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Tag: Bill Gates

  • Nikhil Kamath announces Bill Gates as first guest for his new podcast People by WTF

    Nikhil Kamath announces Bill Gates as first guest for his new podcast People by WTF

    Mumbai: Podcast series “WTF is with Nikhil Kamath” announces its new segment, “People By WTF,” featuring none other than Bill Gates, the globally renowned co-founder of Microsoft, philanthropist, and influential thought leader, as its first guest. Gates’ appearance marks a significant milestone for the podcast, known for its in-depth conversations with industry titans and innovators around the world.

    Scheduled to stream on 14 June 2024, this special segment promises to delve into Gates’ extensive experience in technology, his visionary insights on the future of global health, and his ongoing commitment to philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Listeners can expect a candid and thought-provoking discussion as entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath engages with Gates on topics ranging from technological advancements to sustainable development and global health initiatives.

    Bill Gates and Nikhil Kamath share a longstanding philanthropic association. Nikhil has pledged to donate 50 per cent of his wealth to ‘The Giving Pledge,’ founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, making him the fourth and youngest Indian to commit to this significant charitable initiative. Their collaboration extends to the Young India Philanthropic Pledge (YIPP), a transformative educational initiative in Karnataka. The YIPP represents a commitment by India’s young change-makers to dedicate a minimum of 25 per cent of their wealth to drive global change, beginning with India. This joint endeavor underscores their shared commitment to improving educational outcomes and empowering the youth of India for a brighter future.

    “WTF is with Nikhil Kamath”, continues to rise for intellectual discourse, drawing audiences keen on learning from the most influential personalities. “People by WTF’ promises to bring the world’s renowned personalities, so don’t miss this new segment with Bill Gates, streaming on all major platforms on 14 June 2024. 

  • Reliance 46th AGM 2023: Latest updates & announcements

    Reliance 46th AGM 2023: Latest updates & announcements

    Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd. today in its 46th annual general meeting on 28 August 2023, just like in the previous AGMs, investors are anticipating significant revelations during this yearly event. This occasion holds added significance as it marks RIL’s inaugural AGM subsequent to the listing of Jio Financial Services (JFSL) shares on various stock exchanges.

    In latest updates from the AGM, Reliance Foundation chairperson Nita Ambani said, ”I represent the beating heart of Reliance, our beacon of empowerment and transformation – the Reliance Foundation. For us, business and philanthropy complement and reinforce each other as both are guided by same spirit of We Care.”

    “From Culture to Climate, Education and Sports to Women’s Empowerment, Healthcare to Livelihoods, Rural Transformation to Disaster Mgmt, we work in 54,000+ villages. We have so far touched lives of ~70 mn Indians,” she added.

    Speaking on accelerating to achieve net carbon zero by 2035, Mukesh Ambani said,” We have embarked transitioning O2C business into a sustainable and green business.” He added, “the key pillars of this transition are – One, we are accelerating our journey to achieve Net Zero by 2035 through renewables and bioenergy”.

    On collaborating with RIL at the AGM, business giant Bill Gates said, “I am delighted Reliance is collaborating with Gates Foundation and my climate organisation, Breakthrough Energy, on some of world’s toughest challenges – climate change, helping unlock economic power for women and improving health outcomes for poor”.

    Talking about Reliance’s cardinal principles, Mukesh Ambani said, “In pursuit of these dreams, RIL has scrupulously adhered to certain cardinal principles of value creation. These have ensured that your company becomes more valuable, year after year, decade after decade”

    The five cardinal principles are:

    1st, Growth driven by perpetual demand

    2nd, driven by superior customer experience and value

    3rd, Growth driven by the power of disruptive innovation

    4th, Growth driven by business discipline

    5th, Growth driven by global market potential

    Here are some more key highlights from the AGM:

    . Over the past decade, Reliance Industries Ltd has made a total investment of $150 billion, marking the largest investment by any Indian company during this period. During the annual general meeting, Ambani mentioned that Reliance has consistently led the way in shaping the landscape of India’s evolving economy.

    . Providing a status report to stakeholders about the latest developments in its new energy division, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries, announced during the company’s 46th annual general meeting (AGM) that their immediate focus is on establishing a battery giga factory by the year 2026.

    . Ambani has unveiled an intriguing update – the launch of the Jio Bharat economical smartphone, available at a mere cost of Rs 999. This device is furnished with a variety of functions intended to address a diverse array of user requirements. Users have the opportunity to partake in live TV, seamlessly stream multimedia content, indulge in digital photography, and effortlessly conduct UPI transactions via JioPay.

    . Highlighting the continued attraction of international investors towards its retail enterprise, Mukesh Ambani, announced to shareholders on Monday that the valuation of Reliance Retail has surged to Rs 8.28 lakh crore at present, marking a significant increase from its 2020 valuation of Rs 4.28 lakh crore.

    . He further announced that Jio, the company’s telecommunications division, is set to deploy one million 5G cells by December 2023. This statement was made during Ambani’s speech at the 46th annual general meeting of Reliance Industries.

  • Not just Bill Gates, several top CEOs expect normalcy only by 2022

    Not just Bill Gates, several top CEOs expect normalcy only by 2022

    MUMBAI: A few days back, during an interview given to Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and television broadcaster TVN24, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates talked about the possible timeline in which the world will return to normalcy. During the interview, Gates predicted that the world will be completely back to normal from the Covid2019 pandemic by the end of 2022. And now, a new survey conducted by KPMG has suggested that most of the CEOs of the world's most influential companies do not expect a return to normalcy this year. 

    Return to normalcy in 2022

    The survey involved 500 CEOs from 11 key markets (Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US) and it tried to shed light on the CEOs’ views on business growth resumption post the Covid pandemic, their views on vaccine distribution, their top-of-mind organisational risks, and business transformation priorities going forward. 

    According to the survey, 45 per cent CEOs believe that 'return to normal' will not happen this year, and they expect normality to resume in 2022. The lack of Covid vaccine distribution among their workforces is one of the major reasons that made these business leaders predict a realistic timeline that is needed to achieve a possible return to normal. 

    One-third of the CEOs (31 percent) who took part in the survey anticipated a return to normal this year. Interestingly, 24 per cent of those surveyed revealed that their business has changed forever due to the coronavirus outbreak. 

    55 per cent CEOs claimed that the perceived pace of vaccination distribution is prominent. These CEOs stated that they are very much concerned that not all of their employees will get inoculated, and it could negatively impact their business operations. 

    61 per cent of the company owners revealed that they will wait for a successful vaccine rollout before asking their employees to return to the office. 90 per cent of the CEOs intend to ask employees to report to the company if they get vaccinated. 

    CEOs adopting new strategies

    In the changing world of business due to the Covid outbreak, most of the CEOs made it clear that their primary goal is to ensure the safety of the workforce. 26 per cent of the CEOs say they will cut down on international travel until the end of the pandemic. 

    Just 17 per cent of the CEOs who took part in the survey revealed that they are planning to downsize the company's physical footprint. 57 per cent of those interviewed plan to conduct customer engagement and queries predominantly via virtual platforms such as chatbots, telephone, web, and social media. 

    Digitisation is a new trend that is happening in the world of business due to the Coronavirus outbreak. 

    "A sizeable majority of leaders have reported acceleration of new digital business models and revenue streams (69 per cent) and to develop a seamless digital customer experience (56 per cent). This year, CEOs plan to spend more on digital technologies than last year, with 52 per cent prioritising data security measures, 50 per cent focusing on customer-centric technologies, and 49 per cent committed to digital communications, such as video conferencing and messaging capabilities," states the study report. 

  • Will Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio do what Bill Gates’ Windows did?

    Will Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio do what Bill Gates’ Windows did?

    MUMBAI: Computer in its early days was only used by government organisations for various defence purposes. The size of the device kept getting smaller as generations passed by and now, deemed as a necessity, it is omnipresent in almost every house. But what opened the floodgates for computer in every house almost twenty years ago in 1995 was Bill Gates’ Windows 95.

    Cut to 2015 and the present scenario in India. The current fad, which might just be here to stay, are Over The Top (OTT) players. Media and entertainment content companies are bullish on the OTT scenario and multiple apps have mushroomed left, right and centre over the last few months. However, they haven’t yet managed to augment a revolution of sorts by their services, thanks to the poor infrastructure support in the country. The broadband or mobile internet bandwidth is, on the one hand, too slow to offer a good viewing experience and on the other, it is also very expensive.

    The country currently has more than 350 million internet users and the number is expected to reach 640 million by 2019, of which 528 millions are estimated to be wireless consumers as per a report by KPMG.

    The growth rate of smartphones and tablets is also very encouraging for the video on demand (VOD) ecosystem. The number of tablets in India is is expected to be more than 18 million by 2019, according to the US-based firm’s Visual Networking Index (VNI) global mobile data traffic forecast for 2014 to 2019.

    The report said that in India, the number of smartphones grew 54 per cent during 2014, reaching 140 million in number and the number of smartphones will grow 4.7-fold between 2014 and 2019, reaching 651 million in number.

     What Colors CEO Raj Nayak has to say is by far the most apt depiction of the Indian OTT ecosystem in the current scenario. “The only reason why digital has not yet taken off in  India is because of the bandwidth issue. If any service can resolve that issue, it will be a complete game changer. There will be a leapfrogging of content consumption in mobile devices be it smartphones or tablets,” he opines.

    		  

    And addressing that issue soon will be Mukesh Ambani’s ambitious project Reliance Jio.

    Reliance Jio is Ambani’s visionary mission of spreading internet to every nook and corner of the country. Industry watchers say that the organisation in entering the market with a ginormous corpus fund of approximately Rs 70,000 crore. Under the able leadership of cable industry veteran K Jayaraman as CEO of Reliance Jio, the company has now started to take the aerial route to fast forward proceedings. It is now connecting pole to pole through cable in order to spread deep and fast.

    Jio is also teaming up with multiple last mile owners (LMOs) to expedite execution. As was reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Reliance is planning to carry out Jio’s soft launch on the occasion of Dhirubhai Ambani’s birth anniversary on 28 December this year. 

    Speculations are also rife that Reliance Jio is planning to unleash its services with affordable pricing, which will no doubt disrupt the market. “The focus with Jio is not money but the vision that we have. The pricing and speed will surprise many,” said a source close to the development.

    The question on every one’s lips is: Will Reliance Jio resolve bandwidth issues in the country? Moreover, will Mukesh Ambani’s Jio do what Bill Gates’ Windows did?

    Indiantelevision.com spoke to multiple industry stakeholders to ascertain their expectations. Here’s what they had to say: 

    Spuul Global CEO Subin Subaiah says, “Give a consumer higher speed at lower costs, and it gives him a huge incentive to consume more content – especially video – online. We  are watching Reliance Jio’s launch with keen interest, which should lead to other service providers following suit – creating a market where data costs and speeds are not an  impediment to consumption.”

    		  

     

    Reliance Industries’ latest AGM grabbed Eros Now COO Karan Bedi’s attention. “Mr Ambani in their AGM announced that they are rolling out Reliance Jio in December and that’s  a very positive move. The statement made Airtel roll out their 4G services immediately and the service is good. Other telcos are also planning to unleash their services soon. So  overall it’s certainly a move towards the positive side,” he says.  

     

    ”Bandwidth has been an issue for OTT services and we are looking forward to the new launch of Reliance Jio. Hope it turns out to be a consumer friendly proposition. Any improved internet service will certainly help the ecosystem,” asserts Zee Digital Convergence Limited CEO and India web portal CEO Debashish Ghosh.

    		  

     

    #Fame CEO Saket Saurabh adds, “We are waiting for the launch. Let’s see how it goes. If the internet infrastructure develops, it will be good for the entire ecosystem.”  

     

     “From a consumer perspective, 4G would more be a network bandwidth problem solver and hence would immensely expand the experience of browsing and interacting with  mobile internet products. And from a digital and mobile player perspective, I expect 4G to significantly enhance the reach and innovation in the mobile video ecosystem. Today,  Indian online users watch approximately 40 per cent of YouTube videos on their mobile phones even when the experience is not the best and I am really looking forward  to Reliance Jio’s launch. Any new player disrupting the mobile ecosystem adds a new dimension to the environment. So from a consumer perspective, just as Monsoon Dhamaka  was a massive disruption to making mobile phone accessible to all, I expect 4G launch of Reliance to be also a dhamaka for the consumer and the mobile marketing,” opines Madhouse South Asia COO Milind Pathak.

    		  

     

    Ping Network CEO Rajashree Naik adds, “Even a marginal shift in internet speeds will have a significant impact in data consumption – for us in the video space, there is a relevant link between consumption and speeds. For everyone in the internet and content space, if the consumer experience is enhanced because of speeds much of our own    business metrics will change. So whether it is Jio or any other data options that will make it cheaper to consume and remove the buffering hurdle, will certainly be something to look forward to.”  

    Even as the stage is set for Reliance Jio’s disruptive entry into the Indian telecom market, rivals are gearing up to fire their respective salvos. While India is waking up to some interesting times ahead in the telecom space, what each one does to change the ecosystem, only time will tell.

  • Microsoft’s Mark Penn forms ad-marketing investment firm, raises $250 million

    Microsoft’s Mark Penn forms ad-marketing investment firm, raises $250 million

    MUMBAI: In a top level shake-up at Bill Gates’ Microsoft, the company’s executive vice president Mark Penn has quit to form an investment advisory company called The Stagwell Group LLC, which will invest in advertising, research, data analytics, public relations, and digital marketing services. 

     

    The Stagwell Group has closed on $250 million in investment capital and may use leverage to make up to $750 million in acquisitions.

     

    Erstwhile Microsoft CEO and current owner of professional American basketball team Los Angeles Clippers Steve Ballmer is a core investor in the company.

     

    “I believe in the ability to invest, grow and even shake up firms in the marketing industries,” Ballmer said.

     

    “With Steve’s support and my experience in politics, marketing and technology, I will seek out investments in the exploding digital marketing arena. From finding soccer moms to uncovering Microtrends. I have always believed that data and creativity have to go together and that creative talent needs to be nurtured. We will be looking for investments that understand those principles,” Penn said.

     

    “I think now is the time to bring together new kinds of marketing companies into a more dynamic environment – one where entrepreneurs can really thrive,” Penn added. 

     

    Penn has been in research, advertising, public relations, polling and consulting for nearly 40 years. For the past three years, he has served in senior executive positions at Microsoft, where as an executive vice president he has been responsible for working on core strategic issues across Microsoft’s products, value propositions, and investments and leading the company’s competitive research and analysis. He will be transitioning from Microsoft to The Stagwell Group by September.

     

    Penn’s experience in growing, building and managing agencies is well-documented. As the co-founder and CEO of Penn Schoen Berland, a market research firm that he built and sold to WPP, he demonstrated value creation in a crowded industry serving clients with innovative techniques from being first with overnight polling to unique ad testing methods used by presidents and major corporations. At WPP, he also became CEO of Burson Marsteller, and managed the two companies to record profit growth during that period.

     

    Penn is also known as the creator behind well-known campaigns and ads, including the 3 am ad, Tony Blair’s “forward not back” campaign and led the team on Microsoft’s hugely successful 2014 Super Bowl ad when he headed advertising there. He has been a senior adviser to global corporate and political leaders including Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Bill Ford, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Bill Clinton. He has worked globally in over 25 countries for their leaders. Penn is the author of Microtrends: the Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes (2009).

     

    The firm is not currently accepting new investors.

  • Ted turner: The Maverick man

    Ted turner: The Maverick man

    MUMBAI: CNN founder, Ted Turner, is the subject of a 60-minute profile encompassing his remarkable life and achievements. Reported by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, TED TURNER: THE MAVERICK MAN explores his difficult early years, his extraordinary career, his legendary America’s Cup win, Turner’s historic humanitarian and cable television legacies – and everything in between. The documentary will air on Sunday, November 24 at 4.30pm IST.

    Blitzer traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, and outside of Bozeman, Montana – to Turner’s Flying D Ranch – where Turner works to preserve bison and land and water reserves for future generations – for the exclusive profile as Turner approaches his 75th birthday in 2013. During revealing interviews with Blitzer, Turner opens up about his successes and failures, both personal and in business. Intimate interviews with Turner’s five children and key figures in his life, including ex-wife Jane Fonda, President Jimmy Carter, broadcaster Larry King, MLB players Phil Niekro and Dale Murphy, and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, add additional layers to the complex portrait.

    “Ted Turner has done for the broadcast media industry what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have done for technology and personal communications,” Blitzer said. “From this in-depth look behind Ted’s hard won achievements and biographical challenges, viewers will come to understand the man we know today.”

    The film features first-hand accounts from Turner on founding his first “Super Station” and rapidly transforming that venture into a global media company. Of CNN’s ground-breaking, enterprising broadcast coverage of the 1991 Iraq War, Turner reflected it as still the “greatest scoop in the history of journalism.”

    In the film, Fonda describes her first meeting – and being wooed by – her former husband and describes their enduring friendship and love for one another. Carter describes how Turner hatched the idea to pursue Fonda – during a fly-fishing trip at Turner’s Flying D ranch.

    In addition, Nunn and Turner’s children describe Turner’s environmental passions and the motivation for his historic United Nations Foundation gift and other philanthropies. Murphy and Niekro share memories of Turner’s purchase of the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team – and the team’s triumphant march from last to first place in the League. Exclusive family videos and photos are also included in the hour.

  • Steve Jobs doc released following ‘Jobs’ this month

    Steve Jobs doc released following ‘Jobs’ this month

    MUMBAI: With Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher released in cinema’s this month, there has been a surge of interest in Steve Jobs’ life as people seek to understand what made one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century tick.

     

    Having experienced success with their recent release William and Kate: A Royal Arrival, Electric Sky has acquired another Future Sight Entertainments doc, Steve Jobs: His Story. The doc will include insight from the people who knew him best; his close friends, family and colleagues at Apple and Pixar.

     

    Electric Sky already have early interest having released a promo screener last week and the doc includes contributions from Apple and Pixar heavyweights; John Lasseter, Tim Allen, Tim Cook, John Sculley and Steve Wozniak. Further big names to share their thoughts about Jobs include Ashton Kutcher, Owen Wilson, Bill Gates and Tom Hanks.

     

    Steve Jobs: His Story, will be available to deliver very soon to coincide with the continued international release of the movie later this year.

  • Nine projects selected in second Cannes Lions and Gates Foundation competition for social good

    Nine projects selected in second Cannes Lions and Gates Foundation competition for social good

    MUMBAI: The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have announced nine projects that have been selected as part of the second Grand Challenges Explorations initiative.

    Each project will develop a communication approach to changing the global conversation about the impact of development aid.

    The creators of the nine projects will each be awarded up to $100,000 to work on their communications idea and will be mentored by a Cannes Chimera panel made up of representatives of each of the 2012 Cannes Lions Grand Prix winners. The Cannes Chimera will work with the grantees to help develop and hone their initiatives. Grantees are then invited to apply for up to US$ 1 million of additional funding from the Gates Foundation to implement their ideas.

    The nine projects from agency and non-profit organisations from around the world are:

    • BeHere-BeThere Project by Serviceplan, Hamburg, Germany: Using location-based network applications in collaboration with local retail partners, Serviceplan will connect consumers to charity projects in the developing world to raise awareness of development issues and trigger donations from retail locations to specific projects.
    • Cause Generation: a Platform to Define a Generation‘s Cause by OgilvyEarth, San Francisco, USA: OgilvyEarth will develop and launch an online platform for university student teams to use to campaign for a single global development cause for their generation, convince their peers to support that cause, and execute an awareness raising project around the winning cause.
    • Hactivating Development Aid by Coxswain Social Investment Plus, Tunis, Tunisia: The organization will develop an online crowdsourcing program that engages young people around the world and enables them to learn about global development challenges through first-person narratives as well as provide solutions to real-life challenges identified by their peers.
    • HMKD by Leo Burnett, Chicago, US: Leo Burnett will develop a plan to create a working stock ticker on the New York Stock Exchange that will track the daily return on investment from development aid to raise awareness that investments in humankind are working.
    • House Parties: Experiential Marketing for Global Aid by Plan International, Washington, USA: Plan International USA will test a proven marketing model – the House Party – as an engagement tool to build support among the public for international development programs.
    • Global 360 by Media Trust, London, UK: Building on its existing programming, Media Trust will produce the first television, online and mobile channel run by young people, which will create and distribute stories about global development.
    • Mobile-izing the United Voices of Aid Recipients by Environics Trust, Ghaziabad, India: Environics Trust will use an Interactive Voice Response system to collect 10,000 personal narratives about the impact of aid programs in rural India, will disseminate them online and through social media, and then measure how the information changes perceptions among a youth audience.
    • Radio8 by Digital Kitchen, Seattle, US: Digital Kitchen will create a worldwide radio channel for eight-year-old children to provide knowledge, insights and perspectives on the impact of aid through first-person stories, music, and cultural exchanges, with a goal of promoting connections between the developing and the developed world.
    • Smart Cities: An Interactive Multi-Media and Mapping Platform by Spatial Collective, Nairobi, Kenya: Spatial Collective will create an interactive community platform, accessible via SMS, for citizens to present local development challenges and suggest possible solutions, with a goal of promoting better communication between citizens, service providers, local governments, and members of the international community and improving living conditions for people in developing countries.

    Lions Festivals CEO Philip Thomas said, “Once again we are seeing some truly inspirational and creative ideas being brought to the table for the better good of the world. I‘m particularly proud to see that the global communications industry is rising to the challenge and increasingly engaging with this unique and fantastic initiative. Having had the privilege to see the first Cannes Chimera in action during the mentorship workshop in Seattle last year, I have no doubt that when these nine grantees convene in Seattle in October, they will be blown away by the experience of working first hand with the most skilled and passionate creative communicators in the business”

    The creative challenge ‘Aid is Working, Tell the World‘ solicited communications ideas that can help change the global conversation about the impact of investments in foreign aid. Answering to a competitive creative brief for ideas in four specific submission categories: Mobile, Data, Young Audiences and The Progress of Development, the nine new projects were selected from entries submitted from around the world. They were chosen solely on merit – applicants‘ details are kept confidential – by a review panel comprised of experts from the first Cannes Chimera, winners of the 2011 Cannes Lions Grand Prix, and representatives from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These grants are awarded as part of the foundation‘s Grand Challenges Explorations initiative which fosters innovations that can help overcome the most persistent challenges in global health and development.

    Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation director of Global Brand and Innovation Tom Scott said, “Innovative communications are going to be an important part of solving the world‘s biggest challenges. We‘re thrilled to be partnering with Cannes Lions, which enables us to collaborate directly with the global creative community to find ways to build awareness and support for critical global development problems”

    Some of the nine grantees will also be honoured on stage during the four awards ceremonies that take place during the Cannes Lions festival week from 16-22 June 2013.

    A new global creative challenge will be announced on 17 June at the 60th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity during the Cannes Chimera Initiative seminar. An all-star cast, including Chimera Members and previous grantees, will take to the stage to discuss the Cannes Chimera Initiative and launch the next challenge.

    The Cannes Chimera Initiative, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, exists to harness great ideas for the good of the world. It is open to anyone from any discipline, from students to communications executives, and from any organisation. Applications are submitted online to Cannes Lions, and initial grants of $100,000 are awarded for the finalists. Successful projects have the opportunity to apply for a grant of up to $1 million to implement their idea.