Daily Archives: August 10, 2016

Kochi Startup Village joins hands with Facebook

Business & Economy, Science & Technology, World Opinion
Facebook is offering guidance and mentorship to Indian engineering students aspiring to become entrepreneurs. / The Hindu
Facebook is offering guidance and mentorship to Indian engineering students aspiring to become entrepreneurs. / The Hindu

As a part of the SV.CO Startup Programme, 50 students will make a six-day trip to California where they will also get an opportunity to present their ideas to the Facebook team.

SV.CO, the digital makeover of the telecom incubator Startup Village, has joined hands with Facebook to provide access to its developer teams in Menlo Park, California, as part of a six-month entrepreneurship programme for students.

Facebook is offering guidance and mentorship to Indian engineering students aspiring to become entrepreneurs. As a part of the SV.CO Startup Programme, 50 students will make a six-day trip to California where they will also get an opportunity to present their ideas to the Facebook team and get feedback on them.

Getting to meet talented pros

“The purpose of the visit to Silicon Valley is to provide students with a priceless opportunity to absorb and learn from technology companies such as Facebook. Students will get to meet talented professionals from around the world and learn all about creating successful startups,” Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman, Startup Village, was quoted as saying in a press release.

As the “Host Startup” of the programme, students will be part of the FB Start programme and in addition to providing guidance in building products, Facebook will contribute in the course content of the SV.CO’s programme framework.

“We are pleased to join hands with SV.CO and support their goal of providing a platform to students to build sustainable startups,” said Satyajeet Singh, Product Partnerships, Facebook.

source:  http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Staff Reporter / Kochi – August 10th, 2016

Kerala innovator develops ‘Prime Card’ to replace multiple ATM cards

Business & Economy, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All, Science & Technology, World Opinion

Thiruvananthapuram  :

No more the hassles of carrying multiple ATM cards, an innovator in Kerala has developed a ‘Prime Card’ that helps customers merge savings accounts of different banks in a single card. He affirms that it can replace the US-based VISA and Master card available in India and emerge an alternative to existing Indian domestic card ‘RuPay’ with high-end security features. He has applied for an Indian patent for his innovation.

The 43-year-old innovator K Ummer Thalhath, a native of Malappuram opted out of his final year graduation in science at Farook College in Kozhikode. He went on to pursue an electronics course for three years and left that on an innovation spree.

Thalhath claims that the card has high-end security features and hence none would be able to duplicate or hack it. It will help the bank account holder draw money from any ATM. If the Prime Card is lost or stolen, the one who gets hold of it may not know which bank accounts are merged in the card and it has two pin numbers which cannot be easily cracked.

He is keen to develop it further with the support of industries here, who are willing to develop a domestic high-end electronic payment facility.

VISA and Mastercard are US-based global payments technology companies, while RuPay is an Indian domestic card scheme. He believes that his idea of ‘Prime Card’ payment technology if realized in association with Indian banks or domestic card company, will help India take a lead in floating a high-end secure card. He has held initial discussion with major banks including State Bank of India (SBI), Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and Federal Bank.

The account holder can merge existing accounts or new account to the Prime Card with different personal identification numbers (pin) for different bank accounts. On high-end security feature of the card, he said Prime Card has two pin numbers, the customer should provide one pin when the card is inserted in ATM machine and another when selecting the bank for transaction. Other security modes are Matching Number System and Number looping system. Hence the security is much higher than ordinary cards, he said.

Responding to that, Federal Bank – Digital Banking assistant general manager Sunny KP told TOI that “the idea is good as it is handled by a single payment application software, yet there are practical difficulties in its implementation. It requires infrastructure, intermediary standing between banks to merge accounts and permit from Reserve Bank of India (RBI).”

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) chief manager Dheeraj Bharadwaj said over 50 crore cards are already in the market and to replace that with one card for various bank accounts would be tedious as it requires the consent of many banks. It was NCPI that launched RuPay to fulfil RBI’s desire to have a domestic and multilateral payment system in the country.

Centre for Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development (C-STED) director Ajith Prabhu assured all possible support to take it forward in terms of exploring the commercial possibilities.
While, the innovator swears by his innovation that it can end the headache of banks over issues involving current ATM transactions. However, an electronic payment company or a financial institution with RBI permit should come forward to take it up, he said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of  India / News Home> City> Thirvananthapuram / by Laxmi Ajai Prasanna / TNN / August 08th, 2016