New tech on the block: Healthcare, BFSI, gadgets, cloud, EV

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent business launches.

Healthcare: App based video-based development check for children

KinderPass, a pediatric behavioral health platform, launched a unique ‘Grow Right Campaign’. Through this, parents will be able to easily track their child’s all-round development across key growth parameters and take timely action where needed. The campaign aims to help every parent give their child the right start and help them thrive.

The Why

Sumedha Khoche, the CEO & Founder of KinderPass, said, “Reports show that the incidence rate of developmental differences, delays, and disabilities like dyslexia, ADHD, autism, speech delays or issues such as anxiety in children has been growing very rapidly. To address this, monitoring early childhood development is extremely important and we hope to make a positive impact with the Grow Right Campaign. Developed with inputs from experienced pediatric and Montessori experts, the free and easy-to-use tracker will enable parents to map their child’s physical, cognitive, language, and social skill milestones. The simple questionnaire will also help to identify any red flags, for which we offer 1 on 1 online consultation with experts for timely intervention and guidance.”

Dr. Jawahar Surisetti, a psychologist and educationist of international repute known as the Think Professor for his ‘Art of Thinking’ and ‘Think for India’ movement, has also highlighted the need for regular development tracking. “There is an urgent need for parents and teachers of early-year kids to do periodic developmental checks as we do the academic reports. It will help solve a lot of later life issues if identified at the right time.”

Features

• Video-based developmental check
• 6 different languages including English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam
• Simple and user-friendly
• Parents can download the free KinderPass app or log on to the website
• After the assessment, a detailed report is shared via email and a free online consultation with a child specialist can also be booked
• Parents can also walk in for a Growth Check assessment across participating Klay preschools in key cities (share list here) where they can participate in fun developmental activities and also, interact with expert child specialists for guidance.

BFSI: AI based multilingual communication platform tailormade for collections industry

In August 2022, Saarthi AI, a Bengaluru based DeepTech venture crossed a key milestone.  Saarthi’s Collections AI hit the $100 Mn mark in aggregate debt collected for 20+ top Indian financial companies like CRED, Shriram, Capri Loans and more.

Every month, Saarthi AI recovers more than 95% of the amount allocated, without human intervention, faster than all other channels of collection. The milestone marks the first successful implementation of AI for collections at scale.

“There is an urgent need for an effective platform that makes Collections hassle-free. Pravid.io has been purpose-built to do exactly this. We’re helping CROs and collection managers take charge of their communication strategy.”, says Viswa Nath Jha, CEO & Founder, Saarthi.ai.

The Why

Prophecies of collections revolutionizing collections are decades old. It is an opaque, inconsistent, slow & expensive communication process. Businesses witness gruesome financial situations due to increasing debt. In India, delinquencies are on the rise and collection methods are causing serious reputation risks for the entire financial sector.

Yet, millions of new Indians are getting credit in the blink of an eyelid. The good news is it’ll only increase. But the ecosystem must grow in a sustainable manner. RBI is ensuring it does!

This makes it an even harder challenge for lenders who struggle with the time-consuming and unstructured process. Eventually, it derails the organization or they sell off the debt to unregulated parties causing more harm than good. Over $500 Mn of debt is written off each year in India.

To resolve this issue, companies generally outsource the collections to call centers. To recover debt, lenders give the same allocations to multiple agencies in desperation. Such approach may seem a solution but over a long span these can cost the lender more than what is being recovered. Moreover, unregulated agencies not only rupture a company’s reputation but hamper their customer experience.

Features

• io makes it easy for the Collections process to attain 100% transparency, 25% workflow agility, and 7x affordability.
• It allows credit and collections teams to automate and streamline their entire customer journey.
• MAIA (their AI SuperAgent) demonstrates state of the art efficiencies and communicates like a human in 11 languages.
• All the data captured is stored on an enterprise grade security platform with contact center tools, analytics & psychology-based strategies.
• It ensures the user has a control panel with full transparency of the communication, and insights on user behaviour, cash inflow predictability, campaign performance and more.

Cloud: Expanded protection for Kubernetes workloads

Commvault, a global data management across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments company, announced expanded protection for Kubernetes workloads, including fully automated management, replication, migration, and security enhancements, across its entire portfolio. The new features, delivered through Commvault Complete™ Data Protection and Metallic® offerings, provide customers with simple management and enterprise-grade protection for hybrid, multi-cloud environments.

“Using Commvault’s single platform, we are able to proactively monitor and assess risks, mitigate cyber threats to the business, and protect all workloads, including Kubernetes, in multi-clouds – reducing our OPEX by up to 40% compared to the previous solutions,” said Bruno Bianchini, Head of Infrastructure & Technological Services – Global Digital Solutions, ENEL. “Commvault proved to be the most effective solution to support our growth strategy and continue our digital transformation journey, without impacting productivity and customer service.”

The Why

Organizations are increasingly adopting Kubernetes to modernize their environments and accelerate the migration of applications to the cloud. According to Gartner, by 2025, 85% of global enterprises will be running containerized applications in production.

By integrating Kubernetes protection into its portfolio, Commvault is enabling enterprises to innovate.

Features

• Complete, cloud-native protection and recoverability for the entire Kubernetes ecosystem, including full clusters, namespaces, and ETCD and SSL certification protection
• Faster, simpler development testing and lifecycle events with seamless migrations of Kubernetes applications between clusters, distributions, versions, and storage
• Cost-effective disaster recovery by replacing business-critical applications offsite for on-demand application recovery – with no long-running infrastructure

Gadgets: Advanced Samurai Tower Speaker with a wired mic

French lifestyle brand ZOOOK, which is known for an extensive range of innovative audio and consumer technology offerings, has unveiled the life of every party- Samurai, an advanced Bluetooth-enabled Tower Speaker. A must-have for those who love to rock the world with music.

ZOOOK’s Country Head-India, Achin Gupta spoke on the occasion of the launch of the tower speaker, “We have always been proud of presenting lifestyle-based products to the consumers, where art meets technology. Samurai Tower Speaker, the latest offering by ZOOOK is a step forward in this direction. The sound quality is apt for house parties, where the music must not stop. It is also perfect as a home theatre system, for times when you wish to enjoy the latest films or a classic with your family and friends.”

Features

• Wired microphone with an output power of 60 watts
• Blasting sound and produces a thumping bass
• Soon slated to be made available online
• 1 Bluetooth technology
• Varied connectivity options like USB, Bluetooth, FM, and Aux to Line
• Loaded with a side-firing woofer for Extra Bass and a dedicated Bass Control knob

EV: Made-in-India smart-rugged electric scooters with intelligent swappable batteries, automated battery swapping network & fleet management tools

Electric mobility startup Baaz Bikes introduces its new generation electric vehicle ecosystem in India. Making the adoption of green mobility faster for gig delivery riders with safety and convenience, the company has launched its first ‘Made-in- India’ Smart-Rugged Electric Scooters along with Intelligent Swappable Batteries, an Automated Battery Swapping Network, and Fleet Management Tools, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Designed and developed by the in-house team, the electric scooter is priced aggressively at INR 35,000* (ex-showroom price, Delhi), maintaining the ruggedness and safety of gig delivery riders. The effective price of the scooter has been brought down significantly by separating the battery from the electric scooter, making it much more economical for gig riders.

The Why

With the aim to bring cost-effective and innovative solutions to the two-wheeler logistic market in India, Baaz Bikes has launched a purpose-built electric scooter, especially for gig workers to meet their daily mobility needs.

The buyers can rent electric scooters from the authorised Rental Partner Network of Baaz. Baaz will sell these scooters to small-scale dealerships where gig delivery riders can rent them, empowering micro-entrepreneurs in line with the vision of ‘Local for Vocal’. The Baaz Swapping Network will work on the pay-as-you-move model, which will further lower the daily cost of usability for gig delivery riders.

Features

SPECIFICATION FOR BAAZ SCOOTER

• The Baaz scooter is designed for a daily usage of more than 100km, putting emphasis on the vehicle ergonomics for the riders comfort and safety during longer rides.
• With a height of 730mm and wheelbase of 1170mm designed as per 95% Indian Male makes it a comfortable ride.
• The overall dimensions of the Scooter are intentionally kept on the smaller side measuring, L-1624mm | W-680mm | H-1052mm to beat the traffic.
• No need for registration, Baaz Scooter is a Slow Speed Scooter with a maximum speed of 25 kmph.
• Keeping in mind, the comfort of the Rider, the dual fork hydraulic suspension setup is provided in front along with a dual shock absorbers at rear.
• The scooter is completely keyless overcoming the hassles of twisting the keys
• Turn the scooter on or off effortlessly, unlock the seat and find my scooter button help locate the scooter in a messy Parking.
• Range estimation shows the user, exact kms the scooter can ride with current battery charge, which is not a usual site in this price category of Scooters.

SPECIFICATIONS FOR ENERGY PODS

Energy Pods or Baaz batteries are a combination of Lithium Ion cells enclosed in an Aluminium casing. It comes with an in-house designed Battery Management System, which ensures the safety and reliability in all usages and conditions.

• A handy swappable battery with a weight of 8.2 Kg
• Dimensions of the battery are L-180mm | W-119mm | H-335mm
• Energy density of 1028 Wh
• Impact-resistant housing and cover
• IP 68 rated, waterproof and splash proof under normal circumstances.
• Proprietary thermal management system designed to ensure safe operations even over 45 oC ambient temperature, specifically designed to suit Indian conditions.
• Blind mating battery connection to ensure minimal human interaction hence minimizing damage with a poka-yoke design.
• CAN 2.0 enabled communication based on top of a proprietary application layer
• GPS enabled for real-time battery tracking as well as vehicle tracking
• Baaz batteries are electronically encrypted and can be charged only inside the Baaz Swap (Baaz swapping station). This ensures that the batteries are always charged inside the cooled battery compartments ensuring 2000 charge/discharge cycles.

The battery comes with an in-house developed Battery Management System which has the following features:

• Over voltage protection
• Under voltage protection
• Over temperature protection
• Under temperature protection
• Overcurrent protection
• Resettable short circuit protection

SPECIFICATIONS FOR BAAZ BATTERY SWAPPING NETWORK

The swap-based Energy Network has been designed with the ideology of making the machine completely automated. To promote human-less operations, we had to reinvent the concepts around theft and vandalism as well to make sure that the machine is immune to all extreme weathers across India.

• Dimensions L-950mm | W-820mm | H-1790mm
• Dedicated Power of 10 kW
• Comes with nine battery recharging compartments.
• Swap slots designed for Indian user height with blind mate connectors for effortless battery swapping.
• Completely automated machine, accessible by RFID card
• All metal body to discourage any vandalism
• Display reinforced with an unbreakable Polycarbonate sheet
• Anti-tamper fasteners used along with multiple layers of disassembly
• All weather IP 65 rated to withstand rains and dust.
• Dedicated 300 mm height within the machine to make it immune to water logging issues
• 4G LTE IoT enabled for real-time data monitoring
• Water sensor to disable AC power in times of any water ingress and communicating the same on the server
• Smoke sensor to disable the AC power in times of any possible smoke/fire and communicating the same on the server
• Dedicated refrigeration unit for thermally controlled charging enhancing the battery life to 2000 cycles.

AI: Content intelligence platform for written content solution

Instoried, the AI-based content intelligence platform, becomes the first ever end-to-end written content solution platform in the world after the launch of their much-awaited Content Generation Tool. With the content generation tool, users can now automatically generate written copy for over 50+ templates in just a few seconds. Some of these include advertisements, social media captions, emails, blog posts, product descriptions, brand captions & taglines, promotional content, resume & cover letter, testimonials, company bios, YouTube video description, among others.

Instoried’s in-house built AI product is called G.A.M.E. that supports the content generation tool functionality. It stands for; Generate smart copy, Analyse the emotional engagement quotient of the copy, Measure the impact of the copy upon the target audiences even before publishing and Engage better with the audiences with the AI-generated recommendations.

The Why

Features

• A.M.E has been built after collecting information from 50 mn data points, is user-friendly and requires just simple 50-60 word prompts to generate multiple iterations of the required content.
• Enables generation of multiple copies of the same content type giving options to the user to select the most appropriate option.
• The content can be analyzed as well for its emotional quotient, tonality and relevance.
• Enhances the copywriting capabilities of enterprises/ brands/ freelancers/ students and any other content creator.

Gadget: Latest premium Bluetooth calling smartwatch

Consumer technology brand Crossbeats, has delivered an iconic addition to its portfolio – Orbit Apex. The latest premium Bluetooth calling smartwatch from the house of Crossbeats sports a round 1.4” Super AMOLED display along with the segment’s first Anti-Glare display technology. Priced at Rs. 3999, it is available at Crossbeats official website and on Amazon in two colour options classic Black and Blue.

Crossbeats co-founder Archit Agarwal spoke on the occasion of the launch of the smartwatch, “This iconic smartwatch adds to our range of products that have the best-in-class technology, design, and multi-utility. It is an era where consumers want one gadget to multi-task, and also look good, and I believe that Orbit Apex fills the gap. It is the perfect smartwatch for youngsters who prioritize their health and also cannot compromise with the style element.”

Features

• Long battery life, offering week-long playtime following a single charge of 30 minutes.
• With a trademarked RealHueTM technology for a superior visual experience, the display of the timepiece scores on all fronts. It wears Stainless steel crown buttons and comes packed in a high-grade aerospace metal casing giving it a very sophisticated look. It comes with more than 250 watch faces for a new look every day. The advanced Bluetooth calling smartwatch is powered with a 2W Dynamic speaker and powerful microphone backed by patented ClearCommTM technology.
• The updated 5.1 Bluetooth ensures no audio lag during voice calls. The Voice-Assistant-enabled smartwatch is further equipped with AI-powered Health Trackers to monitor important vitals such as Heart Rate, SpO2, sleep trackers, etc.
• More than 60 diverse sports modes. The 3ATM water-resistant rating enables the user to enjoy those unforeseen splashes in the rain and the timepiece becomes the perfect partner during those strenuous exercises when sweat flows freely. It also has an in-built game to ensure that you never have a boring moment.