Bengaluru :

Divya Sharavana delivered her second baby, Ritiksha, 20 days early. After 10 days in the neonatal wing of St Philomena’s Hospital, the child was discharged with a bracelet around her wrist.

“One night, the orange light on the bracelet started flashing with an alarm and we rushed the baby to the doctor. She was suffering from hypothermia —a condition when body loses heat faster than it produces — and gastrointestinal infection. She could be saved because of the device,” says Divya, who lost her first baby to complications.

Ritiksha is two years old now, and healthy. She owes it to Bempu, the bracelet that saved her by beeping when her temperature plummeted. The brain behind the innovation is Ratul Narain, 33, a Stanford University alumnus with a master’s degree in biomechanics. The device is manufactured by Bempu Health in Bengaluru.

10,000 Bempus have been used across the world

In India, one in three newborns suffers from low birth weight or is under 2.5kg. This is one in 12 in developed countries,” Ratul Narain says.

A made-in-India hypothermia alert device for newborns, Bempu has been recognized as one of the 25 best innovations in the world in 2017 by the Time magazine. Invented and manufactured by Bempu Health in the bylanes of Langford Road in Bengaluru, Bempu weighs 8gm. Worn by a newborn with low birth weight, it flashes blue light if the temperature is normal. If the temperature goes below 36.5-degree Celsius or 97.7

Fahrenheit, it flashes orange and rings an alarm alerting it’s time for immediate attention, either warming the child up or giving Kangaroo mother care.
Some 10,000 Bempus have been used across the world and 1,000 of them donated to government hospitals ever since it entered the market in early 2016.

Before developing the device, Ratul spent a year at hospitals in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat to understand neonatal complications. “Among babies with low birth weight, infections can occur at home. Up to 15% of low-weight newborns discharged from government NICU would die at home due to complications like infections and hypothermia. The significant cost of facility care for the baby was, therefore, lost at home. That’s what made me work on a lowcost solution,” says Ratul.

The device priced Rs 2,500 can be used for four weeks without replacing its battery. To avoid cross-infections, it is suggested not to pass it on to a second user. Ratul’s research was facilitated by grants from various countries and institutions, including USAID, UKAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bempu is now being used in Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Togo and Ghana through Unicef initiatives.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bangalore News / by Sunitha Rao  R / November 27th, 2017

Sankalp wins the award third time in a row as the Highest Exporter in ITES – Hubbali Region

Bengaluru :

Sankalp Semiconductor, a design service company offering comprehensive digital & mixed signal SoC services and solutions, today received an award from Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) for being the Highest Exporter – ITES in the Hubballi Region award. Sankalp Semiconductor has consecutively third time won the award. According to STPI, the state of Karnataka has touched Rs 1,41,846 Cr worth of exports from STPI member units during 2016-17. Karnataka contributes 40% of the total software export from the country.

“The award is validation of our contribution to the worldwide customers in the technology semiconductor domain. We thank STPI for recognizing our contribution and achievements for more than 12 years. We very excited since Sankalp Hubbali is a great success story for creating and scaling excellent semiconductor talent from tier-II cities. Our model has been successful due to our ability to build teams grounds up by leveraging well-planned technical and soft skill in-house training.” said Nagaraj Azhakesan, COO, Sankalp Semiconductor.

Sankalp Semiconductor was founded from Hubbali in 2005, with a focus to serve the semiconductor companies primarily offering analog & mixed signal design services. Today, Sankalp with a team of 650+ engineering professionals has design centers in Hubli, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Ottawa, Canada. The company provides unique advantage to its semiconductor customers by enabling them at any point of semiconductor services life cycle with the ability to provide end-to-end solutions.

source: http://www.design-reuse.com / Design & Reuse / Home / Bengaluru – November 16th, 2017

HIGHLIGHTS

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Bengaluru :

India’s Silicon Valley – Bengaluru -has been ranked first, ahead of San Francisco, for the confidence of businesses in their ability to do digital transformations based on the skills and infrastructure  available in their immediate environment.

According to a study by The Economist Intelligence Unit, three Indian cities bagged top 4 ranks. San Francisco is ranked at No. 2, followed by Mumbai and New Delhi. Business leaders in Bengaluru expressed the highest confidence in their digital environment based on innovation and entrepreneurship, people and skills, development of new technologies, financial environment, and ICT infrastructure. In each of these categories, the city ranked No. 1.

“Indian cities may suffer more from infrastructure deficits, pollution, poverty and other ills, but when it comes to the environment for digital transformation, their executives are remarkably optimistic. This is particularly true of Bengaluru, where business leaders express the highest levels of confidence in their digital environment than in any other city in the study,” the report authored by Denis McCauley says.

It goes on to say: “Their compatriots in Mumbai and New Delhi are only slightly less bullish, and they are not alone in the emerging world: seven of the 10 highest confidence levels in the survey are recorded in emerging Asian cities. Among rich-world cities, only San Francisco (2nd) registers in the top five and two others (London, 9th, and Madrid, 10th) made it to top 10. By contrast, developed cities account for eight of the 10 lowest readings in the barometer, with executives in Berlin, Yokohama, Tokyo and Taipei the least confident of all.”

The report notes that across geographies and industries, businesses are embarking on, or preparing for, a mission to put digital technology at the heart of everything they do, an exercise that has come to be known as digital transformation. It can be an enormously difficult and complex un dertaking, requiring not just the deployment of advanced technologies but also the overhauling of business processes and a large degree of cultural change.In most cases, firms’ existing internal resources will not be enough to pull transformation off, and they need to look outside their own four walls for additional support,” the report says.

For this reason, EIU decided to check which cities provide the best environment for their businesses.The analysis in the report is based on a survey of 2,620 executives in 45 cities conducted in June and July this year.

Almost half of surveyed executives (48%) say their firm has considered relocating operations to a city with a more favourable external environment.

Alpesh Shah, senior partner in Boston Consulting Group India, is quoted as saying he is only slightly surprised at the bullishness that executives in Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi display toward their local digital environments.

He notes that these cities’ educational institutions consistently churn out large numbers of quality technology graduates. The report says the three cities also boast a multitude of formal and informal networks, forums and communities where digital entrepreneurs, technology managers and others come together almost daily.

Shah, the report says, reserves particular enthusiasm for Bengaluru’s digital entrepreneurship environment. It is the “closest thing to Silicon Valley” in Asia, he is quoted as saying.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bangalore News / TNN / November 09th, 2017