Post about iRUN hosted as part of Intellect Day 2023

Incredible Stories of Intellect Fest 2023

iRUN 2023 – Where Dreams and Determination Met the Finish Line

In the realm of running, the race isn’t about whether you lead, follow, or come in last. It’s about proudly proclaiming, “I crossed that finish line.” This sentiment struck a chord with us at Intellect. It was the inspiration behind the iRUN event, a unique double marathon spanning 5 km and 10 km. This special event was the heart of Intellect Fest 2023, a spectacle that unfolded on a bright Saturday morning, August 5th.

This year’s iRUN carved its place in history, with an astounding 580 registrations by the Associates embracing the challenge. These numbers stand as a testament to our unity and determination, far surpassing the modest participation of previous iRUNs, where we rarely exceeded 300 participants.

Our associates were invited to share the marathon spirit with their beloved family members. As we pursued our physical goals together, each person chose their marathon distance, either 5 km or 10 km, reflecting the diversity of our shared vision, One Dream, One Intellect. This embodies our strategic philosophy of collaboration and a united purpose.

The rhythm of this grand event echoed beyond borders. For the first time, iRUN’s magic reached the heart of Hyderabad, where over 100 enthusiasts joined the journey. Mumbai also received over 200 registrations unfortunately the event could not happen due to heavy rain.

In Chennai, our event unfolded as a tapestry woven with threads of unity. Spouses, Children, and even those with mobility challenges joyfully took part in the marathon. The 10 km race showcased the incredible skills of Mythili Periyasamy, securing the top spot for the second consecutive year. A talented footballer, she conquered the distance in just one hour, one minute, and thirty seconds and Valarmathi secured the second position. Hariharan accomplished the 10 km course in 42 minutes and Vinod Kumar secured the second position finishing the course in 42 minutes and 15 seconds. He had previously emerged as the champion of iRUN 2022.

Discussing the other victors in Chennai, In the 5 km race held, Venkatesh finished first with a time of 24 minutes and 6 seconds, while Mariya secured the top position in 39 minutes and 31 seconds. Meanwhile, in Hyderabad, Susanta Kumar Sahoo completed the 5 km race in 24 minutes and 5 seconds, and Surapaneni Pujitha clinched victory in 30 minutes and 4 seconds.

Intellect Fest committee acted as the guardians of this spirited spectacle. Hydration stations dotted the route, protecting participants from dehydration, while clear directions guided them on the right path.

As we look back, iRUN 2023 becomes a symphony of achievement, etching a chapter into Intellect’s legacy. It embodies unity, resilience, and our shared dreams.

I will share the stories of the success of Intellect and our Associates in the upcoming weeks.

August 1, 2023

Reshared SRM’s post announcing starting of new Design Thinking course for all first year students

Reshared: SRM has introduced Design Thinking course for all first year students. A major breakthru in curriculum where ‘Design The Thinking’ based on unmukt is becoming the foundation stone for understanding the Technology and Engineering better.

Congratulations to all faculty who spent enough time in learning the new pedagogy at School of Design Thinking under the leadership of Dr. Anbu Rathinavel.

July 1, 2023

Post on Foundation Day

Power of Committed Communities

24.7 is the foundation date of Polaris/Intellect group 30 years ago. Aptly, ‘24 by 7’ became the DNA of members of this group who continuously think, work and achieve designing and developing better technologies for their customers across the globe.

The 30 years of collective community power translates to 10957 calendar days and over 1.5 billion hours of design, innovation and execution of a vision in global Financial Technology. A vision that is jointly shared with our customers.

I must record my gratitude to all customers who trusted Polaris/Intellect from 57 countries to connect their dreams to drive better banking for their customers.

We started our journey at the beginning of Banktech Wave 3 when the era of distributed computing and relational databases was just emerging over the Mainframes and Mini computers era. We proudly participated in providing cutting-edge technology in building the first high volume Credit Card processing application and Core Banking application on the distributed architecture of small Solaris machines and Oracle DBMS for Citibank. A unique achievement which was unheard of in that era. And then we never looked back.

In a short span of 7 years, customers from Singapore, Australia, Middle East, Germany, Switzerland, UK and US started placing their trust with our technology teams. And top 4 of 10 North American Banks, top 6 of 10 European Banks, top 9 of 10 Middle Eastern Banks, top 7 of 10 Indian Banks and top 5 of 10 South East Asia & ANZ Banks place their trust on Intellect when it comes to technology.

The process of shared visioning and imagining the nextgen through ‘Lakshya’ (our visioning exercise across the organisation) helped the group to transition smoothly to Wave 4 and now Wave 5 ahead of its competitors. Today Intellect’s launch of eMACH.ai is a new paradigm in choreographing and composing contextual experiences at double the speed.

My gratitude to all associates (employees in industry terms) and partners, past and present, of this 24 by 7 movement, who helped in building a strong culture of small communities (teams) who asked the right questions and found the right and appropriate solutions, wiring them in our customer complex ecosystems. The culture of smart communities focussed on deep functional and technology research, product engineering, customer transformations, and life cycle support spread across 25 countries makes me proud today.

Our resolve of bringing transformation through ‘Mission Samriddhi’ in rural India and building the spirit of ‘Can Do’ in children through ‘Ullas Trust’ is our way of contributing to society and expressing our gratitude to the roots from where we have emerged.

On this important day, I feel humbled by the power of dreams, entrepreneurship and communities. A very Happy Foundation Day to all my associates, customers and partners and I look forward to our continued journey together.

hashtag#Intellect hashtag#LiveYourDream hashtag#Polaris hashtag#FoundationDay

July 1, 2023

Post describing two day Jharkhand trip

just completed a 2-day trip to Jharkhand and would like to share my learnings with my LinkedIn group. I would encourage all of you to share your personal learnings/ insights in this forum.

Key learnings:

  1. The nutrient value of grains and vegetables has fallen substantially in the last 100 years as per recorded data. The iron content in spinach as published by nutrient data has reduced to one-fifth since 1914. It is attributed to lesser microbes and soil content because of chemical farming.
  2. The nutrient value of native seeds is higher as per Siddarth Jaiswal’s study.
  3. The protein content in Bhutku Rice is as high as 11.5 percent along with B1, B3 and B6 vitamins and phosphorus,
  4. Saw Amrit Krishi’s bed and learnt 5 layer farming on the same bed (Amrit Krishi is a system of Natural farming (an advanced form of Organic farming) in which no external bio-input purchased from the market is used. The product is from native sees which are grown in virgin tracts using natural concoctions of native cow dung/urine and biomass by tribal farmers of Chakuliya in East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. The grains are processed using traditional methods and checked manually.)
  5. Carbon content of Amrit Mitti is 6 to 8 times higher than normal organic soil.

5-layer Farming on Amrit Mitti bed

Layer 1: Underground crops like Potato, Onion, Turmeric, Ginger, Garlic, beetroot etc

Layer 2: on Ground crops like cabbage, Brocolli etc

Layer 3: Bushes crop at higher levels like Brinjal, Tomato etc

Layer 4: Creepers on Bamboo sticks wired in the Center of Amrit Mitti bed

Layer 5: Leafy Vegetables in the remaining space in a broadcast fashion.

The concept of layer 5 is very interesting. As per Amrit Krishi theory, Sunlight is the only energy source for the growth of plants which needs ‘designed distribution’. Normally in empty spaces, weeds surface. If we sprinkle leafy vegetables in the empty spaces, it prevents weeds to grow and we get one extra vegetable.

May 1, 2023

Discussed with Nikunj Dalmia, Managing Editor of ET Now about the current question facing the banking industry

I had a meeting with Nikunj Dalmia, Managing Editor of ET Now today where we discussed the current question facing the banking industry.

As a designer of banking technology for the last 37 years, I believe that the complexity of the global banking industry can be represented through the Banking Complexity Pyramid. This complexity includes the interconnected world, regulatory compliances, extreme economic fluctuations, and five generations of existing technologies.

Investor communities often react based on visible symptoms like Brexit, Trump, or Russia/Ukraine, without conducting a detailed analysis. However, the controllable element in this complexity is technology, and a holistic design is required to build resilience against regulatory changes, an interconnected/interdependent world, and economic fluctuations.

I believe that technology investments are crucial for banks to navigate the complex banking industry and build resilience.

At Intellect 3.0, we have invested over 600 crores in building the Open Finance platform eMACH.ai based on BankTech wave 5 by converging 5 technologies of events, microservices, API, cloud, and AI.

Our platform helps banks’ in-house business, operations, and technology teams to ‘Connect’ broken windows created by ‘Residual Legacy’ and compose agile solutions by using 285 independent microservices (Core Banking, Lending, Credit Card, Wealth and Corporate Banking) and tightly wire the entire ecosystem using 1214 API’s. This platform helps banks to co-design technology transformation in a very systematic way and helps reduce operations costs by 20%.

hashtag#bankingtechnology hashtag#etnow hashtag#eMACH.ai hashtag#openfinance

March 1, 2023

Post describing his 10 years journey

I heard the phrase during my school days – Time Flies.

Here I am experiencing 10 years of time flown since innauguration of FT8012 on 23rd March 2013 by Michael Harte, who flown from Australia to innaugurate this ‘Monument of Design Thinking’, the first of its kind in the world dedicated for making a difference in financial technology world.

Over the 10 years period of smartest brains entered in this space and having deep design conversations makes this place sacred. Each time I participated in taking a group of leaders around Design Center, I got some new learning, some new connections, some blind spots surfaced or some difficult problems got solved. Each visit is Magical and energising for me.

The whole concept and design of Mission Samriddhi germinated from FT 8012. It took us 3 years and over 150 Development Accelerators with deep commitment to Social development participated in over 20 different workshops. The entire CATALYST WHEEL and Cluster Development Program (CDP) got designed from this SACRED place.

It’s a Temple of Thinking and Inspiration for me.

Happy Design Day.

hashtag#design hashtag#inspiration hashtag#missionsamriddhi hashtag#socialdevelopment

March 1, 2023

Indias first Assistive Technology Start Up Awards by AssisTech Foundation in partnership with NASSCOM Foundation

On 14th Oct, I had the opportunity to present India’s first Assistive Technology Start-Up Awards by AssisTech Foundation (ATF) in partnership with NASSCOM Foundation at IIT Madras Research Park (IITMRP) !

As a part of its 10X programme, IIT-Madras Research Park is betting big in the Assistive Technology (AT) space and intends to help create several start-ups in the coming years.

This initiative focuses on supporting & scaling indigenously built, affordable assistive technology products/solutions for India and the world to empower all Persons with Disability.

As a small step towards this direction, IITMRP organised a conference (13 th to 15 th October) a one-of-a-kind event bringing together the academia, industry and end users of Assistive Technologies,that is persons with disabilities. This conference was having 20+ presenters, 8 workshops and 80+ exhibits.

Many congratulations AssisTech Foundation IITMRP, AssisTech Foundation, Nasscom and all the winners of the first AssisTech Awards.

October 10, 2022

The 4 Design Competencies

I observed there are 4 Design Competencies

  1. Design Curiosity
  2. Design Experience
  3. Design Solution for simplification
  4. Design Robust Product

The Design Curiousity is related to ‘observe Status Quo’ and asking question – is there any better way to do it?

Design Experience is about imagining ‘what can go wrong’ besides being SIMPLE.

Design Solution is about Holistic understanding of the ecosystem and available Technologies and apply them to ‘CONNECT THE NON OBVIOUS DOTS’.

Design Robust Product is all about MICRO DETAILING of the delivery processes and wiring them.

October 1, 2022

Intellect recognised as leader in Forrester Wave digital banking in latest Q3 2022

Being leader in Forrester Wave digital banking in latest Q3 2022 report Makes me proud of business and technology designers at Intellect. The highly functional product with complexity of retail banking simplified using MACH architecture gives best of both worlds to the customers – The Depth and The Edge.

With Composable choreographic suite of ITurmeric provides ability self design highly customer focussed user journeys on underlying core banking, lending, credit card and wealth systems.

corebanking #lending #creditcardprocessing #wealthtech #mach #architecture #digitalbanking

October 1, 2022

iGTB at Sibos 2022 COCB

Manish Maakan, Uppili Srinivasan (Upps), Atanu Ganguli, Andrew England, Debal Dutt and team Intellect Global Transaction Banking | iGTB great show at Sibos 2022.

Upps, I love the succinct 7-minute articulation of COCB – Consumerisation of Commercial Banking (our core theme at Sibos), wired with domain and technology.

The sharpness of 6 tenets of COCB – 1. Hyper Personalisation, 2. Real-time, Connected journeys, 3. Action-triggering insights, 4. Immediacy, 5. Desire & trust-based decision making, 6. Friction-free experience – even at scale, which the banks need to understand and have a gameplan to embrace

3 dimensions of Technology architecture – Composability, Contextuality and Hyperscale along with Data has woven very well.

The need for a Platform and Intellect ability to compose products based on end consumer needs leading to a HOLISTIC experience vs ‘experience at the door’ is captured very well in your video.

I also like 5 imperative for Banks (Revenue Growth, Revenue Protection, Cost avoidance, risk protection and risk elimination) as a driver for choosing Intellect. Congratulations.

iGTB #sibos2022 #COCB #designthinking #intellect

October 1, 2022