Category: National

Fortinet® a global player in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, is continuing to make significant progress in helping close the skills gap through the NSE Training Institute programs and its Training Advancement Agenda (TAA). By increasing the access of training, developing cybersecurity career pathways and connecting individuals to employers, the NSE Training Institute is making big strides in advancing TAA efforts. The NSE Training Institute continues to grow globally, serving IT and security professionals and under represented populations. In addition to recently expanding NSE offerings, including the extension of more than 30 free, self-paced technical training courses, the NSE Training Institute welcomes new global partners working alongside Fortinet to close the cybersecurity skills gap. The skills gap remains a top challenge for organizations The cyber skills gap is a top concern for CISOs as it helps contribute to security risks and the opportunity for bad actors to exploit vulnerabilities when strained security teams are short staffed. The Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) Training Institute – comprising the Certification Program, the Security Academy Program, the Veterans Program, Authorized Training Centers and the Information Security Awareness and Training Service – was established to address the widening cyber skills gap plaguing the industry. For the first time since the NSE Training Institute’s establishment in 2015, the industry saw a decrease in the number of security professionals required to fill the gap in 2020 with a shrinkage from 4.07 million professionals needed to 3.12 million professionals according to an (ISC)2 report. While this demonstrates progress toward solving the issue, the gap is still a significant challenge for organizations of all sizes. Fortinet creates opportunities through training, certifications and partnerships To address the skills gap challenge, Fortinet’s NSE Training Institute offers a number of different programs to individuals at all stages of their cybersecurity career. The TAA leverages several NSE offerings to close the cyber skills gap through training and certifications, career opportunities and partnerships. Below are some recent NSE Training Institute milestones: Providing Fortinet curricula to students: Through the Security Academy Program, Fortinet supports almost 400 institutions in more than 85 different countries and territories. These academic institutions range from students in K-12 all the way to higher education and research institutions. New participants that have recently become authorized security academies include – Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Arkansas (ULAR), Francisco Gavidia University in El Salvador, University of Costa Rica, U-tad University in Spain, Women in Tech based out of France, Collège Communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick (CCNB) in Canada, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Canada, Tower Australian College, Tennessee College of Applied Technology in the US and the University of Benghazi. Through the program, institutions are given access to Fortinet’s NSE Certification Program content to integrate into their own curriculum, along with exam vouchers for those who complete the course, in order to prepare students for a career in cybersecurity and help develop the next-generation of cybersecurity professionals. Free NSE Training courses reach more than 1,000,000 registrations: Recently, Fortinet announced the extension of all its advanced self-paced courses available free of charge to continue developing the world’s cyber workforce. The free cybersecurity training courses first introduced in early 2020 offer more than 30 self-paced, technical courses on critical topics ranging from Secure SD-WAN to operational technology to cloud security. There have been more than 10,00,000 registrations for these free courses to date. It leverages courses that count toward (ISC)2 CPE Submitter Program and the NSE Certification Program, Fortinet’s eight level certifications from cybersecurity fundamental education courses (NSE 1-3), technical product training (NSE 4-6), advanced solution-based training (NSE 7) and the cybersecurity expert recognition (NSE 8). Fortinet’s Information Security Awareness and Training Service is also offered to organizations free-of-charge, aimed at helping companies better educate their workforce on how to identify and protect themselves and their organizations against all types of cybersecurity threats. Raising cyber awareness in young children: Fortinet recently released a children’s book designed to further increase cyber awareness amongst children ranging from 7 to 12 years old. The book ‘Cyber Safe: A Dog’s Guide to Internet Security’ was co-authored by Renee Tarun, Deputy CISO at Fortinet. Charting new education pathways: Fortinet has developed education pathways to further facilitate the transition into a career in cybersecurity and close the skills gap. The education pathways were created to help align Fortinet training and certifications with roles defined in the Cybersecurity Workforce Framework developed by National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), a part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Fortinet has defined four pathways for learners in some of the most critical areas in the industry: security operations, security-driven networking, adaptive cloud security, and zero-trust network. Delivering expert training via Fortinet and our authorized training centers: Fortinet authorized training centers (ATCs) provide a global network of training facilities that deliver expert-level training in local languages. Fortinet has more than 80 ATCs worldwide and is continuing to expand the locations of the training center partners to further the reach of NSE training. Fortinet’s ATCs are currently teaching in 72 countries and territories and can deliver training and local cultural support in 22 different languages. New NSE courses and updates launched in 2021: New courses have been added to the NSE library, including NSE 5 FortiEDR 4.2, FortiAnalyzer 6.4 and FortiManager 6.4. A new technical course focused on OT security which outlines how to design, implement, and operate an OT security solution based on Fortinet products has also been added. These courses are all available as self-paced as well as instructor-led and can be taken with Fortinet or one of our ATCs. Customers are also able to book private training sessions online that are customized for their organization and delivered through a virtual classroom application. Continued collaboration on Cybersecurity Learning Hub: As a founding partner of World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity, Fortinet continues to build on its partnership with Salesforce.com and WEF on the Cybersecurity Learning Hub initiative. The Cybersecurity Learning Hub leverages NSE 1 and 2…

Vikas Bhonsle CEO, Crayon Software Experts India One of the most trending buzzwords currently in the IT sector is AIoT. As the name indicates, AIoT is a fusion of AI – Artificial Intelligence and IoT – Internet of Things. While both AI and IoT have their individual operations and characteristics, their combination brings out a whole new scope for digital transformation One of the most trending buzzwords currently in the IT sector is AIoT. As the name indicates, AIoT is a fusion of AI – Artificial Intelligence and IoT – Internet of Things. While both AI and IoT have their individual operations and characteristics, their combination brings out a whole new scope for digital transformation. Businesses to achieve digital transformation can deploy AIoT to generate predictive analytics or anomaly alerts by shifting through millions of tank level data points. If AIoT is deployed at the edge computing, it helps reduce bandwidth and latency while enhancing privacy and security. AIoT can provide support for data analytics solutions that can create value out of IoT-generated data. While the concept of AIoT is still relatively new, there is a scope to improve the growth of various industry verticals. However, AIoT could be a viable solution to solve existing operational problems such as the expense associated with effective human capital management (HCM) or the complexity of supply chains and delivery models. AIoT helps organizations promote learning and personalization at the same time. For a productive digital transformation, AIoT synergizes solutions by allowing the inclusion of more advanced predictive capabilities. AIoT can use data analytics to make suitable suggestions or undertake commensurate actions. Let’s know about a few ways how AIoT can influence the changes: Intelligent decision making: AIoT can help enterprises to intelligently manage this overwhelming data in a way that provides valuable insights that they can use to make smart decisions. High operational efficiency: Using smart automation organizations can increase their operational efficiency and optimize their expenditure. Accurate predictions: With the high amount of data collected and analyzed, organizations can predict output of the operations more accurately than ever. Better customer experience: AIoT can help organizations understand their preferences by creating agile, targeted, and effective customer experience strategy. They are able to treat every customer individually by considering their habits, patterns, and preferences. IoT scalability: AI-powered IoT ecosystem analyzes and summarizes the data from one device before transferring it to another. As such, it reduces large volumes of data to a handy level and allows connecting to a large number of IoT devices. No costly unplanned downtime: The predictive maintenance with AIoT allows to predict the equipment failure in advance and schedule orderly maintenance procedures. These changes help organizations diversify and have an edge over their competitors. AIoT is supported by artificial intelligence, 5G network and big data. The AIoT fusion is increasingly becoming mainstream, as it continues to push the boundaries of data processing and intelligent learning for years to come. IoT coupled with AI technology can lead the way to the advanced level of solutions and experience.  

HID Global, a worldwide provider of trusted identity solutions, recently announced it has again been positioned in the Leaders quadrant in the most recent Gartner ‘Magic Quadrant for Indoor Location Services, Global’ report. “We are proud to again be named a Leader in a Gartner’s 2021 Magic Quadrant,” said Mark Robinton, Vice President of IoT Services with HID Global, “HID® Location Services, including the latest Workplace Safety solution for contact tracing and physical distancing, continues to demonstrate the benefits of investing in a single, unified infrastructure to solve multiple business challenges. Widely adopted by Fortune 500 companies for managing building occupancy, optimizing office and facility space, tracking assets and monitoring equipment health, HID Location Services has become increasingly valuable across a growing range of new and existing markets and use cases.” HID Location Services for Workplace Safety leverages the solution’s Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) HID BEEKS™ Aware fobs that alert employees when they are closer than 6 feet (2 meters) for a specified period for digitized physical distancing management. The solution also includes a contact tracing application that uses the same HID BEEKS Aware fob or a BEEKS badge/ badge holder that is easily added to existing ID cards. This provides a full digital trail of an employee’s whereabouts and historical interactions while at work, enabling rapid response to cases so isolation procedures can be activated as needed. According to the Gartner report, “Vendors in the Leaders quadrant will have demonstrated an ability to fulfill a broad variety of customer requirements through the breadth of its indoor location service solution. Leaders will have the ability to provide complete and differentiating capabilities as part of their indoor location offerings. This includes global service and support. Leaders should have demonstrated the ability to shape the market, maintain strong relationships with their channels and customers, and have no obvious gaps in their portfolios.” In addition to delivering physical distancing and contact tracing capabilities, HID Location Services solutions can be used in a wide variety of applications that require real-time visibility into an organizations people, property and assets across multiple locations or a specific area. A seamless end-to-end IoT ecosystem spans the beacons, gateways and cloud management software for creating solutions in applications including employee safety, smart buildings, healthcare and hospitality.  

“Fortinet has been successful in enabling our channel partners to grow their business and services leveraging the Fortinet Security Fabric. Our partnerships go beyond the technologies that enable service offerings that drive growth and profitability. We’ve received outstanding feedback about the partner program to date and want to continue enhancing it to meet customers’ evolving needs as well as digital innovations. Today we are announcing updates that will help our partners to further reap benefits from the Engage Partner Programand to set themselves apart with customers“ Rajesh Maurya Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet Fortinet®, a leading global player in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, recently announced updates to the Fortinet Engage Partner Program, enabling additional flexibility and revenue growth for partners. Fortinet is adding new consumption models for a range of products including FortiSIEM and FortiEDR, enhancing benefits for cloud partners and introducing new specializations focused on growing markets. Engage 2.0 Partner Program expands benefits With hybrid workforces, highly distributed network infrastructures and new digital innovations, organizations find that securing all their environments is becoming increasingly complex if they don’t have the right technology and trusted advisors to lean on. To further enable channel partners to address these customer needs, the Engage 2.0 Partner Program will now include: New consumption models: Fortinet is continuing to enable MSSP and SP partners to build services and grow their business leveraging the Fortinet Security Fabric with new consumption models for FortiSIEM, FortiEDR, FortiClient, FortiSOAR, FortiAI and FortiDeceptor. According to Gartner, by 2024, more than 90% of buyers looking to outsource to security services proFortinet Expands Engage Partner Program Benefits to Further Enable Channel Business Growth Engage 2.0 partner program introduces new consumption models, specializations and updates for cloud partners to help create more profitability pathways viders will focus on threat detection and response services. Fortinet has seen an uptake of our consumption offerings, which continues to grow significantly as partners take advantage of tapping into this market demand for threat detection security outcomes. With more and more customers looking for flexible consumption models, the introduction of new ways to consume Fortinet’s end point solutions enable MSSPs and SPsto offer their customers new security services that can be quickly deployed and at lower costs. Enhanced cloud partner benefits: The EngagePartner Program allows partners to engage as an integrator, MSSP or cloud partner. For cloud partners, Fortinet is adding additional ways they can take advantage of the various routes to market leveraging Fortinet’s Adaptive cloud security offerings. Managed cloud service provider partners are now immediately eligible for the Engage Select Cloud Business Model. Participants in this business model are eligible for additional discounts on Fortinet’s flexible licensing models, including BYOL and pay-as-you-go, and gain access to FortiCWP and FNDN. These new benefits result in cost savings as partners expand their cloud security services powered by Fortinet. Additional specializations: Fortinet is introducing new specializations focused on high growth areas with additions including – zero trust access, operational technology and security operations. Specializations help partners further distinguish their expertise among current and potential customers as trusted partners who have the knowledge, services and technologies to fulfill customer business needs. Fortinet’s existing specializations have included secure SD-WAN, data center, adaptive cloud security, and LAN edge and SD-branch. Updated NSE courses to meet compliance requirements: Fortinet’s NSE training courses and eight-level certification program, which are free to all Fortinet partners, have been updated allowing partners to meet more compliance requirements. Becoming a Fortinet partner The Fortinet Engage 2.0 Partner Program allows partners to develop the expertise needed to deliver on the promise of digital transformation through a customizable program with market-leading profitability and the programs and infrastructure in place to accelerate their growth. Partners also are provided flexibility to engage on three business levels – integrator, MSSP or cloud providing multiple opportunities to grow different segments of their business, as well as multiple ways to differentiate their offerings with Specializations.  

BrainChip Holdings Ltd., a leading provider of ultra-low-power, high-performance AI technology, ended the 2020 calendar year having made significant strides in the development of its technology backed by the launch of its early access program (EAP), availability of Akida™ evaluation boards, new partnerships, and expansion of its executive leadership and global facilities. The company’s EAP was launched in June targeting specific customers in a diverse set of end markets in order to ensure availability of initial devices and evaluation systems for key applications. Multiple customers have committed to the advanced purchase of evaluation systems for a range of strategic edge applications including advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles (AV), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Edge vision systems and factory automation. Among those joining the EAP include VORAGO Technologies in a collaboration intended to support a Phase I NASA program for a neuromorphic processor that meets spaceflight requirements. BrainChip is also collaborating with Tier-1 automotive supplier valeo corporation to develop neural network processing solutions for ADAS and AV. This year, BrainChip partnered with Socionext, a leader in advanced SoC solutions for video and imaging systems, to provide a complete low-power AI edge network for vision, audio and smart transducers without the need for a host processor or external memory. The company’s partnership with Magik Eye Inc., developers of revolutionary 3D sensors that change how machines see the world, combines the best of AI with 3D sensing to provide a total 3D vision solution to customers for fast 3D object detection and recognition in applications, including robotics, automotive and emerging consumer products such as AR/ VR and others. BrainChip began shipment of evaluation boards for the Akida Neuromorphic System-on-Chip (NSoC) in November. The evaluation board availability complements the company’s Akida development environment (ADE), a robust development environment that allows potential customers to design a neural network as a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and utilize the ADE workflow to convert the network to an eventbased CNN or develop a native Spiking Neural Network (SNN). To support BrainChip’s growth throughout the year, the Company hired Rob Telson as Vice President of Worldwide Sales to lead commercialization efforts of the Akida Technology. He is also building an applications engineering team to best support customers and augment the company’s worldwide design, development and research groups. Todd Vierra joined the company as Director of Technical Sales, focusing on strategic customer adoption and implementation of the Akida neuromorphic processor in industries including aerospace, autonomous vehicles, medicine, cybersecurity and smart ‘edge’ devices, such as sensors and cameras. The personnel moves complement the company’s expansion with a Software Development Center in Hyderabad, India. The development center will concentrate on software and firmware developments to support Akida’s commercial implementation. “This past year saw significant progress in the development of the Akida technology in terms of both market readiness and the increase in market possibilities that the solution will provide immediate impact in,” said Louis DiNardo, BrainChip CEO, “From adding partners to opening up our Akida Development Environment and Early Access Program, we are making consistent, measurable progress in bringing AI to the edge in a way that existing technologies are not capable. During December we signed an agreement to license the Akida IP to a major Japanese semiconductor company. We look forward to continuing this momentum throughout the upcoming year and beyond.” The Akida Neural Processor technology, which is implemented in the NSoC, is a revolutionary advanced neural networking processor that brings artificial intelligence to the edge in a way that existing technologies are not capable. The solution is high-performance, small, ultra-low power and enables a wide array of edge capabilities. The Akida NSoC represents a revolutionary new breed of Neural Processing computing devices for Edge AI devices and systems. Comparisons to leading DNN accelerator devices show significantly better images/ second/ watt running industry standard benchmarks with MobileNet, MobileNet-SSD and Key Word Spotting, while maintaining excellent accuracy. The Akida NSoC is designed for use as a stand-alone embedded accelerator or as a co-processor. It includes interfaces for ADAS sensors, audio sensors, and other IoT sensors. It also has highspeed data interfaces such as PCI-Express, USB, 12S and 13C. An on-chip MPU is used to control the configuration of the Akida Neuron Fabric as well as off-chip communication of metadata. The Akida NSoC represents a scalable solution utilizing a built-in serial chip to chip connectivity to allow up to 64 devices to be arrayed for a single solution.  

With the world on the cusp of a digital revolution, it is no surprise that only intelligent buildings that perform efficiently, financially, and enhance well-being will be fit for the future. Aligned with this notion, Bosch India offers integrated connected building solutions to ensure the safety and security of lives, buildings, and assets. Bosch centers its connected building solutions around making buildings secure, more livable, and enjoyable for inhabitants. Bosch’s building technologies are made for an intelligent and smart future. Bosch developed Building Technologies are coupled with IoT solutions that provide an integrated platform for security, safety, and communication needs. The connected building solutions cover commercial and residential buildings including shopping malls, offices and urban development spaces. Smart building capabilities delivered by Bosch offer greater operational efficiencies in facilities management and new innovative services to end-users. Bosch has invested in engineering infrastructure in India and will continue to invest in the future too towards creating future-proof solutions for a better life. Many of Bosch’s communications products are locally manufactured and plans are in place to extend this to portfolios of security and safety too. Bosch developed building technologies provide an integrated platform for security, safety, and communication needs in private and public places. Bosch’s end-to-end solution for office buildings help save on costs, create a pleasant working environment, and aid towards well-being of employees. Bosch camera trainer integrated with deep machine learning can teach cameras to detect objects or situations that would have previously gone undetected. “As cities in India evolve and energy demands surge, planners, developers, utilities and governments are looking towards ‘intelligent’ buildings that operate more efficiently while keeping the inhabitants secure in these spaces. Bosch’s connected building solutions cover almost every area within a building, both residential and commercial – from the inhabitant’s safety, security and comfort. We will continue to leverage our deep domain knowledge and expertise to continue disrupting the security and building technologies space,” said Viswanatha Raju, Head – South Asia Region, Bosch Building Technologies. Bosch’s end-to-end solution for office buildings helps save on costs, create a pleasant working environment, and aid employee well-being. Bosch Camera Trainer integrated with deep machine learning can teach cameras to detect objects or situations that would have previously gone undetected. Based on examples of target objects and non-target objects, this module uses machine learning to allow users to define objects that are of interest to them or things that are critical for them and generate detectors for the same. Bosch’s video-based fire detection is the perfect answer for facilities used for industry, transportation, warehousing, and utilities such as energy to minimize detection time with low false alarm rates. Improving the rescue chain through fast detection and situational awareness protects lives and minimizes damage. Bosch additionally offers wired and wireless conference systems for meetings of all sizes that provide excellent sound quality while keeping a safe distance. Further, solutions from building technologies have numerous applications in helping to manage the current pandemic situation, in areas of social distancing, crowd management, touchless access, and touchless human skin temperature measurement.  

Prama Hikvision, India’s leading video security solution provider, has introduced its latest traffic product offering – the All-Rounder ITS camera – designed to improve road safety and optimize traffic flow. As the name implies, the camera encompasses different skills and abilities, boasting speed detection, traffic violation detection, automated plate recognition, and vehicle attribute analysis in one housing.     Hikvision is always pushing the boundaries of video technologies. Beyond the visual range that is perceived by video cameras, the abilities to understand other kinds of ‘senses’ would allow even more precise monitoring and reporting of events or accidents. This is multi-dimensional perception, a trend that will drive the security industry in the future. The new ITS camera is designed and developed with this multi-dimensional concept in mind. It is Hikvision’s first camera to integrate three otherwise separate modules in one unit with no compromise on performance, making the camera neat and flexible to be deployed for demanding environments, all in an easy and cost-effective manner. Improving road safety and optimizing traffic flow The product provides an HD camera, speed radar, and light array inside one housing. Specifically, it works with a multi-tracking radar that continuously monitors up to two or three traffic lanes – depending on the camera model, and identifies the speed and position of objects in the monitored area at a speed of up to 300 km/h. If a vehicle violates the speed limit, the embedded radar triggers the connected camera and a picture is taken of the vehicle and its license plate. In the event of infringements of traffic rules such as wrong-way driving, improper lane usage, or even failure to use a seat belt, the camera will capture images of the corresponding vehicle, recognize its license plate and relevant information including vehicle type, color, brand, and direction of movement, which can be addressed to the authorities in real-time or stored on board. Incident detection helps to improve overall driving standards, which ultimately reduces the number of accidents, improves road safety and further evens traffic flow. Inside the camera Employed with deep learning algorithms, the camera is able to recognize a much higher number of license plates and with higher efficiency than conventional ANPR systems. Its GMOS sensor further ensures brighter and smoother images to be reproduced in challenging lighting conditions, especially in low-light environments. The camera’s embedded supplemental light features a 16-bead light array, offering an IR range of up to 40 meters at night. As all of these functionalities are integrated, the single product itself outperforms conventional ITS products with space-saving and less cabling for easier installation. It supports flexible pole- or side-mounting, which makes onsite configuration effortless. The Hikvision All-Rounder ITS camera is ideal for various scenes such as urban roads, highways, tunnels and toll stations.  

BCD International, the global video data infrastructure manufacturer composed of the BCDVideo, Video Storage Solutions, and BCDOEM brands, announced recently the grand opening of the BCD International Inc. India Build Centre. This engineering and manufacturing facility reinforces its partnership with Dell EMC and strategically positions BCD in the market to expand its OEM and security customer base. As Dell’s number one OEM partner for surveillance and Internet of Things (IoT), BCD is expanding its product availability, operations, service and support in two key regions for their customers – Middle East, Turkey, Africa (META), and Asia Pacific (APAC). The India Build Centre empowers BCD to be an extension of the regional Dell sales teams and enables the in-region build, certification, delivery and deployment of purpose-built solutions for video surveillance, analytics, computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI). “The expansion of BCD into India is another step toward our joint partnership of addressing customers’ needs globally. BCD not only has the ability to ship orders in a matter of days, but we have also worked out the inter-company logistics between Dell and BCD to ensure the direct Dell sales teams within the META and APAC regions get compensated directly from their company and are engaged in critical deals,” said Kelly Carlberg, Global Alliance Manager for Dell Technologies at BCD, “This helps both companies maintain a singular view to the customer. It brings the power of Dell and the expertise of BCD together to jointly address our mutual customer’s needs.” “The opening of BCD International’s India Build Centre is a game changer for the safety/ security and computer vision market in APAC. We are the first company focused entirely in this fast-growth industry, offering value-added video surveillance infrastructure consultation, OEM, design, sales, implementation and support,” said Andrew Hubble, Managing Director for APAC at BCD, “I’m really looking forward to replicating the success that BCD has enjoyed in the Americas and Europe with our global partners, the dynamic APAC partners, and channel that I’ve worked with over the last 25 years.” “I am overjoyed to see BCDVideo extend their unparalleled customer service and industry proven solutions to India,” said Kaivalyamurti ‘KV’ Swami, who serves as a technology overseer for BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha®. BAPS temples have deployed BCD solutions for over a decade, with their international headquarters also located in Ahmedabad, “I have been privileged to experience firsthand the highest level of customer support one could expect. It brings extra comfort to know that the same service and solutions will now be available to our organization locally in India.” Located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the India Build Centre spans 1,524 metres (5,000 square feet) and features meeting rooms and a technology lab capable of building 75 systems simultaneously. The facility is federated with the BCD USA Innovation and OEM Build Centres, enabling the BCD technology team to do quality assurance (QA) checks to ensure the highest level of product integrity. Monitoring the India Build Centre are high-definition cameras and video management software, provided by key BCD vendor partners. The core IT technology within the centre is built on Intel-infused newest-generation BCD server equipment, an Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise video network infrastructure, and Seagate Technology enterprise and surveillance AI hard drives. All 75 station monitors are Dell-branded, along with administrative equipment using OptiPlex workstations and Latitude notebooks. The India Build Centre is the first of multiple BCD will launch in 2021. Later this month, BCD will open centres in Mexico City and the Netherlands, servicing the Latin America and Europe regions, respectively. In quarter two, BCD anticipates opening additional build centres within the APAC region, as well as business sales offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.  

Zyxel and its innovative product lines have been recognized at the Taiwan Excellence Awards, with its next-generation Wi-Fi 6 and 5G routers earning the company three separate honors – more than any other networking brand. The awards, presented at a ceremony in Taipei on 25 November, marked the 16th consecutive year Zyxel has been honored at the event and increased its total prize haul to 95 awards. This year’s success comes as the result of Zyxel’s forward-looking R&D in innovative technologies. In the past 12 months, the company has rolled out new lines of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G products, which have already been deployed in offices, factories, schools, hotels, and homes worldwide. And the winners are… Zyxel’s first award-winning product was the Armor G5 multi-gigabit router, which unleashes unprecedented data rates by utilizing Wi-Fi 6. The new standard in connectivity is complemented by a 64-bit 2.2 GHz quad-core processor with 13 high-gain antennas, allowing the Armor G5 to handle more than 30 simultaneous connections without compromising on speed. The router also fully supports Open VPN, allowing users to protect every connection and device on their network – even those that don’t normally allow VPN protection, like smart TVs and gaming consoles. Similarly, Zyxel was awarded for its NR5101 5G NR indoor router – one of the first solutions on the market for 5G new radio (NR) fixed wireless access (FWA). The router delivers robust bandwidth and low latency even to areas that fixed broadband cannot reach. By leveraging the latest 5G and Wi-Fi 6 technology, it creates an ultra-high speed, dead zone-free Wi-Fi experience for users. Gary Chen, Managing Director, Zyxel India said, “We at Zxyel are happy to receive the prestigious award from Taiwan Excellence, this award further adds to the global expertise and acceptance for the Zyxel as a brand. It conveys the innovation Zyxel brings to the market for our global satisfied customers. I thank Zyxel team for their continuous efforts in bringing these awards home again and again. Lastly, thanks to Taiwan Excellence jury for nominating Zyxel and awarding us with this award.” Zyxel’s final honor was for a router in the same ground-breaking product line: the NR7101 5G NR outdoor router. It features the same lightning-fast 5G-powered speeds as the NR5101 but comes specially built for toughness, with a hardened IP68-certified enclosure with industrial-grade components that can withstand even the harshest environment and weather conditions. The Taiwan Excellence Awards were established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 1993 and recognize products that offer innovative value. Entries are judged on their achievements in R&D, design, quality, and marketing.  

ASIS New Delhi Chapter 207 has hosted the first ASIS India Chapters meet of 2021 along with ASIS Mumbai Chapter on Friday, 22 January 2021. The theme of the meeting was ‘Return to Workplace – Strategy and Roadmap.’ To give thrust and momentum to the theme, a panel of elite and eminent leaders with domain area expertise was invited. The panelists covered the functional areas such as HR, legal, public policy, IT, CRES-workplace solutions and BCM – business resiliency in the discussion. The chapter meet started with a welcome note by Manish Datta, Chapter Chair along with chapter updates. Mr. Datta reiterated on the chapter members to renew their membership in 2021 and remain connected. This was followed by an address by Sanjay Kaushik, ARVP North Region, 13A. Sanjay emphasized on the ASIS New Delhi Chapter feedback survey which was launched on 30 December 2020 and requested all members to provide their feedback. Diwakar Nath Pandey, Chapter Vice-Chair introduced Karan Chawla as the moderator for the panel discussion. Karan is currently working as Public Policy Manager, Strategic Response, Central and South Asia, Facebook. Karan set the tone for a very interesting panel discussion by introducing the panelists Nidhi Lahoti, Senior Assistant VP – HR, EXL; Sameer Bhagwat, Ex-head of Corporate Services, TIAA Global Business Services; Parveen Gogia, Executive Director, India IT COO, Nomura Services India Private Limited; Manishi Pathak, Partner, Anhad Law; and Man Singh Yadav, Director, Global Enterprises Security, APAC, BlackRock. The panellists provided very valuable, relevant and apt insights on the theme. Their camaraderie was excellent – thus enabling the best and very relevant information which was disseminated to the participants. The chapter meet concluded with the felicitation of all speakers and a vote of thanks by Harvindra Singh, Chapter Secretary.