Forbes India - Tech Conversations

Our guest today is Sanjay Swamy, managing partner at the VC firm Prime Venture Partners which has backed several well known Indian startups from an early stage. In this episode, Sanjay talks about how things will get tougher ahead for Indian startups, but also about how it’s an opportunity for everyone to ignore the chimaera of the unicorn status and focus on real value creation by solving important problems for businesses and consumers alike.

(00:43) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

Prime Venture Partners

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Our guest today is Anand Anandkumar, CEO and MD of Bugworks Research, a clinical phase drug discovery company that is attempting to develop a new class of antibiotics to tackle what’s called ‘antimicrobial resistance,’ arising out of infectious bugs evolving to become resistant to multiple drugs. In this episode, Anand talks about the many challenges of commercialising scientific breakthroughs from India. He also talks about the opportunity for this country to become a biotech powerhouse.

(00:36) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

Our Guests today are Ritesh Arora and Nakul Aggarwal, co-founders of BrowserStack. In this episode, Ritesh and Nakul talk about doubling in size every 18-24 months, blasting past the $100 million revenue mark, and the ambition to make their platform the default place for everyone to test their applications on the cloud. They also talk about the need for better governance among startups that are flush with “insane” amounts of funding.

Our guest today is Jesper Andersen, president and CEO of Infoblox, a leader in enterprise security in the area known as DDI, which combines DNS, DHCP and IP address management — three important sets of rules that govern how devices connect and talk to each other on the internet. In this episode, Jesper talks about how the old security model of perimeter defence is breaking down as cloud computing becomes the norm, especially after the pandemic.

Notes:

(00:40) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:51) Our guest today — Jesper Andersen, CEO of Infoblox

(01:44) A brief history of Infoblox

(03:41) A snapshot of Jesper’s career in tech and enterprise security

(06:22) DDI — what it means and its significance

(09:55) Infoblox’s best-known products and solutions

(12:28) On the scale of Infoblox’s operations

(14:36) How the internet has been changing in recent years, and its implications for enterprise security

(19:42) The biggest shifts in how companies are using technology after the Covid pandemic

(24:28) Cyber terrorism as a lucrative business — a challenge for security technology companies

(27:22) On the rollout of 5G, IoT and AI

(30:14) Infoblox’s India centres

More on Jesper Andersen

https://www.infoblox.com/company/leadership/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Mahesh Palashikar, President of GE South Asia, who leads the company’s operations in this region in areas including aviation, power, renewable energy and healthcare. In this episode, Palashikar talks about India’s ambitious climate goals, and why everyone — from governments and corporate businesses down to individual consumers — needs to significantly step up their efforts, if we are to meet those targets.

Notes:

(00:39) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation — The Big Picture episodes

(01:04) Our guest today — Mahesh Palashikar, President, GE South Asia

(02:02) A snapshot of GE’s presence in India

(04:56) Some thoughts on how GE is attempting to develop technologies for a decarbonised future

(08:01) Examples of developments in tech in different segments

(12:46) About the legacy problems of existing power plants and distribution networks

(16:25) On the challenge of coal-based power and emissions

(19:41) Moving towards sustainability with solar, wind and hybrid technologies

(23:51) What India’s climate goals will mean in practical terms for everyone

(28:36) Reasons for optimism and causes for concern

(32:12) Reality check

More about Mahesh Palashikar

https://www.ge.com/in/about-us/leadership/functional-executive

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guests today are Ezhil Subbian and Vinod Kumar, co-founders of String Bio, in Bengaluru which is developing multiple products with applications ranging from animal nutrition to sustainable personal care products. In this episode, Ezhil and Vinod talk about plans for String Bio’s next phase of growth as a full-stack tech company — from the bioengineering tools to multiple commercial products.

Our guest today is Samir Bodas, co-founder and CEO of Icertis, a SaaS specialist in the area of contract lifecycle management. In this episode, Samir talks about how CLM is moving from a good-to-have technology to a must-have system of record, as the world’s biggest companies negotiate complex agreements on the cloud, turning to AI to identify opportunities and risks in those contract.

Notes:

(00:41) Intro to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:51) Our guest today — Samir Bodas, co-founder and CEO, Icertis

(01:39) Catching up on the last 12 months, Covid’s impact on people and the business

(04:55) What Icertis is doing with the hybrid workplace model

(09:05) 2021, a record year for Icertis

(15:43) How CLM is moving from good-to-have to must-have … as a new system of record

(20:46) On AI in the CLM solutions at Icertis

(24:50) Industry-specific solutions — the opportunity

(27:54) What will CLM and Icertis look like in three to five years

(31:05) A more IP-based company with deeper domain expertise than ever before

(33:18) No Code and Icertis’s AI Studio

(35:25) The evolving global talent pool in tech

(40:26) SaaS talent in India today compared with three years ago

(43:26) How Icertis’ GTM needs are changing with growth and scale

(47:02) On the importance of partnerships

More on Samir Bodas

https://www.icertis.com/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guest today is Kelly Forbes, executive director at AI Asia Pacific Institute, in Singapore, a young interdisciplinary research organisation and think tank focused on artificial intelligence and technology policy. In this episode, Kelly talks about how, as the application of AI penetrates every walk of life, figuring out ways to build ‘trustworthy AI’ has become urgent.

(00:40) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:52) Our guest today — Kelly Forbes, executive director, AI Asia Pacific Institute

(01:42) About the AI Asia Pacific Institute and Kelly’s work

(05:52) What ‘Trustworthy AI’ is, and why it’s important

(10:23) Thoughts on the current state of policy work on AI in different parts of the world

(16:27) A bit about the Singapore experience

(18:15) What’s the big picture?

(23:27) On how Covid influenced tech and thoughts on applying AI as a response to the changes that have come about

(27:19) Thoughts on what Kelly is optimistic about and what concerns her

More about Kelly Forbes

https://aiasiapacific.org/our-team/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds

Our guests today are Deepti Prasad and Sanjay Kumar, a wife and husband team that pivoted from a wedding events business to build Spyne, a startup that offers an AI-based instant studio-in-the-cloud to India’s biggest ecommerce companies. In this episode, Deepti and Sanjay talk about the strong traction for their product — with customers including Amazon India, Flipkart and OLACars — and plans ahead, after a recent funding round led by Accel.

(00:41) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

More about Spyne

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Our guest today is Prakash Ramamurthy, chief product officer at Freshworks. Forbes India caught up with Prakash last week after he announced a new tailor-made CRM version that small businesses can find on Shopify’s app store. In this episode, he talks about how getting and using these softwares is as easy as installing an app on a smartphone.

(00:40) Introduction to The Daily Tech Conversation

(00:52) Our guest today — Prakash Ramamurthy, chief product officer at Freshworks

(01:28) A quick backgrounder on Prakash

(02:34) New CRM versions for small businesses in ecommerce and on Shopify

(07:38) More on how these products will be useful to small businesses

(08:53) As easy as installing an app on a smartphone

(09:57) On increasing automation in CRM

(15:16) More to come, by way of specific solutions

(17:30) On how Neo, Freshworks’s unified platform is evolving

(20:22) What people are looking for today, in a CRM

(26:00) Conversational AI and its application within an organisation

More about Prakash Ramamurthy

https://www.freshworks.com/company/leadership/

Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds