New tech on the block: Metaverse, blockchain, EV, data management, CTI, agtech

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent business launches.

Metaverse & wellness: Blockchain-based health & wellness ecosystem & metaverse

Limoverse, the world’s first blockchain-based health and wellness ecosystem and metaverse, has launched HealthFi and Partnerverse, two of its most ambitious projects. The projects were launched by Co-founder Sajeev Nair, who was joined by Limoverse Director for the MENA region, Hashir Najeeb, and Business Head Divjyot Chohan.

Sajeev Nair, Co-Founder, Limoverse, said, “Our goal is to keep every individual focused on staying fit, and we simply reward users for staying fit and healthy through our five different gamified projects. Our mission is to empower people to take control of their own health and well-being, allowing them to live long, healthy, and productive lives while contributing to society. While most people want to stay fit and healthy, sticking to a fitness or wellness regimen has always been difficult.”

Further talking about the platform, he added, “We recently took part in an event where we surprised the attendees by letting them earn just by walking inside the exhibition centre. We were amazed to see over 20,000 visitors download the Limoverse app and reach the Limoverse Fitness Stage to claim their Limo crypto tokens. Limo is an ERC 20 token from Limoverse and will soon be listed on all the major crypto exchanges.”

The Why

The platform aims to make a strong entry into the rapidly growing Move-to-Earn market with this launch.

Features

• HealthFi allows users to earn money while walking/jogging/running.
• Participants need to purchase a sneaker NFT from the Limoverse collection.
• PartnerVerse assists wellness organisations and wellness experts in becoming Limoverse Partner Organizations (LPOs) and establishing their brand shop in this metaverse’s Limo Valley segment.
• The platform is offering free setup and global launch assistance to the partners as a launch promotion, for a limited time. 

Blockchain & road safety: Pilot project for a blockchain-based road safety platform with super mobile app

International Road Federation (IRF) in partnership with SettleMint, an Indian blockchain platform, powered by Polygon Networks is excited to launch a pilot project for a Blockchain-based Road Safety Platform with Super Mobile App to improve road safety in India with the use of technology.

K K Kapila, Chairman, IRF, said, “The traditional approach to road safety is not yielding the desired results, which is evident from the fact that despite some exciting & promising efforts by the Government, like developing Zero fatality corridors, identifying & fixing blackspots, installing cameras for enforcement etc., the highest number of road fatalities took place in 2021.”

“SettleMint, India has been closely working with numerous other public sector departments and is extremely proud to be associated with IRF for a critical project to enhance and improve much needed road safety in the country,” said, Ms. Sristhi Assudani, Director Sales, SettleMint India.

Akhilesh Srivastava – Road Safety Brand Ambassador, IRF and Chief Executive steer leading the Project, said, “We need technology-driven vehicle safety features both within and out of the vehicle, depending on the vulnerable road users. The approach must have an integrated solution around road safety, including self-motivation through safe driving scores to strict enforcement.”

The Platform will be powered by Polygon Network on an Ethereum Scaling L2 ecosystem and delivered by their technology Partner, SettleMint India Services Private Limited. It is likely to go live by early January 2023. A visionary initiative by the International Road Federation (India Chapter). After the successful launch in India, IRF(IC) plans to take it internationally.

The Why

While India continues to impress by developing road infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country at an accelerated pace, unfortunately, the statistics for road traffic injuries (RTIs) continue to disappoint. The leading cause of death globally for all ages and the first cause in the 5-29 age group is road traffic injury. Close to 1.5 lakh people die yearly, and RTIs injure up to 4.5 lakhs. More than 60% of these deaths are attributable to vulnerable road users (i.e., pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists).

Mere copying western road safety solutions will not work on Indian roads, where the problem is multi-layered. Unlike in western countries, the heterogeneous traffic on Indian roads constitutes pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycles, cars, buses, commercial vehicles, trucks, tractors and even animals. An Indian solution is needed which fits in our context of geo-socio-political scenarios and economic realities, where technology compensates for human limitations and encourages good drivers by creating a human-centric ecosystem.

Features

The Road Safety Digital platform will be like CoWIN Platform (Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network), a one-stop solution for all needs of road commuters. The Platform will lay the foundation for integrated road audits, enforcement, emergency care and insurance providers on a single platform and will connect road users with road operating authorities, enforcement agencies and emergency service providers just by the click of a button.

It will provide an end-to-end system, documenting each step of the road safety-related issues by integrating various databases through APIs and creating a unified User Interface and customised role-based dashboards for the stakeholders.”

It will contain login-based specific & secured information about:

• Road User details; their Driving License Safe Driving Scores, the validity of the license, insurance policy, e-challan & penalties if any,
• Vehicle details; registration, challan, PUC, vehicle insurance, Commercial Vehicles permit, e-challans & penalties etc.,
• Road/Highway details; road geometric, real-time information about black/grey spots, potholes, riding quality index, signages, etc.
• Emergency Care Services & Insurance details; accident details, nearest police stations & hospitals, availability of ambulance & beds in the nearby hospital, which can be connected through the Super App, online insurance claim settlement as customer, police & insurance companies all integrated to the same platform.

EV: Smart swappable battery platform for high-performance electric two-wheelers

Renon India, an Indian energy storage company launched its smart swappable battery platform called Alpha for high-performance electric two-wheelers.

Aditya Vikram, MD and CEO of Renon, said, “We are excited to introduce Alpha, our unique battery pack solution to strengthen India’s EV journey. We aim to keep on disrupting the storage industry with revolutionary technology that enables this transformation in a cost-effective and sustainable way.”

The Why

The Surat-based company expects to achieve a 350+ MWh manufacturing line capacity milestone in the near future, with production technology that can manufacture 3,000+ packs a month. It is currently focusing on clocking 40 crore INR in revenue by the end of this financial year.

Features

• This Li-ion battery pack is built with NMC chemistry and has a nominal voltage of 50.4 V and rated energy of 2.01 kWh and it can be extended to the LFP chemistry platform with the same footprint.
• Alpha platform hosts multiple patented technologies starting from cell interconnects to sensing circuits.
• This platform will be using Renon’s in-house built Battery management system and telematics hardware.
• It is built in a way, where this can be integrated seamlessly with most of the existing swapping solutions.
• The battery has a three-layer safety net for thermal runaway events with phase change material.
• With a smart configurable battery management system, accurate SOC and SOH algorithms for range estimation, and CAN 2.0 communication, Alpha battery packs are extremely reliable, safe, and built to withstand Indian driving conditions.

Data management: A new approach to data protection to decreases gap in data governance, risk, & compliance

Commvault, a global data management company across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments, announced a new approach to data protection with the launch of Metallic® File & Object Archive, a Data Management as a Service (DMaaS) solution designed to lower storage costs, while cost-effectively transforming how organizations navigate the world of Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC).

“When you look at the sheer numbers and cost models for data compliance and protection over the long term, it’s clear that throwing more high-performance storage at the problem won’t make it go away,” said Johnny Yu, research manager at IDC. “Archiving needs to be considered not just for the inherent time and cost savings over the long term, but also as an air-gapped solution in an enterprise’s overall data resilience strategy.”

“It’s widely important that our data is safe, and it’s safe through Metallic,” said Russell Gough, Senior Project Manager, Calyx, an innovative clinical trial solutions company that helps the bio-pharmaceutical industry bring much-needed treatments to patients faster. “The fact that we can tag the data in the way that we need to, that enables us to get to our data quickly and to satisfy auditors quickly.”

The Why

Global and industry GRC-related regulations are constantly changing, creating gaps in an organization’s ability to manage data across live and backup sources, resulting in a lack of visibility and insights, data sprawl, and greater opportunities for data vulnerabilities. Coupled with major shortages in IT staff and strict budget constraints, organizations are struggling, using multiple solutions to meet compliance guidelines and keep their data protected.

Features

• Metallic File & Object Archive directly addresses the need for deep insights into critical data with archive modeling delivered as SaaS with air gapped protection.
• It is a comprehensive solution for cost-effective data placement leveraging data insights, access controls, tagging, metadata search, audit trails, and reports to help manage compliance needs over a large amount of unstructured data. The result is a lower cost solution that helps reduce the risk of non-compliance.
• With predictable cost modeling, actionable data insights, flexible bring your own storage options, and compliance-ready operations, Metallic File & Object Archive enables organizations to lower costs, meet compliance needs, and reduce management overhead with the simplicity of SaaS.

CTI: Contact center agents to handle calls from within a HubSpot CRM, saving unnecessary screen toggling

NovelVox, a contact center company, has recently launched HubSpot CTI Connectors for Cisco Finesse and Avaya Contact Centers. The connectors will enable Cisco and Avaya contact center agents to handle calls from within the HubSpot CRM, saving them from unnecessary screen toggling.

NovelVox’s CTI integration library covers leading CRM, CSM, and ticketing applications: Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, Freshdesk, MS Dynamics, Epic, and Oracle Service Cloud.

NovelVox’s CEO Amit Gandhi states, “Having to use multiple disparate applications while handling live calls is painful for agents, and being a global contact center solution provider, we totally understand this. Our CTI connectors save agents from such manual efforts by not just connecting a CRM to a CC telephony system, but also equipping the CTI interface with advanced agent controls and actions. We are extremely delighted to announce HubSpot as another CRM that goes into our CTI integration library and look forward to building a more advanced, tech-driven solution stack with every release”

The Why

The unified CTI interface with embedded telephony controls and powerful agent productivity features is intended to improve the agent experience while personalizing the customer interaction experience.

Features

Some striking features of the HubSpot CTI Connector:

• Embedded CTI interface within HubSpot CRM
• Equips Cisco & Avaya telephony controls & actions
• Click to dial, Screen Pop, and more to improve agent productivity
• Agent & team Performance Statistics
• Reporting & Monitoring actions for Supervisors
• Automated call logs
• Custom CRM workflows

Agtech: Agri value chain to support farmers & agribusiness in UP

Leads Connect Services, an agtech company has launched an agri value chain solution Khet Se Kitchen Tak to support the farmers community, agribusinesses and make UP a self-reliant and self-sufficient state. This farm-to-fork solution will help improve the productivity and sustainability in the agriculture sector.

“The changing global demands are outpacing what our current agricultural and food systems can achieve,” comments Navneet Ravikar, Chairman & Managing Director, Leads Connect Services.

“Currently, over 50% of India’s population depends upon agriculture to put food on the table.

Yet, the sector contributes merely 20% of the national GDP. All these are signals of the dire

necessity of a digital transformation, which is why we are fixated on building technologies that

can drive the Khet Se Kitchen Tak initiative. Our objective is to bring the consequent benefits to every acre of farmland and stakeholder in the value chain.”

The Why

To provide the full-stack solutions to ease problems for farmers, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), and agribusinesses, Leads Connect has collaborated with Rohilkhand Laboratory & Research Centre (RLRC) for providing critical food testing, assaying, and certification facilities to agri-businesses at the farm gates; FMCG company, BL Agro and Laxmi Agro for providing market linkage, bringing finely curated, packed quality food material to consumers kitchens through its extensive network of distributors pan India. In this initiative, Leads Connect will provide precision farm advisory, financial, and crop risk management to the agriculture community.

Features

• The agtech business correspondent of SBI Bank, Leads Connect offers timely capital to small and marginal farmers, FPOs, and budding agri-preneurs for agricultural and allied activities. Within its financial inclusion services, the company builds accurate farmer and farm profiling on agricultural and historical activities to help tenant farmers, budding village entrepreneurs and agri-businesses gain loans without difficulty.
• It also caters to seamless access to all relevant insurance products – health, crop, cattle, life and motor. Furthermore, it delivers continuous post-sale service assistance, including claims management.
• RLRC Pvt. Ltd. is the second building block of the initiative, and it delivers analytical testing and food quality assessment of both raw and processed products.
• Laxmi Agro India Pvt. Ltd is the third subsidiary of B L Agro Group which forms the final building block of the Khet Se Kitchen Tak
• A commodity trading enterprise, the company specialises on the export of agricultural and processed foods and sweeteners across the globe. It creates the market connections that local farmers require to reach international markets and directly export stringently quality-checked and certified food products from Uttar Pradesh.
• The project will expand the food product distribution network for farmers and other stakeholders in both domestic and international markets.