagline that can be set as a benchmark for the state as we keep coming up with various reforms, particularly the land reforms. Industrialisation is also important in expanding the economy and so is agriculture. Agri-tech is leading in the state of Karnataka with reforms and transformations to further support it. Tie-up with the New Zealand government has aided and further implemented the ease of doing business in our state across all sectors. Karnataka was also the first state to implement the National Education Policy in the country. We are ensuring the future of youngsters and aiming for jobs for all through talent gap analysis and bringing in qualitative changes.”

Shri Basavaraj Bommai, Chief Minister of Karnataka congratulated BCIC on its 45th Annual General Meeting 2022 and said, “These types of associations are necessary to implement business policies, it is good for business and eventually good for the state. Now, India is emerging and Karnataka is at the forefront of innovation as declared by Niti Ayog and Bengaluru is emerging as an economic and financial capital of the country. Ranging from genomics to aerospace, out of 500 R&D centers and fortune companies, 400 are in Bengaluru. I am looking forward to BCIC continuing its contribution in terms of ideas and policies, new initiatives and innovative social development strategies and the government is ready to walk with you in every step – shoulder to shoulder”.

Prominent dignitaries like Dr. K Kasturirangan Honorary Distinguished Advisor, ISRO, Dr. M R Jayaram, Chairman, Gokula Education Foundation (GEF), Dr. Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari, Shree Kshetra Dharmasthala, and Mr. C Rajagopalan, Past President, were felicitated at the event. Industry leaders like Mr. Amuleek Singh Bijral, Co-Founder and CEO, Chai Point, Mr. Rishad Premji Executive Chairman, Wipro Ltd, Mr. MR Jaishankar Chairman and Managing Director, Brigade Group, Mr. Jayakeerthi Anand, Business Head, Smart Power Division, ABB India Limited addressed the gathering.

On the occasion of the Annual General Meeting 2022, BCIC released the following publications: Report on human capital development in the state of Karnataka, Report on Healthcare delivery, CFO Handbook, BCIC Annual Report, and BCIC Members Directory. BCIC had also launched an incubation center in February 2022 with the objective to promote entrepreneurship in the state and the center where start-ups from all over Karnataka can grow & nurture their business while creating and further accelerating the startup ecosystem in the country.

Shell completes acquisition of renewables platform Sprng Energy group

India, August 9, 2022 – Shell Overseas Investment B.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc (Shell), has completed its 100% acquisition of Solenergi Power Private Limited and with it, the Sprng Energy group of companies from Actis Solenergi Limited (Actis).  

Sprng Energy, set up in 2017 by Actis, is a renewable energy platform based in Pune, India, and develops and manages renewable energy facilities such as solar and wind farms and infrastructure assets. 

The solar and wind assets Shell acquires through the deal will triple Shell’s present renewable capacity in operation and help deliver its Powering Progress strategy. An important part of Powering Progress is to develop an integrated power business, which will help Shell reach its target of becoming a profitable net-zero emissions energy business by 2050.