Flipkart buy to boost Walmart International numbers; edge computing startups make waves

Saturday June 09, 2018 , 2 min Read

In its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Walmart said that of Walmart International's total net sales of $30.2 billion for the quarter ended April 30, approximately $1 billion came from ecommerce. Flipkart, for FY18, posted annual net sales of $4.6 billion. Flipkart's numbers will be included in those of Walmart International, and going by the current numbers, could bring some parity between US and international online operations.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon with Flipkart Co-Founder and CEO Binny Bansal (2) — Walmart CEO Doug McMillon with Flipkart Co-Founder and CEO Binny Bansal. The inclusion of Flipkart's numbers in those of Walmart International will give them the much-needed boost

India is hooked on the Internet of Things. There are several startups using the power of connectivity to digitise everything – from homes to cars to offices – but edge computing takes IoT to the next level. It can serve users even when the internet is flaky by processing information locally for immediate action. In edge computing, data is processed as close to the source as possible instead of in a central data-storage warehouse.

Petasense founders Abhinav Kushraj and Arun Santhebennur. Companies like theirs are among the Indian startups in the edge computing space to watch out for

When 50-year-old Danish upholsterer Hans Jørgen Wiberg realised he was going blind, he came up with an idea where the visually impaired could be matched with those with perfect eyesight through the smartphone, and the latter could offer visual day-to-day assistance to the former. Could eyesight be crowdsourced from volunteers, and remotely at that? The answer was ‘Be My Eyes’. The mobile app connects the visually impaired with sighted volunteers who offer visual assistance through a real-time video call.