Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society, the innovation wing of Sunrise State, Andhra Pradesh has planned an initiative to help startups connect with women who are desirous of resuming their professional life post maternity break. Acknowledging the massive challenge women in their post-maternity period face while trying to balance their personal and professional lives, AP Innovation Society is creating a platform where their skills can be honored and utilized efficiently by the startups for the overall growth of the community. By providing flexible work timings and facilities like work from home, the goal is to connect startups with women who have prior experience.
The biggest challenge we face in Andhra Pradesh is the shortage of experienced workforce. Work from home gives us the flexibility to not only attract great talent that otherwise might not want to travel to a location, but also allow to explore the talent pool across the globe.
The Poster for this initiative was launched today in the Augustine presence of Shri Nara Lokesh, Hon’ble Minister for IT, Panchayati Raj and Rural Development and Shri P. Vijayanand, IAS, Principal Secretary to the Ministry of IT and Shri Winny Patro, Chief Executive Officer, Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society at the Premises of Sunrise Towers, Innovation Valley, Rushikonda, Visakhapatnam.
This initiative benefits startups and also the women in parallel. Startups can’t afford to hire a full-time professional to reach their work requirements. Hiring workforce with good acquaintance would be of great expense thereby resulting in poor guidance. And also, women post maternity do not prefer to move out of their zone for every reason so, and hence keeping this in mind we wanted to initiate work from home to encourage women, who have experience and the enthusiasm to work, post maternity.
The number of women who have expanded their careers into entrepreneurship post maternity has increased significantly in the last ten years. A lot of women who have the urge to work are still not able to reach their targets due their environments. This is a great platform for every such woman to come forward and bounce back into their careers. Flexible schedules are another bonus to work remotely with the startups, also resulting in stress free lifestyle.
Many big firms have introduced work from home option for their employees so as to acquire talent from around the globe and increase the efficiency of work. Work from home is an amazing opportunity to not only the women but also the startups, as for them to have an experienced employee remotely can limit absence and save costs which is the most important factor for a startup.
The firms can have increased insights into the local markets when hired from different places. Office space is huge issue that most startups face, and hence hiring people to work from home helps them overcome this constraint.
AP Innovation Society is playing a key role in this process by collecting the requirements of the startups by understanding what profile they are looking for, mapping them with the profiles of women who are desirous of resuming their professional life and finally connecting them to the startups.
The recently established partnerships with Israeli, Finnish and Hong Kong Ecosystems have ascribed more visibility to us in these dynamic and progressive environments. Further, the initiative has been lauded by the Local Media Fraternity.
Testimonials:
“Women are effective enablers and multi taskers, more so after childbirth and sabbatical because they know what it takes to drive a dream with meticulous time management. AP Innovation Society identifying this trait and empowering women is highly commendable.” – Deepa Balasubramanian, CEO, The Sedibus.
Registrations are open and women who are seeking to avail this opportunity can register on http://bit.ly/balanceforbetter . Post registrations, the applicants will be connected with Startups who are looking for workforce.
Visakhapatnam, 22 nd November 2018. Through the efforts of Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society [APIS], the Innovative Landscape of the State is finally set to share a platform with global innovators for attracting futuristic technology-focused global cooperation for upgrading the economic growth of the State.
SLUSH 2018
SLUSH is the Annual Flagship Tech Congregation of Finland, which attracts thousands of innovators, enterprises, venture capitalists and policymakers across the world to a “Fair of Futuristic Industry” every year. For any participating entity –Startup, Enterprise or Government, this is one of the Premier Destinations across the world to forge relationships with all the key stakeholders of the global technological ecosystem for mutual growth and development. Upkeeping its Legacy, SLUSH 2018 is scheduled to be hosted during December 4-5, 2018 at Helsinki, Finland.
Indian Participation in SLUSH 2018
As a Supporting Partner of the Conference, The Embassy of India in Helsinki, in coordination with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion [DIPP] is setting up a “Startup India Theme Pavilion”, through which it is going to facilitate the participation of 30 Startups in the Conference. These Startups have been identified by an expert panel following a rigorous selection process as they are to represent the true spirit of the growing innovation landscape of the Country. In Coordination with DIPP, APIS introduced the opportunity to eligible startups and offered to enable their participation in the conference by sponsoring their travel and accommodation in Helsinki throughout the Duration of the Conference. After a rigorous process, the following startups were selected:
LIST OF STARTUPS SELECTED FOR PARTICIPATING IN SLUSH CONFERENCE 2018:
– Sagar Defence Engineering Private Limited
– Swasti Agro and Bioproducts Private Limited
– .Cerelia Nutritech Private Limited
– InterviewBuddy
– SAMIEP Technology Innovations Private Limited
– Cyrrup Solutions Private Limited
– Zunik Energies Private Limited
– AnyEMI Online Services Private Limited
– Right Process Infotech Private Limited
– Reckon Green Innovations Private Limited
APIS believes this to be an opportunity for the State of Andhra Pradesh to showcase its growing innovation landscape to attract strong, futuristic cooperation with the Global Tech Ecosystem which shall drive the Exponential Economic Development of the State for Years to Come.
Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society Announces Drone Technology Bootcamps and Hackathon Series Organization to Partner with Drone Corporation for Organizing the Series Visakhapatnam— 05-01-2019 — Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society [APIS] announces a Drone Technology-based Bootcamp and Hackathon Series in association with Drone Corporation.
Drone Technology – A Future
“Drones have tremendous potential for carrying out the governance applications of the State. The utilization of drones in various sectors such as police, mining, municipal administration and urban development, agriculture and allied sectors, disaster management, survey, tourism project asset monitoring for capturing images and videos of high resolution, generation of 2D maps, 3D models, point cloud model is seeing global acceptance and adaption. APIS sees this as an opportunity to engage the top talents and creative minds of the State towards making the State a Global Leader in Drone Innovations and Manufacturing.” – Shri Winny Patro, CEO, APIS.
The Bootcamp and Hackathon Series Towards this direction, APIS intends to organize a Series of Bootcamps across the state and a Hackathon as a Finale at Vijayawada. The Proposed 26 Bootcamps (each Bootcamp being of 2-3 days’ duration) shall holistically cover topics like Hardware Component Design, Software Development, AI-based Applications and Security Aspects. The Participants of these Bootcamps shall compete for lucrative Cash Awards and Prizes at a Hackathon to be organized in Vijayawada.
Enthusiastic Students and Startups which are younger than 2-years are eligible to apply for the hackathon. Interested parties are requested to keep updated with the website of APIS [www.apinnovationsociety.com] Visakhapatnam— 18th Jan 2019 — Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society announced its upcoming Inspiring Talk Series during a Distinguished Keynote Session by TiE Amaravati. Distinguished Speaker Series The Amaravati Chapter of the Global Entrepreneurial Community – TiE organized a distinguished Keynote Session on the occasion of its 1 st Anniversary. The Session was graced by the following invitees:
Shri Ravi Garikipati, SVP, Head of Fintech and Former CTO, Flipkart
Shri Rajesh Sawhney, MD and Founder, InnerChef
Shri Sateesh Andra, President, TiE Amaravati and MD, Endiya Partners
The session saw a participation of 100+ entrepreneurs and enthusiasts for a deep, insightful fireside chat chaired by Mr. Sateesh which focused on a plethora of issues challenging the entrepreneurial journey of any individual, through a curated Panel Discussion, followed by a Questionnaire Session.
Sunrise Talks
Following the Knowledge-Filled Programme, Innovation Valley announced its upcoming fortnightly series of talks shows, namely “Sunrise Talks”. “Sunrise Talks shall be a Series of Inspirational Talks from Relevant and Inspiring Stakeholders of the Global Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, and shall be empowered by a Crowdsourced Blog which receives feedbacks through showcase of inspiration from the participants of the Sessions, and enriched by collection of other inspiring stories and illustrations on the Digital Media Platform, focusing on imparting every theoretical and applicational knowledge to the participants by instilling an element of inspiration in them”, said Mr. Manish Ghosal, Associate Director (Strategic Promotions and Alliances), Innovation Valley.
Shri Winny Patro, CEO, AP Innovation Society, Shri Ravi Garikipati of Flipkart and Shri Sateesh Andra of TiE Amaravati and Endiya Ventures led the Poster Release Session of Sunrise Talks. The invited dignitaries assured the Society of active and relentless contributions to make the upcoming talk series an impactful and successful exercise for the budding entrepreneurial ecosystem of the State of Andhra Pradesh.
Encouraging gaming startups and enthusiastic individuals with infrastructure and incubation support Amaravati/Vijayawada, 24th January 2019 Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society, the innovation wing of Sunrise state, Andhra Pradesh, is establishing a state-of-the-art Gaming Garage in Amaravati, on 25th January 2019. Through an establishment of this kind, Andhra Pradesh aims at:
▪ Becoming a global innovation leader in Gaming domain by encouraging entrepreneurship in gaming
▪ Increase employment in the state through promoting & supporting Game-tech which has applications in diverse set of industries, world-wide
Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society will run Gaming Garage by forging partnerships with leading global AR/ VR/ Gaming enterprises & communities. Some of the leading prospects to partnership are Anthill Studio; KAMK University, Finland; and Unity Technologies Inc., Games and Gaming engines across the world are leading disruption in AR, VR, MR technology adoption for industries such as defence, aerospace, manufacturing, education, medical, etc., where there exists practical use-cases for immersive technologies. The concept of Gaming Garage is a sustainable step towards nurturing and building the ecosystem of aspiring youth to learn these technologies through Project-based, internship- based, hackathon-based learning environments. The Garage will be open to every enthusiast learner and developer in the gaming industry and shall support learning, development, and commercialization of every market-viable gaming concept output. Further, this Garage shall facilitate Industrial Gamification Solutions. The Gaming Garage shall be marked by activities like: Gaming Hackathons, Capacity-Building, Game Jams, Internship Programmes, Tournaments and e-Sports.
Gaming Garage shall have a sister establishment: The School of Gaming, which shall impart certifications, diplomas and career courses in the field of Gaming, where each courseware shall be focused on a real-time Gaming Project as an output. Top Gaming Projects shall be facilitated towards commercialization and development as a Product. AP Innovation Society shall partner with various global gaming incubators/accelerators, AR/VR communities and enterprises for developing a vibrant gaming ecosystem in the state. Gaming Garage witnesses its flag-bearing activity on 25th January 2019, in association with KAMK University, by conducting Global Game Jam- world’s largest game jam event taking place around the world at various physical locations.
About major prospective partners (as on 24th January 2019)
Anthill Studio is a business accelerator program, providing new-age solutions for technology start-ups around the world. They shall set-up AR/VR accelerator in the state. Kajaani University of Applied Sciences KAMK, Finland is an International learning and development community which utilizes internationalization as a regional development tool. They shall:
▪ Provide Knowledge and Industrial Research Support to support Community Engagement, Inspiration and Training model of the Gaming Garage
▪ Develop a curriculum applicable to the beneficiaries of the Gaming Garage which shall include Technology and Commercialization aspects of any development activity; and
▪ Develop micro-degrees in the domain of Game Development, to be imparted in the Academic Ecosystem of Andhra Pradesh under the support and facilitation of APIS Unity Technologies ApS is a video game development company, which is best known for its Unity 3d platform- the world’s largest leading real-time engine, used to create half of the world’s games. They shall
▪ Provide necessary access to its Software and Gaming Engine for development activities;
▪ Extend Independent Software Vendor [ISV] Status to the Facility; and
▪ Extend “Affiliate” Status
SOCH India-Israel Hackathon concludes; Winners from the Indian leg awarded prizes worth INR 50 Lakhs during the awards ceremony.
AP Innovation Society exchanges MoUs with Kajaani University Finland and Anthill Ventures India to develop Gaming Garage- global gaming ecosystem in the state.
Visakhapatnam, 4th February 2019
Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society, the innovation wing of Sunrise State, Andhra Pradesh successfully concluded the 2-nation hackathon, Sunrise Open Challenge Hackathon:
India & Israel, where start-ups and individuals from both nations were invited to solve problems in the state in areas of Agriculture, Cyber-security and Water supply. AP Innovation Society organized this hackathon in association with DCF Ventures and Axis Innovation. The Indian leg of the event was held during 02-03 February 2019, where 178 participants split-across 38 teams coming from various cities/towns belonging to states such as: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, competed to solve problems in Agriculture (12 teams), Cybersecurity (12 teams) and Water supply (14 teams). For 30 long hours, all the participating teams pitted against each other to solve the problems kept open in the challenge, with assistance from mentors from the industry, government and start-up space. Workshops & fun activities were also conducted during this 30-hour challenge to recharge team-spirit.
The Mentors and Jury Panel comprised of:
▪ Arjun Ahlawat- Director of Client Solutions
▪ Chirag Boonlia- Group CTO | Vice President – IT
▪ Harsha Kikkeri- CEO, Holosuit
▪ KC Ayyagari- Programs Manager, Google Cloud
▪ Pramod Sharma- CEO & Co-Founder, Cogniticx
▪ Siddhant Agarwal- Innovator, Intel
▪ Vijetha Shastry- Lead of Open Innovation at NASSCOM Centre of Excellence – IoT
Members of the Grand Jury:
▪ Lt. Rajesh Nayak, Officer for Information Security & Warfare
▪ Leben Johnson, Associate Professor, GITAM University
▪ Rajendra Holani- Chief engineer of Maharashtra Jeevna Pradhika
▪ SK Goel – Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture & Marketing
▪ Vijay Anand- Founder & CEO, The Startup Centre, Chennai
▪ Vinutha Rallapalli, Associate Director, AP Innovation Society
▪ Winny Patro, Chief Executive Officer, AP Innovation Society
Under the guidance of these eminent industry mentors, top-class solutions emerged to the problems kept open in the challenge. About 21 teams (7 each from Agriculture, Cybersecurity and Water Supply) were shortlisted based on their proposed solutions, who later pitched their solutions to the Mentor and Jury panels. Top-3 solutions were identified in students and start-ups category, each, across Agriculture, Cybersecurity and Water supply departments of the state.
AP Innovation Society organized Valedictory & Awards ceremony on 4th February2019, at Hotel Novotel Varun Beach, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in presence of some of the eminent personalities, such as: Shri. H. Purushotham, CEO & MD, NRDC, Govt. of India, Shri. D. Ramaprasad, Director Technical, Scientist-E, Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, and Shri. A. R. Damodar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crimes), Visakhapatnam City. The winner, first runner-up and second runner-up start-up teams and top-3 student teams were announced and awarded prizes worth INR 50 Lakhs.
The winning entries from India hackathon are:
Team Name Challenge Vertical Place Solution proposed Headrunners (Winner- start-up) (prizes worth 22 L)
Cyber Security AP An intelligent Chat-bot with complex visualizations to identify the latest threats and their data using open, deep& dark web Jalsoftner(First runner-up –start-up) (prizes worth 13.2 L)
Drinking water AP Electronic water conditioner with activated filter media
Jalsoftner uses a series of controlled complex modulating high frequency waveform to neutralize the bonding ability of minerals in the water
Urban Straw (Second runner-up – start-up) (prizes worth 8.8 L)
Agriculture Karnataka AI driven integrated, seed-centric data collection solution, to aid in marketing, subsidy, insurance & credit, and secure farms & farmers
IIDTians (student team) (prizes worth 1.5L)
Cyber Security AP Endpoint security based on zero trust model working on detection and quarantine of known and unknown malwares with protection against malicious internet traffic from client system
Hack O’ holics (student team) (prizes worth 1.5L)
Drinking water Tamil Nadu Device that measures contaminants present in the drinking water in local tanks
Phoenix (student team) (prizes worth 1.5L)
Agriculture AP Permission Block-Chain &
Data mining for agriculture
The Israel leg of this SOCH 2-nation hackathon was held during 27-28 January 2019, where 30 start-ups developed solutions to the problem statements in the challenge. The winners & high-performers were awarded prizes worth USD 65,000.
The winning entries from Israel hackathon are:
Name Solution, Dotan Borenstein
Non-GM seed treatments that induce crops to grow well in high salinity soils or when irrigated with brackish water Shaul Rom A cloud/internet based Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system: by using fourth generation SCADA system, reduced infrastructure cost of the SCADA by adopting the Internet of Things (IoT) technology with available cloud computing
Dan Brahmy Protecting brands and public identities against disinformation, in order to avoid financial and reputational damages.
Yuval Rodan Providing disinfection & purification of water through “Water Shield” technologies
Gil Cordova Solutions to enable water utilities to save water, lower costs and increase operational efficiency.
Noga Bashan Agricultural development – technology that helps reduce the use of chemical fertilizer by 30%-50%
The valedictory event also saw Shri Winny Patro, CEO, Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society exchanging MoUs with Mr Jaakko Karkola from Kajaani University, Finland and Shri Sailesh Sigatapu, Partner at Anthill Ventures, India. Kajaani University of Applied Sciences is an international learning and development community that uses internationalization as a regional development tool. Anthill Ventures, runs a business accelerator program to provide new-age solutions for technology startups around the world.
The parties intend to come together to develop ‘Gaming Garage’ in Amaravati, with an aim to establish Andhra Pradesh state as a global innovation leader in Gaming domain and encourage entrepreneurship in gaming.