Humanoid Sophia greets fans at Vizag; Paytm drama sees many twists and turns

Thursday October 25, 2018 , 3 min Read

The buzz around the arrival of the humanoid Sophia at the ongoing Vizag Fintech Festival had been building since Monday. There was a delay by a day and only a brief appearance today, but this celebrity was not the reason; ironically, the scheduling was a human error! Sophia was greeted by an eager audience and she kept her remarks short. “This is a beautiful city. I wish global startups grab the India digital opportunity. Wish you all the best, see you tomorrow.”

After news of Paytm’s Vice President of Communications Sonia Dhawan, one of the company’s oldest employees, being arrested on charges of blackmailing Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma became public, there has been no end to conspiracy theories. Latest reports say the data theft was after the founder refused to give Sonia Rs 4 crore to buy a flat.

Vijay-Shekhar-Sharma-paytm — Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO, Paytm

As the world gets more and more connected, trade, commerce, information sharing, banking and even governments are benefitting from digitisation, but it has come with its risks – that of cybersecurity. With increasing friction, be it political or trade-based, between countries, the threats increase manifold. At the Oracle OpenWorld conference, stakeholders discussed how data can be secured and the role AI can play in securing it.

A week after crypto-trading startup Unocoin launched its first physical kiosk, the Cyber Crime Police arrested the company’s Co-founder Harish BV and registered a case against the company. The police said the set up was illegal, as it did not have any approvals according to news reports. Harish had been presented before a metropolitan magistrate, and was remanded to police custody for a week.

Unocoin founders — Unocoin Co-founders (L to R): Sunny Ray, Sathvik Vishwananth, Harish BV, Abhinand Kaseti

Every industry vertical is weighing and leveraging IoT to increase productivity. Internet of Things (IoT) is touted as the next big thing in coming years, increasing efficiency and convenience in our daily lives. By 2020, more than half of new business processes and systems will have an element related to the Internet of Things, predicts Gartner. Women entrepreneurs are not far behind in adding to the growing list of startups in the IoT space in India.

These women entrepreneurs are helping make lives easier with their IoT startups

A whopping 70 million men and women apply for government jobs each year and with the government mandate of online tests, most students are faced with a dilemma – they are not comfortable using computers. Testbook Founders Ashutosh Kumar and Narendra Agrawal sought to offer a platform that helps students prepare, and then take mock tests for government job entrance exams. With its online and offline play, the company turned its fortunes around.