Tag Archives: Technology

PuneConnect 2018: Call for Startups: Apply Now

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PuneConnect, which earlier was a purely startup focused event is now returning this year in an even bigger, expanded format. The event is now a technology and startup event with 4 different tracks—startups, technology, leadership, and academia. So, startups showcasing their products at this PuneTech will have a much more diverse audience to pitch to, and the potential to find prospective customers, mentors, employees, co-founders, and investors.

The startup track of PuneConnect is now in its 7th edition, and is one of Pune’s most important events for startups. Early stage startups get a chance to showcase their products and services to larger companies in Pune, senior and juniors from the technology industry, VCs and angel investors from all over the country, and others from the ecosystem. PuneConnect 2018 is on 20th October 2018, at Westin, Pune. It is a full-day event where selected startups will be provided with a table in the demo hall.

This event is free for startups selected by PuneConnect. If you are unsure of whether this event is appropriate for you or not, please go ahead and apply, and our selection committee will figure out whether you’re a good fit or not. Please apply right away. The last date to apply is 1st October 2018.

Any startup company that has a product that they would like to demo, should submit a proposal at http://db.puneconnect.com/pc/combo-form/. (The product must be ready/working on the date of the event.) A panel of selectors drawn from experts in the industry will select the most promising startups who will be allowed to set up a demo at PuneConnect, in Westin, Pune, on 20th October 2018.

There will be a special quota for students – i.e. startups whose founders are still students will be given special consideration, so if you know someone in this category, please forward this info to them.

Benefits to selected startups include:

  • Exposure to Pune’s top companies (potential customers and potential mentors)
  • Exposure to Pune’s software developer community (potential employees and potential co-founders)
  • Exposure to Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors who are being invited to the event
  • Press and media coverage before and after the event

PuneConnect started in 2011 and is usually held in late October/early November every year (except for a gap in 2017). For the last few years, we’ve been selecting about 25-30 startups for demos out of 150+ registrations that we receive. Click here for more information about past PuneConnect events.

Media Coverage: In past PuneConnects, Economic Times, Indian Express, The Financial Express, the Financial Chronicle, Business Standard, and the top Marathi newspapers Sakal and Maharashtra Times all have carried detailed articles about PuneConnect and the companies.

PuneConnect is a joint initiative of Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP), TiE Pune, PuneStartups.org (POCC), PuneTech, and NASSCOM, SME Joinup, CIIE Ahmedabad, and MCCIA Pune – basically all the important players in Pune’s startup ecosystem. PuneConnect represents a one-of-its-kind activity that bridges the gap between the new companies and the established ones.

Apply now. It costs nothing. Please apply right away. The last date to apply is 1st October. (Note: this is just a call for applications for the demo hall. A separate announcement will be sent out for registrations for attending the event as a delegate.)

Event: Electric Cars, Self-Driving Cars, and Next Generation Transportation Technologies, 22 Jan

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IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Association) presents a tech event focusing on next generation technologies in the transportation sector, including electric cars, battery technology, autonomous and connected vehicles, and related topics, on Monday, 22 Jan, 5pm to 7pm at MCCIA, SB Road.

The talks and speakers are as follows:

  • Adoption of EV in USA and opportunities in India, Dr. Rajiv Mathur, Head of Smart Transportation Programs at ProspectSV, San Jose, CA.
  • Next Generation Technologies in Automotive Electronics, Mr. Amit Jain, CEO and Exec Director, Advanced Electronics, Technology and Development, UNO Minda, NK Minda group.
  • Electronics Technology in Off-Highway vehicles, Mr. Devendra Bahirat, Head, John Deere Electronic Solutions, India and China

Adoption of EV in USA and opportunities in India

Abstract: Consumer electric vehicles have been in the US market since 2011, and have seen increasing acceptance supported by government policy coupled with financial incentives for consumers. While nearly all major OEMs have some EV offering, or plan to in the near future, market forces such as dropping oil prices, lack of EVSE and electric grid capacity have the potential to derail the growth trajectory of EV adoption. On the technology front, a breakthrough in inexpensive, high capacity and quick charging battery can accelerate faster adoption. More recently active research has now shifted to autonomous and connected vehicles. We will discuss this and related topics in this presentation.

Speaker Profile: Dr. Rajiv Mathur is the Head of Smart Transportation Programs at ProspectSV, responsible for many fronts from client engagements to operating ITS Signal Lab and helping accelerate new technology demonstrations in the TIZ. Working with the City of San Jose, and RSM, an innovative technology start-ups, he has facilitated sensor deployment at a city intersection to determine granular road usage data collection and for visualizing traffic flows in 2D and 3D. Rajiv is collaborating with California Dept of Transportation (CalTrans) in bringing leading industry partners to utilize and enhance the Connected Vehicles test bed in Palo Alto, CA. Prior to ProspectSV, he spent a year at Bay Area Climate Collaborative, as an Encore Fellow working on a variety of new EV program initiatives. Prior Rajiv had a three decade plus career at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara in a diverse array of technical and management positions related to silicon process and device modeling, and simulation. Most recently he served as Program Director in Intel Labs’ University Collaborative Research division where he managed Intel’s academic collaboration to several academic research centers at top tier universities, both in US and Europe. Rajiv holds a B.Sc. degree from St. Stephens College, (Delhi, 1974), an M.Sc. from Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur, 1976) and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh, 1981), all in Physics.

Electronics Technology in Off-Highway vehicles

Abstract: Electronic components are widely used in Agricultural and off-highway vehicles in developed countries since 1990s. Advance technologies like GPS, Power Electronics and auto steer are also being adopted since last couple decades. Productivity and yield improvements are the main drivers behind the introduction of these technologies. We will discuss some of these examples. We will also look at some examples in India and what are the challenges that we face in this region in terms of technology introduction.

Speaker Profile:Devendra is associated with John Deere since April of 2000. Over the past few years he has successfully held numerous positions in the area of Electronics in the US and India. In his current role, he is heading John Deere Electronic Solutions, India and China. In is current role he has set up manufacturing plant for Electronic control units which are used in India and also exported to other John Deere units globally. Devendra is an active member of SAEINDIA for last several years. He led various activities of SAEINDIA OFF-HIGHWAY board during his tenure as the chairman of the board. Devendra completed Executive General Management from IIM, Bangalore, and holds degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from Pune University.

Organized By

  • Mr. Ashok Chandak, IESA Past Chairman
  • Mr. Niranjan A. Pol (Member, Board of Directors and Exec Council), IESA and IESA Auto CIG CoChair
  • Mr. Sanjay Gupta, IESA Auto CIG Co-Chair

Registration, Fees, and Logistics

The talk is free, and open to all. Please RSVP at: support@iesaonline.org +91 80 41473251/+91 9535022268/+91 9900243972 Gaurav K Punjabi +91 9900919234

The talk is on Monday, 22 January from 5pm to 7pm, atSumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, No. 1 (A Wing, Ground Floor) 505, A-Wing, MCCIA Trade Tower, ICC Complex, 403, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune.

ReactFoo Pune: React and React Native Developers Conference—19-20 Jan

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ReactFoo Pune is a two-day event for React and React Native Developers, focusing on the following topics:

  1. Success and failure stories of implementing React and React Native for your use-case.
  2. Lessons learned in shifting codebase from older frameworks to React.
  3. Comparative advantages of React and other JS frameworks.
  4. Comparative advantages of React Native in working on mobile applications.
  5. Security concerns.

This is an event by HasGeek, which is known for good quality events.

Who should attend?

  • Engineers looking to learn from case studies of other practitioners.
  • Decision-makers considering the pros and cons of switching to React.
  • Cross-platform mobile developers and React Native enthusiasts.

Why you should attend?

  • To learn from and network with peers from the industry.
  • To gain insights from case studies of practical implementation, and evaluate ReactJS and React Native for your work.
  • To program better with React and React Native.

Agenda

  • Single track of talks and Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions on 19 January.
  • Hands-on workshops on 20 January.

See the conference website for detailed schedule, and specifics of talks and speakers

Fees, Registration and Logistics

This is a paid conference. Please register and buy tickets here.

Location: 505, A-Wing, MCCIA Trade Tower, ICC Complex, 403, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune.

Hands on overview of the Kotlin programming language

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Presenting Hands on overview of Kotlin programming language by Dhananjay Nene. Brought to you by PuneTech, TechJam Pune, and SICSR. The event is free for anybody to attend, but registration is required

Agenda

  • 4:30 – 5:00 pm Networking
  • 5:00 – 7:00 pm Introduction to Kotlin
  • 7:00 – 7:15 pm Q&A and Closure

We will start exactly on time, so please plan to reach a bit early.

Abstract of the Talk – Hands on overview of Kotlin programming language

This session will cover an introduction to the Kotlin programming language and lots of hands on examples of how Kotlin helps write concise, safe and expressive code. It will also refer to how naturally Kotlin interoperates with existing Java libraries and frameworks and how Java and Kotlin frameworks and libraries can work smoothly with each other. The session will focus on core programming rather than any specific areas such as Android or Web or other specialised types of programming.

The audience is presumed to be reasonably aware of Java programming.

About Kotlin

Kotlin is one of the hottest new programming languages in recent times. One of the fast growing languages of 2017, it has the potential to become the preferred language for Android app development, for backend development on the JVM, and even has to potential for use in the frontend (browser). It is a concise and modern language with many advanced features like null safety, extension functions, infix notation. It has full Java compatibility (so you can use all Java libraries without any significant impedence mismatch), good IDE support (Android Studio, and IntelliJ), improves code readability, reusability, and development speed.

Kotlin has been announced as an official Android Development language by Google, and it has been adopted by a number of high-profile companies like Amazon Web Services, Pinterest, Coursera, Netflix, Uber, Square, Trello, Basecamp, and others.

About the Speaker – Dhananjay Nene

Dhananjay is a Software Engineer with over 26 years of experience in programming. He has worked with Citicorp  and AT&T in the pre millennial times. After that as a consultant he has worked on providing solutions to a number of diverse problems including building interactive educational software for pre teen children, building administration suites for workflow authoring applications, creating applications that compute electromagnetic wave signal strengths, financial supply chain services and building frameworks and applications which process in excess of a million financial transactions per hour.

For the last year he has spent most of his time on GST and he wrote, and helps manage, Vayana GSP—one of India’s leading GSPs. GSPs are the licensed systems that allow ERPs and accounting softwares to interface with the GST Network. The Vayana GSP is written in Kotlin.

Apart from programming, he has been involved with the cloud for more than a decade including all aspects of operations management and operation automation. He has switched across a number of roles including those of a developer, chief architect, chief technology officer and head of product development. He continues to be passionate about programming and design and all that comes under the umbrella of software engineering.
Dhananjay has done his post graduation from IIM-Ahmedabad, and has been involved in Senior Management positions, and has managed team sizes in excess of 120 persons.

Specialties: Software Architecture, Technology Research, OO Modeling and Design, Programming

Fees, Registration, Logistics

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here.

The event is in Room 707, on the 7th floor, from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, on Saturday, 6 January, at SICSR, Model Colony. Note: This is Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, near Om Supermarket Circle. There are 2 or 3 different Symbiosis institutes on the same road, so read the signs carefully to ensure that you’re entering the correct one.

Interview with Rekha Ranganathan – Philips Healthcare Innovation Center Pune

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We visited the Philips Healthcare Innovation Center in Pune last month, and spoke with Rekha Ranganathan, VP & Global General Manager, Mobile Surgery & Value Cardiology and Head of Healthcare Innovation Center at Philips.

Philips is doing interesting R&D and Manufacturing work in the healthcare space in Pune, and it was good to learn about the details from her and the Philips team.

Centers like the Philips HIC are good representatives of Pune’s strength in R&D and Manufacturing in core engineering. We hope that in the near future, Philips gets more actively connected with the tech and startup ecosystem in Pune.

Here are excerpts from our interview …

Can you give us an overview of Philips Pune?

BV Vectra Image
BV Vectra mobile fluoroscopic system aka C-Arm X-ray image intensifier that is used in orthopedic
surgical procedures, including trauma, spine, and pain management. Developed at Philips HIC Pune.

Philips has a long history in Pune, going back to the Philips Consumer Electronics Factory (established in 1971). The Philips Healthcare Innovation Centre (HIC) in Pune marks another milestone for Philips in India. It was set up in 2012. Philips Healthcare Innovation Center plays an essential role in Philips’ commitment to develop and produce meaningful products and solutions that help improve healthcare for people all over the world. In line with its strategy to expand the company’s global footprint, Philips commenced operations at its first green-field manufacturing facility for imaging systems in India, at Chakan Pune.

HIC Pune is one of the six global Philips’ facilities devoted to manufacturing healthcare technology. It is specifically designed with manufacturing flexibility in mind so that it can quickly adapt to the ever-changing market needs and deliver quality healthcare products that meet international standards, across the globe.

What types of healthcare technologies are being developed here at Philips Pune?

Intuis is an advanced, entry level catheterization lab (cath lab), and is part of Philips’ strategy for extending access to affordable cardiac care in tier-II and tier-III cities in India. It is designed, developed and manufactured at the Philips Healthcare Innovation Center (HIC) in Pune, India.

Since its inception, HIC Pune has launched six global products in the mobile surgery imaging & diagnostic space: Allura FC, Allura Centron, BV Vectra, Primary Diagnost, Mobile DiagnostOpta and Intuis. The last two being the latest releases from the unit. HIC Pune has successfully installed 1000 systems in more than 80 different countries, including countries from western European regions such as France, Italy, Austria, etc.

The state-of-the-art facility integrates research & development, sourcing, testing, assembly and manufacturing under one roof. The team of experts and best-in-class talent from top educational institutes work closely together to bridge the gap between better technology and actual clinical needs. The team’s rich experience in medical product development ensures that the products are designed for quality and reliability. The centre manufactures both interventional and diagnostic X-Ray systems.

How does Pune fit into Philips Healthcare’s global value chain (R&D, Manufacturing, Marketing)?

We are global management hub for Mobile Surgery which is part of the image guided therapy group. We are also one of the few centers globally that caters to emerging and developed markets end-to-end. We are the headquarters for few of the product segments globally in DXR. This means we are responsible for the product strategy, technology roadmap, product program, new product development and life cycle maintenance. Our products are shipped to 80 countries around the world – more products shipped globally. We will also be transferring the manufacturing of our premium mobile ‘C-Arm’ products from our factory in Best, Netherlands to Pune and evolving our current supply base here to meet the challenges of global quality, demand.

What are you future plans for expanding the role, scope of Philips Pune?

In the coming years, Philips HIC plans to expand its production capacity to get maximum efficiency from its factory in Chakan and will also look to widen its R&D portfolio, to bring in smart healthcare solutions for India and for the world , from its manufacturing base and the R&D centre in Pune.

What kind of R&D, Tech, Manufacturing capabilities exist at Philips Pune? Can talk a bit more about specific tech capabilities, skill sets, labs, manufacturing set up?

MobileDiagnost Opta is powerful compact mobile digital X-ray system is designed for all-around performance and fast return on investment. It moves through crowded spaces in the OR, ER, ICU, and general wards with freedom and ease, bringing digital imaging right to the bedside. Speed, power, performance, and affordability make MobileDiagnost Opta a good option for smaller clinics, hospital that require multiple mobile DR systems, or facilities looking for a single system to cover most application needs.

Philips Pune has an ‘end-to-end’ System Development Capability with strong competence on System Architecture, Imaging Chain, Mechatronics, System Software and System Engineering. We have created 6 New Products and released to Global Markets within a span of 4-5 years. In the 5 years since inception, we have been granted 5 patents. We create a strong culture of innovation – we have an internal “Innovation Day” to encourage idea sharing; some of which also have potential for patents. We also work closely with our global organizations to participate in competitions globally and develop the innovation ecosystem.

What challenges did you face in setting up this center?

Availability of technical talents who had experience in ‘End-to-End’ Product development was a problem early on. Also, the creation of full eco system with Supply base, Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Innovation along with understanding of global customer requirements was a key challenge.

What advantages do you see in the Pune tech and manufacturing ecosystem?

Pune has a good core engineering and manufacturing ecosystem. According to latest Zinnov research Pune has the highest number of Core engineering R&D centers and there is a good eco system of suppliers located around Pune. Also the availability of good technology and engineering talent here.

What challenges do you run into at Pune? (Hiring, Quality Talent,  Infrastructure, etc.)

Hiring good system architects is a challenge. We are looking for systems architect with high-level thinking, who can have a global approach to product development.

Is Philips India/Pune plugged into the startup ecosystem?

Not yet. But we hope to explore the possible synergies.

Event: “The Distributed Web and the Internet we Build Next” by Eric Klinker, CEO of BitTorrent

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Presenting a talk by Eric Klincker, CEO of BitTorrent Inc, on Monday, 28th December, 4pm, at MCCIA, SB Road.

Whenever a distinguished technology leader visits Pune, we like to arrange a talk for the benefit of the tech community in Pune. For example a few months earlier, we had Vincent Hsu, CTO for Storage and SDE at IBM, and Mark Re, CTO of Seagate. Often, these talks have to be arranged at the last minute, with less than a week’s notice, and the date/times are constrained by the visitors’ schedule, but in spite of that, the community steps up and we end up having a great event.

This time, GSLab brings to us, Eric Klinker the CEO of a company and technology that truly changed the world – BitTorrent. The event will be on Monday, December 28th, at ICC Trade Center, SB Road. The schedule is as follows:

  • 3:45 – 4:15 pm Networking
  • 4:15 – 4:20 pm – Introduction
  • 4:20 – 5:20 pm – Eric’s Talk
  • 5:20 – 5:30 pm – Q&A and closure

(There is parking at the venue, but you’ll need to budget 10 minutes extra for security and parking. We started this week’s event exactly on time, so please plan to reach a bit early.)

Abstract of the Talk – The Distributed Web and the Internet we Build Next

Who has not heard of BitTorrent today? Come and listen to the philosophy behind this landmark company from none other than the CEO, Eric Klinker. He would like to talk about the Internet becoming increasingly centralized, straining the operating principles of openness and neutrality that have led to its phenomenal growth. But what if more of the web worked the way BitTorrent does? Eric will discuss a platform that powers a new way for web content to be published, accessed and consumed. Truly an Internet powered by people, one that lowers barriers and points towards a brighter future.

About the Speaker – Eric Klinker

Here’s what Eric’s Wikipedia Page describes him:

Eric Klinker is an American technology executive and is best known as the CEO of BitTorrent. Along with Bram Cohen and three other venture capitalists, he is also on the board of governors of BitTorrent. He was instrumental in formulating BitTorrent’s position on network neutrality, testifying before the FCC as well as other worldwide telecom regulators.

As CEO, he is credited with guiding BitTorrent through the 2008 financial crisis and growing the user base to over 170m users. In 2012, BitTorrent expanded its mission under Klinker and broadened the product portfolio, introducing additional distributed applications like BitTorrent Sync, BitTorrent Bundles, Bleep, and BitTorrent Live, a linear broadcasting P2P protocol also invented by Bram Cohen. In 2014, BitTorrent announced Project Maelstrom, a distributed web browser designed to power a new way for web content to be published, accessed and consumed.

Fees, Registration, Logistics

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://punetech.eventbrite.com/?aff=punetech

The event is from 4:00pm to 5:30pm, on Monday, 28 December, at Navalmal Firodia Hall, 5th Floor, A Wing, MCCIA, ICC Trade Tower, SB Road.

Technology areas that IBM Pune Storage Team works on

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Yesterday, Golbal CTO of Storage and SDE at IBM Vincent Hsu gave a tech talk. As part of that, Pankaj Bavishi, Program Director, Storage Development at IBM Pune put up a slide of the kind of technology that the IBM Storage team in Pune is working on.

I thought this was information that PuneTech readers might find interesting.

Storage areas the IBM Pune works on:

  • File System Development
    • Areas: Deep filesystem expertise, Cloud Tier using Active File Management
    • IBM Products: GPFS, AFS
  • Network Attached Storage (NAS) Development
    • Areas: Object Storage, Authentication & Security, File Protocols
    • IBM Products: SONAS, Storwize V7000 Unified, Spectrum Scale
  • Block Storage Development:
    • Areas: Protocls, Virtualization, Cloud Management & Protection
    • IBM Products: Spectrum Virtualize, Cloud Storage, Subsystem Device Driver
    • For example: iSCSI and FCoE implementations happened in IBM Pune
  • Storage & SDS Strategy – CTO Projects
    • Work with IBM Global Technical Experts (IBM Fellows and Distinguished Engineers)

IBM Initiatives in India:

  • Deeper connections with Top Tier Institutes (IITs, NITs, COEP, IISc, IIITs)
  • University Courses, Faculty Enablement, Joint Research
  • 20+ White Papers, Extreme Blue & Internship Projects
  • Paper Publications and Presentations in Top Storage Conferences and User Groups

Would you like to let PuneTech readers about what interesting technology work happens in your group in your company? Please mail us the information, and if our editors like it, we will feature it in PuneTech.

Note: Your write-up should be short, to-the-point, and written by a technical person, not a marketing person. And it should be unique or cutting edge technology – that not many other companies are working on.

Event: “Trends in Storage & Software Defined Environments” by Vincent Hsu, CTO of IBM Storage

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Announcing a talk by yet another global CTO of a top tech company in Pune.

Earlier this week we had the CTO of Seagate in Pune. One week later, we have Vincent Hsu, CTO for Storage and SDE at IBM who will talk about trends in Storage and in Software Defined Environments.

The event will be on Tuesday, July 28th, at ICC Trade Center, SB Road. The schedule is as follows:

  • 5:30 – 6:00 pm Networking
  • 6:00 – 6:05 – Introduction
  • 6:05 – 7:00 pm – Vincent’s Talk
  • 7:00 – 7:15 pm – Q&A and closure

(There is parking at the venue, but you’ll need to budget 10 minutes extra for security and parking. We started this week’s event exactly on time, so please plan to reach a bit early.)

About the Speaker – Vincent Hsu

Vincent (Yu-Cheng) Hsu is Vice President, IBM Fellow, CTO for Storage and SW Defined Environments. His responsibilities include future storage technology, storage system architecture, design and the solution integration. Currently, he is technical leader on IBM Storage technology for big data, cloud storage and software defined storage infrastructure.

Mr. Hsu has devoted his entire 23 years of his career on enterprise storage system development. He is a master inventor at IBM. He was named an IBM Fellow in 2012. In 2005 he was named a Distinguished Engineer (executive level engineer) and Chief Engineer for IBM Enterprise storage. In 2009, he was named the CTO for IBM disk storage leading IBM storage technology council to oversee storage technology for all IBM disk storage products.

Mr. Hsu is a graduate of the University of Arizona, and holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Engineer and MBA degree. He is also a member of IBM Academy of Technology.

Fees, Registration, Logistics

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://punetech.eventbrite.com/?aff=punetech

The event is from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, on Tuesday, 28 July, at Hall #4, 5th Floor, A Wing, MCCIA, ICC Trade Tower, SB Road.

Event: Talks on Challenges in Storage Technology by CTO & VP of Seagate – 21 July

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We have two visitors in town – Dr. Mark Re, CTO of Seagate Technology and Pravin Desale, VP of Product Development at Seagate – and we are taking this opportunity of arranging an event where PuneTech readers get to hear them talk about the latest challenges in the area of storage technology.

The event will be on Tuesday, 21 July, at Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, MCCIA, ICC Trade Tower, SB Road, and the agenda is:

  • 5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking: Snacks and tea will be served
  • 6:00pm-6:05pm: Introduction of the Speakers
  • 6:05pm-6:30pm: Pravin Desale’s talk “Managing Storage Solutions in the Era of Data Explosion”
  • 6:30pm-7:15pm: Mark Re’s talk “Challenges in Hard Disk Design and Manufacturing and Case for a Hybrid Drive”.
  • 7:15pm-7:30pm: Q&A

Talk #1: Managing Storage Solutions in the Era of Data Explosion – Pravin Desale

Data has evolved from static information stored and forgotten, to a living entity that drives every interaction of every day. We are creating solutions to fit the increasing needs and demands of our data-driven society. The demand is literally exploding and we need a vast range of storage solution to address needs of this data explosion.

In this talk, we will illustrate how different technologies from accelerators to flash solutions to HDDs to archival HDDs address needs of different markets, for variety of platforms in multitude of use cases.

About the Speaker – Pravin Desale

Pravin Desale is Vice President of Product Development at Seagate Technology. He is responsible for all ASSPs, ASICs, FPGAs and structured ASICs for Seagate’s Hard drives, Hybrid Drives, Flash Acceleration Cards and Solid State Drives. Pravin Desale is also responsible for guiding India investments of Seagate and management structure for India entity for the company. Pravin Desale and his management team joined Seagate as a result of acquisition of Flash Business by Seagate from LSI Corporation/Avago in 2014.

Prior to joining Seagate, Pravin held various roles at LSI Corporation/Avago ranging from VP of RAID storage product development to General Manager of LSI’s India operations. Pravin has been Founder/Engineering leader at a number of smaller companies that he helped acquire/integrate within fortune 500 companies such as LSI corporation, National Semiconductor in India and the US. Pravin continues to be active within venture community as well as has held fiduciary roles at emerging technology start up entities over past few years.

Pravin has 23+ years of professional experience ranging from research and development of storage, networking and multimedia/communication products to managing profit loss (P&Ls), operational and engineering competencies for global development centers.

Talk #2: Challenges in Hard Disk Design and Manufacturing and Case for a Hybrid Drive – Mark Re

Dr. Re’s talk will focus on the hard disk drive challenges; clarify some misconceptions and share industry and technology roadmaps. These roadmaps address the capacity and performance challenges for designing and manufacturing storage products. He will highlight key features in each of these technologies, including sharing a Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) video demonstration. He will make the case for the solid-state hybrid drives, which combine the speed of flash technology with the capacity and cost benefits of hard drives. He will also introduce enhanced cache drives, briefly comparing the architectural data flows between hybrid drives and enhanced cache drives- highlighting innovation behind increased performance.

About the Speaker – Mark Re

Mark Re is Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Seagate Technology. He is responsible for all hard disk drive product and component research and development. Prior to his appointment as CTO on July 1, 2013, Re held many different roles within Seagate, including: SVP of R&D Media, Media Operations, and Heads R&D.

Prior to joining Seagate in 2003, Re served as SVP of Research and Development at Read-Rite in Fremont, California. Earlier career highlights include management positions at IBM in San Jose, California, and Yorktown Heights, New York, where Re’s primary focus was magnetic recording heads. During his tenure there, Re was named an IBM Distinguished Engineer in 1997.

Re holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

About Seagate Technology

Seagate started off as a hard disk manufacturer – being the first company to develop the 5.25″ HDD – and quickly becoming one of the world’s leading brands of HDDs, but over the years it has extended its reach into other aspects of enterprise storage, and is now a leader in data storage solutions. The company provides hard disk drives, solid state drives, and solid state hybrid drives that are designed for enterprise servers and storage systems in mission critical and nearline applications; for client compute applications comprising desktop and mobile computing; and for client non-compute applications, such as digital video recorders, personal data backup systems, portable external storage systems, and digital media systems.

Seagate also offers data storage services, including online backup, data protection, and recovery solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. In addition, the company ships external backup storage solutions under its Backup Plus and Expansion product lines, as well as under the Samsung and LaCie brand names; Wireless Plus wireless drives; and network attached storage solutions under its Central, NAS, NAS Pro, and Rackmount NAS product lines. It sells its products primarily to OEMs, distributors, and retailers.

On March 12, 2013, Seagate announced that it was the first disk manufacturer to have cumulatively shipped two billion HDDs.

Fees and Registration

This event is free and open for anybody to attend. Please register here: http://punetech.eventbrite.com/?aff=punetech

The event is from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, on Tuesday, 21 July, at Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, MCCIA, ICC Trade Tower, SB Road.

Internet of Things: Challenges and Opportunities Jürgen Mössinger

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(This is a liveblog of SEAP’s event where Jürgen Mössinger of Bosch talked about “Internet of Things: Challenges and Opportunities”)

About the Speaker

Jürgen Mössinger is the Head of Business Unit at Robert Bosch Engineering and
Business Solutions, India. He has an extensive background in embedded SW, IT and product development. He has been with Bosch since the last 19 years. Jürgen headed several positions in platform and customer product development for control units and was the spokesperson of the AUTOSAR Consortium in 2008. Currently he is heading a business unit at Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, responsible for products, services and solutions in the areas of Consumer Goods, Industrial Technology, Energy and Building Technology and Automotive Electronics. Beside the classical areas, Juergen is working on Smart Home, Smart City and Connected Industry (Industry 4.0).

About Bosch

Bosch group is a 40+ billion euro company with 280000 employees and 225 manufacturing sites. Automotive technology is their biggest sector, but they’re also in industrial sector, energy and building technoloyg, consumer goods – all over the world.

About the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the term given to small computing devices embedded in anything an everything around us which will all be collecting data about their environment and which will be connected to the internet – allowing for data collection and analysis at a scale never before seen, and of course fine-grained control of the environment.

Things, in the IoT, can refer to a wide variety of devices such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, electric clams in coastal waters, automobiles with built-in sensors, or field operation devices that assist fire-fighters in search and rescue. Current market examples include smart thermostat systems and washer/dryers that utilize wifi for remote monitoring.

Opportunities and Challenges in IoT

Here is a random collection of interesting points made during the presentation:

  • By 2020, 50 Billion devices will be connected to the internet. This forms the basis of IOT
  • IoT will be everywhere. Huge potential: Smart Cities, Smart Homes, Smart Industry, Smart Wearables, Logistics (e.g. transport fleets, tracking)
  • More than two thirds of consumers expect to buy IoT devices for their homes by 2019, and nearly half expect to buy wearable technology
  • The wearables market is expected to have reached $1.5 billion in 2014
  • By 2020 there will be over 100 million light bulbs and lamps worldwide that will be connected to the internet wirelessly
  • Just 1% improvement in an industrial setting via use of IoT can result in billions of savings in operational costs
    • $30B fuel cost saving in aviation industry
    • $66B fuel cost saving in gas powered fleets
    • $63B productivity improvement in healthcare
    • $90B reduction in capital expenditure in oil and gas exploration and development
    • $27B productivity improvement in rail industry

Examples of IoT usage in Smart Homes:

  • Appliance Information available on the cloud/smartphones
  • Appliances operate automatically / efficiently
    • Through the use of scheduling or historical patterns or sensors
  • Control House from Anywhere:
    • Customer is aware and fine-tunes the settings from anywhere

What all does IoT need?

  • Sensors: heat, temperature, light and various other things
  • Long battery life; can’t go around the house changing/charging batteries all the time
  • GPS
  • Local Network, Global Network
  • Software to tie it all together

IoT means Big Data:

  • 4.5 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every day
  • Youtube users upload 100 hours of new video every minute
  • By 2019 we’ll have 9.2 billion mobile phones
  • iTunes receives about 100 billion app downloads in one quarter
  • Huge in 3 different dimensions:
    • Volume: Raw amount of data generated
    • Velocity: speed with which the data is generated
    • Variety: the various different sources and types of data (sensor data, text, images, videos). Some of the data is structured and lot of it is unstructured.
  • We will need next generation algorithms and tools to make sense of all this data so that we can generate usable insights
    • Software and Algorithms
    • Data Modelers
    • Data Visualizers
    • Data Architects
    • Business Analysts

Actual examples of IoT usage by Bosch:

  • Fleet Management: 10% reduction of fuel cost per trip in underperforming routes – this was in Bangalore
  • 25% reduction of testing time in Manufacturing
  • 33% reduction in calibration cost of hybrid ECUs in automotive calibration
  • 15% reduction in inventory holding costs in a supply chain

Smart Cities:

  • This is a difficult area
  • Lots of countries/cities claiming that they want to become smart
    • Narendra Modi has also announced Smart Cities initiative in India
      based on the PPP model (Public Private Partnership)
  • Main problem is that these smart city initiatives do not have a business model. The investment has to be made by someone (the city, or the company in the PPP) and the benefits are reaped by others (the citizens). There is no direct return on investment for the investor
  • No city has really solved this problem.

Smart Industry:

  • We have already had 3 industrial revolutions:
    • 1st industrial revolution: the original mechanical industrial revolution
    • 2nd industrial revolution: the assembly line
    • 3rd industrial revolution: electronics
  • Now, with IoT we are ready for the 4th.
    • Smart production: communication between each part and the machine:
      • Dynamic optimization of scheduling of processes and machines
      • Customized processing for each individual product
    • Horizontal Integration
      • Communication between:
        • Parts Suppliers
        • Transportation
        • Within the Factory
      • When all of these are talking to each other and we have data, new optimizations become possible
        • Example: +10 increase in productivity, -30% reduction in stock