Category Archives: Transhuman News

Nasscom chairman UB Pravin Rao

By Srinath Srinivasan

As the financial year 2020-2021 comes to an end, Indian tech industry has a lot going for it. The resiliency shown by both large technology firms and startups have made India one of the strongest digital markets despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The current quarter and the new year ahead present a host of opportunities for Indian tech industry.

According to a recent Nasscom report, Indian IT services revenue is set to touch $194 billion by end of FY 20-21, a 2.3% increase from the previous year. The commentary from the Indian IT giants, post their Q3 FY21 results, were all positive as they closed large deals and estimated a strong Q4.

For instance, Infosys raised its revenue guidance to 4.5-5% in constant currency terms from the earlier estimated number of 2-3%. When it comes to startups, Nasscom has earlier reported that more startups are raising their first round of funding in 2020 (nearly 42%) as compared to 2019 (around 29%). The first-time funded startups were in BFSI, ed-tech, agri-tech and gaming. In 2020, despite the disruption caused by the pandemic, over 12 unicorns were added to India Inc, as reported by Nasscom in its report.

As far as the large global brands in the IT industry in India, digital transformation will set the tone for the decade ahead. In one of the CEO surveys conducted by Nasscom with 100 key CEOs in the tech industry, it was found that 97% CEOs expect the global economic growth to be better than 2020, 71% CEOs expect global technology spend to be significantly higher than 2020 and 67% expect Indian tech industry to grow significantly higher than 2020. Says Nasscom chairman UB Pravin Rao, Our CEO survey for 2021 indicates almost 70% firms expect investment in global technology higher than the previous year.

The main driver behind this is the need for digital transformation. While the large IT services brands continue to bag large deals abroad, startups in India have opportunities within the country as well by working closely with large companies and by offering services/ products to MSMEs. For instance, the demand for deep-tech startups and their services is increasing. In the last five years, 2100 deep-tech startups have come up focused on specific technologies.

Nasscom estimates that this pool is expanding at 5-Year CAGR of 41%, faster than overall ecosystem growth rate. AI, IoT, Big Data, Blockchain, AR/VR and 3D printing are some of the technologies that the startups specialise in. Fintech and health tech startups saw a surge in the demand for their services such as digital contactless payments and telemedicine. Similarly, retail tech startups benefited from the demand for e-commerce, digital payments from the small businesses and kirana stores. According to Paynearby, since the back-to-back lockdowns in 2020, around 30,000-40,000 kirana stores are being added every month onto its platform. It expects this trend to grow in the period ahead.

In this hyper-digital economy, trust with the four cornerstones of competence, reliability, integrity, and empathy, will be the single-most-important currency, leading the industry growth towards a better normal, says Rao.

The focus of technology will become more experience centric. Salil Parekh, MD and CEO, Infosys, at the Q3 FY21 results announcement, said the company will focus on keeping the momentum going by delivering on client centric strategies. The CEO survey also mentions an estimate of nearly ~20% increase in tech spending on digitising the core, enhancing customer experience and redesigning product portfolios. The survey mentions that 60% CEOs expect larger digitisation deals and recovery of investments in core markets such as BFSI, manufacturing and retail.

New-age digital skills will be priority for talent in large IT firms as well as growing startups, especially in the areas of blockchain, AI, IoT, security, AR/VR and data analytics. Nasscom predicts that digital skills demand will outstrip supply by FY24. Encouraging tech and domain specific professional skills among the talent will be priority in the next decade for making India a talent nation, says Debjani Ghosh, president, Nasscom.

KEY PRIORITIES FOR INDIAN ITBuild digital talent, make India a talent nationGet used to a hybrid working modelAccelerate new markets in India and abroad, form new partnershipsIncrease spend on cybersecurity, threat awarenessBecome more customer-centric, improve customer experience in products and services

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Tech industry leading Indias recovery post Covid - The Financial Express

A POST office worker drove over a man who a witness mistakenly thought was a discarded black bin bag.

William Hicks, 39, struck Brian Shields who was lying on the road having earlier fallen off his bike.

Mr Shields ended up in hospital for three weeks after suffering a serious back injury.

READ MORE:Woman caught smuggling cocaine into Barlinnie prison

Hicks has been fined 715 after he admitted to careless driving in connection with the incident in Glasgow's Fulton Street in Anniesland on February 6 2019.

Hicks was on his way to work in his black Volvo at the time.

Prosecutor Mark Allan told Glasgow Sheriff Court: He failed to see Mr Shields lying on the road and drove over him.

Mr Shields body passed underneath Hicks' car. He then stopped after the collision.

Hicks alerted police before the victim - who had been drinking that day - was taken to hospital.

Mr Allan said: He sustained a number of fractures on his vertebrae, bruised ribs and cuts and was released from hospital after 20 days.

The court was told Hicks, of the city's Knightswood, was a first offender.

READ MORE:Thief was caught on CCTV raiding neighbour's house near Glasgow

His lawyer Paul Nelson said: "The driver on the opposite side of the road suspected Mr Shields was a black bin bag, but it turned out to be a person.

"No one thought that it was a human being."

Sheriff Alan MacKenzie also put eight points on Hicks' licence.

He told him: There was someone on the road and you drove over that person.

I recognise that it was not obvious to you or anyone there that day that he was a human being.

Original post:
'No one thought that it was a human being': Post office worker drove over man in Glasgow - Glasgow Times

Gravy, a startup helping subscription-based businesses recover failed payments, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding for its specialized combination of technology and a human workspace that works to reacquire customers lost to whats known as involuntary churn. That means the customer didnt choose to end their subscription, but for any one of hundreds of possible reasons their credit card payment failed.

Typically, subscription-powered businesses attempt to correct this issue with technology like sending automated emails, for example. Gravy, however, has developed a different solution that pairs its U.S.-based retention specialists with technology that alerts them to the failed payments. It then sells this whole system as a package to clients who use Gravy as an extension of their own workforce.

The new funding round Gravys first institutional money was led by Birmingham-based Arlington Family Partners, one of the few family offices in the southeast. Its also one with a personal connection to Gravy co-founders, CEO Casey Graham and Chief of Staff, Renee Weber, as it managed their earnings from a prior acquisition.

Gravy, in fact, actually got its start at that earlier business, The Rocket Company, a coaching and resource provider for churches, which exited to a private equity group, Ministry Brands.

We spent two years fixing [the problem of failed payments] in the last company and created a tech-enabled solution where we leveraged actual human beings to win back failed payments for subscriptions. And by doing that, we got a 5x offer higher than the initial offer because we fixed the failed payment problem, Graham notes.

He first assumed other subscription businesses were doing the same, but later discovered that many were not. Instead, they tended to use automated means to address the problem, which would only recoup about 15% to 20% of the failed payments.

These tech-only solutions dont work as well because customers often dismiss automated emails from companies, Graham says. However, customers do respond to personal outreach but thats something many new and fast-growing businesses cant afford as theyre investing more heavily in growth and scale.

Gravy offers them a middle ground between automation and hiring in-house. Companies contract with Gravy on a subscription basis by paying a flat fee, tiered based upon transaction volume. This fee ranges from $997 on the low end to $8,000 on the high end. Gravy then integrates with the clients own payment products and processor, their subscription manager and any other solutions they may use for managing subscriptions like Stripe, Braintree, Recurly, Keap (Infusionsoft) and others. It even sets up a Gravy channel on the companys Slack in order to better communicate with company staff.

The end result is that Gravys team feels like a part of the business itself, not some contract workforce.

Once established, Gravys team will use email and text, per the clients preferences, to personally reach out to customers with failed payments to try to get their card information updated. Because its operating closely with the client, the specialists can also offer things like stay bonuses and other deals that could help bring back a customer who may not have otherwise bothered to return. During COVID, for example, Gravy also offered additional options, like the ability for the customer to skip several months along with other more personalized options to meet the customers specific needs.

When were onboarding [a client], we create an empathetic script of three different responses, or opportunities for us to negotiate with the customer to win that customer back, Graham explains.This works because of the human component people know when theyre talking to a real person and not an automated script, he says.

Image Credits: Gravy

Since its founding in 2017, Gravy has scaled to over 300 clients, whose businesses may be as small as $200,000-$250,000 in revenue up to $100 million in annual revenue from subscriptions. These clients either operate in the B2B space like B2B content subscriptions or tech education and certification, for example or in the B2C space. In particular, Gravy is leveraged by a number of box subscription services (which offer to ship a box of products to a customers home) and B2C education and online courses.

To date, Gravy has processed over 6 million failed payments and has won back $175 million in failed payment subscriptions. The company is now on a mission to return $1 billion in failed payments by 2023. Gravy is also expected to pass $1 million in MRR this year, Graham says.

Notably, Gravys retention specialists arent gig workers or contractors theyre full-time employees with benefits. And they can be employed from anywhere, which Graham says is a competitive advantage.

Though technically an Atlanta-area startup, Graham and Weber live 50 miles north of downtown Atlanta.

I live on a farm, and we were told we were at a disadvantage because we werent in the middle of the Atlanta tech scene, Graham says. But the reality is, it became a huge advantage for us because our strategy has been to recruit the best people in small towns across the United States. Besides, he adds, Slack is our headquarters.

This strategy has allowed Gravy to also employ several military family members, who often have a hard time finding consistent work because they have to move regularly. That leads them to often take gig work instead of full-time jobs.

Image Credits: Gravy

The gig economy those companies are not committed to those people. They dont care about them, or if they work or not. Its a gig, Graham says. Gravy is committed to them on salaries, benefits thats something were super proud of. He says Gravys salaries start at $55,000.

With the new funding, Gravy plans to expand its team of 83 to about 150 by year-end, expand its client acquisition efforts and further invest into its product. Longer term, he believes Gravy could also help businesses with other needs, including voluntary churn, for starters, and even customer service and customer success in the future.

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Gravy raises $4.5M for its service that helps subscription businesses recover failed payments - TechCrunch

INDIANAPOLIS After editing and then apologizing for an insensitive job posting that appeared on a recruiting site, Charles L. Venable, the president of Newfields, the 152-acre campus that is home to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, has resigned.

We are ashamed of Newfields leadership and of ourselves, the museums board of trustees and board of governors said in a statement on its website Wednesday, in which they said they had accepted Venables resignation. We have ignored, excluded, and disappointed members of our community and staff. We pledge to do better.

We thank him for his service and agree that his resignation is necessary for Newfields to become the cultural institution our community needs and deserves, the statement said.

Venable, 60, has led the museum as director and chief executive since 2012; he took on the newly created position of president of Newfields earlier this year. Jerry Wise, the museums chief financial officer, will serve as interim president of Newfields.

The employment listing, which had been posted on the search firm m/Oppenheims website since January but came to light only last Friday, said the museum was seeking a director who would work not only to attract a more diverse audience but to maintain its traditional, core, white art audience.

A group of 85 Newfields employees and members of the board of governors released a public letter on Tuesday calling for Venables resignation. More than 1,900 artists, local arts leaders and former employees of the museum also issued an open letter over the weekend calling for his removal. They asked the museums major funders to pause financial support until reforms, including a more diverse board and curatorial staff, could be implemented.

Newfields said on Wednesday that it would conduct an independent review of the museums leadership, culture and boards of trustees and governors, and add additional free or reduced-fee days to make the museum more accessible to the community. Other reforms include forming a citywide community advisory committee, expanding programming that represents people of marginalized identities and implementing anti-racist training for staff, board members and volunteers.

Venable said in an interview on Saturday that the decision to use white in the employment listing had been intentional and explained that it was meant to indicate that the museum would not abandon its existing audience as it moved toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion. The museum subsequently revised the description linked in the listing, which now says that it seeks to welcome and embrace a more diverse audience while maintaining the museums traditional core art audience.

Venable said drafts of the description were written and edited by both the museum and the search firm.

Fallout from the original listing was swift. The two guest curators for the museums upcoming exhibition, DRIP: Indys #BlackLivesMatter Street Mural, in April, said in a statement on Saturday night that they could not continue organizing the exhibition unless the museum apologized to the 18 artists involved and agreed to display more works from Black artists in perpetuity. On Monday, a member of the board of trustees resigned.

The incident was the latest controversy for Newfields, which has faced accusations of excluding residents of the neighborhood, which has a large Black population, and criticism for trumpeting the work of Black artists without substantially supporting them during Venables widely debated tenure. (The members of the museums board of governors and board of trustees are overwhelmingly white.)

Kelli Morgan, a former associate curator who was recruited in 2018 to diversify the museums galleries, resigned in July, calling the museums culture toxic and discriminatory in a letter she sent to Venable, as well as to board members, artists and the local news media.

Morgan, who is Black, said in an interview on Saturday that while the museum had begun training its leaders in diversity, equity and inclusion, she was disappointed that it had still included insensitive language in the job description.

Clearly theres no investment or attention being paid to whats being learned or communicated in the training, she said. Because if there were, theres no way a job posting wouldve been written like that, let alone for a museum director.

Venable, a former deputy director at both the Dallas Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art, has had a controversial tenure during nearly nine years at the helm of the Indianapolis museum. He was criticized for introducing more popular experiences to the campus, including an artist-designed miniature golf course. His commitment to cost-cutting led him to reduce the staff by about 11 percent and to institute an admission fee at the museum. Though Venable has a Ph.D. in American Studies from Boston University, it was his departure from traditional art experiences that made him unpopular in the community. He also shook things up by having his curators give every artwork at the museum a letter grade in an effort to pare down the collection and avoid paying for more storage.

His departure comes at a time when other institutions have been grappling with a reckoning around race, including how to diversify majority-white staffs, boards and collections.

Over the last year, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has had to reckon with what employees called structural inequities. Gary Garrels, formerly its top curator, resigned in July amid staff anger, after he used the term reverse discrimination in an all-staff Zoom call.

Venable said at the time of Morgans resignation that the museum had been taking steps to become more diverse, but that it would take time. But now it will do so with a new voice at the helm.

We pledge to make the necessary changes to ensure we can regain your trust and respect, the museums board said in the statement on Wednesday. We commit to being held accountable, as we hold the institution accountable, to ensure that Newfields is diverse, equitable, accessible and inclusive.

The board said a detailed action plan, with specific deadlines, would follow within the next 30 days.

While members of Indianapoliss Black art community see Venables resignation as a start, they are clear that it cannot be the end of the conversation.

The C.E.O. is just the head, and then there will be another head when hes gone, Josiah McCruiston, a local musician, told The Indianapolis Recorder, the citys Black-owned newspaper, on Monday. You have to address the root situation before you can start picking at the fruit.

Robin Pogrebin contributed reporting.

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Charles Venable Resigns as Head of Indianapolis Museum of Art - The New York Times

Producing garments with timeless appeal is only one part of Fast Retailings mission. The parent company of Uniqlo, J Brand, Theory and six more brands, recently released its 2021 sustainability report documenting 20 years of environmentally focused milestones.

The need for transparency was even greater as a result of the global pandemic, which made many re-examine their commitments to the people and planet.

Considering its scaleUniqlo alone is the second-largest retailer in the world, according to data provided by retail data and analytics firm EditedFast Retailing understands it has an incredible responsibility to lead sustainably.

How are we going to leave behind a positive world for the next generation? What kind of economic activity will create a path to a positive world? Tadashi Yanai, chairman, president and CEO of the Fast Retailing Group, stated in the report. We must think wholeheartedly about these questions and act. With our latest sustainability report, we hope to reaffirm our commitment to be the kind of business that finds and implements answers to such questions.

Despite the unexpected events of 2020, the company didnt hold back on making new sustainability commitments or innovating its products. Last year, the company signed the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, an initiative formed by fashion stakeholders to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. It was included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices World Index, and recognized as a water security A List company by CDP.

Uniqlo, a brand known for mainstreaming textile technologies like its moisture-wicking DRY-EX fabric worn by athletes and its water-saving BlueCycle finishing process, was the source for many of these environmental wins. In November, the company debuted the Uniqlo Recycled Down Jacket, the first product born from the brands recycling program, which has collected and donated gently worn Uniqlo clothing to people in need since 2006.

Uniqlo recently evolved this program to include product-to-product recycling, thanks in part to new technology that extracts down and feathers efficiently. The jacket is completely filled with reclaimed down and feathers taken from 620,000 pieces of down products collected in Japan since the start of 2019.

The brand also increased its use of recycled polyester from post-consumer PET bottles. Recycled polyester comprises 32-75 percent of the high-performance, quick-drying DRY-EX Polo Shirt, and 30 percent of the Fluffy Yarn Fleece Full-Zip Jacket and Fluffy Yarn Fleece Pullover Shirt.

At Fast Retailings Jeans Innovation Center (JIC) in Los Angeles, the company reports that it has managed to reduce water consumption by up to 99 percent in the finishing processand it plans to promote this technology across all of its brands.

The new method requires just a fraction of the water we previously used, without compromising product quality. We do this by using special washing machines with ozone gas cleaning and nano-bubble cleaning functions. In addition, the introduction of eco-stoneslong-lasting, artificial stones that do not wear downhas eliminated the need for crushed natural stones and reduced the amount of water required for cleaning, the report states.

J Brand garnered attention in 2020 when it was announced that Fast Retailing would eliminate the premium denim brands wholesale business, but it also made headway in traceability. Last year, the brand launched a mid-rise super skinny style, which features traceable cotton and recycled polyester and is produced with water-saving technology in the finishing process.

In 2001, Fast Retailing formed its Social Contribution Office to focus on supporting its communities. Since then, it has launched a clothing donation program to support refugee camps and victims of natural disasters around the world, and developed initiatives to improve work environments and protect workers throughout its supply chain.

It established human rights initiatives in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and created a committee that ensures the policies are being followed.

In 2020, the company conducted training for 489 factories in 22 countries and regions to ensure that partner factories understand the Code of Conduct and the latest labor standards.

It also has initiatives in place to make sure there are equal opportunities for women, refugees, members of the LGBTQI+ community and those with disabilities. Currently, more than 1,000 employees with disabilities work at Uniqlo and GU stores around the world, and as of August 2020, women made up 39.2 percent of total management positions within the Fast Retailing Group, and 121 refugees were working at Uniqlo stores all over the world.

Fast Retailing was one of many throughout the industry to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. It donated a total of 16.73 million masks and 1.43 million isolation gowns to clinical workers around the world, and made monetary and other donations in 26 countries and regions.

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Fast Retailing's New Report Tracks 20 Years of Sustainability - Sourcing Journal

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doubled down on her support for broader student loan forgiveness on Wednesday by encouraging her Twitter followers to call their representatives in support of the progressive plan.

On Tuesday, the representative from New York criticized President Joe Biden's opposition to a Democratic plan that would wipe out $50,000 in student loan debt for borrowers, saying his argument against it "is looking shakier by the day."

When asked about the push at a televised town hall Tuesday, Biden rejected the idea, and instead threw his support behind a less ambitious plan to cancel $10,000 per person.

The president said he would rather spend the money on supporting early childhood education and ensuring that community colleges are tuition-free. He also said he didn't like the idea of forgiving debts for students who attended expensive private schools.

Ocasio-Cortez was quick in her disapproval of Biden's statements Tuesday, tweeting: "We can and should do it! Keep pushing!"

She followed up Wednesday by providing a step-by-step explanation to her millions of Twitter followers on how to call members of Congress and voice support for student loan forgiveness.

Ocasio-Cortez linked to a House of Representatives web page that allows constituents to find their representative's contact information by entering their zip code.

She encouraged people to call and thank members of congress who are already supporting student loan forgiveness because it sends a message that constituents are watching and appreciative.

"When you don't think your constituents care much, it's easier to cave," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

For representatives who may be on the fence about the issue, calls from constituents can make a difference in nudging them toward a final stance, she explained.

She acknowledged that calling a congressional office can be intimidating the first time, but reassured her followers that constituents have a right to make their voices heard, though she encouraged callers to be polite to whomever they speak with.

"Staffers don't deserve abuse," she wrote.

The lawmaker then offered some tips for callers: ask clear questions about the representative's stance on student loan forgiveness; say what neighborhood you're calling from if comfortable; and offer up a personal story about how the issue has impacted you.

Detailed stories can help highlight gaps in policy and provide talking points for members to communicate with their colleagues, Ocasio-Cortez said.

"Representatives are human beings! Stories are persuasive & we can use your stories to convince others," she tweeted.

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AOC prompts followers to call their representatives on student loan forgiveness - Business Insider

An eight-day Mecum auction in July in Indianapolis previously postponed by the pandemic notched record sales of $74 million. That figure included a highest-ever price of $3.85 million for a Mustang. The auctioneer billed the car, a 1965 Shelby prototype once driven by Ken Miles of Ford v. Ferrari fame, as the most important in the history of the marque.

Perhaps the most singularly impressive results came on Sept. 5, at another of the years few live auctions. The event, at the historic Hampton Court in London, featured 15 superlative classics in Gooding & Companys first international sale. The auction had been canceled in April, but we saw a window of opportunity and seized it, said David Gooding, the companys president.

As it turned out, proceeds topped $44 million, with a 93 percent sell-through rate. Records were reported for a highest average price per car, $3.1 million, and for the highest auction amount yet for a Bugatti $12.7 million for a 1934 Type 59 sports car. The Bugatti also drew the highest price for a publicly sold collector car in 2020, Gooding & Company said.

Even so, 2020 was rough the whole live auction industry was down, Mr. Gooding said. His firm, based in Santa Monica, Calif., grossed some $125 million, well below its best years, he said, but we feel grateful for what we still managed to accomplish and for what we learned. For example, the pandemic prompted the company to hasten its introduction of Geared Online, a web platform featuring both vintage cars and automotive memorabilia.

Hagerty, a firm in Traverse City, Mich., that insures collector cars and specialty vehicles and tracks market data, believes the volume of collectible automobiles that changed hands in 2020 rose as much as 14 percent, with most sales online and in personal private treaty transactions.

The necessity to be alone or in small groups pushed people outdoors, said McKeel Hagerty, the firms chairman. More people got out to drive to go camping, hiking or just for pleasure driving. Plus, gasoline was really cheap.

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How Car Collecting Powered Through the Pandemic - The New York Times