BUILDING AI SOLUTIONS AT POPULATION SCALE
With more data and better models, AI is
Wednesday, November 11; 6pm
FB event link: bit.ly/techieswebinar25
Airbus, Boeing, GE, Honeywell
are all flying on India digital tech
Engineers here are TOP CLASS SOFTWARE, SIMULATION, MATERIALS TALENT
We rely on an extended innovation ecosystem to build
developing new the future of flight. We have R&D centres in
France, Germany, UK, Spain, Russia, US, China
jet engines & and in Bengaluru in India. But the Bengaluru
navigation systems, engineering areas that allows it to work across
centre is unique, because it focuses on core
creating composites Remi Maillard | ,
all Airbus programmes and domains
Avik Das, Akhil George & Swati Rathor | TNN
R
ight next to the Bengaluru
international airport, on
about 40 acres of land, a mas-
sive new building is coming
up. The external finishing work is
on. The building will host what will
be Boeing’s largest engineering and
product development facility out-
side its Seattle headquarters. Boe-
ing is investing almost Rs 1,500
crore on it. It will eventually have
some 3,000 people working there. It
will have software development di-
visions, a variety of laboratories,
testing and maintenance facilities.
It will have a taxiway coming in
from the airport.
The project is said to have
slowed down because of the trou-
bles in Boeing – the 737 Max issues
and the pandemic. But Boeing al-
ready has a significant engineering
and R&D facility here that has been
engaged in R&D in next-generation
airplane health management, envi-
ronment-friendly coatings, ad-
vanced networks, and secure com-
munication. “Our IT & data analyt-
ics teams are developing tools and
systems that enable the rapid trans-
formation of Boeing into a digital
enterprise,” says Bala Bharadvaj,
MD at Boeing India Engineering &
Technology Centre.
Almost every major global aero-
space company today has a signifi-
cant engineering presence in India
because aircrafts are becoming
digital products, and the aircraft
makers need India’s quality talent
in software, simulation and elec-
tronics. Ashmita Sethi, country
Why post-Covid,
cloud has become the
talk of the biz world
Sujit John & Shilpa Phadnis | TNN
C
loud has been a buzzword for some
years. But with Covid-19 and the
lockdowns, it looks like suddenly
almost everyone is talking cloud. And
the reason is, cloud can handle disrup-
tions and distributed work better than
inhouse data centres.
This was the subject of our discus-
sion on Times Techies Webinars last
week, a discussion we organised in as-
sociation with data management and
hybrid cloud services company NetApp.
Ravi Chhabria, MD of NetApp India,
and VP of hybrid cloud engineering at
NetApp, said speed and agility are the
hallmarks of cloud. When the Covid
lockdowns were suddenly announced
and entire supply chains were disrupted,
companies couldn’t possibly beef up
their inhouse data centres to cater to the
requirements of all employees working
from home. “You don’t have the time to
say I’m going to build it out,” said
Chhabria. But with cloud, you can al-
most instantly scale up your compute
and network requirements.
If your software applications are on
the cloud, those too become instantly
scalable. We could all communicate eas-
ily on applications like Zoom and Teams
because they are on the cloud.
“And it’s so simple to use,” said K S
Viswanathan, VP of industry initiatives
at Nasscom. Cloud, he said, has enabled
democratisation of innovation. Startups
and small business units in large compa-
nies can quickly get all the computing
resources they need. Startups don’t have
to find the money to invest in their own
infrastructure and software, they can use
the money they have to innovate. Small
business units don’t have to wait for the
company’s IT department to procure serv-
ers, storage and software licenses. “It
significantly improves time to market,”
said Anu Mangaly, principal engineer
at NetApp India. Viswanathan said
cloud’s ability to provide real-time analyt-
ics, immersive experiences and hyperper-
sonalisation are other driving factors.
Chhabria said one of NetApp’s cus-
tomers is an outerwear designer &
manufacturer. They are global, their
design requires global collaboration, the
supply chain is diversified and distrib-
uted, their datasets are distributed.
“Cloud enables you to deal with all that
becoming increasingly powerful. Some
believe it’s powerful enough now for us to
use it to solve some of our biggest problems.
75Edition
Given India’s phenomenal talent in software
and new digital technologies, the country
is seen to be in a particularly good place to
develop population-scale AI solutions. In this
week’s Times Techies Webinars, which we
are holding in association with Intel, leading Nivruti Rai, Country Shekhar Mande, PJ Narayanan, Amit Bhatt,
technologists and domain experts will Head, Intel India, Director General, Professor & Director, Executive Director -
discuss the advances in AI, and how AI can and VP, Data CSIR IIIT-Hyderabad Transport, WRI India
be applied in healthcare and smart mobility. Platforms Group
T
he page you are looking at is the 75th edition of Times Techies.
Through these 75 issues, we have tried to bring the community
of technologists in India together, so that everyone can learn
from one another, be inspired by one another. We have showcased
the extraordinary work now happening in tech companies in India –
not just in technology, but also in advancing HR practices and
workplace innovations. We have showcased extraordinary talent.
We have focused on stories that help young techies build better
careers. And on stories that demonstrate the dramatic impact that
today’s digital technologies have on businesses. Thanks to all of you
liam Blair says their centre here is who have been part of this journey. In the run-up to this occasion,
investing in design and develop-
ment of composites for aerostruc-
we asked some of those who have been most closely associated
with the page to write a few lines on what they thought of Times
We follow every engine, its take off and
landing cycle in India and Middle East, tures that will be of high value to
the aerospace and defence industry.
Techies. We reproduce them below.
check how the engine performed.
Based on the data we gather, we The company’s joint venture, Tata
Lockheed Martin Aerostructures,
NASSCOM VALUES THIS PARTNERSHIP
compute very specifically for each
engine, what is its health, when
supplies C-130J empennages (the
tail assembly) and components glob-
Debjani Ghosh | PRESIDENT, NASSCOM Nasscom and Times Techies
have associated for long, we
M
does the engine need maintenance ally to Lockheed Martin. y heartfelt value this partnership and
& MD AIRBUS INDIA Vikram Reddy |
SOUTH ASIA , GENERAL MANAGER The Covid-19 pandemic, which congratulations to Times have also received pronounced
ENGINEERING, GE AVIATION has hit aviation more than almost Techies on completion of 75 feedback from most of our
Our IT & data analytics teams are developing tools any other industry, has slowed down episodes from the entire member companies. Nasscom
and systems that enable the rapid transformation of Our centre of excellence at the Indian the pace of technology work. But Nasscom team. The valuable
members also follow these
Boeing into a digital enterprise. In all these areas, Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has most centres say work has not contribution it has done in discussions, to understand the
our teams in India are leveraging new-age been engaged in state-of-the-art stopped, though in some cases, the bringing up the ecosystem and crux of the industry at hand. It
technologies to replace traditional approaches research in the areas of advanced direction of work has changed. giving the right spotlight to
Remi Maillard, MD of Airbus is tremendous to see good and
and are introducing new ways of enhancing materials, combustion, and the sectors, talent, and the
India and South Asia, says an area responsible work done by the
safety and productivity mechanical design various industries is moderators and how they are
their BengaluruR&D centre is fo- commendable. The new
Bala Bharadvaj | MD, BOEING INDIA ENGINEERING & Ashmita Sethi | COUNTRY HEAD, cusing more on because of the pan- adding value to these
normal has allowed us to insightful discussions.
TECHNOLOGY CENTRE PRATT & WHITNEY demic is sustainability. “We are
experiment with We would love to see it
committed to lead the way in de-
The flight management system is done in In India, Lockheed Martin is investing in technology like never in Delhi and Mumbai
carbonisation of the entire aviation
India. It involves lots of lines of code. We indigenous design and before and it is laudable editions as well.
industry. We intend to bring a zero-
have 80% of the capability here. The software development of composites for emission aircraft in the next decade. to see the efforts put in Congratulations
tells the flight which path to take. We also have aerostructures that will be of high value We believe that hydrogen-based fuel by your team in curating again on your success
top-class talent in simulation and modelling to the aerospace and defence industry planes will be a clear game changer. meaningful and we sincerely
It’s safe, versatile, light-weight, stor- discussions, in this thank you for
Akshay Bellare | PRESIDENT, HONEYWELL INDIA William Blair | CEO, LOCKHEED MARTIN INDIA able, has high energy density and virtual world, and making such a
produces only water and vapour as help shape the valuable
head of Pratt & Whitney, says India don, for aerospace investment. An top-class talent in simulation and byproducts,” he says. industry for the contribution to
has significant talent, research, in- estimated total of more than 7,000 modelling, and India does most of Dassault Systemes, which has better. societies at large.
novation and engineering produc- aerospace jobs were created in the the work in this space, including large R&D centres in Pune and Ben-
tivity to offer to the world. “A great
example of this is the progress In-
city between 2015 and 2019, the high-
est amongst all countries analysed.
simulating engine failures to im-
prove designs. The centre also
galuru, says the pandemic has put
digital transformation efforts at the FIRST EDITION - JUNE 12, 2019
dian startups have made in enabling GE Aviation, which started as a works on flight navigation systems forefront. “One of the first problems
step-change innovation in aero- back office operation here, has design, on auxiliary power units, we faced during Covid was figuring
space. They’ve been able to bring grown exponentially over the last and on the graphics inside cockpits. out how to have a reduced workforce
their AR/VR, machine learning, 10 years, employing about 1,000 en- “We even have pilots to guide the without sacrificing output levels.
analytics and IoT expertise – and gineers, as it started developing new design of cockpit systems. Our ca- So, we developed a resource optimi-
apply it to create some truly unique products. Vikram Reddy, GM of pability here is no different from sation engine that looks at all the
innovations and solutions for aero- engineering at GE Aviation, says that in our headquarters in Phoe- resources available and uses opti-
space,” she says. the India team worked on the GEnx nix, Arizona,” says Bellare. misation algorithms to allocate re-
Vimal Menon, partner in consul- engine, the fastest-selling, high- Delta Airlines opened a tech hub sources,” says the company’s indus-
tancy firm Zinnov, says the aero- thrust jet engine in GE Aviation earlier this year in Bengaluru to try director for aerospace & defence
space tech centres collectively em- history. “Our team here has a sig- work on data science/ analytics, in India, Ravikiran Pothukuchi.
ploy 10,000 engineers, from branch- nificant stake in the product devel- cyber security, enterprise architec- Honeywell’s India team has built
es including mechanical, aerospace, opment in every step of GEnx. Most ture, AI/ML and digital channels a portable ultraviolet system to
electrical, electronics and software. products would have a contribution including Delta.com and the Fly- sanitise airplane cabin surfaces.
Bengaluru is the biggest hub in In- of 20-40% from the team here,” he Delta app. Rolls-Royce’s engineering Many airlines are testing this out.
dia, followed by Hyderabad and says. That includes development of centre here focuses on the develop- “Aerospace technologies take years
Pune. Greenfield investment moni- fan blades using composite materi- ment of new tools and technologies, to develop, to get approvals. If you
tor FDI Markets finds that Bengal- als and analysing them. including contributing to global stop, it impacts the overall plan. So,
uru was the third most preferred Honeywell India president Ak- design and processes. it would be short-sighted for us to
location, after Singapore and Lon- shay Bellare says their centre has Lockheed Martin India CEO Wil- stop development,” says Bellare.
THEY SOLD FIRST VENTURE TO VISTEON, NOW INTO SECOND
WE GET TO SEE THE HUMAN SIDE OF TECH
Puneet Gupta | MD, NETAPP INDIA MARKETING AND SERVICES
T oday, technology is the
string that is holding the
world together. This
makes data scientists,
forefront. The best aspect of
reading Times Techies is getting
a view of the human side of a
techie’s life. We are glad to
developers, and be a part of this journey to
engineers, the miracle the momentous 75th issue.
workers behind a We look forward to a
complex endeavour of national edition along
innovation. with its online
Times Techies has presence so that
been instrumental these stories can
in bringing their touch more lives
work to the and audiences.
The AllGoVision team at a pre-Covid outing
In 2005, K Srinivasan, Nirmal Sancheti and Aji says. “I made a difference in the lives of various DIVERSE STORIES
Anirudhan started a company in Bengaluru employees and shareholders when I created Sindhu Gangadharan | SVP AND MD, SAP LABS INDIA
called AllGo Embedded Systems, which, as the AllGo Embedded. Since organisation building is
H
my key strength, I wanted to recreate the magic aving a dedicated page for on SAP that this page carried –
name suggests, was into embedded systems
information technology is corporate, technology,
and signal processing. Srinivasan and Sancheti of building a successful enterprise that impacts
a timely move. The narrative personal profile, sustainability,
had previously worked at Motorola. In 2016, our employees, customers and society in a
of the rapidly evolving HR etc. I congratulate the
Learn containerisation, CI/CD US automotive components maker Visteon positive way while adding value to sharehold-
acquired AllGo ers,” he says world of information team for the dedication
A
nu Mangaly, principal engineer technology needs to and effort in consistently
at NetApp India, said the core The venture then had a fledgling video analytics AllGoVision’s features are enabled with deep be captured and bringing to the readers
skills for cloud – programming, business. The three founders spun that off as a learning and the application can be easily broadcast in a relevant and impactful
database, domain – remain the same separate company called AllGoVision, and are integrated with existing video set-ups
consistent way, stories from the IT
as for traditional computing. But cloud now fully focused on this business. It’s part of Artificial intelligence is used to analyse video which the page is industry and its
involves moving from virtualisation to Nasscom’s DeepTech Club
streams for pre-defined objects of interest to doing well. We ecosystem.
containerisation and the orchestrator
AllGoVision provides over 50 basic and provide real-time incidence alerts. The deep enjoyed reading Keep up the
for that – Kubernetes or Docker
Swarm. “An understanding of these is advanced features of video analytics which learning-based algorithms allow the video the diverse stories good work.
important,” she said. Learning the tools find varied applications in traffic analytics application to process several hours
and techniques around continuous surveillance, building surveillance, city of videos in just a few minutes. It recognises REFRESHING, INSIGHTFUL, RELEVANT
integration and delivery (CI/CD), and surveillance, and business intelligence faces even when there are camouflage efforts Shalini Kapoor | IBM FELLOW AI, DIRECTOR & CTO INDIA, IBM AI APPS
DevOps are important, since cloud across different sectors with spectacles, beard or wig
involves rapid deployments. Security
and networking of hybrid clouds are
other key areas.
“After having sold AllGo Embedded to
Visteon and seeing my bank balance
Customers include, among others, the Mysore
Palace, RBI, NTPC, Cochin Airport, the Abu
R efreshing, insightful and
relevant is how I
would sum up Times
various aspects of technology
and its impact on the society.
It brings together interesting
become 10x, I realised money was Dhabi police. The firm has handled large
Techies. In a world opinions and inspiring
complexity, because you can have local not my motivator,” Srinivasan installations in over 30 countries
K Srinivasan where technology is human stories from the
solutions and yet have that one thread at the centre of technical community.
that runs across, providing universal
visibility, enabling its management as TECH I’D LIKE TO SEE transformation,
Times Techies
Congratulations to the
Times Techies team,
one business, one innovation pipeline,
one distribution system,” he said. Keeping children safe ware is only reactive.
The parent in me tries his best to keep from
provides a
holistic and
wish you many
successful
A company like this would typically
be using multiple clouds, in different re-
gions. It could be AWS in one place, Azure A ll parents feel a sense of worry when
their children play out on their own.
The likelihood of an incident
these painful thoughts, but the technolo-
gist looks for solutions. And I believe we’re
nearing one with edge computing, which
simplified
perspective on
milestones.
in another, Google in a third. But all of
them can be seamlessly tied together with is small, but there are gives AI capabilities to IoT devices. This TREND-TRACKER FOR A SPECTRUM OF READERS
what NetApp calls the data fabric. “So you risks – a child wander- will give even a CCTV the ability to make Deepika Banerjee | CO-HEAD, HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, GOLDMAN SACHS INDIA
can have your data in your terms, con- ing dangerously near real-time decisions on spotting suspicious
sume it in your terms, secure it in your
terms, and have uniformity in how you
manage it,” Chhabria said.
a swimming pool or
leaving the gate with
activity. Just as important, it would be able
to ensure both data privacy and security, C ongratulations on
the 75th edition of
the weekly Times
ecosystem in India,
more specifically
Bengaluru. The page
an unidentified person. as it wouldn’t need to identify the indi-
Some worry about the security of Techies page, which for has evolved to
data on the cloud. But Viswanathan said You can’t have guards vidual or transfer the data off the edge. The
me captures the become a trend-
the trust factor in cloud is increasing by everywhere and perfect solution. It’s proactive security for
growth journey and tracker for a
leaps and bounds because the security security hard- a safer world - and less worrisome parents.
the pulse of the spectrum of
frameworks – how to respond and react vibrant tech readers.
to and resolve issues – are improving. Shreyans Daga | CTO & CO-FOUNDER, MYGATE