Tag: into

How fintech companies are bringing the magic of the digital frontier into finance

Loknath Das

From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and Gujarat to Assam, fintechs, the new and trendy financial companies, have become darlings of investment angels. The odds of the fabulous and trendy fintechs beating banks are narrowing by the day. The fintech threat to the banking industry is no longer a headline. It is close to an accord. China is one of the clearest examples: Tencent and Ant Financial absorbed huge chunks of the payments market which was overwhelmed with big banks and their spaghetti-like Information Technology infrastructure. But fintechs are a new league…

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Ex-Googler Turns Mom’s Money Into a Billion Dollars

Loknath Das

HIGHLIGHTS With less than $1 million in capital he moved from California to Shenzhen Anker is now valued at about $1.1 billion Company is embedded with the supply chain in Shenzhen After Steven Yang left his coveted job at Google, he asked his mother whether he should take venture-capital money to fund his business idea. If his online consumer-electronics enterprise was a risky bet, she told him, go with the venture capitalists. But if building the business into something great was his destiny, he instead should use her money from a…

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How Technology Is Leading Us Into the Imagination Age

Loknath Das

In many ways, the future is unpredictable. A report by the World Economic Forum reveals that almost 65 percent of the jobs elementary school students will be doing in the future do not even exist yet. Combined with technological automation and the disappearance of traditional jobs, this leaves us with a critical question: how can we survive such a world? The answer may be imagination. Initially coined by Rita J. King, the imagination age is a theoretical period beyond the information age where creativity and imagination will become the primary creators of economic value….

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Partner at private equity firm denies being jogger who pushed woman into bus

Loknath Das

A man arrested on suspicion of pushing a woman into the path of an oncoming bus that nearly hit her has denied any involvement in the incident. Eric Bellquist, a partner at a Mayfair-based private equity firm, said he was not the jogger caught on CCTV shoving the woman into the road on Putney Bridge in south-west London. The American investment banker’s lawyers state that Bellquist has “irrefutable proof” he was in the US at the time of the incident. While the encounter occurred in May, it came to the…

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Phone boxes across the UK are being turned into free 1Gbps Wi-Fi hotspots and charging stations

Loknath Das

Abandoned phone boxes scattered around London and other major UK cities are being transformed into Wi-Fi hotspots offering free calls and digital services. BT has partnered with Intersection and Primesight to launch LinkUK, following the launch of LinkNYC in New York in January 2016. As part of the scheme, existing phone boxes are being turned into “sleek, ultramodern kiosks” – called InLinks – across the capital and new kiosks are being installed in areas where phone boxes have been removed. The partnership was unveiled in October and now the first…

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Ever thought of taking a boat into a Hawaiian volcano spouting lava?

Loknath Das

Is your experience with volcanoes limited only to what you learn in school and the movies Volcano (1997) and Dante’s Peak (also 1997)? You think they’re something only to be viewed on the Discovery Channel? Well, for your next holiday you should consider exploring the Kilauea Volcano, Kalapana in Hawaii. Tourists can approach the volcano by boat and walk on its surface. Kalapana was a town which was completely covered in lava in 1986. Due to the slow lava movement, there were no casualties. Kilauea Volcano is located at the…

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Maersk ventures into trade finance

Loknath Das

To make overseas exports easier for Indian companies, especially SMEs, Denmark-based AP Moller – Maersk, one of the largest container shipping companies globally, has set up a new business vertical, Maersk Trade Finance. In a nutshell, Maersk Trade Finance is a digital platform with pre-shipment and post shipment credit facilities. It enables exporters – manufacturers or traders – to not only get the cargo shipping services online but also apply for funds that can be used either to pay for the shipment or to invest in new orders. Pilot countries…

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Paranthas at Shimla’s Coffee House will turn the eatery into a dhaba: Old-timers

Loknath Das

The famed Indian Coffee House on The Mall in Shimla will start serving snacks other than south Indian delicacies from Monday. The old-timers are distinctly unhappy. The Coffee House says the change is necessitated by economic reasons. But those who have patronised it for decades say the eatery will soon lose its character. “To our dismay, the Coffee House management has decided to make it a ‘dhaba’ from May 1. Perhaps they are not aware that there are a number of ‘dhabas’ in Shimla,” BD Sharma, a former press secretary…

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INTO partners with Washington State University

subhadip

The partnership, which was announced last month, will see international students enrol in the pathway programme to improve their English language ability and prepare for entry into the university. Kirk Schulz, president of WSU, said enhancing international diversity across the campuses is “critically important”. “This new venture will increase the exposure of students throughout the WSU state-wide system to international perspectives” “This new venture will increase the exposure of students throughout the WSU state-wide system to international perspectives, thereby better preparing them to work in environments around the globe and…

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Drug-resistant bacteria tricked into dropping their shields become vulnerable once again

subhadip

Bait-and-switch might just be the oldest trick in the book, but maybe it’s time to start kickin’ it old school. At least a little bit. In search of another way to manage the endless slog against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, scientists just figured out how to bait bacteria into developing an Achilles’ heel. Not all drug resistance works the same: It depends on the type of antibiotic the bacteria have evolved to resist. Some antibiotics do their work by impeding bacterial cell division. Others, like the -cillins, disrupt cell walls. Drugs like…

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