iSPIRT works to transform India into a hub for new generation software products, by addressing crucial government policy, creating market catalysts and grow the maturity of product entrepreneurs. Welcome to the Official Insights!
Drones have been around for a long time, going back as far as World War II. For most of their history, they were considered part of the military arsenal and developed and deployed almost exclusively by the military. However, the past decade has seen a tremendous amount of research and development in the area of …
Continue reading “What lies beyond the horizon: Digital Sky & the future of drones in India”
Angel Tax (Section 56(2)(viib)) has become a cause celebre in Indian startup circles due to its broad-reaching ramifications on all startups raising capital. This paper traces the origin of this section, it’s analysis, impact, how it adversely affects startups. Special mention is also made of the seldom covered Section 68 and it’s used in conjunction …
Today we are giving a fond sendoff to Praveen Hari and Venky Hariharan as they transition out of full-time volunteering and onto new challenges! This is a bittersweet moment: as excited as we are about their future plans, we can’t help but feel a sense of loss. We will most certainly miss their selfless energy …
In 2016, the company I co-founded, Thinkflow, went through a liquidity event. It was a great outcome for all and I was thinking of the next move. It was natural for me to think of starting again. I was wiser, had seed capital and only had to find a problem attractive enough. It looked like …
Continue reading “My iSPIRT Experience, A Learning Of A Lifetime By Praveen Hari”
iSPIRT has been actively engaged in pursuing the favourable policy for the Cloud Telephony sector in Telecom Industry, an amalgamation of the various IT and Communications technologies. National Digital Communication Policy has been announced recently and it is encouraging to see the announcements in the policy on some common issues to do with Startup ecosystem …
Matrix India recently hosted two firebrands of the financial services world, Mr Sanjay Agarwal, founder AU Small Finance Bank and Mr Sharad Sharma, founder iSPIRT Foundation, Volunteer at India Stack, for a no holds barred discussion at the Matrix Rooftop in Bangalore. Here is an excerpt from the evening and some of our learnings for …
Continue reading “India Financial Services – Disrupt or Be Disrupted”
Below represents iSPIRT’s comments and recommendations on the draft Personal Data Protection Bill. iSPIRT’s overall data privacy and data empowerment philosophy is covered here. Table of Contents Major Comments 1. Include Consent Dashboards 2. Financial Understanding and Informed Consent for all Indians 3. Data Fiduciary Trust Scores Similar to App Store Ratings 4. Comments & …
Continue reading “iSPIRT Final Comments on India’s Personal Data Protection Bill”
One would think that the new sexy in the startup capital of the world is self-driving cars, AI/ML… I got news for you! AI/ML (esp. Machine Learning) is not listed in Gartner’s hype cycle for 2018. This was corroborated on my recent trip to the valley and the US east coast, where I met several …
On August 27, 2018, India announced its much-awaited Civil Aviation Regulations (CAR) for drones. The new CAR had many improvements on the original draft published last year, but most important was the introduction of Digital Sky, a technology platform that would handle the entire process of regulating the registration and permissions for all Remotely Piloted …
Continue reading “Policy Hacks On India’s Digital Sky Initiative 1.0”
On behalf of iSPIRT, Sanjay Jain recently published an opinion piece regarding the recent supreme court judgement on the validity of Aadhaar. In there, we stated that section 57 had been struck down, but that should still allow some usage of Aadhaar by the private sector. iSPIRT received feedback that this reading may have been …
Wednesday’s Supreme Court judgment has upheld not just the constitutionality of Aadhaar but also our right to identity. It also recognises Aadhaar as a tool that fulfils that right. While the founding principles of Aadhaar — privacy and inclusion —were upheld, a few provisions of the Aadhaar Act, including Section 57, were struck down. Section …
Data protection and privacy have been a topic of hot debates and discussion in recent times in India. It had become extremely important as India is progressing to a be a “Digital economy” to address this issues relating to the use of personal data. iSPIRT has been in forefront of developing Consent Framework and called …
The government of India had announced a Preferred Market Access (PMA) policy for Cyber Security products through an order notifying the Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India). MeitY shall be the nodal Ministry to monitor and administer this PMA policy. The policy announcement is given at link given here. Public Procurement (Preference to Make …
Continue reading “Preferred Market Access Policy for Indian CyberSecurity Products”
2018 has been a significant year in our relationship with Data. Globally, the Cambridge Analytica incident made people realise that democracy itself can be vulnerable to data. Closer to home, we got a first glimpse at the draft bill for Privacy by the Justice Sri Krishna Committee. The writing on the wall is obvious. We …
Continue reading “How To Empower 1.3 Billion Citizens With Their Data”
Early stage SaaS startups typically struggle with one of two things. When you are just starting out, the first struggle is all about mere survival. Will we find customers willing to use and pay for our product ? Good teams typically manage to find ways to negotiate that first challenge. The playbook has been sufficiently commoditized …
Continue reading “AI/ML Shift for SaaS Companies: Insights from SaaSx Fifth Edition”