Lanco Solar Wins IESA Technovation Award

Bangalore:  Lanco Solar Energy, a fully-owned subsidiary of the leading integrated infrastructure conglomerate Lanco Infratech Limited (LITL), has won the prestigious IESA Technovation Award for Most Innovative Product Award 2012. 

The award was presented in the Indian Electronics & Semiconductor Association’s annual event IESA Vision Summit in Bangalore. 

Lanco Solar wins Most Innovative Product Award 2012 from IESA Technovation, Dr. Gary Patton – VP, Semiconductor Research & Development Center, IBM (Left ) , V. Saibaba, CEO Lanco Solar Energy Pvt Ltd (Right).

Lanco Solar Energy won the award for its innovative plug-&-play solar PV product design to cater to off-grid solar solutions in urban and rural hinterlands. Utmost care was given to ensure that the design provides for easy assembly at site in remote locations. The modular design is also fully scalable to cater to a single family rooftop installation to village mini-grids to large urban residential/ industrial rooftops. Several of these installations are operational in Grameen Banks, remote village schools, tribal hostels, rural health centers, and industrial utilities in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and other States.

Commenting about the award, L Madhusudhan Rao, Executive Chairman, Lanco Infratech Limited, said, “IESA Technovation Award is the recognition of our innovation and focus on continuous improvement in delivery of renewable solutions at affordable cost.”

 V Saibaba, CEO, Lanco Solar said, “The product developed by us is unique and our plug-and-play system for off-grid solar power is one among several such innovative initiatives to take this solution to masses. We appreciate Lanco Solar team for all their efforts in achieving this award. We thank IESA for this privilege and honour”.

Lanco Solar is one of the largest solar power players in the country today with project portfolio of about 400MW, including own projects and third party turnkey EPC services. It has already commissioned

Now select your right car right away

 CarWale, a leading automotive portal for new and used cars, has launched a new version of its car comparison tool that now covers an extensive list of 127 features, which will help buyers to know beyond the obvious with its intelligent ‘hide common features’ and ‘highlight differences’ functionality.

The new additional tool would help buyers to decide the right car. The ‘hide common features’ button allows users to discern only the distinguishing features between two cars/ versions by masking the common features and specifications, according to a top company official.

With the ‘highlight differences' functionality, users can juxtapose up to four shortlisted cars/ versions and glance through the distinct features offered by each. The precise information aggregated by CarWale across all models and trims not only lets users gain a holistic understanding of all the cars under consideration but also pin points the most minor of differences present across multiple variants.

“No longer does comparing two cars means struggling through a long list of incomprehensible data points. We now give you the most exhaustive list of features to compare with the options to hide common offerings or highlighting the dissimilar features. We are glad to simplify car comparison and help informed decision making.” says Mohit Dubey, Co-founder and CEO, CarWale.

Banwari  Lal Sharma, CarWale’s Product & Marketing head said, “We are glad to deliver another world-class product to Indian car buyers. The new car comparison tool manifests our commitment of making car buying simple and follows major upheavals like the radically new CarWale Awards or the revamped CarWale homepage. We’ll yet enhance this tool by adding 10 more data points every week.”

Next Education wins prestigious K-12 award

Hyderabad:  Next education Pvt Ltd, one of the leading E-learning Technology companies in India, has won the prestigious K-12 (Public Choice) award in the category 'Interactive Solution Provider' at the eIndia conference 2012.

With participants competing for the award from across India, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe & North America, Next Education bagged the prestigious award for its innovative product, MathsLab.

Veena Raizada , the Director of Academics was felicitated by Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister for IT & Communications, Government of Andhra Pradesh and Sanjay Jaju, Secretary- IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh at the conference.

MathsLab is an innovative hands-on learning solution designed to explain complex mathematical concepts by using simulated explanations & Audio-visual explanations. The solution develops higher order thinking skills in children by stimulating their minds and also generates interest in mathematical and geometrical concepts

eIndia is India's largest event on Information and Communication Technologies, organised annually by elets Technomedia & Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies. The event is co-organised by Department of IT, Government of India and is held in close collaboration with several ministries of Government of India.

It is a unique platform for knowledge sharing in different domains of ICT for development and facilitates multi-stakeholder partnerships and networking among governments, industry, academia and civil society organisations of different countries, including the host country- India.

The nominated projects were judged on the basis of Innovation, Scalability, Ability to overcome challenges, Achievements & Impact Potential. The Award selection was a dual process of evaluation by a panel of Jury & public voting system.

Commenting on the occasion,  Beas Dev Ralhan, the CEO of the Next Education said, "We are immensely elated to receive this prestigious recognition. The major area of focus of Next Education has always been content and we've spent huge amount of time & effort in developing & improvising our content to meet the ever changing demands of the dynamic E-Learning industry. This award gives us a fillip to keep striving to provide the best content & services."

Laurus Edutech to train under privileged women in beauty and hair-care

Chennai-based Laurus Edutech, one of the premier skills development company, has in partnership with Godrej Consumer Products Ltd., one of the India's largest conglomerates, launched certificate course to impart technical training for the under privileged women in Chennai in the vocation of beauty, hair care and mehandi (henna) application.

The training programme, aimed at product training, corporate grooming and etiquettes to train both amateurs and qualified professionals, costs Rs. 2000 and is open to candidates above 14 years of age.
School dropouts and anybody interested can join the 200-hour course offered as full time or part time programme. The full time programme is conducted every Monday to Saturday from 10 AM to 6 PM. The part time programme is of 4 hours daily (Monday to Saturday in flexible batches from 10 AM to 2 PM or 3 PM to 7 PM). The course will be offered by the beauty centers set up at Sriperumbudur and Vyasarpadi and cover a wide range of holistic beauty treatments and related trainings from Personal and Salon Hygiene to Spa treatments.

The programme package is to include career guidance workshop, entrepreneur development workshop, placements of students in nearby industry, establishing alumina association of the old students, lectures of successful entrepreneurs, industry & market visit of students, soft skill lectures and et al.

At the end of the program, trainees will be awarded a joint certificate of Laurus and Godrej for beauty and hair care along with the beauty KIT worth the fee of the course (i.e., Rs. 2000/-). The certificate will be issued following a practical test. Placements will be provided within two to three weeks from the completion of the course, depending upon the performance of the students.

The training imparted by Laurus Edutech is part of Godrej Group's 'Good and Green' employability initiative to train 1 million rural and urban youth in skilled employment and under the unique program - 'Godrej Saloni'.
“Laurus Edutech Life Skills Private Limited's 'Skill India' is intended to be the largest repository of skilled resources and connects with the industry for better placement. We wish to expand our reach nationwide to develop skilled and polished work force in the nation especially the urban poor. We are extremely happy of such an association with Godrej to provide quality assured technical training to the informal sector. Creating quality employment opportunities for women is the basic aim of this project. 

This course would not only provide income generating techniques to aspiring individuals but also fuel the ambitions of budding women entrepreneurs. It is immensely satisfying that our projects are socially committed and prove advantageous to the common man." said Srinivas Rao Cheedella, Managing Director of Laurus Edutech.

Sumit Mitra, Executive Vice President (Corporate HR), Godrej Group, said, "Godrej Saloni is part of our corporate social responsibility initiative and has made a successful beginning in creating employability in India. We expect that the skills imparted by our trainers will enable women to generate regular income. As we advance further ahead towards the project we will see more women acquiring these skill sets. Our association with Laurus Edutech will help in this regard."

TES India launches exclusive portal for teachers and schools

New Delhi: TSL Education, publishers of the world renowned TES Magazine and host to the world's largest network of teachers, has launched TES India  (http://www.tesindia.com/) exclusively for Indian teachers and schools.

The website, which is completely free to join and use, has been designed by teachers for teachers. It is home to more than 5, 00, 000 resources and lesson plans which have been mapped to the Indian K-12 education system by grade and by subject. Besides resources for Kindergarten, Primary, Secondary and Higher Secondary, TES India also offers learning materials for Whole School and Special Needs such as cognitive impairment and dyslexia, TES India  said in a statement.

In addition to these education resources, TES India also includes an educational jobs portal featuring opportunities in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Pune and other locations across India.

TES India is modelled on the hugely successful global site, TES Connect, the world’s largest network of teachers and home to more than 2.3 million teachers from 197 countries. Every week, teachers download more than 3 million resources from the site – that’s almost five downloads every second.

To celebrate the launch of TES India, the first 100,000 teachers to register will be entered into a draw to win 1 million rupees for themselves and 1 million rupees for their school. There are a further five runners-up prizes of Rs.20, 000 each.

Tom Andrews, General Manager of TES India said, "India has a tradition of striving for the very best standards in both education and teaching and we are very excited to be involved in that. We share that desire to improve education, world-wide, and with more than 100 years of heritage we hope our free site will help to assist and inspire all 7 million teachers in India. Besides becoming a millionaire themselves, teachers can also help their school win a million rupees which could help improve their infrastructure, for example, redeveloping the library or even building an ICT suite."

NOKIA expands ASHA series with two smartphones

Chennai: Reinnovating consumer experience at attractive price points, NOKIA India on Friday launched two new smartphones – NOKIA Asha 308 and NOKIA Asha 309, the latest additions to the Asha touch family of smartphones, in affordable price. 

TS Sridhar, Regional General Manager (South), Nokia India unveiling new smart phones with actress Priya Anand in Chennai on Friday.

English Vinglish fame Priya Anand at the launch of NOKIA's new ASHA series phones in Chennai.

NOKIA Asha 308 and NOKIA Asha 309 have been equipped with the cloud accelerated NOKIA Xpress Browser and are optimized for faster and cheaper browsing experience, Maps, Musics, Apps, 40 premium EA games and integrated social networking experience.

The new devices are also preloaded with the NOKIA Nearby apps that allows consumers to discover, search and share places of interest around them. The app gives access to over seven million places of interest in India. Specifically in Chennai, consumers can have access to over 16,821 shopping destinations, 3627 tourism places, over 2682 places to eat and more.

Launching the products in Chennai, TS Sridhar, Regional General Manager (South), Nokia India, said, these phones are aimed at the younger generation and those who want to experience faster browsing while on the move. We have developed the more advanced touch screen as we realized that big market for such phones in the days to come. To add more value to our customers, we have tied with service providers- Airtel, Vodofone and Idea for flawless data dissemination. The innovative Xpress browser will enable the customers to access internet double the speed and faster downloads.”

The event was marked by the presence of English Vinglish fame Priya Anand who, along with Sridhar unveiled the new ASHA series smartphones.

The dual SIM Nokia Asha 308 with Easy Swap technology and Single SIM Nokia Asha 309 with WiFi come with the price tag of Rs 6149 and Rs 6349, respectively, Sridhar said, adding, “To create a smarter internet experience, Nokia has created new version of Xpress Browser, which enables up to 85 % more efficient mobile browsing and faster access to rich web applications compared to conventional browsers.” The new smart devices are available in Black and golden light colour.

The cloud-based web browser will support web apps – Nokia Nearby web app, which helps people discover new places by searching nearby locations while Nokia Xpress Web App Builder makes it even easier to build new applications. With Nokia Xpress web app builder, publishers can create appealing web apps for Asha touch devices, and even novices can turn their web content into a fun and sophisticated web app for Nokia customers, Sridhar said.

Both the devices are 2G enabled fearing 3.0” WQVGA capacity display, multiple home screens, stereo radio, and loudspeakers and up to 32GB micro SD card support. 

The phones come with the free gift of 40 premium EA games, social features such as standalone Facebook and Twitter clients, Nokia messaging service and video streaming through the browser from sites like YouTube, the first within Asha touch range.