Wednesday, 9th September ’20

The Morning Tea- PR

Good morning, yet another wonderful day awaits you. The Indian government has given out directions to re-open schools for classes 9-12 from September 21st. With schools re-opening, this would mark the beginning of opening all public places and zero-restrictions going forward. This comes in the midst of India topping records of Coronavirus growth rate globally and the plunging Indian economy. What are actions the Indian government can take to revive the economy or is the vaccine our only hope now? Write to us at team@productround.com and get a chance to be published here. 

Here is a quote from Shri APJ Abdul Kalam to start your day,

Don’t take rest after your first victory because if you fail in second, more lips are waiting to say that your first victory was just luck.

MIND MONK

Dealing with Criticism 

Let’s face it: we all have to deal with criticism from time to time. And no matter how thick-skinned you are, critical words usually sting. It doesn’t feel great to be told you’re not doing / looking/saying / acting as someone else thinks you should. When you’re criticized, you can start to doubt yourself, to question your own motives, and it can be extremely difficult to combat negative thoughts as they start to mount in your mind.

Regardless of the type of criticism, it’s part of life and, for that reason, it’s important to learn how to cope with criticism in a positive way. 

  1. Don’t take it personally. It’s hard not to take it personally when someone is criticizing you, but try to take a step back from the words and process them from an objective place. What is this person really saying? Is it about you or about him/her? And if it is about you, is it true?
  2. Believe in yourself. When you know (and stay true to) who you are, the words of others carry less weight. You know what matters most to you and you know if you are staying true to your own path and what others say shouldn’t make you question who you are. 
  3. Realize you can’t please everyone. Every single one of us has a unique perspective of reality influenced by our thoughts and experiences and sometimes our perspective creates different ideas of how things should be. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be able to please everyone’s idea of what’s right so focus on pleasing yourself.
  4. Use negative feedback to inspire you. Take any negativity that comes your way and use it to make your life more positive. Listen to the criticism someone is offering you and ask yourself if it might possibly be good advice.
  5. Learn from the critique. There are two ways you can learn from criticism: (1) you can see the truth it in (if there is any) and strive to make some edits to your behavior, or (2) you can realize that it’s not valid and you can strengthen your own beliefs by sticking to what feels true to you.

MARKETS

Markets: The markets closed on a negative note due to the geopolitical tensions and weak global cues. Technology stocks and Reliance Industries supported the market, but the sell-off was led by metals, pharma, and select banks, auto, and FMCG stocks. The Nasdaq tumbled on Tuesday as investors dumped high-flying technology stocks, while Tesla tracked its worst day in nearly six months after a surprise exclusion from the S&P 500. 

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

  • US private equity giant Silver Lake, which focuses on the technology sector, has led a fresh investment round of $500 million in Indian edtech major Byju’s at a valuation of $10.8 billion, according to a person in the know of the matter. Yuri Milner’s investment fund increased $122 million in the firm only a few days back. 
  • South Korean gaming giant PUBG Corporation said on Tuesday that it has decided to no longer authorize its PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ mobile franchise to Tencent Games in India, a week after India banned apps of the multiplayer battle game citing national security threat.
  • Mollie, a startup that offers a simple, API-based way to integrate payments into a site or an app, has raised €90 million ($106 million) in a round of funding led by TCV. The Series B brings the total raised by Mollie to €115 million and notably catapults the startup’s valuation to over $1 billion

 WHAT ELSE IS COOKING

  • Russia releases the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V into the public: The first batch of the Sputnik V vaccine against the novel coronavirus has been released into civil circulation, regional deliveries are planned in the nearest future. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin expressed hope on Sunday that the majority of the Russian capital’s residents would be vaccinated against the coronavirus within several months.
  • ‘Clone trains’ poised to boost railways revenue: In a first, Indian Railways will soon run ‘clone’ or duplicate trains on high-demand routes for waitlisted passengers. The proposed step will not only ensure the availability of on-demand trains but also help the national transporter boost revenues at a time when the passenger segment earnings declined due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
  • SBI planning to launch loan product ‘SAFAL’ for organic cotton growers: SBI is planning to launch a loan product, SAFAL (Safe and Fast Agriculture Loan) primarily focused on organic cotton growers who don’t have any credit history. The bank is using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in a big way of generating business. There is a company that brought all the organic cotton growers and created a database on the basis of blockchain. Any buyer of this cotton across the world can check whether the farmer actually is growing organic cotton.

BUSINESS LOUNGE

Mollie

In 2006, Mollie built an API that allowed Dutch merchants to offer payments to their customers, without the hassle of signing a contract with 10 different banks. Back then it was only iDEAL, now the most important payment method in the Netherlands (imagine a Dutch NEFT), but since then they’ve added new payment methods and grew substantially. 

Being one of the first fintech businesses in the Netherlands, they’ve also spent the last decade educating both companies and the government about this new business and the future of fintech. With their products, they’ve focused on simplifying onboarding, on providing a localized payment experience for consumers, and on building a clever API for developers to work with. 

The best payment gateway for international business will be the one that accommodates the most payment options, giving businesses the opportunity to easily connect with the largest number of potential customers. Mollie is the only payment gateway that offers iDEAL as a payment option and as such for companies based in the Netherlands, or aiming to do business there, it is a must-have. 

Mollie has not only consolidated that 60% of the iDEAL based market but also provides other payment methods. iDEAL is the most popular payment method for online transactions in the Netherlands by quite some distance – 60% of all online payments are completed through iDEAL. Nowhere else in Europe, however, is iDEAL used as a payment method and its relatively small popularity has resulted in payment gateways failing to include it in their options. 

All except Mollie of course. The way in which Mollie went about its business is a lesson. At first they inculcated the entire infrastructure, from the government to the developers. They didn’t just find an opportunity that made good business sense for their own future, but instead helped everyone else make sense of the future of business and in the process did rather well themselves.

 TMT VARSITY

Big Data Analytics

Characteristics of big data

  1. Volume: The size of the data. Eg Facebook handled more than 2 billion active users in 2017
  2. Variety: Data can be structured, semi-structured or unstructured
  3. Velocity: The frequency of generation and the frequency of handling the data
  4. Veracity: Data quality collected can vary greatly
  5. Exhaustive:
  6. Relational: If the data collected contains common fields
  7. Extensional:  IF new fields of data can be added or removed easily
  8. Scalability: The size of the data can expand rapidly
  9. Value: The utility of the collected data
  10. Variability

Various sectors with major applications of Big Data

  1. Government
  2. International Development
  3. Healthcare
  4. Education
  5. Media
  6. Insurance
  7. Internet of things
  8. Information Technology

Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal

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