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The History and Evolution of Digital Marketing

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

The History and Evolution of Digital Marketing

In a world where over 170 million people use social media on a regular basis, every working professional is expected to be familiar with at least the core tenets of Digital Marketing. In simple terms, Digital Marketing is the promotion of products over the internet or any form of electronic media. According to the Digital Marketing Institute, “Digital Marketing is the use of digital channels to promote or market products and services to targeted consumers and businesses.”

People are consuming digital content on a daily basis. Very soon, traditional marketing platforms will disappear, and the digital market will completely take over. There are a number of advantages in Digital Marketing. Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing is more affordable.

You can reach a larger audience in a shorter time period. Technological advances have resulted in considerable attrition of the customer-base of traditional marketing agencies & departments. People have moved on to tablets, phones, and computers, which are the areas where digital marketers have gained the most ground.

The term Digital Marketing was first used in the 1990s. The digital age took off with the coming of the internet and the development of the Web 1.0 platform. The Web 1.0 platform allowed users to find the information they wanted but did not allow them to share this information over the web. Up until then, marketers worldwide were still unsure of the digital platform. They were not sure if their strategies would work since the internet had not yet seen widespread deployment.

In 1993, the first clickable banner went live, after which HotWired purchased a few banner ads for their advertising. This marked the beginning of the transition to the digital era of marketing. Because of this gradual shift, the year 1994 saw new technologies enter the digital marketplace. The very same year, Yahoo was launched.

Also known as “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” after its founder Jerry Yang, Yahoo received close to 1 million hits within the first year. This prompted wholesale changes in the digital marketing space, with companies optimizing their websites to pull in higher search engine rankings. 1996 saw the launch of a couple of more search engines and tools like HotBot, LookSmart, and Alexa.

1998 saw the birth of Google. Microsoft launched the MSN search engine and Yahoo brought to the market Yahoo web search. Two years later, the internet bubble burst and all the smaller search engines were either left behind or wiped out leaving more space for the giants in the business. The digital marketing world saw its first steep surge in 2006 when search engine traffic was reported to have grown to about 6.4 billion in a single month. Not one to get left behind, Microsoft put MSN on the backburner and launched Live Search to compete with Google and Yahoo.

Then came Web 2.0, where people became more active participants rather than remain passive users. Web 2.0 allowed users to interact with other users and businesses. Labels like ‘super information highway’ began to be applied to the internet. As a result, information flow volumes –including channels utilized by digital marketers- increased manifold, and by 2004, internet advertising and marketing in the US alone brought in around $2.9 billion.

Soon, social networking sites began to emerge. MySpace was the first social networking site to arrive, soon followed by Facebook. Many companies realized all these fresh new sites that were popping up were beginning to open new doors of opportunities to market their products and brands. It opened fresh avenues for business and signaled the beginning of a new chapter to business. With new resources, they needed new approaches to promote their brands & capitalize on the social networking platform.

The cookie was another important milestone in the digital marketing industry. Advertisers had begun to look for other ways to capitalize on the fledgling technology. One such technique was to track common browsing habits and usage patterns of frequent users of the internet so as to tailor promotions and marketing collateral to their tastes. The first cookie was designed to record user-habits. The use of the cookie has changed over the years, and cookies today are coded to offer marketers a variety of ways to collect literal user data.

Products marketed digitally are now available to customers at all times. Statistics collected by the Marketingtechblog for 2014 show that posting on social media is the top online activity in the US. The average American spends 37 minutes a day on social media. 99% of digital marketers use Facebook to market, 97% use Twitter, 69% use Pinterest and 59% use Instagram. 70% of B2C marketers have acquired customers through Facebook. 67% of Twitter users are far more likely to buy from brands that they follow on Twitter. 83.8% of luxury brands have a presence on Pinterest. The top three social networking sites used by marketers are LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

The digital market is in a constant state of flux. A Digital Marketing professional must find ways to keep up with this change. They need to be able to keep an eye out for emerging trends and the development of newer and smarter Search Engine Algorithms. After all, nobody can afford to get left behind in this race.

Check out our Digital Marketing Course sensing an opportunity, Google began to expand, introducing such products as AdWords, which are 3 line ads that show up at the top or to the right of search engine results, and AdSense -which is a cost-per-click advertising scheme. In time, Google realized the value of analyzing the content they received and then target ads based on the interests of the users, and thus became a major player in the world of business.

Join our webinar with bestselling author and email expert Matt Bailey and gain a refresher on what email activities are ethical, borderline, or illegal, especially a year into the mandate for GDPR compliance.

Here is a video explaining how can you become a Digital Marketing Specialist. Hope you find it beneficial.

[“source=simplilearn”]

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Online Marketing

Why Digital Transformation Is Crucial for Marketing and Sales Alignment

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Why Digital Transformation is More Important Today Than Ever Before - Treehouse Tech Group

Any time we look to change the status quo, there will be roadblocks, hurdles, and growing pains. But when it comes to aligning internal organizations in marketing and sales (and customer service), the struggle can pay off hugely. But no organization and no leadership should be looking to make these changes and shift internal processes without looking to how it can be done most effectively and efficiently – that’s a no-brainer. This is why digital transformation is not only critical for successful marketing and sales alignment, but it should in fact be a primary focus – then the alignment will come more easily.

Digital transformation means better customer insights

At last month’s Adobe Experience Maker’s Live virtual event, Chris Parkin, Senior Director at Adobe walked us through “Redefining the Future with Digital Transformation”. In his presentation, he showed us how Adobe is adapting through new digital technologies and approaches, and how other Adobe customers are as well.

In his first point, he showed how digital transformation allows for a “deeper understanding of the customer,” discussing that in doing so, we can identify “specific customers and audience segments, understand behavior, and anticipate actions.” This, in turn, allows us to “use data to generate actionable insights and improve customer outcomes.”

So what does this mean in terms of marketing and sales alignment? Well for starters, we can better track customer journeys from (MQLs) to SQLs to SALs. This allows us to see patterns, and then make predictions which can help us to do more aligned activities from how we build website/digital sales funnels and email marketing campaigns, to how we can more accurately identify the activities that lead to conversions through all stages of the journey.

This makes the handoff of a prospect between marketing and sales seamless. When we have the tools to measure what our prospects and customers are doing, what they may need, and what their intentions are, we can more accurately service them and allocate resources and time from the appropriate department in ways that aren’t putting our teams into the competition. Instead, real-time digital touchpoints and customer insights can help us to foster a more solid partnership as we work together towards common goals in conversions.

Digital transformation means accurate content delivery

Another theme throughout the Experience Maker’s Live event was content. Now, more than ever, content is at the center of how you service prospects and customers, showcase your company’s knowledge and insights, and motivate stronger customer relationships and trust.

But it’s not enough to just produce content. You may have a hypothesis about what your customers may want and need, but most importantly, digital transformation allows you to not only know for sure what your customers are looking for, but it helps you deliver that content exactly when they need it.

In Chris’ second point, he discussed “Agile Communications” for modern businesses, which underscores the need to “increase proactive, personalized and timely communications aligned to customer and employee context” which is based on segment, need, and location, to name a few. The results? “Increase employee engagement and customer retention.”

Especially in our current economy and with the limitations we are facing, digital delivery of highly relevant and personalized content can make or break your success with a prospect or customer, and this accounts for all stages of the customer journey. It’s not just marketing’s job to create digital assets for lead generation and nurturing for sales, when sales need to increasingly provide accurate content to help customers all the way through the decision making process.

Digital tools like Marketo Engage help marketing and sales teams track the content that has been shared with prospects and customers. They also help establish clear next steps, answer questions in a timely way, and provide exceptional service even before the purchase has been made. This again allows for alignment internally in ways that see all employees in customer-centric roles supporting each other in enabling the customer through useful, relevant, and timely content.

Digital transformation means creating new ways of working

You’ve likely heard the term “unprecedented times” so much recently that you’re sick of it. But it is one of the best ways to describe what we’re collectively going through: A widespread fundamental shift in not only how we do business, but how we work. Most of us are learning as we go, adapting on the fly, and finding out through rapid trial and error what works and what doesn’t. And while we’re busy finding the new norm in our own work lives, our customers are experiencing the same. The companies that embrace digital transformation, are the ones who are continuing to succeed.

In another of Chris’ points, he described the “new ways of working” in which we must “leverage remote collaboration, workflows, and meeting platforms.” He also said we need to “use common tools to democratize data, content publishing and leverage AI for scale.”

When it comes to marketing and sales alignment, this becomes blatantly apparent. Collaboration is imperative for success, and gatekeeping, while it may have happened before, cannot stand. Organizations who are able to efficiently move all operations online can see an increase in communication channels when the usual in-person, informal channels are unavailable. But perhaps this is a good thing. We can see how digital transformation of marketing and sales alignment allows for a more tightly run ship: less information slips through the cracks, accountability is more difficult to run from, and unified systems and tools ensures everyone is on the same page.

While digital transformation is nothing new, our current time has forced many of us to speed up adoption in ways we could have never anticipated. But rather than fear the change, or struggle to adapt, we should look to how it actually enables us to achieve important internal milestones, especially when it comes to marketing and sales alignment.

[“source=blog.marketo”]

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Online Marketing

What is Conversational Advertising and Why Should You Care?

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Conversational commerce 101: What you need to know | Sprout Social

Conversational advertising is a powerful tool in modern marketing that enhances the user experience and helps brands get more sales conversions online.

Learn how to incorporate conversational marketing online by using the tools and techniques of the most advanced technological enterprises. And how to plan into a better conversational marketing approach.

Below, we’re covering things conversational marketing does so you can take advantage of this advanced strategy and increase your profits.

Conversational advertising refers to the use of chatbots to advertise and share information about a product. It means utilizing all the communications leading up to sales to have meaningful conversations advertising a product or service.

What is Conversational Advertising?

Conversational advertising describes the way buyers navigate a brand’s marketing and sales funnels along their customer journey using real-time interactions and consumer engagement.

More commonly conversational marketing refers to both live and automated chat tools embedded into a website that website visitors can use to ask questions and learn more about the brand and their products or services to enhance the customer experience.

Quality, helpful conversations within the sales process tick all of the following boxes:

  • They provide real value to the consumer
  • They are not disruptive of the consumer’s daily life or routines
  • They are respectful of both the consumer’s attention and their time

This is the basic framework by which conversational advertising functions. It provides value within a short amount of time in an engaging way that doesn’t disrupt the equilibrium of the consumer’s life.

Over time, both live sales reps and automated chatbots build relationships to create genuine experiences with consumers and buyers, making the buying process a whole lot easier.

Chatbots use targeted messaging and meaningful conversation to encourage qualified leads to connect with you when they arrive at your site. Kissing goodbye to endless waiting days and capturing forms customers used to fill.

Making it easier for your customers to engage with your business will improve your customer relationship and cause more leads quickly.

Typically, a conversational marketing strategy in a business setting has two methods to choose from. The most common types of conversational marketing examples you’ll see employed by brands today include:

  • Live sales agents – A sales team may spend time on the website having unique conversations with website visitors using conversation marketing over messaging apps to enhance customer engagement as well as boost conversions with targeted messages.
  • Automated conversations – Automated chatbots can send conversational display ads to website visitors through a messaging tool like Facebook messenger, a chat plugin on the website, or a mobile app using natural language processing and artificial intelligence to create personalized customer interactions.

Together, or separate, these marketing tools enable customers to make decisions based on personalized sales conversations that most users won’t even realize are ads.

How Conversational Advertising Can Support Your Brand – And How It’s Changing Consumer Behavior

Before you implement it in your own strategy, it’s critical to fully understand the impact of conversational marketing.

Brands measure advertising in several ways: impact on brand awareness, click-through rate, cost-per-click, and an endless chain of other KPIs and benchmarks. However, those measures don’t tie directly to the interactions consumers have with their brands.

Conversational marketing helps develop a solid, firm foundation for more accurate metrics that show what impression a brand is truly capable of leaving.

The process takes the guesswork out of measuring the individual performance of different campaigns and sets the stage for brands to continue these significant conversations throughout the company’s entire customer experience.

The entire concept of conversational marketing has its roots in the idea of giving a unique customer experience to each site visitor from the first step of your sales. Whether through a sales team or automated chatbots, each person is getting a one-of-a-kind conversation.

Traditional mass media messaging is typically one-way. Even inbound requires the setting up of the forms and the hassle of tracking down leads.

Digital advertising allows for more personalization, but neither offers the relevance to the user that conversational advertising can provide. They still feel forced, unnatural, and “salesy,” if you will. On the other hand, conversational marketing examples are hard to notice when you’re one of the qualified leads the marketing intends to reach.

With a little help from AI and automation, brands can achieve this natural, conversational marketing tactic at scale allowing meaningful, one-to-one connections with customers and exceeding traditional outcome measures to stand out by creating new metrics of greater value and relevance.

How Conversational Marketing is Changing Consumer Behavior

Both new and existing customers alike have quickly gotten hooked on automated chat platforms. They are more flexible and faster than call queues, offer more direct answers than browsing the website alone, and can help customers help themselves through self-service.

Some people also love messaging because it helps to maintain their pace, whether at work or in life, and helps them feel like they’re having a conversation, not answering an email, or performing research.

In a survey from Twilio, 66% of respondents said they prefer using instead of the brands reaching out through messaging apps.

Having your sales team use a chat platform to talk with web visitors online, utilizing Facebook messenger to answer questions from potential customers, or integrating mobile apps are all easy ways to implement a conversational strategy into your marketing plan.

Its Benefits to B2B

Right now, the buying process for B2B businesses is especially cold and impersonal, making it harder for buyers to get the ball rolling. Conversational marketing is helping build relationships and create authentic experiences with customers and buyers, even B2B ones.

Benefits of Conversational Advertising

A sophisticated and thoughtful conversational marketing approach can help your business create personalized customer experiences through real-time responses, engaging conversations, and ethical data collection.

As you develop a conversational marketing strategy for your brand, try to design it with these benefits in mind:

Build Trust

When you use conversational marketing, you create memorable personalized experiences that can help to build trust between the consumer and brand more quickly. Without as much lead-up time in the sales cycle, you’ll shorten the total length and ultimately improve sales.

Yet, even with these company-facing benefits, conversational marketing also shifts the focus to fulfilling customer needs and makes them feel more considered.

Reduce Friction

Conversational marketing can also help consumers engage directly with the brand to reduce friction during the buying process. Instant responses to questions when they arise keeps frustration at a minimum. No forms to fill out or waiting for an answer.

Digital solutions like AI chatbots keep customers off of call queues, helping them find the answers and the information they need almost instantaneously, a benefit that’s worth a lot in a world of increasing self-service tools.

Improve Customer Satisfaction

Personalized conversations improve user satisfaction by delivering a thoughtful and consistent experience at every point of interaction within the buying process. Empowering them to interact directly with your AI chatbot also increases their brand confidence and loyalty.

First-Party Data Collection Opportunity

In a world where data and privacy have become ever so important, being able to extract valuable insights without the use of third-party data gives any business a major advantage.

Personalized conversation through conversational AI allows a business to ask customers questions directly, extracting valuable data and storing it for later use to develop future marketing strategies.

Conversational marketing is one of the easiest ways to gather this data, as it allows the customers to come to you, rather than having to chase them down through forms or emails.

Save Time

Marketing activities require a lot of time and energy put forth by the sales team, but conversational marketing can both reduce time requirements while increasing capabilities.

Conversational marketing can shorten the sales cycle by helping consumers make more educated, empowered, and informed decisions. This shortens the time it takes for them to make that decision, thus reducing the average time to make a profit.

It also saves time for the business, allowing them to focus on more pressing matters like social media, email strategy, and large campaigns.

Effortless Business Scaling

One of the biggest benefits of conversational marketing is the fact that all of these incredible, personalized conversational experiences can happen in the background 24/7 without the need for an actual sales agent present.

Many businesses have used this benefit to scale their brands with minimal effort, in a way that wasn’t possible previously. Conversational marketing exists beyond office hours, beyond human labor, and yet adds a personal touch to any marketing strategy.

Creating Your Conversational Marketing Strategy

Rather than create an entirely new conversational marketing strategy full of new digital initiatives, it’s pretty easy to find ways to incorporate conversational marketing within your existing framework.

Like many brands, you can use conversational marketing by adding an automated chatbox option on your website. This is usually the first thing companies think of. however, a conversational marketing strategy exists to support and amplify the systems and strategies you already have in place.

For example, you could start utilizing Facebook chat more to help customers with questions. You can provide canned answers that the chat will provide based on the questions asked.

You could also use a tool like Drift, a popular automated chat tool, to connect real, human sales agents with customers online to provide an enhanced experience when possible.

Even still, conversational marketing is a broad term that refers to much more than just chat boxes, machine learning, and bots.

You can incorporate more conversational marketing by creating CTAs on your blog posts that encourage readers to reach out, or by opening your social media DMs to customer service inquiries.

Questions to Ask To Get Started

Need help kicking things off with your conversational marketing strategy? Start by asking yourself these questions about your business and your existing customers:

  • Who is showing interest in our product or service?
  • How are these people engaging with our company? Online? Social media? Email?
  • Where did these potential buyers come from?
  • What are they looking to get out of your conversation?
  • How can we better engage people, meet their needs, build trust, and improve the customer experience?

Understanding your target buyer’s full-picture situation will help you target the best way to meet their needs.

Incorporating Conversational Advertising Into Marketing and Sales Funnels

Conversational marketing effortlessly fits into any marketing and sales funnel, because it moves them through these stages step by step, one question at a time. It works just the same as a real conversation would.

At first, a customer may be wary, with many objections. After qualifying the customer and addressing their unique objections, eventually, the customer will come to trust the person they’re speaking with and may move closer to saying “yes” and buying.

Chatbots do this flawlessly by storing information acquired from every question asked and answered and using this data to inform future responses and replies, creating a perfectly tailored conversation that can understand leads faster and more deeply.

Measuring Your Conversational Marketing Initiative

Conversational marketing success is best measured with a specific set of metrics. While other metrics may have worked well in other scenarios with different digital tools, you’ll want to incorporate the following metrics to best understand the impact of conversational marketing.

Length of Sales Cycle

The duration of the sales process is usually shorter when live chat or chatbots are on it. To measure this difference, calculate the average time spent using the conversational platform and how many of those conversations ended in a sale. If you’re getting more hourly sales through the bot than through other marketing tactics, you can realize sales efficiency.

NPS

NPS stands for net promoter score, which measures customer feelings and loyalty. The data for this metric usually comes from a follow-up question posed after conversations, like “How likely are you to recommend this product/service/company to a friend?”

Businesses with high scores are promoters for their own brands, while passives don’t add much and detractors actively take away from their sales success.

GCR

Goal completion rate measures the percentage of visitors that reached a certain goal, or conversion, during a live chat or while speaking with a chatbot. The conversion, goal, or action may be answering a question, booking a demo, or making a sale.

Final Thoughts

Conversational marketing has gone from a new kid on the marketing block to an integral part of any modern marketing strategy.

In a general sense, it brings the focus of advertising and marketing back to the consumer, directly engaging with them and extracting information about what they need and what they expect from brands used to better serve them.

When implementing your own conversational approach, try to find gaps in your strategy that you can substitute through genuine conversation. Take advantage of advanced tools such as AI and automation to take the responsibility off your sales agents, allowing them to focus on more pressing matters while bots work 24/7 through conversations.

But remember – the core here is the connection and trust created in every communication touchpoint.

Source:- ronsela

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Internet

Internet Usage Spikes In Villages, Rural India Laps Up YouTube, Facebook And Netflix

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Internet Usage Spikes In Villages As Rural India Chills On Netflix

Internet penetration in India has increased in the past few months, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown has also accelerated internet push in rural areas. According to data from CSC e-Governance Services, data consumption in BharatNet fibre backbone connected panchayats spiked to 150 Terabytes (TB) in May from just 55 TB in January.

Moreover, over 300K subscribers registered for a fibre-to-home connection under the BharatNet programme in March only. So far, 1.2 Mn users have subscribed to this WiFi facility offered by the government.

CEO of CSC e-Governance Services Dinesh Tyagi told Economic Times that with BharatNet being accessed by citizens through the common service centres, internet consumption in rural areas has increased significantly.

Tyagi credits the Covid-19 lockdown for this surge. He said, “The limitation imposed due to the Covid-19 lockdown has also led to the surge, this shows that there was significant pent up demand in rural areas which was unserved earlier.”

CSC e-Governance Services provides last-mile internet connectivity to rural India through the BharatNet network. It is connecting panchayats through the digital fibre network. “Since CSC has been made the custodian of last-mile operational issues, it has helped in the speedy roll-out and maintenance of the services,” Tyagi added.

CSC e-Governance Services had taken over this responsibility in July 2019 when only 22K gram panchayats were internet-enabled. “With close to 100,000 functional panchayats now, the last mile internet connectivity drive in rural areas have been accelerated through its Wi-Fi Choupal programme,” Tyagi said.

Rural India Chills On Netflix

Netflix is gaining more popularity in rural India as the country lives under lockdown. According to CSC data, YouTube was consumed the most by rural India, followed by Facebook and Netflix in March.

Interestingly, the growth of Netflix during this period stood at 422% as compared to January. The growth numbers for YouTube and Facebook stood at 219% and 374%, respectively. Besides these three, Amazon Prime, Instagram, Zoom, Webex and Twitter were among the top 10 popular applications in rural India during this period.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the eve of his government completing the first year of its second term, noted that the number of internet users in the country is more in rural areas than in cities. In an open letter, Modi said, “The government policies have led to bridging the gulf between urban and rural lives. For the first time, internet users in rural areas have outnumbered urban counterparts by 10%.”

source: inc42

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Blogging

Microsoft and AWS exchange poisoned pen blog posts in latest Pentagon JEDI contract spat

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Clash of the Titans

Microsoft and Amazon are at it again as the fight for the Defense Department JEDI contract continues. In a recent series of increasingly acerbic pronouncements, the two companies continue their ongoing spat over the $10 billion, decade-long JEDI contract spoils.

As you may recall (or not), last fall in a surprise move, the DoD selected Microsoft as the winning vendor in the JEDI winner-take-all cloud infrastructure sweepstakes. The presumed winner was always AWS, but when the answer finally came down, it was not them.

To make a very long story short, AWS took exception to the decision and went to court to fight it. Later it was granted a stay of JEDI activities between Microsoft and the DoD, which as you can imagine did not please Microsoft . Since then, the two companies have been battling in PR pronouncements and blog posts trying to get the upper hand in the war for public opinion.

That fight took a hard turn this week when the two companies really went at it in dueling blog posts after Amazon filed its latest protest.

First there was Microsoft with PR exec Frank Shaw taking exception to AWS’s machinations, claiming the company just wants a do-over:

This latest filing – filed with the DoD this time – is another example of Amazon trying to bog down JEDI in complaints, litigation and other delays designed to force a do-over to rescue its failed bid.

Amazon’s Drew Herdner countered in a blog post published this morning:

Recently, Microsoft has published multiple self-righteous and pontificating blog posts that amount to nothing more than misleading noise intended to distract those following the protest.

The bottom line is that Microsoft believes it won the contract fair and square with a more competitive bid, while Amazon believes it should have won on technical superiority, and that there was political interference from the president because he doesn’t like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.

If you’ve been following this story from the beginning (as I have), you know it has taken a series of twists and turns. It’s had lawsuits, complaints, drama and intrigue. The president has inserted himself into it, too. There have been accusations of conflicts of interest. There have been investigations, lawsuits and more investigations.

Government procurement tends to be pretty bland, but from the start when the DoD chose to use the cutesy Star Wars-driven acronym for this project, it has been anything but. Now it’s come down to two of the world’s largest tech companies exchanging angry blog posts. Sooner or later this is going to end right?

source: techcrunch

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Education

Foreign investment in the Indian Education Sector: Possibilities of growth and strength

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Foreign investment in the Indian education sector: Possibilities of growth and strength

Foreign investment in the Indian education sector: Possibilities of growth and strength

India is a treasure trove of inquisitive minds. With around 500 million of its citizens in the 5-24 year age bracket, the nation is home to the world’s largest population of the young. When such a huge expanse of its people is in a developing and growing phase of their lives, education has a huge role to play in there and the country’s growth.

When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stepped into the Parliament to deliver her speech on Budget Day 2020, India’s young and learning youth had their hopes on her shoulder. And the government didn’t disappoint. Over the course of her detailed and strategic speech, Sitharaman outlined certain developments that hold great promise for India’s education sector.

The big news was – a massive allocation of INR 99,300 crores in the country’s educational development, INR 3000 crores allocated to skill developments and above all an ease of rules to facilitate foreign investment in India’s education sector.

Foreign Investment in the Indian Education Sector: Possibilities of growth and Strength”

So, what does the government’s decision towards supporting the influx of foreign investment signal for India’s education sector?

To begin with, it definitely holds immense potential for growth. The government’s new policy will open up India’s regulated education sector to global players. With an increasing requirement of quality education for its youth, the nation will now encourage Foreign Direct Investment and external commercial borrowings in education.

  • According to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, since the turn of the millennium till 2019, India has seen an influx of USD 2.47 billion into its education system. And the growth in those two decades has been clear for everyone to witness.
  • With around 3900+ establishments, India leads the way in nations with most universities. The country is also amidst a rapid expansion in internet education.
  • India currently stands just behind China, in its population with internet reach and usage of mobile phones. With the widespread use of the internet supporting the country’s educational pursuits, India also finds itself as one of the leading powerhouses of the e-learning industry.

And these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg, as to the potential that education in India holds. The India Brand Equity Foundation projected that by 2019 end, India’s education industry was set to be valued at over 100 billion US Dollars. Plus add to that a burgeoning population of youth in their school and college-going years, quality education is a primary need for the nation. And you can envision the expansion that’s required in our current education model and how the emergence of foreign players can support that.

Be it the Indian government signing a loan agreement with World Bank for the SANKALP (Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion) Project or state authorities like the Maharashtra International Education Board signing a partnership with Google, foreign investment has been trickling in steadily into the education ecosystem.

As a part of her Budget 2020 speech, Nirmala Sitharaman also highlighted the importance of foreign investment and talent coming into the Indian education sphere. She strengthened the government’s vision of making India an education destination for other countries, with the launch of the IND-SAT exam for Asia and Africa.

And as India opens its doors to the world’s best in education, the nation stands to nurture, hone and be home to an educated, skilled and ready bunch of bright minds for the future.

[“source=indiatoday”]

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Tech Update

Leidos wins US Army CDT tech refresh and upgrades contract

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Image result for Leidos wins US Army CDT tech refresh and upgrades contractLeidos has won a contract to deliver technology refresh and upgrades to the US Army’s common driver trainer (CDT) virtual product line (VPL).

The contract has been awarded by the US Army’s Program Executive Officer for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO-STRI).

Under the single-award contract, Leidos will be responsible for producing CDT VPL based on the current CDT component. It will also develop and update the CDT component architecture for the US Army’s on-site existing CDT systems.

Leidos will also perform restructuring of CDT’s hardware / software upgrade capabilities.

The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) award has a five-year base period, with two one-year options.

The contract has an approximate maximum value of $110m and work is set to take place in Orlando, Florida, US.

Leidos Defence Group senior vice-president Eric Freeman said: “We look forward to providing the US Army with the next generation of virtual training systems so they are ready to deploy, fight and win decisively against any adversary.

“This win enables Leidos to deliver efficient, cost-effective, and measurable common driver training that keeps our military servicemen and women situationally aware and ready to respond at all times.”

The CDT simulator gives mission-critical training in driver or crew tasks. The systems provide training on the US Army tank and tank engineering variant, Stryker, mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles, and tactical wheeled variant (TWV) families.

The new system provides hands-on experience of tasks that are too dangerous to conduct on live equipment. It supports planning, systematic interoperability, and can be reused by other virtual training programmes.

Additionally, the company will replace all of the US Marine Corps’ (USMC) current operator driver simulators (ODS).

At multiple USMC sites, the replacement will be available in fixed and mobile trailer-based configurations to deliver new training capabilities.

[“source=army”]

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Education

Four Things You Need To Know About STEM And Education For 2020

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

If 2018 was the year that teachers walked out, scientists and teachers ran for office in unprecedented numbers, and the news was filled with a steady stream of reports on the value of a STEM degree, and 2019 was the year that the public’s respect for teachers grew, walkouts waned, education was increasingly defined by its relationship to the (STEM) workforce, and more schools started to integrate soft skills because of a growing focus on the whole child, what does 2020 have in store for us? This week, my organization, 100Kin10, will release its annual Trends Report, a synthesis of thousands of data points that predict trends and “look-aheads” that will define STEM and education in 2020. Here’s the exclusive sneak peek:

1. Teacher Diversity: Supporting Students (Especially Students of Color) by Recruiting and Supporting Teachers of Color

The dearth of people of color working in STEM industries is getting more attention in the media and in government. We’re particularly keen to see more organizations connecting the dots between this issue and the lack of teachers of color in America’s diversifying schools. To increase student engagement and success in STEM, students of color need to see and learn from STEM teachers who look like them. People of color represent 50% of students in the United States, but less than 20% of teachers.

We see organizations across the education landscape, from school districts to higher education to philanthropy, taking up this challenge and partnering in new ways to increase the diversity of the STEM teacher workforce, examine school structures that are harmful to teachers of color, and ensure that school leaders have the tools they need to cultivate a culturally-responsive school environment.

With executives and recruiters increasingly understanding the importance of a diverse workforce, we expect a corresponding increased focus on getting more students of color (and by extension, teachers of color) engaged in STEM, which is critical to increasing equality in the STEM fields.

Today In: Leadership

2. The T in STEM Gains Prominence: Technology Proficiency as a Core Life Skill

Students are growing up in an age where technology is an integral part of our lives, and for many of them, it’s also an integral part of the classroom. 2020 will be the year when technology officially transcends the smart board and educators understand that we need to approach its use comprehensively.

We’ve seen schools embracing the T in STEM by teaching hard and soft skills, as well as digital literacy and technological competency. The more wide-scale embrace of making has shifted millions of Americans from being consumers of technology to producers of it, and the tools of making are more and more widely available; just look at the work of the Digital Harbor Foundation. Organizations, teacher training programs and school systems across the country are supporting teachers in their quest to incorporate technology into the classroom through a variety of techniques, including making sure that digital literacy is part of teacher preparation and training. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has created tools for educators and school systems to guide students smartly, safely, and powerfully into digital citizenship.

A cautionary note: Twenty years ago, we were laser-focused on the digital divide. Nonetheless, there remains a persistent inequity in both the IT infrastructure and the hardware that makes technology and technologically-driven learning accessible. This is especially true in our rural schools and for communities at the intersections of poverty and race.

3. Computer Science Is Hot but There’s a Lag in Teacher Supply

Computer science is a burgeoning field, and states have begun to respond to increasing interest from students, parents and employers. More than 40 states passed policies to increase access to computer science among K-12 learners in the last four years. But with millions of unfilled computer science jobs opening in the next decade with not enough graduates to fill them, we’re missing a critical aspect of training the workforce: computer science teachers.

We know that developing the workforce we’ll need in the coming years to fill STEM jobs, like those in computer science, starts with solving the root of the problem: recruiting, training and retaining enough computer science teachers to prepare our students for this field. We are expecting to see an increased focus on building the computer science teacher workforce we need for this growing demand, as well as innovative ways to incorporate computational thinking into the curricula of other subjects. UT Austin’s WeTeach_CS program works with other leaders in computer science and teacher training to prepare teachers for classrooms of students eager to learn this critical skill. This organization has provided professional development and support in computer science to more than 500 teachers since 2015.

4. Climate Change Is This Generation’s Moonshot

“You must unite behind the science,” demanded TIME person of the year Greta Thunberg when she spoke to Congress in September last year. And indeed, Greta and other young activists have united millions of young people behind science. As students take charge in the fight against climate change, they will need stronger and more relevant STEM learning to fuel their activism – and to have the knowledge to create the solutions our planet desperately needs. If there is a silver lining to the climate crisis, this is it: It can mobilize a new generation in STEM and innovation and provide purpose and relevance to their learning.

Last year, reports showed that while teachers are interested in teaching their students about climate change, they often don’t have the resources they need to do so effectively – or are barred from engaging in climate science at all. There are curricular tools out there – NOAA has been designing instructional materials and supporting teachers to use them for more than a decade – but most kids and teachers don’t yet have access. We’ll need more resources, fewer political hurdles, and more integrated STEM learning opportunities to maximize this moment. We hope that 2020 is the year that climate leads the way in showing that personally- and career-relevant learning in K-12 can energize learning for all kids, from all backgrounds, in STEM. Our planet just might hang in the balance.

[“source=forbes”]

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Internet

India shuts down internet once again, this time in Assam and Meghalaya

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Birdseye view of a city

India maintained a shutdown of the internet in the states of Assam and Meghalaya on Friday, now into 36 hours, to control protests over a controversial and far-reaching new citizen rule.

The shutdown of the internet in Assam and Meghalaya, home to more than 32 million people, is the latest example of a worrying worldwide trend employed by various governments: preventing people from communicating on the web and accessing information.

And India, the world’s second largest internet market with more than 650 million connected users, continues to exercise this measure more than any other nation.

On Thursday, India’s president Ram Nath Kovind approved the Citizenship Amendment Bill, a day after the country’s Parliament passed it. The law offers a path to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from three neighboring countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh) — not for the country’s own Muslim minority.

Shortly after the bill was passed, protests broke out in the streets in the northeastern states of Assam and Meghalaya, where residents have long been concerned about immigration from the aforementioned nations. In Meghalaya, texting services have been suspended, too.

Soldiers are seen through the wreckage of a vehicle which was set on fire by demonstrators during a protest against the government’s Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in Guwahati on December 13, 2019. (Photo by BIJU BORO/AFP via Getty Images)

To contain the situation, the Indian government sent in troops and shut down the internet — a measure that the United Nations  has condemned in the past, calling it a violation of human rights.

Officials in the state of Assam said, “Social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and YouTube are likely to be used for spreading of rumors and also for transmission of information like pictures, videos and text that have the potential to inflame passions and thus exacerbate the law and order situation.”

There is currently no official word on when the internet services would be resumed at these two places.

Preventing people from a medium that enables them to stay in touch with one another, and access news and information, is becoming a common phenomenon in several nations, though none come close to India.

Access Now, a digital rights group, reported earlier this year that India alone had about 134 of 196 documented shutdowns in 2018. According to Internet Shutdowns, a service operated by New Delhi-based digital advocacy group Software Law and Freedom Centre, there have been about 91 documented cases of internet shutdowns in India this year.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government shut down the internet for 133 days after stripping the majority Muslim territory of its autonomy in August. The service has only been partially restored.

[“source=techcrunch”]

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Internet

Quantum Trends And The Internet of Things

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

QUANT processor

As a new decade approaches, we are in a state of technological flux across many spectrums. One area to take note of is quantum computing. We are starting to evolve beyond classical computing into a new data era called quantum computing. It is envisioned that quantum computing (still in a development stage) will accelerate us into the future by impacting the landscape of artificial intelligence and data analytics. The quantum computing power and speed will help us solve some of the biggest and most complex challenges we face as humans.

Gartner describes quantum computing as: “[T]he use of atomic quantum states to effect computation. Data is held in qubits (quantum bits), which have the ability to hold all possible states simultaneously. Data held in qubits is affected by data held in other qubits, even when physically separated. This effect is known as entanglement.” In a simplified description, quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits instead of using binary traditional bits of ones and zeros for digital communications.

There is an additional “entanglement” relating to quantum, and that is its intersection with the Internet of Things (IoT). Loosely defined, the Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the general idea of things that are readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable, and/or controllable via the Internet. It encompasses devices, sensors, people, data, and machines and the interactions between them. Business Insider Intelligence forecasted that “by 2023, consumers, companies and governments will install 40 billion IoT devices globally.”

As we rapidly continue to evolve into the IoT and the new digital economy, both edge devices and data are proliferating at amazing rates. The challenge now is how do we monitor and ensure quality service of the IoT? Responsiveness, scalability, processes, and efficiency are needed to best service any new technology or capability. Especially across trillions of sensors.

Specifically, quantum technologies will influence: optimization of computing power, computing models, network latency, interoperability, artificial intelligence (human/computer interface), real-time analytics and predictive analytics, increased storage and data memory power, secure cloud computing, virtualization, and the emerging 5G telecommunications infrastructure. For 5G, secure end-to end communications are fundamental and quantum encryption (which generates secure codes) may be the solution for rapidly growing IoT connectivity.

Security of the IoT is a paramount issue. Currently cryptographic algorithms are being used to help secure the communication (validation and verification) in the IoT. But because they rely on public key schemes, their encryption could be broken by sophisticated hackers using quantum computers in the not so distant future.

On the other side of the coin, quantum computing has the ability to create an almost un-hackable network of devices and data. The need to securely encrypt and protect IoT connected devices and power them with exponential speed and analytical capabilities is an imperative for both government and the private sector.

As quantum computing and IoT merge, there will also be an evolving new ecosystem of policy Issues. These include, ethics, interoperability protocols, cybersecurity, privacy/surveillance, complex autonomous systems, best commercial practices.

As quantum computing capabilities advance, we should act now to prepare IoT for the quantum world. There are many areas to explore in research and development and eventually implementation. The coming decade will provide both imperatives and opportunities to explore quantum implications.

[“source=forbes”]

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