TechWise Today December 2018

Technology Simplified for Small and Medium Businesses

Tech​Wise​ Today Digital Magazine | December 2018

Financial Support for Small Businesses in Europe

News | Views | Training | Trends | Success Stories

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In This Issue

Finance

Events

Syndio Closes $5.2 Million Seed Round Tech Startup Coder Raises $4.5 Million Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Event Financial Support in Europe

Trends Industrial Information for Entrepreneurs Online Business Training New Platform to Decode Meaning Machine Learning

Accessible Europe: ICT for All India-Taiwan SME Development Forum Young Leaders of Industry Forum India-UK FutureTech Festival in Delhi

Digital Media How to Write a Press Release Virtual Marketing Agent

Tech Awards

Sales & Marketing

Atlanta Small Business TV Show Digital Advertising Digital Marketing Digital Innovation

Asian Entrepreneurship Awards 2018 Tech4Future Grand Challenge ...And More

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Asian Tech Startups Showcase AI and IoT Solutions in Japan The Asian Entrepreneurship Award Steering Committee announced that Imagr Ltd. of New Zealand won the first prize at the Asian Entrepreneurship Awards 2018 (AEA 2018). It was a three-day business pitch contest for Asian startups held from October 31st to November 2nd at Kashiwa-no-ha campus city in Chiba prefecture, Japan.

Asian Entrepreneurship Awards 2018

This year, 20 technology startups from 13 countries and regions across Asia specializing in artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and healthcare fields showcased their innovations.

Initiated in 2012, the AEA program aims to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurship across Asia and has brought together 154 companies from over 16 countries and regions to date. It

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constitutes a collaborative effort across industry, government and academia and is co-hosted

by Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd., the University of Tokyo’s Corporate Relations Division, TX Entrepreneur Partners General Incorporated Association, and The Japan Academic Society for Ventures and Entrepreneurs.

This year’s winner Imagr Ltd, a New Zealand-based startup, has developed the AI / computer vision shopping cart Smartcart.

Free Online Training Courses for Small Businesses The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is offering an array of free online training courses on a number of topics. Available at SBA’s Learning Center, the courses cover areas such as business planning, management, and marketing.

Photo: SBA

SBA was created in 1953 as an independent agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist, and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise, and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of the country.

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Through a network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations, SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands, and Guam.

Five Rules to Write a Press Release for Digital Media By ​Rakesh Raman Marketers and PR (public relations) people know that media communication has always been an important part of a brand promotion exercise. And press release is the core component of a communication process to share brand information cost effectively with consumers using mass media as an interface.

Now with the proliferation of digital media channels, the rules of media communication have undergone a massive shift. In traditional media, for example, if your press release is not picked by a newspaper or magazine, you’ll never be able to convey your brand message to target audience.

But now it’s different. The advantage of digital media is that even if your release is rejected by newspapers and magazines, you can still reach out to audiences effectively by just posting it on the web through a blog, or a release distribution service, social media sites, company’s own website, and so on.

But for this, your release should be in line with the requirements of digital media. So, how should you write a good press release? Here are these five rules for you.

1.

Top Line

The top line or title or headline of your press release should not only attract the journalists and readers, but it should also attract the search engines like Google, Bing, and others. While the entire content of the release should be optimized for search engines, title is the most important part from where search engines select your article.

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To attract search engines, your title should not have more than 70 characters. And it should carry all the keywords that you think people will use on search engines to search the related content. The most important word should appear first. If your company is not very popular, don’t start your title with your company name. Then you can start the headline with the product category like tablets, hotels, shoes, etc.

Suppose, your company name is ​Yourcompany​, which is not a widely known company and runs a couple of hotels in, say, Shimla – a hill city. You have launched an economical package to woo summer travelers. Then your headline can be: “Hotels in Shimla Go Cheap at ​Yourcompany for Summer Travelers”.

In this example, we know that most people will go to search engines and search “Hotels in Shimla” or “Cheap hotels in Shimla” or “Hotels for summer travel”. Then your press release content (headline) will have a greater probability of appearing at top in search engines from where people can be directed to your site that can give them more information.

2.

Beginning

The opening sentences of a press release are as important as its headline to attract search engines as well as journalists. You should never start your release like an essay. For example, if your company has launched an e-commerce store to sell garments, you should not begin the release content like this: “Garments are becoming very important for human beings…” or some ho-hum stuff like this. You must know that even search engines get bored, and tend to ignore your content.

You should come straight to the point and begin your release like: “​Yourcompany​, a leading company in the garments business segment, has launched an e-commerce store to expand its operations in new terrains…”

With this kind of to-the-point writing style, you can attract more eyeballs from the web.

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3.

Quotes

It’s generally observed that quotes from the top brass of the company are so convoluted and confusing that it’s better not to include any quotes in the press release. Roughly, nine out of every 10 quotes start with “We are excited…” or “We are thrilled…”. This is such a clichéd, repulsive style that you should avoid writing any such quotes in your press release.

You should include a quote from the spokesperson of the company only if it’s of some earth-shaking nature and different from the content that is already there in the release. Plus, keep the size of the quotes to maximum of two small sentences.

You should know that while indexing your articles, search engines get confused if the structure of the article is not correct or content is getting repeated within an article. You can’t afford to confuse search engines or the readers. Avoid putting quotes if there’s even a small possibility of avoiding them.

4.

Bulleted Lists

This method is used as a value-addition technique to create search engine- and reader-friendly content. For creating bulleted lists of the salient features of your message, you can either rewrite the content from your press release or you can use findings from some publicly available research reports that you’re allowed to use.

Bulleted points are very short sentences that are included at the right place in a press release to give additional information on the subject of the release in a focused manner. Put just three or four bullet points in your release. A typical bulleted list will appear like this: ●

Yourcompany’s​ video games target gamers in the age group of 18-30 years

●

Games can be downloaded from a web store

●

Each game comes with a price tag of $3.99

You can continue with the running text after putting the bulleted list.

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5.

Boilerplates

Boilerplates are standard formulations about a company or a brand usually put at the bottom of a press release. For traditional media, companies used to put huge boilerplates – sometimes as big as the press release itself.

But now your boilerplate can be of just one or two sentences. Then you can give the hyperlink of your company’s website for additional information.

Remember, brief is beautiful in digital, new media. You have to say maximum in the minimum number of words. Typically, your press release should not have more than 800 words written in a structured format. Other standard rules like sentence construction, expression, language style guides, etc. will apply in digital media releases also.

Set these rules in stone if you really want to leverage digital media with the power of your press releases. As these releases may or may not be used by the conventional press, you can even start calling them Digital Media Releases (DMRs) instead of press releases. You are now ready to write your first DMR according to the rules stated above. Try it.

Tech Startup Signoi Launches Platform to Decode Meaning A new UK-based venture has launched Signoi to bridge the scalability gap between human science and the exponential expansion of large-scale unstructured data.

Signoi is developing a new analytic-driven, insight and foresight platform for decoding both implicit and explicit meaning from unstructured data at speed and scale, in a flexible and intuitively human way. The platform offers a fast and powerful approach to understanding the constructs that govern human needs and behavior, via new

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metrics that quantify the strength of thematic content within complex, unstructured data such as text and imagery.

Signoi deploys neural networks, machine learning methods, and advanced automated analytic.

The platform runs on a series of entirely new proprietary analytical modules and algorithms, built on foundations in semiotics, psychology and ethnography, to decode and quantify meaning.

"The guiding principle behind Signoi is to reveal implicit meanings, cultural energies, attitudes, and feelings. The platform uncovers natural structures and narratives within unstructured data, whether that be text or imagery or a combination of both. The vision is to deliver revelation rather than search," said Andy Dexter (pictured above), co-founder of the business.

Signoi can handle paid, owned, and earned data sources including, but not limited to: voice of the customer data, market research, branding and communications collateral, advertising, social media, net promoter score comments, cultural material, feedback forms, online communities, emails, market research, and more.

Signoi then uses measures such as signal strength and complexity to identify and track the presence of specific meanings and cultural codes both in the moment and over time.

For Your Information Machine Learning

Machine learning is a branch of Artificial Intelligence (​AI​) that helps computers learn automatically. Simply put, computer scientists use machine learning techniques with which machines learn to become more accurate.

With machine learning algorithm, the existing software programs use input data to become intelligent without getting programmed again to deliver more useful outputs.

At present, there are hardly any applications of machine learning in the small and medium business domain, as machine learning technology is still evolving.

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PM Modi Offers 12 Game Changers for MSMEs of India The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, introduced the Government’s Support and Outreach Initiative for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on November 2, 2018.

The Indian Government says it has accorded high priority to the MSME sector in the recent years. This outreach and support program, which will run for the next 100 days, covering the entire country, is expected to provide even greater synergy to the efforts being made for this sector.

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The progress of this program, to be implemented in mission mode, will be monitored on a continuous basis by senior officials of Union and State Governments.

Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Event To celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018 on 15 November, young entrepreneurs from around the world were invited in Geneva, Switzerland to pitch business ideas that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018. Photo: UNCTAD

UNCTAD, in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Politecnico di Milano, the International Organization for Migration and Capacity organized the event. Impact investors were called to provide feedback to young startups on promoting inclusive sustainable development through entrepreneurship.

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Applications from young entrepreneurs with migrant backgrounds including returning migrants; businesses or business ideas which partner with migrants; as well as businesses which offer migration related solutions, were particularly encouraged.

Candidates in the scaleup competition had the opportunity to win an equity fund of US$ 15,000, while candidates in the startup competition had the opportunity to win a grant of US$ 5,000. The prizes were sponsored by One Creation, a Swiss Investment cooperative.

Read and Download RMN Publications

Raman Media Network (RMN) Company – which is an integrated technology media and entertainment ​company – is working in diversified content creation, management, and distribution businesses on a global scale. Among other content-based activities, the company runs 4 global news sites on different subjects.

The company also publishes and distributes digital content products and magazines among readers around the world. You can ​read and download our digital products that cover diverse content streams.

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Startup India Investment Seminar in Beijing The Embassy of India in China in partnership with Startup India Association (SIA) and Venture Gurukool organized 2nd Startup India Investment Seminar on 12 November 2018 in Beijing.

According to an Indian government communique, the objective was to foster innovation and entrepreneurship among Indian youth. The 1st Startup India Investment event was organized in November 2017.

The event was planned to introduce Chinese VCs and investors to the promising Indian startups and also help Indian startups reach out to the large Chinese investors for receiving investment for their companies.

Forty-two Indian entrepreneurs representing 20 Indian startups participated in the event and pitched before Chinese investors to make investments in their ventures. More than 350 Chinese Venture Capital (VC) funds, angel investors participated in the day-long pitching session and seminar.

In the 1st Startup India Investment seminar, according to the government, 12 Indian startups participated of which 4 secured funding from Chinese VCs of USD $15 million. In the current round, 8 startups out of 20 participants are expected to get commitment of around USD $30 million.

A panel discussion was also organized to discuss effective strategy for Chinese VCs to enter the Indian startup market and share their experiences about the Indian startup ecosystem.

Industrial Information Portal for Entrepreneurs The web-based Industrial Information System (IIS) is positioned as a one-stop solution for all industrial information including raw material – agriculture, horticulture, minerals, natural resources; connectivity; layers of terrain and urban infrastructure.

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Industrial Information System. Photo: DIPP

Created by Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) along with National e-Governance Division, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology of India, the IIS portal is supposed to help entrepreneurs get relevant information for their ventures.

It provides GIS-enabled database of industrial areas including clusters, parks, nodes, zones, focal points, etc. across the country. It is intended to serve as a decision support system for effective planning and industrial investment.

Information in this portal has been entered or updated by Central Government, Ministries, Departments, and State Governments including their agencies.

How Small Businesses Get Financial Support in Europe The EU bank is providing EUR 84m to Minsk Vodokanal to finance the rehabilitation and modernisation of the capital city’s central wastewater treatment plant. Around 200 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will benefit from two loans provided to Belagroprombank (EUR 50m) and Belarusbank (EUR 25m).

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The Republic of Belarus and the European Investment Bank (​EIB​) are starting a new era of cooperation by signing the first ever loans provided by the EU bank in this country. The loans, for a total amount of nearly EUR 160m, target sectors and projects that both the European Union and the Republic of Belarus consider essential in order to foster investments in the areas of social and economic infrastructure, private sector development, and climate action.

Belarus Private Sector Support and Minsk Wastewater Treatment Plant Reconstruction. First ever EIB support for Belarus – development of water infrastructure and private sector. [Minsk, Belarus] 20/11/2018 Photo: EIB

The EIB loans to small businesses, intermediated through Belagroprombank (BAPB) and Belarusbank (BBK), will facilitate investment projects and help to meet the working capital needs of private sector companies in Belarus. This will contribute to the strengthening of the private sector and economic diversification that is particularly important in Belarus, where large state-owned enterprises still dominate the national economy.

The EU bank is joining forces with BBK and BAPB, two banks that have a profound knowledge of the Belarusian market and have substantial plans to expand their lending to small businesses.

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It is estimated that some 200 SMEs will benefit from this financing, which should help to sustain over 2,500 jobs. These loans are being provided in the framework of the EU4Business initiative targeted at smaller businesses in the Eastern Partnership countries.

EU4Business is an EU initiative that helps SMEs in the six countries of the Eastern Partnership (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) to finance their development and boost economic growth.

The Eastern Partnership was established in 2009 as a joint initiative of the EU, its Member States and six European Partners – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. It is a key pillar of the EU’s Neighbourhood Policy.

The EIB is particularly active in the multilateral dimension of the partnership, providing key investments in priority sectors such as transport, energy – including energy efficiency – climate action, access to finance for SMEs, and innovation.

By the end of 2017, EIB lending in the Eastern Partnership had reached a total of EUR 8 billion, financing some 90 investment projects and providing credit lines to support SMEs in the region.

Youth Tech Startup Coder Raises $4.5 Million Coder founders John A. Entwistle (age 20), Ammar Bandukwala (age 19), and Kyle Carberry (age 21) raise $4.5 million for their service which "server-powers" development environments.

The google docs-like service allows developers to use tools (like VS Code) through their web portal. Local integration and enterprise are on the roadmap for the tech startup.

Investors included Uncork Capital and Redpoint Ventures as co-leads, along with Founders Fund, Capital Factory, and some individual investors. The Austin-based startup has launched

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Coder.com, an online integrated development environment (IDE) that enables anyone to write code on any device.

It supports 15 programming languages and directly ties into cloud providers, giving users unlimited computational power. The company says it is looking for developers who want to help improve its platform. P ​ hoto: Coder

Download Previous Issues of TechWise Today October 2018

November 2018

For Your Information

How to Begin Digital Marketing

The use of digital media for marketing is not an option, but it’s an imperative for companies in the globalized business world.

While digital marketing is a dynamic subject, today if you want to leverage it for your business growth, you must begin by creating content around your brand.

Digital marketing cannot be done without brand content customized for different target groups. This content is delivered to the consumers through traditional as well as digital media channels.

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Turkey’s First Live 5G Trial Performed by Turkcell and Samsung Turkcell - a digital operator headquartered in Turkey - and Samsung Electronics entered into a collaboration in Turkey. Turkcell, striving for Turkey to be one of the first countries to use 5G, and Samsung, offering 5G solutions, organized an event in November to experience live 5G in Turkey.

Turkcell has performed the first live 5G trial in Turkey. From left, Turkcell CTO Gediz Sezgin, President of Samsung Electronics Turkey Dae Hyun Kim, Istanbul Technical University President Prof. Dr. Mehmet Karac, Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioglu, Head of Samsung Networks Europe Thomas Riedel. Photo: Turkcell

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Guests of the event got the opportunity to witness live 5G for the first time in the experience zones of UHD Live Streaming, Cloud Gaming, 360-degree Camera, and VR streaming by using Samsung's 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solutions, combined with the infrastructure of Turkcell.

Thanks to 5G FWA technologies, high-quality Gigabit connections can be made with 5G in homes and offices where there is no fiber infrastructure.

In addition to Maltepe Plaza, Samsung’s 5G FWA solutions have been tested in Istanbul Technical University and Kadikoy, a dense province of Istanbul.

Is Your Website Talking To Your Buyers?

By ​Rakesh Raman While digital marketing has many components that promote your brand, a website is the most important of them that creates and keeps your brand’s presence in the cyberspace. And it acts as a direct communication interface between your brand and the buyers.

In fact, a corporate or brand website is like your virtual marketing agent that never sleeps and is available to your customers all the time, all across the world.

However, this marketing agent can’t keep standing around the clock, if it’s not fresh. And it gets freshness from the regular supply of information or content. In fact, content is the lifeblood for a website (site, in short).

Without fresh content on it, your website starts acting as slow poison for your brand, as it gives the impression to your buyers and other stakeholders that your company is not active or it’s a dying brand.

While your website should not look like a stale poster on the web, you should update it constantly so that it keeps talking to your buyers and others – informing them about the progress at your end. But big question: How? Answer: With content.

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Content is the most precious commodity in this world – more valuable than even gold.

Obviously, good content is scarce. There are specialized people and content service providers in the market. But either they’re too expensive or most are fraudsters who claim to be content specialists but can’t create content.

Given the situation, it will not be a wise step for many smaller companies to hire external content services for their websites. They can, however, build an internal process to regularly create content, which can be in the form of text, pictures, graphics, videos, and so on.

For this, they can identify a couple of people in their companies who have very good language skills and who are a little outgoing – expressive and lively. Website content management should be their primary responsibility.

They’d interact with all internal departments of your company and keep an eye on external content sources to regularly generate content.

Thus, the website content management process will be like your other business processes, such as financial accounting, sales, human resource management, and so on.

Important: As content creation is an uphill task, don’t expect content quality on your site through this internal makeshift arrangement. Gradually, you can allocate sufficient budget for content services and hire a good agency after proper evaluation for creating content for your site.

Moreover, just making an internal process is not enough. Now, you need to run this process by feeding it with the right content for your website. Primarily, there are four types of content that you can create for your site and keep it fresh.

These are: 1. Static Content It’s about your company, its products and services, key people, contacts, etc. While this content will rarely change, you should keep it in a structured format on your site so that it’s easy for site visitors to navigate and access the important information they want.

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2. Activity-Based Content This content is dynamic in nature, as it depends on the field activity in which you participate. For example, if you participate in an exhibition to display your products, you can create multiple content components on this participation.

This may include pictures or videos of your exhibition booth where you displayed your products, about your interaction with the visitors, panoramic view of the exhibition hall, etc. You can even create content reports on internal soirees for your own staff, your manufacturing processes, clients’ visits in your company, your new tie-ups, and so on. There are many other ways you can create such dynamic content for your site.

3. Allied Content This content is about the industry in which you operate. There may be a possibility that you don’t have activity-based content as described above because you didn’t participate in any activity.

But you can still create content.

Suppose you run a hotel. You can write a general article about trends in the hotel industry just to educate the travelers. It could be about a “green hotel” or tips for travelers when they book hotels online. Similarly, a garments manufacturer can write about the fashion trends.

If these are original and informative articles about your line of business, people will come to read them and your site will keep humming with activity while subtly promoting your brand.

4. Creative Content This content may comprise engaging components such as short films, animations, mobile or social games, etc. around your brand. It can be delivered through your website. As this content is very expensive, initially you can avoid doing it.

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But when you realize that buyers’ engagement is increasing on your site, you should make a plan to put creative content on your site to attract more buyers’ eyeballs to promote your brand all across the world.

The content approach described above can help you keep your site alive. Depending on the nature of content, you can either keep it under the main sections of the site or you can create a separate section in the form of a blog on which your allied content can reside.

But remember, when you add fresh content to any section of the site, just put an introduction about that content on the site’s homepage because it’s the most frequently visited page of your site. The idea is to maintain a regular traffic on your site by offering fresh content to the visitors.

So, never leave your site unattended and let it grow with the regular content supply. Let it talk to your buyers, as a dumb website can be more harmful than helpful for your brand.

Startup India Portal Hosts Ease of Doing Business Challenge The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi​, launched the Ease of Doing Business Grand Challenge at an event in Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi. The objective of this challenge is to invite innovative ideas based on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Blockchain, Internet of Things, and other cutting-edge technology to reform Government processes.

The platform for the Grand Challenge is the Startup India​ portal​.

Addressing the gathering on this occasion, the Prime Minister complimented industry representatives and all others present, for their efforts in improving India’s ranking in “Ease of Doing Business (EoDB).”

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He said today small entrepreneurs can do business more easily, and simple things like getting an electricity connection have got easier. He said that in the last four years, more than 1400 archaic laws have been repealed.

The Prime Minister exhorted the gathering to work towards achieving the target of a Top 50 position in EoDB rankings. He said that it is necessary to reduce human intervention in processes, and increase the use of modern and digital technologies. He said that a work culture based on this, will further promote policy-driven governance. ​Photo: Startup India

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Innovative Digital Solutions for an Accessible Europe The ITU-EC Forum for Europe on "Accessible Europe: ICT for ALL" will take place in Vienna, Austria, from 12 to 14 December 2018.

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This regional event for Europe is being jointly organized by the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and European Commission (EC), and hosted by United Nations Vienna.

Accessible Europe is held within the framework of the implementation of the Regional Initiative for Europe on Accessibility, affordability and skills development for all to ensure digital inclusion and sustainable development.

The ITU and EC have joined efforts to encourage governments, industry, academia and other stakeholders to promote ICT accessibility in order to create fair and equal opportunities for all people.

SaaS Startup Syndio Closes $5.2 Million Seed Round Syndio Solutions announced that Maria Colacurcio has been named chief executive officer (CEO) with the closing of a $5.2 million seed round.

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Syndio, which offers an enterprise SaaS solution for addressing fair compensation, empowers organizations to find and fix pay equity issues and stay in compliance over time.

Colacurcio formerly co-founded Smartsheet, a Bellevue, Washington-based company that went public last April. At Smartsheet, she served as the vice president of marketing & communications. She is also a former Starbucks Corporation director, who focused on enterprise-wide operations in Finance.

Maria Colacurcio. Photo: Syndio

"Fair pay is a crucial workplace issue," said Colacurcio. "Women and other disadvantaged groups continue to be paid less than comparable men. I'm joining Syndio because I've been on the receiving end of pay equity disparities and I want to help employers address these problems for people of every race and gender."

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Syndio raised $5.2 million in a seed round with major investors Sirius Partners, Contour Venture Partners, and Frontier Venture Capital.

Syndio helps organizations find pay equity issues, fix them with both non-economic and economic adjustments identified by the application, and stay in compliance over time as organizations promote and hire people.

Syndio is an early stage startup with employees in New York, California, and Washington.

EIT Digital Innovation Days Tour 2018 in Europe EIT Digital Innovation Days Tour 2018 invites emerging companies to get insights into the latest trends in digital transformation and Deep Tech innovations made in Europe.

The tour allows participants to meet and collaborate with deep tech experts, entrepreneurs, and innovators from all over Europe to share their perspectives and insights on the future of digital economy.

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EIT Digital is a leading European digital innovation and entrepreneurial education organization driving Europe’s digital transformation. It delivers digital innovations to the market and supports entrepreneurial talent for economic growth and improved quality of life in Europe.

The organization mobilizes a pan-European ecosystem of almost 200 top European corporations, SMEs, startups, universities, and research institutes.

As a Knowledge and Innovation Community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, EIT Digital is focused on entrepreneurship. It has a pan-European network of co-location centres in Berlin, Eindhoven, Helsinki, London, Paris, Stockholm, Trento, as well as in Budapest and Madrid. It also has a hub in Silicon Valley.

India-Taiwan SME Development Forum in Taipei Arun Kumar Panda, secretary micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in India, led an Indian delegation in the India-Taiwan SME Development Forum held at Taipei, Taiwan from 13th to 17th November, 2018.

In his opening remarks at the Forum, Panda said the MSME sector in India occupies a position of strategic importance. Currently, he said, there are over 63 million MSMEs across various industries that employ more than 111 million persons and produce more than 8,000 products, ranging from traditional to high-tech precision items.

He said MSME is the second largest employment generating sector after agriculture. Talking about the initiatives taken by Government of India under Startup India program, he said to promote a culture of entrepreneurship, programs like ‘Startup India’ and ‘Standup India’ have been launched and have resulted in India having the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world with more than 26,000 startups.

Speaking about integrating the Indian MSMEs with the regional and global value chain, he said that there is a lot of potential for cooperation in MSME sector between India and Taiwan.

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India-Taiwan SME Development Forum in Taipei. Photo: PIB

Panda added that India welcomes investment both in terms of technology transfers and FDI by Taiwanese companies in India with Indian SMEs. Sectors like electronics, auto-components, textiles, automobiles, bamboo industry, in which Taiwan has largest concentration, are of special interest to India, he said.

India-UK FutureTech Festival in Delhi The India-UK FutureTech Festival for business engagement and tech thought-leadership will be held in New Delhi on 12 December 2018. Organized by Liverpool City Region (LCR), it is inviting Indian and British tech companies to grow their business in the Region.

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The event is expected to attract over 100 UK and Indian tech companies that will explore the global business potential in areas such as future healthcare, future transport, fintech, and cyber security.

As a premier UK investment destination, LCR is stated to be a part of the fifth largest economy in the world, with access to 65 million potential consumers. LCR claims that the UK attracts more foreign investment than any other European country and is the easiest European country to do business with, according to the World Bank.

As part of the UK, LCR says it also benefits from the lowest corporation tax in the G20, lower labour costs than businesses in Germany, France, and Italy, and a 230% tax relief on research and development costs.

Along with attending the India-UK FutureTech Festival, LCR delegation will attend three trade missions, spread across New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.

Digital Marketing Services Business is Marketing…Marketing is Content​. In today’s information-driven world, it’s not possible to manage any business without the right content, delivered to the right people, at the right time, using the right communication channels.

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With this belief, Raman Media Network (RMN) Company - the publisher of ​TechWise Today - offers to provide its Digital Marketing Services to SMBs. These services are packaged under our iManager brand, which is a combination of content creation and communications using digital media channels.

With specialization in digital media, RMN Company has provided its digital marketing programs to hundreds of companies in India – in association with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).

While our current rates are $75 USD per person-hour, you can contact us to hire our digital marketing services under a retainer arrangement if you have a minimum annual budget of $60,000 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) for these services.

Business and trade associations in all parts of the world can also contact us for digital marketing training programs for groups of their members. The price for training programs is $1,500 USD per day. [ A ​ ll prices are excluding taxes and other actual costs.​ ] Contact​: Rakesh Raman, Raman Media Network (RMN) Company, 463, DPS Apts., Plot No. 16 Sector 4, Dwarka, Phase I, New Delhi 110 078, INDIA, ​Contact by email

European Commission Hosts Young Leaders of Industry Forum The European Commission has planned its first Young Leaders of Industry Forum that will take place under the annual 'EU Industry Days' event, on 5-6 February 2019 in Brussels.

The Young Leaders of Industry Forum aims to attract young people and talents to industrial careers and engage them in discussion on the future of EU industry.

The Young Leaders of Industry Forum will be comprised of 2 main parts:

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Day 1​: An interactive forum related to key themes for the future of European industry (globalization, sustainability, digitization, and innovation).

Day 2​: Participants will be split into teams to deliberate on the main missions of European industry in relation to the economy, society, and local communities. All teams will then have the opportunity to present their conclusions to the main Industry Day participants.

The deadline for​ applications​ was Friday 30th November 2018.

Advertise on TechWise Today

TechWise Today is a digital magazine of Raman Media Network (RMN) Company which is working in diversified content creation, management, and distribution businesses on a global scale. Among other activities, the company runs 4 global news sites. These are:

Raman Media Network – General Global News Site [ w ​ ww.ramanmedianetwork.com​ ] RMN Digital – Global Technology News Site [ w ​ ww.rmndigital.com​ ] RMN Stars – Global Entertainment News Site [ w ​ ww.rmnstars.com​ ] RMN Kids – Edutainment Site for Kids [ ​www.rmnkids.com​ ]

RMN Company offers the following advertising and marketing options to organizations on TechWise Today​.

Full-Page Ad​ (per issue): US$ 1,500 (one thousand five hundred USD) or equivalent

Half-Page Ad​ (per issue): US$ 800 (eight hundred USD) or equivalent

Custom ad options can be discussed.

Article Hosting​: The client’s article of up to 800 words with an external link can be published on ​TechWise Today for $500 USD per article per link. The article will be written by the client.

However, if the client wants us (RMN Company) to write the article for them, the client will pay an additional amount of $400 USD for an article of up to 800 words. [ ​All prices are excluding taxes and other actual costs.​ ]

Contact Rakesh Raman Raman Media Network (RMN) Company, 463, DPS Apts., Plot No. 16, Sector 4, Dwarka, Phase I, New Delhi 110 078, INDIA. C ​ ontact by email

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Atlanta Small Business TV Show to Educate Entrepreneurs Atlanta Small Business Network (ASBN) was created to be a multimedia resource to the growing small business communities in and around Georgia's capital. The network provides information on business startup, technology, franchise, marketing, customer experience, leadership, legal, finance, and more.

Photo: ASBN

Broadcasting from ASBN's studios in Norcross, Georgia, the online media platform will deliver in-depth interviews with local entrepreneurs, and thought-leaders, a daily edition of the Atlanta Small Business Show, expert hosted business shows, business articles, event listings, and coverage, and the latest news that affects small business.

ASBN's goal is to keep metro Atlanta entrepreneurs and small business owners informed, help them better serve the consumers of the city, and contribute to Atlanta's growing economy.

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In addition to ASBN's current offerings, in 2019 the network plans to expand which will include the launch of a magazine, business events, and a 30-minute TV program titled Atlanta Small Business Show to be aired on Atlanta's CBS46 and its sister station Peachtree TV.

Marketing Agents

TechWise Today invites marketing professionals and ad agencies to work as its marketing agents on commission basis for selling ads and generating more revenue streams.

Contact by email

Tech4Future Grand Challenge Tech4Future Grand Challenge - launched by Invest India and SoftBank - is looking for the next big idea in Deep Technology such as Artificial Intelligence (​AI​), Machine Learning (ML), Facial Recognition, and Cyber Security.

The challenge is open to all Indian startups that have built a product across any of these areas.

Interested startups may fill in the application form and provide all required details.

An evaluation committee will review the details filled in by the startups and would select the top startup based on the novelty of its solutions, scalability, and impact potential.

The selected startups will get an opportunity to win $50,000 and incubation support for 2-3 months in Japan. The offer is valid till December 31, 2018 and results will be declared on January 31, 2019. ​Photo: Startup India

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Meet the Editor The editor of ​TechWise Today magazine ​Rakesh Raman is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. Besides working at senior editorial positions with leading media companies, he was writing an exclusive edit-page tech business column regularly for The Financial Express (a daily business newspaper of The Indian Express Group).

Nowadays, for the past over 7 years, he has been running his own global news services on different subjects. He is also the founder of a humanitarian organization ​RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.

Earlier, he had been associated with the United Nations (UN) through United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as a digital media expert to help businesses use technology for brand marketing and business development.

Contact

Rakesh Raman Raman Media Network (RMN) Company 463, DPS Apts., Plot No. 16, Sector 4, Dwarka, Phase I New Delhi 110 078, INDIA C ​ ontact by email

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