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The August Fest 2017
One of the largest conferences that celebrate arts and entrepreneurship in Asia, The August Fest turns 5 years old this year! To mark the fifth year of the event the Fest will be held at two venues, one in Mumbai and the other in Hyderabad.
The event was held in Mumbai on August 19th and 20th and hosted 3 events around the media, growth stories, social innovation, scaling up, sports and future technology. The Mumbai Fest held sessions like the media festival which saw a gathering of the best of the minds including freelancers, producers, creators, content generators, journalists, bloggers and creative folks from Television, FM, Print, New Media and Marketing Industries. The media festival provided a platform to discuss opportunities, growth, trends, content, traditional and new media via inspiring talks, interactive discussions and exclusive workshops.
The Hyderabad leg of the Fest will be hosted on August 26th and 27th at the Indian School of Business. The Hyderabad event will include sessions such as a scale up festival, a sports carnival and a future festival. Jayesh Ranjan the Secretary of Information Technology (IT), Govt. of Telangana will be one of the speakers at the event along with brand strategist and consultant Carolina Correa, Founder and MD of Livewell Future Solutions Deepthi Uppalapati and Founder of Hug Raj Neravati among other chief executive officers.
In a first of its kind meet, the Sports Carnival will involve 5 sessions with 25 speakers, 10 exhibitors and 500 attendees. The event, which will be held on 27th August, will provide an interactive platform for attendees where sports can be discussed, showcased and celebrated. The day long event will include players, coaches, trainers, team owners and influencers along with various others from every stream of sports and fitness in India.
This year’s August Fest has partnered with the Government of Telangana and Indian School of Business along with Clearcut and Hubilo to host the event in Hyderabad! To pitch at the Hyderabad August Fest or visit the event visit their website here.
Apple Inc., launched its iPhone 11 lineup on September 10th 2019. The launch happened in San Jose, where the headquarters of the Company are located. The iPhone 11 lineup includes the iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro Max. The price of the new iPhones ranges from $ 699 to $ 1099, with the iPhone 11 being the cheapest. During the launch, Apple also introduced other devices like the next gen Apple watch, the 7th gen iPad and the Apple Arcade.
The new iPhone 11 is an upgraded version of the iPhone XR, while the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max are upgrades of the iPhone XS and XS Max respectively. The iPhone 11 is directed at the price sensitive Indian market.
During the launch, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller said, “iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are the most powerful and advanced smartphones we have ever made. They are packed with sophisticated technology that pros can count on to get their work done, and for anyone who wants the very best device made, even if they are not a pro.”
Specifications
iPhone 11
The new iPhone 11 will be available in three storage variants of 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. The iPhone 11 will be powered by A13 Bionic, which is a new processor designed by Apple. The smartphone will have a 6.1 inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1792 X 828 pixels. The rear camera of the iPhone 11 consists of two lenses and both have a 12 megapixel image sensor. The iPhone 11 is dust and water resistant and will be available in black, green, yellow, purple, red and white variants.
iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max
The Pro and Pro Max versions are quite expensive compared to the iPhone 11. They are priced at $ 999 and $ 1099 respectively. The smartphones will be available in three storage variants of 64GB, 256GB and 512GB. The rear camera of both the smartphones consists of three lenses. The OLED display of iPhone Pro and Pro Max are 5.8 and 6.5 inches respectively. Just like the iPhone 11, these models are also dust and water resistant.
The iPhone 11 lineup will be released on September 20th 2019 in the United States of America and on September 27th 2019 in India.
Jack Ma retired from Alibaba, the Company he built 20 years ago, on September 10th 2019 as its Chairman. Ma announced last year he would retire from Alibaba in September 2019.
Jack Ma co founded Alibaba in 1999 as a B2B marketplace site, at his apartment in Hangzhou, China. Alibaba Group Holding Limited is now one of the biggest and most valuable companies in the world. The Company owns and operates businesses in numerous sectors around the world. With a market value of $ 420 million, Alibaba made Jack Ma one of the richest people in China, with a net worth of $ 35.6 billion. He is also considered one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world.
Jack Ma decided to retire from Alibaba in order to pursue educational and philanthropic work. Daniel Zhang, who is the CEO of the Company since 2015, will step into Jack Ma’s shoes as the executive chairman of Alibaba.
To bid farewell to Jack Ma, the Company held a four hour celebration at an Olympic sized stadium in Hangzhou with a capacity to accommodate 80,000 people. Jack Ma, who is known for his colorful personality and performed at a Chinese music festival, did not disappoint anyone this time either. Ma, dressed as a rockstar with a fake wig and holding an electronic guitar, gave a powerful performance in front of his employees.
Speaking about his retirement at the event, Jack Ma said, “After tonight, I will start a new life. I do believe the world is good, there are so many opportunities and I love excitement so much, which is why I will retire early.”
Even though Jack Ma retired from Alibaba as its Chairman, he will stay on the Company’s board till 2020 and will remain a lifetime partner of Alibaba Partnership.
Binny Bansal, an Indian billionaire, entrepreneur and co founder of the e-commerce website Flipkart, sold $ 76.4 million worth of his shares in Flipkart to Walmart’s Luxembourg entity FIT Holdings SARL.
Binny Bansal, along with his partner Sachin Bansal, co founded the Flipkart and served as its Chief Executive Officer until January 2016.
Walmart, a multinational retail corporation, bought Flipkart in 2018 and back then, Bansal sold a small portion of his shares and held 3.85 % of stake.
Now, according to the documents filed by Flipkart with the regulators, Binny Bansal transferred 539,912 equity shares to FIT Holdings SARL. These shares are valued to be $ 76.4 million (approximately Rs. 531 crores.) This latest deal left him with only 3.52 % stake in Flipkart.
Vivek Durai, the founder of Paper.vc, a business intelligence platform, said, “With this transfer, Binny Bansal has monetised a small portion of his shareholdings. He had sold 1,122,433 shares for about $ 159 million during the Walmart takeover.”
According to his contract with Walmart, Binny Bansal is entitled to sell more than half of his shares to Walmart by August 2020 and he could gain around $ 400 million from this transaction.
Bansal, who is mostly based in Singapore, is now an investor in India’s startup ecosystem and is also the co founder of xto10X Technologies, which was launched last year.
In December 2018, Binny Bansal invested a sprawling $ 25 million dollars in the online insurance startup Acko. He also invested in several AI and healthtech startups.
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