UL, mY) i way Ed Ce Mec rlatatehc ny a) eran Lo ae a PUL cent crane Peete nace ect eis Pao) Den ad Pa arte] Data - The ‘Black Gold’ of tomorrow esse) Peco . Pe koi “) 3 aq ee Beaker fe red Dae rg a PET Nostalgia Ge ora coro a Ne20 Years of DoMS a PETS. Foodpanda ERS Boricy The design of the cover page er one , TS signifies the astonishing reality cremains Mme Xe el wey eee) rn) the field of computer science has 0 lead to humanity contemplating Workshop on the creation of human like be ae eat Tres 7 Ce ER Ra Nee eper ia) upgrade for India and what it signifies LUT Pet Tat ig ener eis Sarre ig) rau) Artificial on Machine Learning in the retail industry ACT: Cort esses Adapting to a New Spectre and eB ry ta The obscure bugs Ae Th5 which terrified the 1 ] puis eam re Ueatayg ny Pur) © Doffls Department of Management Stud ECAC cseee hie Pav mU ri) IV Ta date lle ae) ue r cu Ree How fast can Indian eure 29 Pee en Welcome to the era of Pye Zoey Ei Data- The ‘Black meee cian Nae aces 34 OSTEO T een a.) Accessing the West 36 De NT) VMS UolatBsiial¢ b7 EL} CURL Lr] id nioelnaiteny the journey Carag Tala VAT} IAN Sar- a clon cry Social Entrepreneurship Responsibility in Poche oid Life@DOMS Editorial MOO a See ead Ponce mes en ei COCR Ou is in Re eect est ce ey Pee acer at eeu Rae with them. With Jio coming in to the limelight and offering connectivity to every person in the subcontinent, a lot of Pree orc tet eR eet ea) eke TO aCe Le RG STU SCR eR Nees orca rae ee CeCe at ttle mer eters eee eee Cee ete ee Une a Tet as our department was newly formed to the overwhelming success it has achieved in recent years along with all things new and shiny in management. The students started this year with a bang, organising eter a ER Re er eek ae cue etc ce Cee Ue Le ere esa us and opened our minds to new dimensions in the ean ee ae eet aera eee eee ecco eee TU eee eae esa tet eres Pa a ce er OY RC OCR eR ae ecm tar eee ee eee tee ey Seen ee eS eR CRS CMC ee Tm OCCT eee Re Cee UR ea Te eee Cad Ch Me ATT Tg eS ECR Rue Cee eT being encouraged by the global work sphere. Deepak tries to focus your attention on the very real beauty of algorithmic trading while Mohit gives you a ride on the TCU eit ca rion Ce a eC coc CUE CUMS eR Ras Ces WUOe eta UE cae eae Ct welcomed its first batch of 60 students. IIT Roorkee, India's oldest institute for technical education with a legacy dating Pre aE Ue aI oe eT a lat ACC OM Mea Melua Ree et Dene sce at een MigcuaTs Pa mee Cuan ue ese eae g Cs PECAN gcc Men or eT eee tiem Ohm el el MeL eR aloes (-ta-[oL COM n eRe Meese uta ian An Tue caer eased eo eet Cue enc! ree Ru Ben cee sacar cy CaN GRC cir ae Oa et eee ER Coie STR Mic) Be aM Sec oe ena een Ren cece ae Cee one Oe un er a a Sa CM OS ea eee SAA en al ere a te) PR esta er) ON sue Pred eae al a eae A eo oe Ms elu a that finds its way into our humble classrooms and hallways”Ola.and_Foodpanda ot , A OLA’S Second Da te Shwetank talks about how Ola is spreading its wings in the subcontinent across verticals. F.: came the smartphone, then came commuting using a smartphone and now we are fed over it. Technology has taken dramatic leaps over the past ten years and companies have expanded in tandem to keep maximizing profits at its back. In the bid to capitalize on the buzz about cloud kitchens, Ola has recently taken a decisive action in this direction. Will Foodpanda's acquisition help Ola gain momentum in the online food delivery business? The startup ecosystem has always surprised common man and industry alike by its innovative technologies and spontaneous decisions.One such incident occurred recently when taxi aggregator Ola acquired Foodpanda India from its German parent group in an all stock deal ‘on 19th December 2017. The ride hailing firm managed by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd will further infuse $200 million into Foodpanda India's operations as it takes on rival UberEats and incumbents Zomato and Swiggy. When it came to acquisitions, Ola had been relatively conservative. Compared to other well funded consumer internet companies in India such as Flipkart and Paytm which struck many acquisitions, Ola has had only four. The previous acquisitions were in related sectors and were meant to strengthen the base of the company. Less than a year before they acquired Taxiforsure for $200 million, eliminating one of the competitors and increasing the fleet of the vehicles they had. The other two, were of digital payment startups that now form the backbone of its Ola Money business. Other than paying online for the cabs, Ola Money can be used for recharges and to pay for Domino's, Café Coffee Day and Book My Show. © Doffis B Department of Management Sues Indo leaf esha Rear 2018 |This is Ola's second tenure in the food delivery sector, Earlier they had tried Ola café integrated with the Ola app. It allowed users to order food from restaurants nearby and Ola drivers used to deliver them. But this move failed miserably as the users were allowed access to only a few items from the menu of the restaurants while there were apps like Zomato and Swiggy which allowed users to pick their choice from a wide range of dishes, But the recent entry of arch rival Uber into the segment has forced the Softbank backed firm to diversify its offerings. By acquiring the third-largest player in the food delivery business in india, Ola aims to broaden its services and make Foodpanda India's most preferred online food delivery service, The deal comes months after the ride hailing firm raised $1.1 billion from SoftBank group and Tencent Holdings to strengthen its position in India, Ola also announced the departure of Foodpanda India's current CEO, Saurabh Kochhar. The business unit will be now headed by Pranay Jivrajka, a founding partner at Ola, as the interim CEO The move has had mixed reactions from various experts in the industry. Anup Jain, Managing Partner at consumer and retail consultancy Redback Advisory Services speculated that a price war is about to come. He observes that the market has not expanded enough to accomodate these many players and Ola's investments should be focused on discounting, customer acquisition, marketing and technology. RedSeer Consulting's Rohan Agarwal stated that there is deep-rooted investor interest in online food delivery market globally and Ola would be able to cross-sell apart from boosting the customer base as they already have a deep-rooted understanding of the tier 1 cities and its micro-markets, as well as the business volume to be expected there, Also there have been observations that Ola did the acquisition because the company was available, at a reasonable price and that it would help the ride hailing firm increase its addressable market on paper. The requisite capabilities of Ola in terms of logistics, network and on-ground infrastructure is undoubtedly exquisite. But it will be hard for the company to lure consumers away from Zomato and Swiggy as they have already created a strong brand presence and customer loyalty. Also there had been talks about internet giants like Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm planning to enter the online food-delivery business. However, it remains to be seen how these companies will leverage their strengths and strategize to take the biggest bite of the market share. B Department of Management Sues ind nt of ebay RotsHCL The ticking _, time bomb How bad loans are affecting India’s banking system and current measures for their rectification. AX bank is an institution which takes deposits from customers and lends money at an interest rate higher than the present value of money. Its responsible for regulating the financial market, and thus play an important role in the country's economy. Banks perform multiple functions for their customers - + Whenever you require capital for any purpose, you go to a bank (Depending on your credit, they sanction the loan). + You can keep your hard-earned income safe & secure in a bank. + You can conveniently retrieve your money any time & + You can also invest your money to gain higher returns from the market, Aloan for a bank fetches the money required by them. This is the principal source of earnings of a bank. So, banks always try to maximise their profits from the loans they give. Depending on the type of loans, they take some collateral and encash money. Now, according to the RBI Norms, in India whenever a loan-seeker does not pay interest or principal or both for about 90 days, it is considered to be a bad loan. The reasons for a loan getting converted to a bad loan are many - operational losses in business, insufficient demand in the market, higher inflation rates, inability to match minimum production levels, an increase of credit sale, priority sector lending etc. Abad loan is not just a problem for the concerned bank, but also a loss to the citizens too. It stops the income generation for a bank, It decreases the recycling of fresh funds and thus, the bank will face problems in giving liquid cash to its retail customers. This, in turn, decreases the capital structure, weakens operational efficiency & lastly reduces the credit rating of the bank. Now let's talk about the bad loan condition of Indian Banks, India stands fifth out of the 39 major world economies plagued by bad loans, as reported by Care Ratings with the bad loans being (including Stressed Loans) 8.6% of total gross loans. In Asia, Russia is the only country which has a worse ratio. All others are from European Union which had seen lots of hardships in bailing out Greece. India's bad loans situation, ranks among one of the worst problems in the world Gross NPAs (the value amounting to $ 207 billion) increased to 10.2% in September 2017 against 9.6% in March with RBI inching that the number increased to 10.8% by March 2018. The International Monetary Fund has already issued the probability of a big shock to the banks if the figure continues to rise. Doffis Department of Wsnagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy RoeNearly 18% of loan to industries sector are stresssed, Source: RBI Data Indian bank with worst bad-loan ratios are all sean Private sector with highest bad-loan ratios Source Exchange Fiings As is evident from the figures above, the difference between the state-owned banks and private banks is starker when asset quality is compared. Gross non-performing assets and advances are higher in case of PSBs than private banks and the trend continues. The process of recovery of bad loans in India is usually extremely long, sometimes taking up to 15 years. On an average, India takes over four years to declare a promoter or a company insolvent, which is more than twice the time taken in China & US, according to a report (https://qz.com/1009293/indias-npas-what-is-rbis-solution-for-the-154-billion-bad-loan-probl em). So, Indian Banks recover only 25%, compared to 36% in China & 80% in the US. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Law (IBL) implemented by the government this year moves the balance towards the creditor from the borrower, creating greater accountability for the family owners of India’s major companies. The government has proposed to infuse a record 14 trillion INR in 20 state-owned banks. This will give the lenders a sufficient amount of time to write off bad debts from their balance sheet. The Asset Quality Review (AQR) directed by the RBI has forced the lenders to show more loans as non-performing assets and set funds aside as provision, leading to some nasty surprises. The last data recorded by Reuters showed bad loans to have been recorded at 9.5 trillion INR accounting to 12.6% of total loans but in the last quarter, the ratio decreased to 12.2%. The RBI has even ordered banks to push around 40 of the country’s top companies into banking proceedings through the power given by the IBL. Loans that have been overdue for 60-90 days and at the highest risk of default, have also eased at 1.53 trillion INR in September-end from 1.63 trillion INR in June-end. 5 © Doffis ind nt of ebay RotsThere are various ways to treat a bad loan- + Careful examination of the seeker; + Proper study about his/her production domain & operating profit; + Monitor the borrower during the period, Recapitalisation of banks & Strategic Debt Restructuring (SDR) announced by the RBI (along with Asset Quality Review (AQR)) in June 2017 might help the banks to evolve out of this problem. Banks should strictly transfer their stressed loans to the category of bad loans provided with suitable asset revival. Speedy deposit should be present - AFCs, Leasing, Hire Purchase Agreements should be checked and well maintained from time-to-time The two laws - Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) under RDDBFI act 1993 and action against SARFAESI act 2002 mainly drive the banks to go for purchasing the collaterals of loan defaulters. DRTS allow banks to settle dues outside the court and it must be disposed of within 6 minutes. The SARFAESI Act allows the bank to take possession of the secured assets of the NPA Borrower and the disposal of the assets for due realization under NPA without court intervention or tribunals. Yet the results are not all convincing. Cases disposed-off under the DRT Act are only 25% of the total and unsolved cases are increasing every year. It usually takes a minimum 4-5 years and the judgement can be challenged at the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal (DRAT) also. Thus, it takes a very long time to decide on the cases as there are only 5 DRATs in India. Also, big companies avoiding Section 18 of RDDBFI Act, challenge the verdict at various high courts due to which the time of the settlement is further prolonged. The tangible assets in the meantime lose their value and companies then insist the banks to go for writing-off or giving a concession on the amount. The Corporate Debt Restructuring Cell (DRC) may consider the following options when a loan is sanctioned: - 1. Possibility of transferring the equity of a company by promoters to the lenders to compensate for their sacrifices; 2. Promoters infusing more equity into their companies; 3. Transfer of promoters! holdings to a secure trustee or an escrow arrangement till the turnaround of the company The new restructuring scheme will allow a bank to bring a strategic international investor in the sector and divest the equity holdings of the company in favour of a “new promoter” (domestic as well as overseas) as soon as possible. Secondly, the management of AMCs should be highly professional and the capital should be allocated in such a way, that it will be optimum to the liquidators and there should be no chance of returning to the business for the old promoter. Thirdly, Govt. should amend the laws in such a way that promoters are required to deposit the full judgement amount ordered by DRT & DRAT in advance if they want to go for protracted appeals on the orders of DRT & DRAT. Lastly, the centre's move for setting up of bankruptcy courts is warmly welcomed in this matter. Doffis o f MenagementStudes Tain tite of Tetley Rorent i=TLL... = 0G Pee Wolter and what it signifies Sunny talks about Moody's Investor Service ratings upgrade for India and its implications. Global credit rating agency Moody's Investor Service upgraded the Government of India's local and foreign currency issuer ratings by two notches, to Baa2 stable from Baa3 positive, citing continued progress in the nation’s economic and institutional reforms pushed by the government, which will help stabilize debts and enhance the growth potential of the country. some have welcomed the upgrade as it was long overdue, while others have questioned its timing — the economy being roiled by slow growth, in the aftermath of the demonetization and transition to GST, saying that it has come too early. But, as the dust settles, Moody's rating upgrade has set Indian markets abuzz and there are speculations about the potential implications. What is it? Credit scoring and rating agencies rank a borrowing entity, whether a sovereign or a company, on their credit-worthiness. Different rating agencies have different rating scales or terminology used to describe this credit-worthiness. In Moody's rating scale, bonds rated Baa3 and above are considered to be investment grade, meaning, these bonds are likely to meet the payment obligations better than others. The last upgrade had happened back in 2004, when Moody's had upgraded India's status to Baa3, which is the lowest investment grade and just a notch above junk status. For the first time in 14 years, Indian companies are set to benefit from the rating upgrade as investors would be keen to lend to corporations domiciled in the country because of their better risk profile. According to the report put out by Moody's Investor Service, there were a few key triggers for the ratings upgrade + The significant economic reforms such as demonetization and promoting digitization, GST implementation and the frontal attack on bank NPAs will not only help strengthen India’s institutional framework but also help sustainable growth and increase productivity. + The government's debt-to-GDP ratio at 68% is expected to remain stable once the economic and institutional reforms are undertaken and growth to the economy comes back. This is critical because in Baa rating, the median debt-to-GDP ratio is at 44%. Departmen. of Wanagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy Roe Doffis o evr) eet* The institutionalization of monetary policy through the MPC, the commitment of the FRBM and the GST Highest quality, lowest credit risk Council, such changes in the Aa High quality, low credit risk macro-institutional framework are also ; likely to be positive for India and will a Upper medium grade, low creditrisk 5 -omote transparency and fairness. aa Medium grade, moderate credit risk, «according to Moody's the biggest speculative charactersites trigger for this upgrade, was the Ba Speculative, substantial credit risk government empowering the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to push banks to caa Poor standing, very high credit risk resolve banking NPAs via __ the deployment of recapitalization bonds. Very near default, with some prospect of in terms of the implications, there are a Gi - recovery of principal & interest few takeaways from this upgrade for now I fe jith lit c Typically, in default, with little prospect Of pnd Flows recovery of principal erest + With a foreign direct investment (FDI) at at over $60 billion per annum, India is the largest recipient of FDI and could further increase of inflow due to this rating upgrade. In medium-term, India's growth prospects look promising and investors both domestic and international having a significant interest in investing in India are likely to be even more enthusiastic. + External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) could get cheaper Foreign portfolio investors are likely to increase their investments in companies domiciled in India as they become more attractive in risk-adjusted terms. ECBs could get cheaper with the rate of interest as it is inversely related to the risk perception. India would now command a lower interest rate for borrowing to make up the shortfall Relative standing among its BRICS peers After the rating upgrade, India now stands second and what's interesting is that India has upgraded in terms of ratings while some of its BRICS Nations have downgraded. The lowest among its peers is Brazil which stands at Ba2 while Russia is just a notch higher, at Bal. India has moved past South Africa as its rating downgraded to Baa3 from Baa2 last year. Standing first in the pecking order is China, but its rating was downgraded to A1 from Aa3 by Moody's citing the economy was likely to erode over the years coming, with economy-wide debt continuing to increase, its potential growth is expected to slow down. Conclusion The irony of this is was that after years India has been classified as moderate credit risk, just a notch above the speculative grade. It certainly does little justice to an economy that boasts a GDP of $2.2 trillion and a market cap of $2.6 trillion, The rating upgrade is certainly a big acknowledgment of the reforms made by the Modi led government and if taken ahead with the desired momentum has the potential of becoming Asia's biggest economy, growing at a rate of above 7% which is on par or slightly better than China. Department of Management Sues ind nt of ebay RotsConfluencia v 2018 \ ire pe ee Ta re) OTL ey test Rens eae eae ate EUR Te Rene SLUR Sete CM Tua ls ee eee CM sumo aac Ne MECC Bch Ot Pera eo OR tT eT PETE Ce ee Crue cet Ma Cont oes Industries Limited (Mr. Manoj Prasad - Vice President, Talent Management, OD & Learning), Dunnhumby (Mr. Anthony Pea LEM CeCe MIT rsa (Lea Pact Managing Director). The theme of the symposium was “The Next Level”, which encapsulates the rapid pace of change Pe eet eC Steel a CLA te Tet organizations, entrepreneurs, and managers cope with RSG Ea CRN Cee ee Rot Riga geen ce Reo ot CoN ie MS comm CM soccer Ciesteee ic ORCS NEU cera ee ian uric OMe eee SOM CR UCM CUE aur ummm TeV Mt) cae DC LT Oe es DC symposium is aimed at bridging the industry-academia gap and to provide the students with first-hand knowledge of the re atc enc enor tetas Healthcare@Home (Ms. Richa Singh - CEO), Domino's (Ms. ry i s> an | oeARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEWelcome to the future Ooi ives are defined by the times in which we inhabit this earth, by radical new ideas, by disruptions that force us to adapt and by shared challenges and a unified effort that helps us overcome them. Artificial Intelligence checks all of these boxes. If you are reading these words now, you have a front row seat to a sold-out matinee that is all set to redefine human history. Artificial Intelligence is already changing the way you go about your daily life. It is influencing your life in obvious ways by recommending you things to buy on the internet to subtly affecting your career path and area of work. Gartner’s Hype Cycle, a conceptual framework that tracks new technologies from the phases of innovation to becoming a household-must have, categorizes Al and Machine learning(ML) at the ‘height of inflated expectations” but only 2-5 years away from the average household. Is the hype surrounding Al and ML real? How much of an impact will it have on the common man? Should you really be concerned about the rise of intelligent household robots? Is Al going to take over your job? These are all questions worth seeking an answer to and we will try to answer all of them as we go ahead History of Artificial Intelligence: Can Machines Think? . raps ” Cogito Ergo Sum : “| think therefore | am”. History presents us with numerous examples where revolutionary ideas and innovations spiral into being when great men set out to ask and answer simple questions in the newest of ways. Rene Descartes, the great French philosopher did that when he doubted existence and the fabric of reality before famously concluding “I think, therefore | am”. For Artificial Intelligence it all began with Alan Turing, the brilliant English mathematician who published his seminal paper titled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” in 1950, In the paper Turing tried to answer a simple question “Can machines think?’ He proposed a method for determining whether a machine is thinking, this basic idea later came to be known as The Turing Test’. The test is simple, if an intelligent human cannot distinguish between a machine and another human being, then the machine has proved that it can think. Turing referred to this as “the Imitation Game”. The idea of the Turing Test is of enormous importance to the field of Artificial Intelligence. It acted as a long-term goal which many researchers and academics strived towards achieving, by attempting to create software that will pass the Turing test.At its core, the Turing test asks "If a computer could imitate a human's sentient behavior, would it not imply that the computer is sentient?", There have been numerous arguments against this notion of machine intelligence and some from Turing himself. Doffis Department of Menagenent Sta Indo eta Teshoag Reesoz dy One contradiction, The argument for consciousness’, says that mere imitation of what humans do is not sufficient to experience the full range of the human condition; like common sense, emotions, beliefs, and motivations etc. No Al program has passed the Turing Test tll date. In 1956 Dartmouth College hosted eleven top academics and researchers for 6-8 weeks at the “Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Al". Attendees included some of the people that went on to define Al research for generations to come, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon, Arthur Samuel among them, John McCarthy, regarded as the father of Artificial Intelligence, in the proposal for the event discusses computers, natural language processing, neural networks and theory of computation(areas that are still considered relevant to this day).This workshop is where Al was born as an academic exercise, History of Artificial Intelligence is riddled with interesting and landmark events that have shaped its current state today. Time periods between 1974-80 and 1987-93 saw reduced interest among researchers due to pessimism which stemmed from an overblown hype related to the field. The United States and The United Kingdom both refused to fund Al research during this time due to the failure of machine translation projects and the “Light hill report” respectively. The billion-dollar Al industry saw rapid collapse during this time, where big computer manufacturers had started to manufacture LISP machines and other systems for Al research. These times came to be known as Al winters. It was not until late 1990's that a resurgence in the field began to show due to the promising sub-field of machine learning. Many Al researchers argue that Al has been a victim of unrealistic expectations because of early hype generated due to the press coverage and enthusiastic prophecies by some members, of the community, A brief History of Al <—o—o—0—-0—-0-0—-0 0 ——0 —0 — 0 —0-——0-0 00 —_o —Public Spectacles: Selling Al to the masses. How did Artificial Intelligence came to be so popular and easily recognized among non-academics? How did an academic discipline capture the imagination of billions of people, incite wonder and fear alike? The answer lies in the fact that even before it was an academic field, science fiction writers and filmmakers used some of its most popular themes to tell amazing stories. Storytellers from Isaac Asimov to George Lucas have created sentient robot characters that became an endearing part of popular culture. The effect of this romanticism of robots has directly resulted in a general perception among public that Artificial Intelligence is somehow inseparable from talking robots. One can argue that this effect has directly led and fueled development of humanoid robots like Asimo Honda and Sophie, But Robotics and Natural Language processing are subparts in the bigger picture that is Artificial Intelligence. A popular yardstick by which the common people have measured Al progress is game playing. It all began in 1949 when Claude E Shannon published a paper titled “Programming a computer to play chess” where he proposed two sets of approaches to computer chess: Type A& Type B. + Type A approaches were brute force algorithms which relied upon a computer's superior computational power than on intelligence or common sense. A brute force approach in simple words is an easy or obvious solution where excessive resources are used. For example, imagine that your goal is to find all the places on earth with gold deposits. The brute force/obvious way would be to dig for gold at all the places on earth hoping to find gold deposits, the cost for which would be huge. + Now imagine using a method based on topographical height, barometric pressure and surrounding temperature (factors affecting the formation of gold deposits) to come up with a few good guesses to select sites to dig for gold. This technique, perfected over time will lead to a heuristic (a rule of thumb) to find probable sites to dig for gold, hence saving huge costs and resources. These kinds of methods which use heuristics and strategy in playing chess were classified by Shannon under Type B. When Shannon first posed this problem the computational and processing power of computers was limited and hence intelligent Type B solutions were preferred. Eventually, with technological advances in semiconductors, scientists were able to exponentially improve the processing power of computers but the problem size remained same. After all, a chess board only has a limited set of playable characters and a limited set of moves they can make. This led to Type A- Brute force programs dominating Al game playing than your Type B programs. If a computer beat you at chess would you consider it intelligent? How about if it defeated a grandmaster? In 1997 IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov in a widely publicized Competition. The news and media coverage combined with the excitement and wonder garnered from the world's audience generated an estimated 500 million in advertising for IBM's supercomputers. The 10$ hike in IBM's stock price was an added bonus. This was a landmark event in the modern public history of Al Doftis w Department of Management Stulits Indo eta Teshoag ReeThe peculiar thing is Deep Blue was a Type A program. It evaluated 200 million positional outcomes per second based on a hardcoded evaluation function compared to 50 outcomes that an average human is capable of. Deep Blue was not “real artificial intelligence”. Chess was solved as far as Al was concerned, but without using actual Al. The next challenge became the Chinese game of GO, Unlike chess, GO is difficult to solve using a brute force approach because the number of calculations needed are not feasible with the processing power today. It is a complex game with no defined goal state like that of a “checkmate” in chess. This has pushed research towards Type B “intelligent” approaches, back on the path towards “real intelligence”. {473 How real is the Al threat to humanity? So, how far are we from this so-called Artificial Intelligence, a machine as versatile and complex as envisioned in science fiction? We are at a crossroad in the story of Al today. The term artificial intelligence for the masses is synonymous with humanoid robots that are faster, stronger, and more intelligent. A kind of subtle fear takes over when we try to reconcile all the dystopian stories about Al gone bad that are rampant in our movies and popular culture. However, for Al constructs to go bad, they have to be sophisticated enough to have their own beliefs, motivations, and goals. The concept of “singularity” says that we humans will someday create a technologically superior race of Al agents which will cause a ripple effect and lead to what people refer to as the “intelligence explosion”. These intelligent agents will have an intelligence far superior to ours hence in some predictions render us obsolete. For an Al agent to do every intellectual and physical task a human does easily we have to solve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the Holy grail in Al Research ever since early Al researchers like Marvin Minsky came up with it. To get a grip on how close we are to achieving AGI we have to consider all the challenges in its way. Many of the experts maintain that it's going to take years and years of research and some are skeptical if that is that even possible. AGI, if it is achieved will be characterized by Al agents that have robust mechanisms and processes for Reasoning, Planning, Learning, Natural Language Processing, Perception Motion, Environmental Manipulation, and Knowledge Representation. Not surprisingly, these are also some of the biggest open problems in the field of Al Research. Research in these areas have led to new techniques and methods being proposed, some of which are already in use. For example, for reasoning, humans use intuitive judgements, past experience, and abstract thinking without going into all the minute details. To mimic this process neural networks have been proposed which have found applications ranging from pattern recognition to diagnosing cancer. However, when Al applications are progressing so quickly, how are we not close to an AGI? Experts say it is not as simple as just binding many narrow intelligent systems (the ones that are making tremendous progress right now) and make one AGI. Erik Brynjolfsson (Professor at MIT Sloan School of management) says that we are a long way from artificial general intelligence. He points to advances in many of the tasks that current Al 115] Nanomeota ‘nd eae of Teco Rao| performs well at, but the catch is that these computers are trained to perform very specific tasks and cannot do much else. They cannot adapt if the nature of the task changes slightly or if they are faced with something completely unfamiliar. Human decisions are taken with heuristics, abstract thinking, guesses, past experiences and no accurate formula can quantify the process that occurs in a human brain in the fraction of a second, The greatest hurdle is mimicking human reasoning, Al : The new electricity Professor Andrew Ng of Stanford University has the distinction of leading and working on some of the greatest Al initiatives like Google Brain and Baidu Al since the turn of the century. He notes that Artificial Intelligence is the "new electricity” in the sense that, like electricity, Al has revolutionized each and every part of business, industry, and life as a whole, Al based solutions and technologies today, to a large extent draw from the field of Machine Learning. This interaction provides combinations that are at work behind many Al applications you see and identify, from Google's self-driving cars to Spam filters in popular mailboxes. On the basis of opinions from experts and general trends among Al professionals we try to identify some of the underlying themes that contribute to this Al revolution in business. Overlaps among these themes are commonplace hence examples are used wherever they are most appropriate. Underlying themes: Personalization of Services: Marketing fundamentals inform us of the importance of segmentation, where mass marketing and personalized one to one marketing fall at opposite spectrums. Tradeoffs have to be made between choosing the right customers. Machine learning techniques coupled with CRM allow us to offer a personalized experience to all customers by learning about their buying behavior and relevant metrics. Retail and healthcare are two of the many industries that are using this to their advantage. Retail outlets and e-commerce giants such as Kroger's, Tesco, Amazon and Flipkart all have sophisticated methods that look into the previous purchases, time, location, mode of payment and numerous other data points to craft a more personalized experience for their clients as discounts, communications, and recommendations generated for individual users. Similarly, healthcare is on the cusp of a revolution where at the expense of sensitive customer data like medical history, allergies, daily calorie consumption doctors will be able to design a personalized course of actions in treating JUST FOR YOU individual patients. Department of Manages Stu Indo eta Tesh Rea SS Doffis it 0 rt ° aDeriving Insights from Data: “ Data is the new oil” “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess” These are quotes that are regularly used by data scientists when citing its unmatched importance for business these days. Data is generated from various sources and the abundance and velocity of this data can overwhelm the human mind. Machine learning helps in generating insights from data due to its ability to handle thousands of variables concurrently, Closely related tools of data analysis provide mechanisms to explore complex relationships and find patterns in unstructured data. PwC's Global Data Survey 2016 points out that global leaders want sophisticated data analytics for guiding decisions for developing new products, entering new markets, making strategic investments and changing business operations. Air Canada tied up with Glassbox, a data analytics company when they wanted to better understand how their customers interacted with their mobile app. Using Al and machine learning algorithms, Glassbox was able to gather insights about device preferences, problems faced by the customers and customer trends, This helped them identify opportunities that led to increased revenues. Humanization of Computers: Cortana, Siri, and Alexa are all examples of personal assistants that we have come to rely upon. The focus is on making these voice based virtual assistants more humanvlike both in terms of conversation and intelligence. Computers are now better able to understand what humans speak and see, now they are not just limited to understanding text but are able to understand image and voice as well and can interact with us in the same context. Progress in the fields of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and computer vision will make future developments possible where you will be able to control your digital homes equipped with lamps, curtains, car parking etc. by speaking to your virtual assistants. The use of intelligent chatbots to handle customer queries is another way businesses are using Al. Domino's introduced an assistant ‘Dom" with whom customers can interact with for placing orders. The financial sector is rapidly accepting Al in the form of chatbots. There are many fintech startups making chatbots for banks and personal money management. Plum, Cleo and Chip are just a few of these based out of U.K, Swedbank. The leading bank of Sweden had customer satisfaction at a 20-year low. They developed “Nina”, an Al based chatbot for handling basic customer queries. Due to this their employees were able to handle more complex customer queries personally leading to higher customer satisfaction, Advances in computer vision are already so common place that people are no more in awe of them, Recognizing patterns in photos to detection of objects in self driving cars are all using Al techniques in some way or other. The most amazing feat achieved in the humanization of Al is probably Alibaba's Al which took the Stanford University reading and comprehension test and scored higher than humans. Ind eae of Teco RasBetter Predictions and Forecasting: The driving force behind all business initiatives is profit. In the process of planning business operations, sales forecasts and market predictions play a significant role. Forecasting demand for products and services in the presence of growing uncertainty is something that can provide businesses a competitive edge. Investing in stocks involves anticipating the effects of a lot of factors and making informed predictions based on them. Equbot LLC is an Al-powered equity fund that is outperforming many human handled funds. The fund has north of 70 million in assets today and is generating better daily turnover than as compared to other funds. One of the bigger projects in the works at Coca-Cola involves using Salesforce's Einstein Al in combination with IBM Watson to take inventory of Coca-Cola bottles by analyzing images that can be taken via i-Pads and i-Phones. Einstein can further use this calculated stock count and utilize data on weather, seasonal variations and promotional activities to predict a restocking order Automation: In any business, efficiency is key, Every cost needs to be optimized to maximize profits Enterprises have started optimizing their value chains and delivery networks by automating repetitive work, On the shop floor at Honda, Volkswagen and General Motors, almost 80% of the work is now being done by robots, After automating repetitive and simple tasks like preparation of reports in office to scanning of tags during checkouts, we are moving towards automating many complex tasks ranging from identification of cancerous tumors to driverless cars. The Hong Kong subway system implemented an intelligent system for scheduling and planning engineering tasks which were carried out by their staff. Utilizing the knowledge of these people and combining it with genetic algorithms they have created an approach to automate the generation of optimal solutions to a number of tasks. Ina recent research, it was found that a pathologist manually looking through scans to detect tumors in breast cancer patients has a sensitivity of 73.2 % whereas the same task through automation provides a sensitivity of 92.4%. A small but important difference needs to be enunciated between the kind of automation used in the manufacturing of automotive parts and the one utilized for cancer detection. A piece of hardware can be hardcoded to perform a set of functions but if it does not learn from performing them, it does not at least in the truest sense of the word, imply intelligence. On the other hand, the Al trained to automate the task of cancer detection uses learning to incorporate new cases of cancer whenever it encounters them and makes a course correction in its approach to further cases. Is Al going to steal your Jobs? We cannot talk about Al or automation and its future without discussing its effect on jobs. Will Alreplace Humans? Is there another job crisis waiting to happen? While it surely will have an effect on jobs but the extent and nature of this effect can't be predicted that easily. Experts from all around the world and diverse fields like economics, computer science, robotics and psychology have tried to answer this question and have conflicting opinions. 7 Doffis 13] Department of Manages Stu Indo eta Tesh ReaMany experts argue that in saying that Al will take our jobs we take a very myopic view, not really considering the long-term consequences. They make a comparison of current scenario with industrial revolution and make the case that even at the time of Industrial Revolution there was a widespread fear that technology is going to take away jobs, but in the end industrial revolution created more jobs than it destroyed and also decreased the number of hours people were working on an average. In general, this points to the fact that there has been an increase in productivity. Henry Ford introduced his assembly line in 1913 and atyOMATION IN BRIT since then we have seen the trend towards a larger production with a smaller workforce. There is a larger STIRS UNREST IN LABO! trend here that concerns a move from manufacturing to Se Robot Re service industries. The thing that is constantly pointed out is the fact that if due to some technological change, assume that the number of employees needed reduces 4950s from ten to two, it is seen that the two people who remain at the job see rises in salaries and reduced DO working hours. This cause-effect cycle can be seen easily ES if one was to imagine the introduction of forklifts in shipping warehouses, The workers who learn how to FY operate forklifts are greatly benefitted. a Many economists maintain that the biggest factor that ua“ affects unemployment is the general demand for goods and services which remains the same. Take the real-life 2017 consequences that emerged when motorized vehicles were introduced. Travel was made easy due to mass production of automobiles and a lot of factory workers lost their jobs, But, motorized cars also lead to the spawning of motels and fast food industries for the “motoring public” creating more jobs in the process. Automation seeks to replace repetitive jobs that require a human muscle-based effort like fabrication in the shop floor. While artificial intelligence can be seen as a more sophisticated form of automation where even complex tasks like data entry, report generation and now driving can be replaced, Automation threatens the jobs of the average factory worker and Al-based automation threatens the jobs of office workers. On the other hand, Al revolution has seen an increased need and wage gains for data scientists since the technological change complements their jobs. The number of hours people spent working to sustain a decent lifestyle in the 1950's have reduced in contrast with comparable levels of the same factors today. But in the last few decades, we have witnessed technological changes at an unprecedented pace. This makes it difficult to quantify and conclusively predict the effects of Automation and Alin the future. While the supposed threat from automation was towards laborious jobs like that of a factory worker, Al takes the scope of automation to new dimensions with attempts that focus on replacing the human mind with intelligent agents and performing all the tasks that a human can( this is the goal of AGI). Arguably this will affect jobs that involve problem solving and decision making, Clearly, this is all set to have unforeseen consequences for employment and humanity as whole. We have to accept the fact that some jobs will be eliminated for the better or worse. But we cannot be sure where the next generation of jobs will present themselves or whether this will turn out to be an exact substitution or not. Research firm Gartner estimated that Al will eliminate 1.8 million jobs by 2020 - but 2.3 million new jobs will be created. While this is 2 positive indicator that additional jobs will be created, but at the same time, many people will Doffis 19] inka state of etna are Workers See ‘Robot Revolution’ Depriving Them of Jobsfind themselves as “dinosaurs of the industry" with a well-developed skill set but a diminishing use in their industry. Aland automation have undoubtedly changed lives for the better in the past few decades. This realization comes with its shadows since a technological change of epic proportions is rarely ever inclusive of all people. Challenges do test our spirit, determination, and adaptability but also endow us with skills and useful experience. MIT professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee aptly stated in their book ‘The second machine age’ the motto that all professionals should live by in the current age is : “There’s never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education because these people can use technology to create and capture value. However, there's never been a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and igital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate” The broader goal and motivations of humanity pertain to our pursuit of beauty, creativity and higher existential truths. In a larger sense the filtering out of simpler, more time consuming but less valued tasks leave us to pursue these. As John Adams once said: “| must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” Conclusions The Al conundrum is in every sense a grand challenge before humanity. The transformation has begun and it's inevitable in every sense of the word. There are many perspectives that are fundamental to our discourse about the way forward for artificial intelligence. The ethical dilemmas in the large-scale use of self-driving cars, government regulations on intelligent agents, and the efforts to standardize Al-based technology are all conversations worth having, There are news stories about Al that are blown out of proportions and actual progress in fundamental research that goes unnoticed unless there is a spectacle attached to it. These things need to change if we are to think practically about using Al for the good of humanity and influencing our lives in better ways. There are opportunities to improve our healthcare to the point of saving lives, providing care to our elderly, growing food in smarter ways and using our resources in the best possible way. Itis just an extension of the power of the human mind which conceived and implemented from concepts to applications, some of the greatest leaps for all of humanity. Maybe we should worry a little less about global extermination in a chance negative outcome which makes for great blockbuster entertainment in sci-fi movies and have faith in the intellectual giants like Turing and McCarthy who set us along this path of knowledge discovery. S Department of Menagenent Stud Indo eta Tesh ReaCET fa che reef] fradhascray Dr. Anthony Kilili is the head of Dunnhumby India and Global Head of Customer Engagement Science. A globally recognised expert in retail analytics, his has been a prominent voicein therretail industry for more than a decade, We had the pleasure of engaging him in a conversation at. Confluencia 2078. Q. How was your journey here and how did you like our campus? A. | really loved the campus, coming all the way from Delhi, Just to be able to get out of the hectic pace of Delhi was very exciting. | was very impressed by the size of the campus, you don’t get to see many such big size campuses. | was also very impressed by the professionalism of the student body here; the organization of the event was superb. It's very good that the students get opportunities to own and plan such big events. Q. We have had distinguished speakers from Marketing, HR and Finance backgrounds who have visited us at DoMS, IIT Roorkee. Many of them talked about how Artificial intelligence, Data Analytics, and Machine Learning have lately been changing their respective fields. Sir, you are someone who started his career as a statistician and got to witness an increasing interest among business organizations in these fields. How has that experience been for you? A. | think it's a story about adapting to change. Back then it was all about statistics, small data and about how you stick to the theoretical assumptions of statistics and apply them to business. Today, it's about big unstructured data and making use of machine learning techniques to understand trends and make predictions. The biggest learning for me was that it's not just about the calculations, you needed to learn the technology side as well as the business side to survive. You needed to understand why you were running a particular algorithm and why it could be running slowly, the architecture and technology that affects these things. Why can’t | make it run faster? Or run it on a larger dataset? It's not just about superficial understanding or applying the formula, it's also about how I can make this formula run most efficiently to be of business value. So, understanding the tech is important as well. For me, that was the hardest thing to learn, because it was a whole different world that I just had to get into. Q You have said that we are now moving towards personalized marketing where the customers are their own chief marketing officers. You talked about how analytics helps you to build a predictive model for just one customer. My question is since all businesses have the goal of earning a profit, how do companies go about choosing the right customers for this personalized marketing experience? At dunnhumby, we relentlessly focus on building and rewarding loyalty. We pay much attention to the loyal customers. So the first thing is, within a customer base you need to understand who are your most loyal customers, That's the base you need to protect. a ©Doffis ind nt of ebay RotsHistorically in retail, it was thought that the only way you grow a business was by getting new customers and they forgot the existing customers. The only way you can build a model for a single customer is when he/she has enough transactions in the account. And who has enough transactions? It's the loyal customers, So, among loyal customers, you can do that because they have a lot of transactions and we can focus on them as individuals. To tell them that we appreciate them, really know them as a customer and provide delightful shopping experiences. The customers will in turn provide you more value by rewarding you with loyalty and a larger share of their wallet. Q. How do you think your work is affecting the end customers of your retail clients? A. We think of ourselves as advocates for the customer, We help both retailers and suppliers to get a 360 degree understanding of the customer making sure that we leave no stones unturned in suggesting solutions and improvements to our clients that are “customer first”. At the end of the day, the impact on the customer is direct and personal. They feel special, unique, known and understood which in turn translates into long term loyalty, Q. What are the capabilities and services that Dunnhumby offers to its clients? A, With customer data, we can tell retailers something about their customers that they don't know. We provide insights and customer understanding that helps our clients put customers above products and services. We provide data science solutions that help retailers with their pricing and promotions strategies, making sure that a customer-first approach is utilized in making pricing decisions. Through category optimization, we help retailers put the right products on the shelves and at the right aisles. Making the shopping experience easy and pleasant for the customer. We help drive customer engagement through our CRM, marketing and loyalty work. Making sure that retailers talk to the customers, giving them the right message, at the right time, through the right channel. Our 1:1 personalization program is second to none and utilizes advanced predictive analytics to scientifically determine the most relevant message and offers to send out. Q. So this involves constant monitoring from both sides? A. Yes, definitely. We are very much embedded and have a close working relation with the retailer, we have folks who monitor this constantly, it is the pulse of our business. They track customer feedback, retention rates, sales impact and all the key markers for this. lust to understand the scope and size of data involved in your projects, can you provide any insights as to how we can begin to comprehend the complexity involved? A. We are dealing with hundreds of millions of records coming through at a very high velocity. We need to quickly sieve through these data to understand what the customer is buying, what we think the shopping mission is (is it a big basket or a top up? Is it a breakfast trip or just a beer run). We want to also understand what has changed over time for this customer, we want to know what is influencing their shopping and motivating them. We want to monitor how they are responding to our campaigns, what channels are best for each customer, what timing is best, what types of offers they are responding to etc. To do this requires massive machine power and brilliant algorithms. Given the fast pace of retail, it also requires speedy turnarounds. So both the volume and complexity are humongous because we want to really understand the customer as an individual, not a segment and as such the customer sees our messages and realizes that “this is just for me, my neighbor doesn't get this, its unique to me” Department of Wsnagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy Roe »Doffis EQ Sir, you are working with customer data and providing solutions to retailers that can be seen as marketing, operations & financial solutions to some extent. Do you think due to the rise of data-driven approaches to running businesses, the traditional areas will vain away? ‘A. What I've seen is that more and more data-driven business decisions are being made and that’s a good thing, It is always better to be surer of the outcomes and channel your efforts in the right direction. Previously, it was more of a gut feeling approach, for example (picks up a water bottle) IFall | know is that this water always sells in January, therefore, I'l stock it better in January. That's, not fully data-driven, let's collect some numbers that tell me exactly which weeks in January and how much I need to stock up this and at what price points and for which customers and then make that call. This needs to happen everywhere. It does not take away from traditional approaches, experience and knowledge, it complements it. Q. Faced with a situation where traditional opinions and experiential intuition collide with the data-driven decision, how would you personally tackle this? A, Personally, data is king, numbers always win. Because as 2 human being you cannot process 10 million transactions in your head but a computer can do that. A computer can handle a lot more volume, see many more dimensions and process a lot more diverse information than we can do with our brains. It's hard for a retailer to determine how to personalize messages to 10 million customers but algorithms can do that and hence to trust the data is to trust the customers, Q. We are seeing smart loT devices, apps like WeChat which generate a lot of user data. In your opinion are these just ways for better data collection? Since you said in your talk that “we have an abundance of data but we need good actionable data’. A. Yes, you are right. You need data that can give you relevant information, that can be actionable, Therefore, you don't just collect data for the sake of collecting data. You need to know what you are collecting and why you are collecting these data and the value it drives. The good thing is that with machine learning algorithms today, we have ways of separating relevant data from irrelevant data. Algorithms that can tell us the most powerful features needed to solve a problem. But it can also get tricky when data and ML interact without domain/contextual knowledge. For example, | heard about this study where the algorithm found that Ice-cream consumption and drowning in swimming pools were highly correlated. Does eating ice-cream cause drowning? It was a classic case of analysis gone bad. Context is very important, one that machines are not capable of providing without appropriate data. The connecting factor, in that case, was summer. In the summer ice-cream consumption increases and people also tend to swim a lot, so drownings also go up. “Thanks a lot for sharing all of your wisdom with us Sir, we hope we get to learn from you a lot of new things in the future.” As told to 5 Stuies ind nt of ebay RotsIn his endeavor ee ete Pace Cr rcaee a Ree me a reer a er aca Ca aacs eee nag irr’ te ed eee gs which terrified the entire chip industry. Toseys modern era and many high-tech devices we see are a result of big computers and their high computing powers used by giant companies to develop state-of-the-art technologies. All this is possible because of the extremely high processing power of the computers which is fueled by advanced microprocessors. All of us are familiar with the famous tagline of Intel -"Intel Inside”. But apparently even the biggest firm in the chip manufacturing market is now facing a major hardware security problem (Intel accounts for 90% of the total microprocessor market). A research in early 2018 by Jann Horn, a 22-year-old Google cybersecurity researcher, dropped a bombshell on all the chip manufacturing companies that there were major security flaws in all the chips that were produced in the past 20 years; this includes all the major firms such as Intel, AMD and ARM. These security flaws could lead hackers to access sensitive data from almost every computer which possesses these chips. These flaws come in two major variants - Spectre and Meltdown Talking about Spectre, the name comes from the term speculative execution, a process that is used by processors to predict the outcome of a series of logical processes so as to increase the execution speed of the processor. In simple terms, the microprocessor predicts the future to work faster. For example, if K is true then perform X else perform Y, suppose this is the logical process, then the microprocessor has to perform so by speculative execution; the processor will compute X as well as Y despite knowing whether K is true or false so when the result arrives it has a head start in computing, This decreases the overall computing time thus making the processor faster. Hackers could exploit this flaw and access the data which gets available while speculative execution. The technical details of this flaw are available on the Project Zero blog of Google. As far as Spectre is concerned, it is a more difficult flaw to fix since it is more hardware related. Intel has rolled out various updates for most of its processors so do update your processor. Other companies are also rolling out updates to avoid security vulnerabilities due to Spectre The other major security flaw is Meltdown. It basically melts the security boundaries which are protected by hardware hence the name Meltdown. This flaw is expected to affect IntelX86 processors, ARM processors, many computers, even the cloud storage devices will be at risk © Doffis & eetdue to Meltdown. This flaw can be fixed by changing the way an operating system handles memory. Technically, address space of every process is used by most of the operating systems to map kernel processes, physical memory and other running user space processes. Meltdown effectively makes it possible for a rogue process to read any mapped memory regardless of whether it has the permission to be able to do so. Defenses against Meltdown would require avoiding the use of memory mapping in a manner vulnerable to such exploits(software based fix) or avoidance of the underlying race condition (i.e. a modification to the CPUs’ microcode and/or execution path). Meltdown affects a wide range of operating systems- iOS, Linux, Windows and other cloud-based services. Microsoft and other software giants have already launched software patches that would fix the meltdown flaw, however, these software patches could slow down the machine. Both Meltdown and Spectre have caused major security concerns all over the world. Meltdown, which can be fixed by software patch is easier to get rid of. But the patch might slow down the machine. The flaw (Meltdown) is easier to exploit and easier to fix as well, but Spectre is difficult to fix since it is a fundamental hardware flaw. Though it is difficult for the hackers to exploit, patches are being rolled out to reduce the security risk. Hitherto, we talked about the causes and consequences of these security flaws, i.e., Spectre and Meltdown, associated with the computers and their computing powers. Now we'd shed light on the horror brought by these ghosts (Spectre and Meltdown) in the lives of giant companies and normal individuals possessing computers. Individual customers would affect largely as the patches released by the companies to rectify these flaws would slow down the processing speed largely. Microsoft also released a statement that the processors from 2015 or earlier which are now running Windows 7,8 or 10 are more likely to experience heavy slowdowns. Contrast to individual users, big IT firms have either not yet deployed the fixes and are battling these security flaws by the strength of their control systems and critical architecture, or are testing these patches in advance and then deploying these on the systems with added efficiencies to offset the slowdowns. The companies which are heavily dependent on cloud computing, who are always vulnerable to data leaks, must be the one most worried about these flaws. But these are the companies who can be the forerunners in finding the solutions. Like Google came up with a mitigation approach called Retpoline which could help cloud platforms and other large enterprise systems to manage performance issues. The gaming industry which uses the computing power of a digital device in such an exhaustive manner can now experience heavy slowdown and hence the losses too due to these patches for fixing the glitches, Such a heavily competitive environment which the gaming industry lives incan seriously feel a heavy jolt due to these performance issues. Intel's stock price saw a fall of about 9% in the first two weeks of January when the flaws were just revealed. But till the end of the month, the entity rose appreciably when the rumours of these flaws affecting Intel's sales faded. It rose to 8% more than the highest price it had since 2000. But the company is facing class-action law suits for failing to disclose about these security flaws in time. EB Department of Management Sues ind nt of ebay Rotsray I] fy oe DONE Regalia -2018 i ) Annual Alumni Meet of DoMS IIT Roorkee : On 27th January 2018, taking a walk down the | a emu eee tee gs neem eae ] Se Oo et Coe eM Mca ca aa ae net ML lsc eco d eee eee ee Rute car | The event was organised by the batch of 2017-19 in the | Cena See eres ecu ete kaiser res OT ee eRe Wea un auld Re eee Rue eee ar a Nee uC een Ra acme a ard Pee a eine Cel See mer ain Cee RUN Ce Rania MUR Tae Ss their professional lives which everyone listened with a great PO et Rt Cue neue Rg cece PMR CS cre eon) Cy Peete ee lee De RC Cc ean ee ACR eet Cee eur Ren ice Rett Pecorino n ke eee RUC ek oe, Pee e etc eee en een Se eta Re for about an hour. The event reached its culmination seeing the dawn of many new friendships. Finally, organisers ofa le le Me re Pues ait Reacts Ce ee arenesThis year, celebrating the 20 years of DoMS, we decided to check up with one of our oldest alums and see how things have changed in the last 2 decades. 101 Mr. Kingshuk Majumdar, an alum of batch 2001-03, was part of the first batch to be inducted under the newly monickered JIT Roorkee. Currently working as the Country Manager- Strategic Sourcing/Supply Chain at IBM india Pvt Ltd, he started his career at General Electric and then joined IBM after two years and has been rising steadily through the ranks for the past 12 years. An accomplished Procurement and Operations Leader with over 15 years of experience in development of Procurement Strategy, Supplier Development/Relationship Management, Project Management, Transformation, Team building and Talent Management, he led us down the memory lane through the scenic vistas of the years gone past. Filled with an excitement that belied 15 years of experience, it was quite a conversation talking to him about what has been, and what could be. Here are the excerpts from our téte-d-téte not very long ago: Q: We are celebrating the 20th year of the department this year and | would like to take this opportunity to thank you for sparing time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. To start off, broadly speaking, what changes have you seen in the past 15 years, when it comes to the department and the institute? A; From the feedback | have had from a junior working on my team, there are marked improvements in the calibre of students shortlisted for admission as well as the quality of profiles they pass out with, A lot can be said about the quality of the institute based on these metrics alone, however much more can be observed from the quality of corporations that are today working along the department especially in the capacity of executive recruiters. The continuous presence of industry connect as guest speakers has also increased significantly. It’s been 15 years, in all this time what has been your favourite memory of DoMS? A; We used to conduct a marketing fair, it was on the last day of this event that we had an amazing team-building activity scheduled, The way it brought us together in reality just by performing simple tasks has always confounded me. | always look back at it with fondness. Q: What used to be your favourite subject at the time you were at DoMS? A: | always loved operations and was always sure that it was the way for me, so it came as no doubt when | discovered that my love for Operation Management was insatiable. This was mostly because of the proficiency with which things are taught at institutes like IIT. Faculties with great industry experience incorporated theoretical concepts with mathematical modelling and real life examples, which literally made the class come alive. Unique case studies that come with a million possible situations and mind-boggling intricacies furthered this interest. Doffis Department of Mongemet Suis inn stat of Teeeoary orksQ: Which faculties did you have at the time who are still associated with us today? A: We had Dr. Zillur Rehman, Dr. A.K. Sharma, Dr J.P. Singh, and Dr. V. Nangia teaching at our time. It was not just teaching though. Each of our faculties took more just than a professional interest in us. We had regular parties and dinners to keep us occupied and fresh. More often than not, their teachings have guided me even through my professional life. Q:1IT has a whole personality around it. But at the time you came here, it was newly inducted into the IIT Family. How was it back then? A: We came to the college at a transition phase. We came to college and attended classes at the Industrial Engineering department for the first year. It was only in our second year that the DoMS building was ready. That was also the time when we kicked promotion of the department in high gear. At the time, one of the most serious challenges for us was that the existence of the management department in an IIT was something most corporates weren't aware of. We designed a lot of content and took photographs to promote the department. However, we did get a lot of respect and huge names opened the doors to their upper management for us easily.Also, there wasn't a mandate to induct only engineer at the time, and hence the cross pollination of ideas from diverse fields was something that is hard to achieve. All on all, even though the department was less known, it was brimming with potential and that opened so many avenues for us. : What would you say was a defining moment for you during your time in IIT? A: To say a moment defined my time in IIT would be a gross mistake. Every day was a new experience and with the number of avenues for indulgence around the campus, each day was a new challenge and each day taught you a lot. However some of the most significant ones for me were my days of hostel life and the trips we took around the college. | especially remember our rafting expedition quite clearly. The thrill of adrenaline and the safety of close friends was so beautiful in that instant, it still moves me. Q: What were some of the major events you were a part of in campus? A: Jigyasa, was an annual competition that attracted elite scholars from the top colleges across the country. They presented papers and enlightened us on their work at the frontiers of management. We also conducted a Marketing Fair. It was conducted on a large scale with even the senate grounds being reserved. It had a lot of stall and there were stalls there as well promoting our department. A monthly newsletter was also published. However most notable in all of this was the fact, that all of these activities were completely student driven. The institute supported as and when needed, but the bulk of the management was handled by the students themselves. : One last thing before we disembark form this surreal journey through the past, outside the academics, how would you recount your time at the hostel? A; We were stationed in Cautley Bhawan during our first year, and the one thing | clearly remember is the sheer amount of fun we had hanging out together. There was also this lingering feeling of being ostracised by the engineering students who believed themselves to be the ‘creamy layer, but all those barriers came down with the outreach that we spearheaded during our time there. We were shifted to Ganga Bhawan from our second year and | believe that has been the home of the MBA students ever since. As told to Department of Wsnagoment Stuies B {nin Tisttate of Technlogy RoeCe SS India’s tryst with destiny in redeeming its superpower status among theworld Peer eA eerie ee) aga a CMe ee ee Trae lee Create Axmong the pages of Report on Ganga Cana’ by Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, published in 1860, the first time a train ran on tracks in India was between Roorkee and PiranKaliyar in 1851. Itis contrary to the commonly accepted run between Mumbai and Thane on a summer day of 1853 when a 34-km long journey helped 400 people reach their destination. Like always, cheap and fast transportation of people and goods have directly impacted the development of India. Due to a reduction in the cost of a commodity, its competitiveness in the market increases considering other factors remains the same, Similarly, quicker transportation helps in connecting farther work-places with home. Sadly, the fastest train in India runs at a speed of 160 km/h at a time when Japan has tested its Maglev train at 603 km/h, There are reasons why India hasn't been able to improve the speeds of its trains. Some of them are a huge population, transfer of goods and people on the same tracks, depending on other nations for new technology, weather conditions, operational losses, geographical conditions, the poor life of railway tracks, soil formation etc. There are also some ecological, economic and political reasons contributing to India running at under 200 km/h speeds. In such daunting times, the ongoing construction of Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor which is estimated to cost US$ 17 billion is nothing less than a ray of hope for Indian Railways (IR). Today, if a trainis made to run at a speed of 250 krn/h or above, it is considered as a high-speed rail (HSR). Whereas, the term bullet train specifically refers to the Japanese Shinkansen line. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR project is one among many planned HSR projects across India. Other planned routes include Diamond Quadrilateral, Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar, Delhi-Chennai, and Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysore corridors. The under-construction 508.17 km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR is using ES Series Shinkansen which will run at speeds of 320 km/h while passing through Thane, Virar, Vapi, Surat, and Vadodara. Japan had agreed to finance a major part of the project with a 50-year loan at 0.1% interest rate. This long-term relationship between India and japan will become a bedrock for transforming Indian railways. Derailments in Indian railways has gained enough notoriety that it has forced changes at Ministry level. While looking at the history of accidents, we can say that the reasons for derailments were either human errors or machine failure or a mix of both. Errors can be FE j Doffis of Management Sues ind nt of ebay Rotscategorized into locomotive/running, signaling, operating, traffic etc. based on the various departments responsible for running and maintenance. Going error-free is a challenging yet achievable task. The work style of Japanese offers great lessons for the manufacturing and services industry across India especially the Indian Railways. The Indo-Japanese collaboration to uplift the Indian Railways is exactly what was needed, The Japanese are renowned for their quality of products and services. The principles they follow have evolved the workforce to be directly involved in quality management. And when the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley answered to the plight of common man’s safety by announcing his plan to set up a National Rail and Transport University in Vadodara during his 2018 Budget speech, the challenge became even more achievable. It's expected that the state-of-the-art university will train the students to improve their productivity on jobs. The teaching methodology may also include the use of artificial intelligence, radio frequency identification, big data and satellite-based tracking systems. Through automation, the human errors will be further reduced. By employing big data for preventive maintenance in the locomotives, wagons, and coaches in its sheds, Indian railways can improve its asset management systems. Real-time monitoring of equipment such as wheels, axles, traction motors, and tracks will help in averting accidents. The next big thing which can change the Indian Railways is the Hyperloop system. The Hyperloop system involves transporting people or goods through an evacuated tube. This causes a significant reduction in air resistance, And to overcome friction, magnetic levitation is employed. The end result is transportation at speeds of 1200 km/h. The Indian government has shown interest in the systems provided by Virgin Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. Also, there is an Indian company - DGWHyperloop based in Indore working towards developing such a system for nationwide implementation. The Hyperloop systems will be a sight only after 2025. Another significant step towards decongesting the IR tracks is the separation of freight and passenger traffic by the Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) which will cost more than $12 billion. Approximately, 9485 km of track is to be constructed under the DFC project. It is a significant step in boosting Indian trade by transferring goods from inland manufacturing zones to port cities and finally through sea transportation to other countries. Interestingly, two-thirds of the cost of the project is funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The speed of the locomotives hauling the wagons is set at a maximum of 100 km/h which is more than the current average speed of freight transfer at 25 km/h. The road transport offers door to door connectivity and inland waterways offer the most cost-efficient, fuel-efficient and environment-friendly transportation, But Indian exports needs a combination of rail, road and sea transportation to optimally reduce the cost. It requires the construction of warehouses at rail, road and riverfronts and a smooth functioning across all the platforms. Indian Railways has been an enabler for the growth of people in India since its inception. The tickets are priced to suit the ordinary citizen of Indian with special provisions to old age, disabled, widows of Army veterans and the likes. Traveling in Indian Railways is also an experience for many. The Maharaja Express, Palace on Wheels, Deccan Odyssey and other luxe trains have offered services matching royalty. From the mountainous Kashmir to the coastal Konkan, IR has always served the national interests. Also, we have come far with the advancements in technologies ~ from a steam engine in Roorkee-Piran Kaliyar to a possible wheel-less Hyperloop system between Pune-Mumbai. And the next ten years will redefine the transportation system for the Indian people. Department of Wsnagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy Roe Doffis efRea gees eee egy aa) eC ated Reagan rane ERA OF DIGITAL REVOLUTION Digital disruption is the transformation that occurs when a new digital technology, along with its corresponding business models, drastically affect the value proposition of the existing consumer products and services offered in the industry. With the introduction of this innovative new digital technology, a disruption is created in the current market leading to a re-evaluation of the established ways of creating, delivering, communicating, growing and sustaining customer value or more generally our conventional business thinking. The extensive use of mobile devices for personal use and professional work, a change sometimes called as the consumerisation of Information Technology has evidently increased the potential for the emergence of digital disruption across many existing industries. The term digital disruption in the recent years is often misused to describe any product or service involving the use of a new digital technology or the use of digitization to match against the competitors in the market. Compared to old or conventional disruption, digital disruption has had a far greater impact on transforming the existing business models. In a numerical context, itis believed that digital disruption is better, stronger and faster in every way with 10 times more innovations, with 10 times more cost effectiveness resulting in 100 times more power of impact than the normal disruption. Digital disruptors are fast-moving organizations, often start-ups focused on a specific digital innovative technology or process, with an aim to revolutionize the whole market space they are targeting. In the financial markets, they have been targeting some of the most profitable parts of the financial services value chain. This has been particularly challenging to established players who have historically subsidized important but less profitable service offerings to the existing consumer base. Two decades ago, most of the big financial institutions set up an ‘e-business’ division to ride the wave of e-commerce development trend. Rapid Internet development and huge technological investments drove unprecedented advances in overall efficiency in the banking sector. Today's digital disruption wave has the same characteristics: separate teams, budgets, and resources to develop a digital agenda. This agenda ranges from providing quality customer experience and achieving increased operational efficiency to big data and analytics. Bl )Doffis Department of Mongemet Suis ind nt of ebay Rots CeAs the banking industry is usually more conservative and is slow in responding to change, the digital disruption is posing a significant challenge, particularly as the new digital technology offers not just simple and better solutions but could also emerge as a potential competitor to a bank's traditional reign as payment processors, As the number and type of fintech players, innovations and offshoots gather momentum, the development of new tools and solutions such as digital currencies and biometric security are gaining more attraction and are penetrating the market with a rapid pace. To date, the impact of these new entrants has been far more profound in the retail and consumer payments space but these new payment capabilities and ideas are already diffusing into the area of corporate payments. {opaoresimarnimaen It is quite evident that the consumer and retail payments sector is is a fast-paced field in. terms of innovation and adoption of new payment capabilities. Development in e-commerce has both enabled and motivated further growth of digital payments experiences. Also, the path towards a cashless economy is also being driven by a growing consumer expectation for easy real-time payment process. The emerging ideas and applications that challenge the traditional lending and payment space are: Mobile wallets: The extremely widespread use of smartphones is a responsible innovation in mobile wallets which enables consumers to make payments via their mobile phones. For example, if a digitized version of a credit/debit card is stored within a mobile wallet application and itis used to make a payment, banks can link the card number and details to the consumer's account and thereby authorize the payment transaction. With online payment, security is an important concern in today’s risk-averse environment and a key factor in consumer receptiveness to mobile wallets. Hence, risk mitigation has been a primary focus for innovation in this field. The development of biometric data, multiple layers of user security and tokenization are some of the important steps towards addressing this issue and and are helping to increase confidence in mobile-based payment transactions as a whole, Examples: Samsung Pay, Apple Pay Peer-to-Peer payments: Often referred to as P2P payments or as person-to-person mobile payments, it provides a way of transferring value between individuals via mobile devices and in case of some services, from institution to individual and vice versa through an intermediary called as the P2P payment application, Even social media platforms such as Facebook and SnapChat have started foraying in the peer-to-peer payments sector as the global market opportunity for P2P payments is estimated to be well over $1 trillion Examples: LendingClub, Venmo, etc. Real-time payments: Consumers in retail banking are also benefitting from the development of payment systems that run in real-time rather than the traditional method of batched processing. This, in turn, has been the driving force for further innovation, enabling consumers to conduct payment transactions without the use of credit or bank cards and instead, using the service layers that run on top of existing real-time payment application infrastructures, Examples: PayPal, UK's Zapp, MyBank. Cryptocurrency : Cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange created and stored digitally via the blockchain technology using complex encryption techniques to control the creation of Doffis E Department of Wsnagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy Roemonetary units and to verify the transfer of funds. Cryptocurrency transactions represent a big challenge for traditional banks, with the majority cautiously adopting a ‘wait and see’ or ‘fast follower’ approach because of the relatively unproven and uncertain nature of this new digital technology, particularly technology in the more complex domain of wholesale lending and payments space. Examples: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple. The rapid changes witnessed in the retail and consumer payments market have had a far less evident impact on wholesale and corporate payments. Yet there is a gradual developing recognition of the potential for digital disruption driven by fintech institutions. This digital disruption could come in different forms. For example the larger technology providers within the existing financial services - such as FIS and Fiserv, whose primary objective traditionally, has been to produce and supply the tools with which the banks operate - could become more active and direct participants and hence competitors? Further, fintech start-ups will play a key role in changing the wholesale payments market space. There are several start-ups with the potential for up-ending wholesale payments and with innovative business models and infrastructure which focus to minimize friction and the overall cost of transactions, in order to rebuild the payments experience for the consumer. At present, such plans are largely underdeveloped as technologies and business models are refined and there is still an uncertainty that whether these players are able to establish a foothold or develop a sustainable business model in the long run without collaborating with more of the existing and established players, thereby acquiring access to bank's payment infrastructure, expertise and current consumer base. China now has the world's largest peer-to-peer lending market and has more mobile Smartphone users than any other country in the in the world on the globe. Asia has now become the world leader in research and development across all industries, accounting for about one of every three US dollars spent on corporate R&D budget. Further, in FinTech, the Asian market is second only to the United States in investor's interest. Asia, with its wealth constraints, a huge population along with favourable regulatory administrative environment presents itself as an ideal platform for digitally disruptive innovation, as many organizations have discovered Similar to China, India has a top quality tech industry set against the backdrop of a finance industry that does not yet fully offer services for the available mass market and small industries. In November 2016, the Indian government announced the demonetization of large denomination currencies, with the objective of tackling the issues of tax fraud, counterfeiting, and corruption in the economy. This caused the removal of 86 percent of the country’s currency in circulation, leading to a substantial increase in electronic payments, including interbank fund transfers, retail bankcard, and mobile wallet transactions. Many digital service providers such as Paytm, as well as banking services such as ICICI Pockets, experienced increased demand due to this. At the end of 2016, the Indian government launched an inter-operable payment app Bharat Interface for Money(BHIM) based on UPI (Unified Payment Interface) to popularize the aim of cashless India which soon became a popular download. Given the market regulations and the developing tech ecosystem in India, FinTechs definitely have strong potential to dominate significant market segments, a © Doffis ind nt of ebay RotsMr. Manoj Prasad is.a veteran in the field of HR with a global credentialof more than 20+ years. He started ee na a oe Industry and Commerce as Sr. Assistant Director in HR department for seven and a half years. Later, he was eM A cee ad Pe ee eee a eae ag Oe ee eg eae NT Ce Loa aR se A joined Reliance Industries Limited, the firm which er ae a oe Tee eee eC uae tee aR eC a eee ee Pe me ea ee ed eR te Ne Re ae Cee ae @. How has ‘your experience at lIT Roorkee been? A. lenjoyed interacting with the students here and being a part of “Confluencia’. | have visited many B-Schools all over the country and | believe that IIT Roorkee is among one of the best institutes, As far as management scenario is concerned, there is a need for the B-Schools in our country to connect with the industry more often and be abreast of the latest trends and technologies in the world. Q. Which emerging technologies do you believe will have the largest effect on the corporate world? A. The world is changing at a very rapid pace. | talk a lot about Artificial Intelligence, |OT, machine learning, VR etc. Wherever | go as the way it is changing the industry is not limited to a particular sector, Future managers such as you are the ones who will be steering the fate of your organizations using Artificial Intelligence, IOT, machine learning, VR, irrespective of your domains of general business, marketing, HR, finance etc. There is a need for the institutions to focus on these applications along with the theoretical aspects and teach what corporate needs and not what we want. Q. Which talent transformation and change management policies in your experience have been the best for the organizations where you have worked? A. | have been working as a Change Manager for the last 20+ years. | have also done a lot of transformational programs with Fortune 100 companies in the US, Europe and a few APAC nations. Some of these programs are very close to my heart. My main focus during this time has been to ensure the change and adoption effectiveness of these programs at stakeholders level. Some of them worked very well while some did not. The gain here is that we should be able to understand which policy works and which does not. This can only be achieved by trying. One such project was MCA 21 which I did along with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs of Government of India, What we achieved in this program was the conversion of a traditional paper-based to a paperless organization (e-governance) for the whole ministry to improve the effectiveness and productivity. This was a premiere project almost 12 years ago and its impact is stil visible today across the industry, organization and institutions. Doffis Ez Departmen. of Wanagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy Roe eetQ. What are your views on the current ease of doing business in India? A. The ease of doing business has improved a lot as compared to a few years ago. Nowadays, if you are an entrepreneur or someone who wants to register a company, you do not have to deal with the bureaucracy, formalities, unnecessary delays, paperwork etc, We can create & register a company by sitting in any part of the world, “even from right here, right now’. The only thing you need is a laptop and an internet connection. The processes have become digital to a large extent. For example, if you have applied for a government job today all your verification can be done on a digital platform and there is no need for authorities such as police or universities to personally check your credentials through transcripts etc. Information has become more accessible to everyone including the citizens via the initiatives such as RTI etc, In fact, the government has taken up a new data centre initiative for storing the certificates, course details etc, digitally, so that it is easier for employers to perform verification. Q. How do you think is Jio changing the world? A. jio is just the tip of an iceberg. What the world has seen until now is hardly 10% of the total capability of Jio and this in itself has been enough to cause large-scale disruptions. The vision of our chairman Shri Mukesh D. Ambani is to make the whole world digital. Jio is a part of this vision which is connecting India digitally, The next steps are DTH and future technologies such as 5G. This is where |OT and Al come into the picture, The world is soon about to become a global village where you are connected anywhere, everywhere. The success of all the disruption is how quickly we understand the benefits and adopt. All of this is based on removing the resistance to change. The first step of any such process is to show the benefits of the technology. Human psychology is structured in a way which resists unknown change. Once you've succeeded in making a person aware through continuous education, 80% of the job is done. Then comes the next question, how do we use it? So, when we deal with change, challenges will always be present, But if you have the awareness part implemented, the adoption and adaptation will come easily. Q RIL has not been investing heavily in the R&D sector as compared to other MNCs? What are the reasons behind this? A. The main concern for any company is the cost-benefit analysis. Also, RIL business model is based on innovation and scale up. We have dedicated R&D centres and customers experience labs where we incubate lots of bleeding-edge technology from competition or intellectual property rights, patents etc. All of our products are very simple. We aim to bring the best applications of the existing technologies to all the people of the world, The investment in the R&D sector is being done based on the business needs. We believe in using innovation and creativity wherever required and create success. Q. There has been a huge push towards sustainable development in the recent years. How is RIL planning to move ahead with this? A. The business that constitutes the major portion of RIL is the traditional crude oil-based industry. But with the launch of Jio, we have successfully taken the first step of switching to data which is the new fuel of our world. As | have said earlier, there is a lot more that RIL is planning to bring to the market along with Jio, At the same time, the by-products of the crude oil will not run out of demand anytime soon and will keep on providing sustainable income to RIL while the digital revolution continues for the citizen, As told to | 35| Department of Management Sues ind nt of ebay RotsEntrepreneur Rule Irfan explores the options and opportunities available to entrepreneurs in the international workspace. Ti was a tough break for aspiring non-citizen entrepreneurs when the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bid to delay the Obama-era International Entrepreneur Rule (IER) Commonly known as the startup visa route, the rule is a proposed regulation by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to increase the presence of foreign entrepreneurship in the country. The rule allows qualified foreign startup founders and their families to procure immigration ‘parole’ to stay in the US for 30 months without a green card or a visa and build and scale their businesses, It was scheduled to be in effect from 17 July, 2017 until the DHS announced that it would be delayed to March 14, 2018 just a week before that. But the entrepreneurs can now breathe in relief as a US district court judge ruled on Friday that the IER cannot be delayed any further by the Trump administration. This was the result of a lawsuit filed by a group of entrepreneurs, including some from India and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) which is America’s premier trade association representing the US Venture Capital industry. The NVCA were in full support of the rule as they believed that it would create avenues for foreign entrepreneurs to build great companies thus strengthening the US economy Le6n Rodriguez, Director of the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services stated, “America’s economy has long benefitted from the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs, from Main Street to Silicon Valley’. Immigrant entrepreneurs have always played a major role in developing the US economy especially in the technological sector. One quarter of all American technology and businesses created in the US from 1995 to 2005 had an immigrant as a key Dopartmeat of Management Staos | Fe tite of Tacs Ra eetfounder. 14.76% of all patent applications from 1998 to 2006 had at least one immigrant involved as a lone or co founder. According to reports, in 2012, 550,000 people were employees of immigrant tech-founded companies and they generated close to 70 billion dollars in sales. Of the current Fortune 500 companies, over 40% were established either by immigrants or children of immigrants. National Foundation for American policy in its report PF in 2016 stated that immigrants have started 44 of the 87 startups that are valued more than 1 billion dollars or more, including 14 by Indians. To be eligible, the entrepreneur has to go through different stages. Foreign entrepreneurs who wish to remain or enter the US for the first time should submit their parole application to the DHS for review. In a case by case basis, all the applications will be reviewed. Entrepreneurs who satisfy the criteria will be granted to stay and run their companies in the US soil for 30 months initially. This temporary legal stay is similar to the provisions provided for court witnesses and visiting dignitaries. A foreigner is allowed to enter the US only in two cases; urgent humanitarian needs or if they are of significant public benefit. The requirements for the entrepreneurs which will equate to the potential of significant public benefit are as follows: 1. Must own at least 10% of the startup and play a prominent role in the startup's operations, 2. The entrepreneur's startup must have been formed in the US in the preceding five years before applying, 3. The startup displays the potential to have accelerated growth and benefit the US economy with the creation of jobs. This potential is indicated by: + Receiving significant investment of capital (at least $250,000) from certain qualified U.S. investors with established records of successful investments in the 18 months before applying. + Receiving significant awards or grants (at least $100,000) from certain federal, state or local government entities. + Partially satisfying one or both of the above criteria in addition to other reliable and compelling evidence of the startup entity's substantial potential for rapid growth and job creation. After the initial time period, the founders have a provision to extend their stay in the country for an additional three years. This will be decided on the basis progress made by the company which will be judged as per their investment, job opportunities created and the revenue generated during the time of operation. Even after acquiring the parole status, the immigrant entrepreneurs will have many hurdles to overcome that the US citizens will never encounter. Even if they are granted the parole extension, five years will be inadequate considering a startup, Most IPO-track startups normally take seven years to exit, with many taking over a decade. The founders will be in high pressure in the initial two years as they will strive to achieve high growth during that time period. This might have a negative impact on the startups which are competing with American founded companies. Doftis Dapartwent of Monagement Studies {adn Institut of Technology RoosAnother potential hurdle that the companies would face will be in terms of their investment. One of the most successful startup accelerators in the world according to Fast Company is the Y Combinator. They provide seed money, advice and connections to the startups in return to 7% of their equity. The seed money they provide is limited to $120,000 when a considerable > investment sum is around $345,000. So, a company incubated by SY Combinator has to raise + an additional $225,000 from the qualified US investors with a successful investment track record. Also in the — rule, investment generated has more weightage than the revenue generated. Even though many companies are able to self fund through revenue, they will fall short on the investment side of the rule. One more risk associated with the rule is that, if the founder leaves the country, his reentry will be solely dependant on the government officials at the border entry point as they are only provided with the parole status, The DHS estimates that about 2940 entrepreneurs will be granted parole every year following the implementation of the rule. According to the order pronounced by district judge James E Boasberg, the DHS is now compelled to accept the applications from foreign entrepreneurs. As the US does not have any dedicated work visa for foreign entrepreneurs, IER encourage them to setup and develop startup entities with high growth potential, Attracting foreign entrepreneurs will benefit the US economy through increased business activity, job creation and innovation. € »\Doffis BE Deparment of Management Sues Inds ete of Tesco RoeionOs a eae a Pg ase age eae ae ae J a ge aes Bee Le Ne Ret ae a been spearheading the financials of ee ee ea Re PN rR Pou aka Aa Re a) a ome than 16 years now. Her‘presence at the Pe Rae a Roorkee was awe-inspiring. Here,.we share an excerpt of our interaction with her. ? rs Ws 23 i; 4 PMR CLO Th Cu aa Ms. Richa Singh—%_- Q. Itwas amazing having you as our speaker. How's your stay here? A. itis lovely around here, Actually, | wasn't feeling very well before I came here but now | feel refreshed just walking around in the campus. The campus is beautifully maintained, Q. As part of Domination - the magazine and newsletter committee, we would like to know more about Philips. We have some questions? A. Oh definitely. Please go ahead. Q. Great. | want to know how Philips can develop decision support systems which we can use in India? — 4 CR Re OTe FS ™ A. We are already working on a lot of things. For example, we have Global Business Center in Chennai which handles financial reporting and accounting for all of Philips and it is already using decision support systems, robotics and other analytical algorithms which were all developed in india. We have a very big and entrenched team of engineers, data analysts, and data scientists in Bangalore Q. Are your clients receptive of such systems? A. Oh Yes! The decision support systems work in the background. When the clients see the output and results, they are embracing it, Like | said in my talk, the predictive analysis of a patient's health comes from AISA (an ICU monitoring software) which is used by doctors in several hospitals. Q. What strategies are Philips employing to improve the acceptance of technology among the clients? A. That's a tough question. There is acceptance of technology when | talk about the healthcare domain. Anytime a new machine comes which offers better diagnostics, hospitals would love it. If we talk specifically about the healthcare providers such as doctors, itis a journey. So, we have very robust reports coming out that shows patient's health status. We try and showcase that with the doctors on our apps. We have seen some doctors warming up to it but it is a E > Doffis of Management Sues inn stat of Teeeoary orks Cemutual learning journey which will define what will work for doctors and what will work for Philips. Q. What Philips can offer to the economically weaker section in India? A, We do have very active corporate social responsibility program. We have our health check-up vans. We do try to aim for more . Private sector can contribute so much more if = CSR funds across companies can be — consolidated and channeled into — high priority areas like health , education and nutrition . Collective CSR efforts will drive efficiency in usage and deployment of funds. Q. Philips is about innovation and India is about low cost innovation or Jugaad. Where do they meet? Can we expect anything in the near future? A. They do meet. Being in Philips I can tell that we carry certain brand experience and = we — cannot compromise on quality. The products that you see in India are lower-costing products with superior quality - the kind of products that we are bringing with Philips Home Healthcare. We try to minimize the cost but without compromising on quality. For example - the drugs, and the IV treatments that we use or when we are doing a chemotherapy, we don't compromise on quality, Air Purifier is another example. Air purifier in Europe costs 300 euros whereas we have an air purifier costing Rs. 10000. Q. Other than design thinking, how do you make employees to contribute in the innovation? A, We are a start-up | encourage a lot of innovation in my team to figure out ways to do things faster or figure out ways to do things in a cheaper way. I can encourage people with innovative mindsets and that’s my focus area, | do want to get younger mindsets who can figure out ways to do things better. Q. Are you going to create a new team for that? A. don't think so. But as my business grows, | would want to make space for innovative minds. Q. Lastly, do you have any feedback for us? A. Show some more energy. Be more outspoken. Talk more learn more. Well | had a very good interaction. And it's always good to listen from the students as well. Thank you for your time, We are honored to have you here. As told to Department of Wsnagoment Stuies B {nin Tisttate of Technlogy Roeroduction Deepak explains the multiple aspects of Algorithmic Trading, which is taking over the financial markets with a storm. Trading is a process in which two, or more than two parties, one on the seller side and the other on the buyer side come together and complete a deal. The modern version of this trading takes place at the stock exchange, where a trader makes a profit by selling or buying shares, commodities and bonds of the world's companies. The goal of the trader is to always book a profit at the end of the day, but due to the volatility of the market, it is not always possible to do so. To make a good profit traders apply many strategies, one of which is Algorithmic Trading. Algorithmic Trading is one of the technology-based trading tools which predicts stocks on the basis of given instructions and does the trading on the behalf of the trader. It is also called “algo trading” or "black box trading’. Algo trading is a purely technology-based methodology which works on multiple advanced and complex mathematical models. It requires extremely proficient computers and complex algorithms which are responsible for making an optimal decision. Algorithmic trading has become one of the most frequently used tools for making stock and security trades, One-third of all EU's and United States’ stock trades in 2006 were driven by algorithms. As of 2012, High Frequency Trading (HFT) firms accounted for approximately 50% of all US equity trading volume. At the London Stock Exchange, over 40% of all orders are entered by algorithmic traders, On 29th March this year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEB!) announced norms to make algorithmic trading more accessible for investors and to regulate the traders in India. The financial market news is now being driven/formatted by firms such as Need to Know News, Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones and Bloomberg, to be read and traded on via algorithms. "Computers are now being used to generate news stories about company earnings results or economic statistics as they are released. And this almost instantaneous information forms a direct {feed into other computers which trade on the news." There are a few popular trading strategies which are used by the traders in algorithmic trading, These are as follows - Arbitrage: Arbitrage deals with the simultaneous trading of the same instrument in different markets and makes a profit on the price differences, This type of trading comes into the picture due to the price differences in the various markets of the same trading instrument. og © Doffls Department of Mongemet Suis ind nt of ebay RotsLet's take an example to understand this strategy. Company A's share has a price of INR 150 on National Stock Exchange (NSE) and a price of INR 151 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The trader will purchase the shares of the Company A from the NSE and he will sell them on the BSE. By doing this, the trader will book a profit of INR 1 on each share. This process will continue until all the shares are traded. Algorithmic trading is a highly efficient way to do this and can be used easily, Mean Reversion:- In the mean-reversion strategy, the trader makes an algorithm which senses the deviation of a security from its high and low average, and trades according to the moment's book profit for the trader. Generally, algorithms are designed to take an average of 30 days for short-term trading and 52 weeks for long-term trading. Scalping:- Scalping is a trading strategy which is mostly used for very short-term trading. The trader makes an algorithm which works on the scalping strategy. With its help the trader enters the market for a very short time and books a small profit to exit from the market as soon as possible, Let us see what are the advantages and disadvantages that algorithmic trading brings to the concerned parties. Advantages - No emotions:- Algorithmic trading is a pure strategic trading without any bias for a particular stock. Since the trade orders are automatically placed, there is no waiting time for the trader to hesitate or fear in triggering the trade. Highly disciplined:- Since the trade is automatic, the risk factor is always low as the trade is put under a pre-decided risk so that even in a highly volatile market, the trader is always disciplined, Order entry speed:- In automatic trading, the entries and exits from the markets are very quick and time plays a crucial role as even a few seconds can make a big difference. Diversification:- Automatic trading allows the trader to do trading using multiple accounts with various strategies, using which he can minimize risk in the trades of different trading instruments and can diversify his portfolio. Disadvantages - Mechanical failure:- Since trade is highly automated and is done by computers, there can be a huge loss if any technical problems occur. Constraints: Since the process is automated, if the program malfunctions or is not up to the specifications, it is not possible to stop it mid-trading which can cause a huge loss for the trader. Rising costs: The increasing amount of funds which are required to regulate this type of trading are becoming a burden on the authorities. There has been a demand for an increase in the charges levied on the firms who are causing this levied for the reimbursement of this cost. Overall, the financial market seems to be moving at a fast pace towards being dominated by algorithmic trading. The global algorithmic trading market is expected to grow to 18 billion dollars by 2025. Department of Wsnagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy Roe Doffis oCET Mr. Nishant Govil belongs to the same state where our college is located, ie. Uttarakhand, He completed his Bachelors in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra which is ‘now known as NIT Kurukshetra, He started his career as @ programmer with TCS which provided him the opportunity to handle projects of reputed financial institutions like RBI, Standard Chartered Bank and Morgan Stanley. Later, he also worked with Headstrong {for a couple of years and Goldman Sachs for more than 5 years. And now for last 6 years, he is working with BlackRock in India - accountable for the Mumbai office and also responsible for the software development ‘group in India. Here are the excerpts from his interview taken during An Interview with BvziczZ Mr. Nishant Govil Q. How's your stay here at IIT Roorkee? A. The stay has been great. The good thing was that it rained today and weather became very pleasant. | went on a walk in the campus and the buzz and the energy in the campus is highly positive, Yours is one of the best campuses in the country. | had been here 23 years ago to appear for my Roorkee Entrance Exam (REE) through which | got selected for Civil Engineering department. But | wanted to pursue Electronics or Computer Engineering so | didn’t choose that option. Q. FinTech is driving the Finance world to the next level. But the curriculums in colleges are yet to connect Finance with IT. What amendments in course curriculum do you suggest to keep students abreast with the current trends? A. Understanding of economics, both micro and macro, is very important irrespective of the specialization you choose. So, the basics which are already in the curriculum must not be ignored. But along with it, awareness of the relevant technologies and global industry practices is the need of the hour. You need not be a programmer, but you need to appreciate the power of technology. The right technology for the right problem - understanding of application is important. Somebody talked about Python or R, one should understand or be aware of where this could be applied without any compulsion of programming it yourself. Lastly, there are a lot of software packages in the market which are used to simplify the work. Awareness of such tools and techniques which can be gained nowadays through several online courses is what one needs to possess to connect dots with FinTech Q. Coming to BlackRock, how well has the world's largest asset management firm operated in India? A, BlackRock has been pretty successful in India as a firm to hire diverse talent and build great teams . We partner with multiple universities and colleges to get the best talent in and provide them world class experience to work on cutting edge technologies, and complex projects all aimed to meet the needs of our clients. We have three offices in India apart from our joint venture with DSP called as DSP-BlackRock. »Doffis of Management Sues ind nt of ebay RotsQ. In your talk during our department's business conclave, you mentioned about huge scope in China for investment. How much do you think the recent housing price bubble in China would affect its image as an investment prospect? A. Traditionally, China has been a manufacturing hub and now its growing to be an innovation and technology hub. It also has a tremendous consumer base empowered with the power of internet in digital devices. There will be bubbles in every industry and country which can be true. But irrespective of that, globally it is agreed and also discussed in multiple forums about the potential investment oppurtunities that China provides. Q. India has seen many financial frauds in recent and earlier past. How do you suggest the government can tackle it effectively? A. | think the government and RBI are doing their best to tackle such menaces. And it is imperative not only for the government or RBI but also the top-level management of these institutes to ensure right amount of checks and balances so that such mis-happenings can never take place. So, here the government or RBI can only devise the laws and regulations but to avoid the irregularities, itis upon these financial institutions to follow them and heavy penalty must be levied in case of any violations of these rules. Q. You've started your career as a programmer and handled projects for various financial institutions. In our batch too, we have many students from programming background, What roadmap can you suggest for us to integrate our programming skills with MBA? A. First and foremost - It's never too late to learn a little bit of programming. So, for those who are not programmers please don’t worry. And | got to know that your department has been seeing a 100% campus placement for several years. So, it is important to utilize that advantage and have an industry experience to learn the work culture of the firm you are employed in. After working there for a year or two, you can judge for yourself as to which company you would like to work for and this experience can also add a lot of value to your resume. Q. We got to know that you were the editor of an English bi-monthly college magazine at NIT Kurukshetra. How would you compare your experience with the one you are having with us? A. | did my engineering between 1996 -2000. What has changed in last 18 years is that lot of interaction is happening between industry and academics, Like you invite guest lecturers or organize events with industry experts on a monthly basis, we did not have this level of interaction with the industry which | think is a very positive change. As an editor of the magazine, it was difficult for me to get an outside perspective which | tried to get through reading various journals as there was no internet provided by the colleges at that time. So, | think the changing dynamics and collaboration between industry and academics is great and as an editor you must try to include the external perspectives in the magazine. Doffis Department of Wsnagoment Stuies {nin Tisttate of Technlogy RoeQ. On your blog you've mentioned that your favorite quote is that “I don’t run for trains” from the book- The Black Swan’. How has this quote worked for you in your life? A. tll share two personal examples. | started my career with TCS and got my first posting at Chennai. | was born in Uttarkashi and the farthest | had gone was till Delhi. My parent's preference was that | stay somewhere close to them. But | convinced them by assuring them that it will be great for me to get a new perspective of working in a different city with a very unique and different culture. And | think | heavily benefited by having that experience of working with a diverse set of people speaking different languages etc. So, this was one experience which taught me to learn and wait for next train to come without running after comfortable alternatives. The other example is related to personal milestones in life. People worry about am | getting the right salary, am | getting the promotion at the right time, I've always been off the opinion that all these things would come at specific time, whether this or the next year. As long as you are on the right trajectory, you'll reach that milestone. Q. You started off as a programmer and then later made a transition to senior management. Did that programmer transform entirely into a manager? A, |amstill a technologist. What is happening in the industry these days is that nobody wants to be a pure manager. People are bringing in multiple skills - understand domain, excellent hands on programming skills and great people managers. Even after my management education, | try that | stay a programmer but that doesn't mean | code throughout the day. The technical jobs | do include reviewing architecture, reviewing code, getting involved in the technical discussions and devising plans and making choices to build a world class - scalable, reliable, functionally rich enterprise scale software system. As told to 5 Stuies ind nt of ebay Rots= e, 5 2 | 22 2 MEW stten 2 Sectors * non ip BIACeS ™" for-profit § x5 Entrepreneurs jomeervicess liPE fone BAT erprise “= -5= reas ne om appa © 5 = people support Social Entrepreneurship Abhishek talks about devioping new perspectives in valuing the people and their potential. Entrepreneurship is the essential driver of economic and in retrospect social growth. However, when economic decline adversely affects local communities, these communities are likely to need both economic and social regeneration as well as business entrepreneurs. We need people with the brains of a skillful entrepreneur and the soul of a statesman, someone who realises a unmet social need not satisfied by the establishment and gathers resources (funding, people and access) to ensure the productivity and success of the idea or concept. Social entrepreneurship is not a new phenomenon, although it has started to receive more limelight and attention in the recent past. It has always had its roots embedded in the annals of history with famous personalities like Vinoba Bhave, the founder of India’s Land Gift Movement, Robert Owen, the founder of cooperative movement and Florence Nightingale, founder of first nursing school and developer of modern nursing practices are a few examples of social entrepreneurs in the past. There were entrepreneurs during nineteenth and twentieth centuries who made efforts to eradicate social evils. Similarly there are various organizations and societies working for child rights, women empowerment, environmental issues and going so far as to addressing financial issues for rural and urban poor. The establishment of Grameen Bank by Muhammad Yunus, Ashoka: The Innovators for the Indo eta Tesh Rea g Department of Menagenent StudCe Public by Bill Drayton, Youth United by Jyotindra Nath, Rang De by Ramakrishna and Smita Ram, SKS Microfinance by Vikram Akula and Roozi.com by Nick Reder, Brent Freeman and Norma La Rosa has popularized the term. In fact, all big brands and companies are making giant strides towards social entrepreneurship and trying to address the issues in our society by opening schools in far flung areas,empowering individuals to access low interest credits, establishing plants for waste treatment, planting trees and going green. What is social entrepreneurship and why is it important? Entrepreneurship, regardless of its context, involves three key elements: A vision to see the impact of the social idea and to foresee the role and the impact that the idea will have on the society. A dedication matched by sincerity and skill both managerial as well as technical to understand and execute the conceived idea by putting together the right resources both financial as well as human. Trust, belief and the passion to do the job even when no one is watching, to carry on in the face for adversities. The likes of IIM Ahmedabad and many other reputed institutes of higher learning across the world have now started incorporating the concepts of social entrepreneurship in a structured and methodical form in the form of both volunteer as well as mandatory curriculum, In a nation of 1.3 billion we must realise the difference between the haves and the have nots not just as numbers on bar graphs, not just as statistics but as a pressing need to live the vision and embody the heart and soul of our founding fathers of an India rid of unmeasurable economic and social disparity. The government in its various schemes and programmes has been targeting start-ups and new business plans which are home grown and home fed. Itis high time to consider the cause of brave men and women who seek to chase a dream of not just economic success but of a life full of good deeds done for their fellow men. Corporates should also consider sponsoring various programmes undertaken by individuals or organizations to include people across age, region, religion or any other divide into various social causes like sports, cooperatives and education plans, there is ample scope of marketing and promotion available to these firms along with an opportunity to give something back to society. Let us all hope that this emerging trend sees the light of day and comes to fruition not just in India but across the world so that we may look back and say to ourselves that our lives were Not just spend gathering stuff that is all left behind once we depart this earth but instead we gained respect, solitude and calm. Department of Management Studies {edn stitute of Technology RookeTES LC The Department of Management Studies or DoMS, as well call it, has Pema Dts Rom aa Pr Manse ROR Un aOR I [iol OC MTs Ce om rune cece Na However, if you want the best of PE ae Tmt ras meme sat Pont ccla ey Weirerac lin Inside the classroom - Guest Trt Se CCM Ua cd Pe Dyes une eed cd oem recta rule [fel LMC Pee ERE C Sa ae

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