Yashica Vashishtha

Waymo – Facilitating Safe Movement Of People And Goods With Autonomous Driving Technology.

Tesla is very much ahead of its time in terms of autonomous driving technology. But names like Alphabet are also trying to expand in the very field and provide its customer with the best of them all. Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, has another subsidiary named Waymo, which dedicatedly works to developing autonomous driving technology. In fact, the said company also runs a commercial self-driving taxi service in the Arizona region, named Waymo One, the only self-driving taxi service. The taxis under this project runs without having a standby driver for emergencies. Apart from Waymo’s self-driving taxis, the software developed by the company is also used by some other car companies, like Stellantis, Jaguar, Daimler AG, Land Rover, Volvo, and Nissan-Renault.

About Waymo

Waymo LLC is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and has its headquarters based in Mountain View, California, U.S. It is a 13-years-old company founded in January 2009 by Sebastian Thrun and Anthony Levandowski. Till 2016, Google was the parent company of Waymo when it started a self-driving car project in 2009, but in 2016 Alphabet became the parent company of the same, when the same project had a name change to Waymo. Dmitri Dolgov and Dmitri Dolgov (Co-CEO) Tekedra Mawakana are leading Waymo as the co-CEOs.

The basic concept behind the idea of Waymo is to avoid the accidental deaths that happen due to various negligence reasons of humans. The company makes use of artificial intelligence, sensors, and hardware-enhanced vision system to provide safer transit for both humans and goods.

Founding Waymo

Waymo wasn’t founded as a company but was launched as a project by Google in its Google X lab. The project was headed and launched by Sebastian Thrun, who had gained much experience in artificial intelligence after being a part of organisations like SAIL (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) and Anthony Levandowski. During 2006-07, Google was already working on improving its maps and street view, and for that, the Street View team of Google has launched Ground Truth, a project that became the basis of Google’s self-driving program.

Anthony Levandowski, the other co-founder of Wymo, was also in self-driving vehicles and had built an autonomous two-wheeled motorcycle named Ghost Rider for the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge. Being a Google employee, Levandowski sold his technology to Google, which was an addition to Google’s self-driving program. In 2012, Google obtained a driverless technology license from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and it carried out its first experiment with the self-driven car. The license was the first of its kind in America.

Under project Chauffeur, Google launched a new driverless car prototype (100% autonomous) without any steering wheel, gas pedal, and brake pedal in May 2014. Another prototype came in December with the name Firefly, mainly built for learning and experimentation. In 2015, the company introduced the world’s first fully driverless ride on public roads, and the experiment included no test driver.

This project Chaufwur was renamed Wayno in 2016 and was established as a start-up company as well as a subsidiary of Alphabet. By October 2017, the company was testing driverless minivans on roads, and in 2019, it started to build its cars in a Detroit manufacturing plant. Waymo also started integrating its technology into the existing car models rather than building new designs for them. In 2020, the company raised a sum of $3 billion from its various investors. The same year, Waymo also partnered with Volvo for the integration of its technology into Volvo’s vehicles.

The CEO at Waymo

Dmitri is a Russian-American businessman, whereas Tekedra has been a lawyer and a well-known businesswoman in America.

Dmitri is an alumnus of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, where he earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degree in physics and math. He also got a PhD degree in computer science from the University of Michigan and a postdoctoral from Stanford University. He has vast experience in the field of self-driving technology and has worked at Toyota and Google.

Tekedra, on the other hand, was already working at Waymo as the COO before she held the post of CEO. She has also worked with companies like Steptoe & Johnson, AOL, Yahoo!, eBay, etc. Tekedra holds a Doctorate in law.

Yashica Vashishtha

Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.

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Appian Corporation – Developer Of Cloud Computing As Well As Enterprise Software.

After the internet, cloud computing is one of the best technology that is most beneficial for every business. The very technology has reduced the hectic work of managing the storage for the businesses and just buying some subscriptions, the data is readily available for every user of the data through the cloud. Hence, the technology is now adopted by almost every company in the world that deals with data and the internet. To process the data on the cloud, some software is required. This software helps the companies manage, deploy and access the data on the cloud. Appian Corporation is one of the leading software development companies known for its enterprise cloud software development. Appian creates software that helps other organisations to build applications for mobiles, desktops, and even the cloud on their own. The company has been in the business for over twenty years and has become a prominent name in the cloud software industry.

About Appian Corporation

Appian Corporation is the developer of cloud computing as well as enterprise software. The company was founded in 1999, and the team of founders included Michael Beckley, Matt Calkins, Robert Kramer, and Marc Wilson. The company headquarters is based in McLean, Virginia, United States, and apart from that, the Appian Corporation has its offices in fifteen different locations globally. The company is home to over 1500 employees, and according to the 2021 FY report, it made annual revenues worth $369.3 Million. The company is known for its low-code automation platform and has developed multiple apps for its customers.

Founding Appian Corporation

Michael Beckley, Robert Kramer, Marc Wilson, and Matthew Calkin founded Appian in 1999. The idea behind the company was to gather talented people and use their knowledge and skills to get amazing results. This way, Appian was established to offer its employees the liberty to make their decisions to fulfill the company goals most innovatively. It was Calkin’s idea to build such a company, and other co-founders joined in later to found the company.

The company introduced its first product, a web-based enterprise information service for the US army, named Army Knowledge Online, in 2001. The very service was also regarded as “the world’s largest intranet” at that time.

The downturn of the economy during 2008 affected Appian too, but the leaders working for the success of the company had made a plan B for the company too. This time, Appian brainstormed over the concept of building software that would reduce most of the work for the organizations. So the company built a platform based on the “low-code technique”, which would allow the organizations to create their software on their own, without being a tech geek. The platform was a hit, as it was secure and could be used on any device, mobile, desktop as well as on the cloud.

The success of Appian’s new software platform brought it more success and investments. In 2014, New Enterprise Associates invested a sum of $37.5 million in Appian. In May 2017, the company went public on NASDAQ and started to trade with the ticker name APPN. With the release of Appian AI, the company introduced the integration of Artificial Intelligence to its platform in 2019. In the following years, Appian also made some acquisitions, including Novayre Solutions SL and Lana Labs.

Today, Appian offers its software services to industries like Automotive, Education, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Insurance, Life Sciences, Retail, Telecom, Transportation, etc. In fact, with the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic, Appian launched apps that helped businesses with their work, like tracking the workforce’s health and safety, helping companies reopen their offices, and helping banks manage Paycheck Protection Programloan applications, etc. This way, those apps helped businesses to continue their work during the pandemic.

The CEO at Appian Corporation

Matt Calkins is one of the founders and the CEO of Appian. He is an Economics graduate from Dartmouth College. In fact, he was the topper of his class. In 1994, he joined MicroStrategy as the Director of Enterprise Product Group and left the company in 1999 to found Appian. Matt has been the CEO of Appian from the very beginning and has led the company to be the leading enterprise software developer. He is also known as the author of several award-winning board games.

Yashica Vashishtha

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Vonage – 25 Years Old Company Specializes In Business Cloud Communications.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Yashica Vashishtha

The discovery of communication mediums, like the telephone, has revolutionized every industry. In fact, communication mediums are the best invention of all time. Starting from telegraphs to telephones, and from the simple button, mobile phones to today’s smartphones, all of these devices have been a matter of amaze. Today, we are able to communicate not only via smartphones but also through a mere internet connection. On the internet, too, cloud communication has become a really effective medium of communication. Vonage is one of those cloud communication service providers which provides its services to businesses. This American company started as a residential telecommunication service provider and today is one of the leading business cloud communications providers.

About Vonage

Vonage is a publically held American company founded in 1998. It specializes in business cloud communications, such that, provides services like Unified Communications, Contact Center, Communications APIs, Home VoIP Phone Service Provider, etc. The company is about 25 years old, but still, it retains its relevance, in fact, with time, it has adapted to the changing trends, making it stand strong among the competition. Jeff Pulver and Jeffrey A. Citron are the founders of Vonage, whereas its headquarters is based in Holmdel, New Jersey, United States. The company offers its services worldwide, and about 2500 people are working for it. As per the 2020 records, Vonage made revenues worth $1.25 billion, and its served over 1.1 million subscribers worldwide.

The Back Story

Jeff Pulver founded Vonage in 1998 as Min-X.com, a Voice over IP (VOIP) exchange. Later, Jeffrey A. Citron, the other co-founder, and Carlos Bhola, an investor in the company, joined Vonage. Both contributed $1 million from their private savings and became board members. In the coming years, Citron became the CEO, whereas Bhola was appointed as the President of the company, raising $11 million in additional funding. By this time, the company started to focus on being a VOIP service provider. In 2001, the company had its name changed to Vonage Holdings Corp., and the headquarters of the company was shifted to Holmdel, New Jersey.

Beginning in the USA, Vonage had expanded to countries like the UK and Canada in the coming years. In 2006, the company went public on New York Stock Exchange, and it offered its shares to its existing customers through the IPO.
Like every other company, Vonage started to expand its business through strategic acquisitions, starting in 2013. The names acquired by Vonage include Vocalocity, Telesphere, iCore Networks, SimpleSignal, gUnify, Nexmo, TokBox, NewVoiceMedia, Over.ai, etc.

Today, Vonage specializes in services including Business services (unified communications, cloud communications, middleware technology, etc.), Residential services (home phone plans using VoIP), Service requirements, telephone number availability, Emergency calls, Quality of service, and equipment compatibility, etc. As per an announcement by Ericsson done in November 2021, Ericson is going to acquire Vonage for a sum of 6.2 billion USD by the first half of 2022.

The CEO at Vonage

Rory P. Read is the current CEO of Vonage. He is a well-known business executive in America and possesses experience of more than 25 years. Read has got a bachelor’s degree in information systems from Hartwick College and has worked in big-name companies like IM, Lenovo, AMD as well as Dell in multiple executive positions. In fact, Read has spent about 23 years at IPB, where he handled the Asia Pacific region as the general manager, of Business Innovation Services. Before joining Vonage, Read served as the president and CEO of Virtustream, a subsidiary of Dell, and as the EVP chief operating executive of Dell. Read became the CEO of Vonage in July 2020.

Yashica Vashishtha

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Epicor – The Makers Of Business Software For Its Peers With Over Fifty Years Of Experience.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Yashica Vashishtha

The retail and business industry is the one that needs most of the documentation, and the software industry has played a vital role to help out those businesses with these hectic documentation processes. Software today is for almost every work, like tracking the resources, and keeping the records of inventory as well as exports, thus making the work seem less and quicker than earlier. Epicor is one of such software developers who are behind those amazing business software that is reducing the work time for every business globally. The company, with its over fifty years of experience in the software industry, has made its different identity from its peers.

About Epicor

Epicor Software Corporation is an American software company. The company was founded fifty years ago in 1972 in Texas, Austin, and since then headquarters of the company has been in the same city. Epicor is known for its business software which mainly includes, ERP, CRM, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Human Capital Management (HCM), and Retail software. This software is responsible for documenting everything from manufacturing, distribution, retail, services, etc., and all the products are available in both on-premises deployment and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models. Epicor is a private company, and Steve Murphy is the current CEO at Epicor. The company is home to over 5000 employees globally.

The company is about fifty years old and is excelling in the field of software development. Today, the company has expanded to over 150 countries, with over 4000 employees working for it and 120,000 clients worldwide.

The Founding of Epicor

Epicor includes the story of two companies forming Epicor Software Corporation. In 1972 Triad Systems Corporation was established that became Activant in 2003, a contributing company to Epicor. On the other hand, Advanced Business Microsystems was a company that built accounting software for Ms-Dos in partnership with IBM. Later, ABM started to develop financial accounting software under the name Platinum and had its name changed from ABM to Platinum Software Corporation in 1992. With the new name, the company started to produce products for Microsoft Windows as well. After impacting acquisitions like Clientele and FocusSoft, the company merged its operations with DataWorks, and in 1999, was renamed Epicor Software Corporation. Activant, on the other hand, was acquired by Apax Partners, which ultimately merged the operations of Activant with Epicor Software Corporation.

Through Epicor’s Platinum for Windows software was very popular, the company sold it to Sage Group in 2001. Epicor introduced its web-based platform named Service Enterprises in 2003. Along with growing its products and their growth was contributed by some major acquisitions at the same time. The company acquired Intrepid (1995), Interactive Group (1997), CompuNet (2003), Scala (2004), CRS Retail (2005), NSB (2007), Spectrum Human Resource Systems Corporation (2010), Solarsoft Business Systems (2012), QuantiSense (2014), ShopVisible, LLC (2015), KKR (2016), 1 EDI Source (2019), etc.

The company also endorses the idea of sustainability and has released a program with the name ‘Fit for the Future.’

The CEO At Epicor

Steve Murphy is the current CEO of Epicor. He has over 25 years of experience in the field of technology. Murphy had joined the company in 2017. Before joining Epicor, he has worked in companies like OpenText, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Accenture, and Manugistics, in various executive roles. Academically, he has got a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California and has completed an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Yashica Vashishtha

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Nemetschek: Digitalizing the Architecture, Engineering, Construction Industry.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Yashica Vashishtha

The software has made almost every kind of work easier, the designing and architecture work being one of them. There are several software development companies that have introduced multiple software packages that have become essential for engineer professionals, such that they cannot do without them. Companies like Nemetschek are among those companies that make those architecture software products used to plan, design, and build critical architectural parts. The company works through its four business units, i.e., Planning & Design (Architecture and Civil Engineering), Build & Construct, Manage & Operate and Media & Entertainment. So along with the construction and architectural software, Nemetschek also creates software for the entertainment and media industry.

About Nemetschek

Nemetschek, aka the Nemetschek Group, is a German software development company that makes software for the architecture and construction industry. The company is over 70 years old (founded in 1963) and has headquarters based in Munich, Germany. Prof. Georg Nemetschek was the founder of Nemetschek and Yves Padrines is the cureent CEO at the company. As the company develops the software for the construction industry, this software includes works like planning, designing, building, and managing buildings as well as real estate. The company also builds software for the media and entertainment industry. As per the 2022 records, over 3300 people are working for Nemetschek, and the company made revenues worth € 597 Mio for the financial year 2020.

The Founding

The company history dates back to 1963, when Professor Georg Nemetschek founded Nemetschek as Ingenieurbüro für das Bauwesen. The founder was a certified engineer and wanted to bring a new change in the construction industry. The company was into structural designing from the very beginning and became the first company to make use of computers for designing purposes and also developed software for engineering professionals. Georg himself joined a programming course to make more development in this regard.

In the beginning, the company produced software for its own use, but in 1977 it started to commercialize its Statik 97/77 program for civil engineering professionals. In 1980, Company introduced another software package (a computer-aided engineering software) that enabled instant calculations and designing of some important components used in solid construction. The software was a revolutionary product (and relevant for many years) that was the first to be used on a microcomputer.

In 1987, Nemetschek brought a fully equipped workstation for architects and engineers that also included a printer and a plotter. The next year, the company introduced Allplan, a premium software to create 3D models, and in 1992, Company launched a new high-performance version of the same. In 1994, the company was renamed Nemetschek AG, and it went public in 1999. The company operates in about eight European countries through its different subsidiaries.
The company also started to expand through acquisitions and acquired names like Graphisoft (2006), Data Design System (2013), Bluebeam Software, Inc. (2014), Solibri (2015), dRofus (2017), RISA (2017), MCS Solutions (2018), etc.

The CEO at Nemetschek

Yves Padrines is the current CEO of Nemetschek and has more than twenty years of experience. He started as a consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and worked as a financial & business development manager at Creative Labs, Inc. In 2002, he joined Canal+ as the area sales manager. Padrines worked at NDS for about eight years, where he held posts like Vice president and director of sales and business development. In August 2012, he joined Cisco and later switched to Synamedia. He has also been an advisor for multiple companies. In March 2022, Padrines was appointed as the CEO of Nemetschek Group.

Yashica Vashishtha

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Long-lasting Impact of Shark Tank India on Indian Startup Ecosystem.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Yashica Vashishtha

Startups are the current obsession and way to independence for the youth. Starting from startups like Flipkart and PayTM, the Indian startup industry has come a long way. In fact, in terms of startups, India comes third in the list of the number of startups. Today, we can see an MBA graduate happily running a tea stall or some retired lady running their own food delivery business successfully. There is a huge role of the internet in making startups a passion more than a risk for people, but yes, the will of doing something big is what drives people to take that one decision that would change their lives forever.

Though the internet and good marketing have been one of the reliable sources from where we would get to know about new startups, a reality TV show named Shark Tank has just made us even more aware of the Indian startup industry. Shark Tank is a show that includes a bench of judges who are to invest in new business ideas from the budding entrepreneurs based on the potential of those ideas. It is the first season of the show in India, whereas the Shark Tank franchise has already produced thirteen successful seasons of the same show in the US and given opportunities to multiple startups.

About Shark Tank India

Shark Tank India is the Hindi adaptation of the American reality show Shark Tank. The show has gained popularity in India because of its unique concept of startups trying to grab an investment from the panel of ‘Sharks’ (investors/judges). The show was aired first time on TV on 20 December 2021, and the last episode of the first season came on 4 February 2022.

Shark Tank is a show of its kind, as the budding entrepreneurs of every age with their idea of business participate to represent their business idea in front of the selected investors (Sharks) and convince them to invest in the idea based on its potential. These Sharks are the leaders of their fields and looking for businesses that can multiply their investments. The Sharks in the first season included Ashneer Grover (MD and Co-founder of BhartPe), Aman Gupta (Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of boAt), Anupam Mittal (Founder and CEO of Shaadi.com and People Group), Ghazal Alagh (Co-founder and Chief Mama of MamaEarth), Namita Thapar (Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals), Peyush Bansal (Co-founder and CEO of Lenskart), Vineeta Singh, (CEO and co-founder of SUGAR Cosmetics).

Impact of Shark Tank India on Indian Startup Ecosystem

This is the first time that Indian TV has aired a kind of show that is appealing to every age group and has inspired many budding entrepreneurs to look beyond the 9-to-5 jobs. Shark Tank has given a great platform to people who have dreamt about having their own business but were always afraid of taking that leap of faith. The show not only inspired many but also opened gates for financial literacy for people and made them aware of many financial terms like capital investment, angel investors, series A (B, C, D, E) funding, etc., that are only known to business professionals only.

We can clearly see that not long ago, people were against starting up businesses that are different from the usual fields. Most of the times parents would ask their children to opt for engineering or medical, as these professions have always been the most secure ones. Shark Tank as a show has made a powerful impact on the middle-class population of India, which has always been afraid of taking risks and preferred government jobs over any business any day. The show has been a medium to educate the Indian middle-class parents about the existing flourishing startups and the possible opportunities in the said field.

Shark Tank has a great impact on the Indian audience, as the 35-episode series showcased people of age group from teenage to people of retiring age pitching their business ideas in front of the Sharks and bagging investments in lakhs and crores. This is only the first successful season of Shark Tank and many more to come, where we can see unique ideas making their way towards success and people normalizing startups as a career. India is already producing CEOs for big-name companies in the west, now this is the time, India produces its CEO for its own startups and makes big in the world.

Shark Tank can be a medium of filling people with confidence and becoming independent. The main learning from the show can be to find an opportunity in everything rather than waiting for an opportunity. Shark Tank is an educating show that is a must-watch for not only people looking forward to starting a business but also, for people who want to learn about business, startups, finances, investment, and where the world is moving in terms of startups and investments.

Yashica Vashishtha

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