The new laboratory will be exclusively dedicated to the provision of cell and gene therapy manufacturing training and will utilise both digital and established teaching platforms.

Learners will be trained using state-of-the-art equipment capable of large-scale manufacture to meet the need for skilled workers to help accelerate the scale-up of growing cell and gene therapy companies locally.

The laboratory supports the national drive for skills development within the cell and gene therapy industry, and complements existing skills initiatives coordinated by CGT Catapult, including the Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network and the Advanced Therapies Apprenticeship Community.

Hertfordshire LEP has selected five key projects to receive a share of its £16.8m allocation from Government’s Getting Building Fund, which aims to kickstart local economic recovery.

The five Hertfordshire projects are set to deliver over 1,500 high value jobs across high-tech sectors including film and TV; cell and gene therapies; advanced therapeutics; and smart construction.

The LEP’s £3m funding will allow CGT Catapult to equip the laboratory with the latest digital technologies including augmented reality, high-throughput manufacturing platforms and advanced analytics for the industrial manufacture of cell and gene therapies.

The funding will also help expand upon the industry-leading capabilities available at CGT Catapult, including at the facility in Stevenage which has been instrumental to the growth of the UK’s cell and gene therapy industry. The cell and gene therapy cluster around Stevenage has also recently been recognised as a High Potential Opportunity zone, set to attract overseas investment to the area to further strengthen the UK’s sectorial advantage.

Matthew Durdy, CEO at CGT Catapult said: “This Local Enterprise Partnership investment in the new integration laboratory in Stevenage has allowed us to move forward with this dedicated facility for the cell and gene therapy industry.

“This initiative will help to further expand the cell and gene therapy cluster around Stevenage and support the development of the UK skills base in the industry.”

Broad-based Benefits

Automation is now useful in driving internal operations, customer engagement and other activities that are transforming the fintech industry. Whether it is banks, insurance companies or other financial services entities, automation is expediting almost all operations, including administrative functions.

The advent of technology such as AI and ML (machine learning) has led to a fast-changing landscape in enterprise payments. Traditionally, key processes dependent on human legacy systems were slow, cumbersome and prone to errors. Since automation is based on accurate and fast industry insights, automated operations take decisions speedily and safely without a propensity towards human error.

Consider the insurance industry. Conventionally, settlement of claims has always consumed a major proportion of an insurance player’s time, effort and expense. This was primarily because human minds needed to oversee a trove of information collated from a plethora of sources while analysing the data manually. Today, RPA (robotic process automation) streamlines this process by decoding disparate claims information within seconds and sans the possibility of typical human errors. The savings in time, money and effort can well be imagined even as security is safeguarded during these operations.

That’s not all. Even in functions requiring customer interactions, AI is making a big difference. Thanks to NLP (natural language processing), chatbots are answering customer queries 24×7. Moreover, these automated processes backed by ML techniques only need limited human support.

From elaborating on new credit cards or lending schemes to updating insurance plans, scrutinising customer data and providing a completely-customised experience, AI-enabled tools are fostering greater customer satisfaction at much lower costs. Consequently, this helps in enhanced customer retention and brand loyalty.

As digital technology evolves at an exponential pace, industry analysts expect more changes within a decade in the banking and fintech sectors vis-à-vis the entire past century. Naturally, the momentum in growth is also bound to increase. While India’s fintech market was valued at around INR1920 billion in 2019, it is slated to touch INR6207 billion by 2025. Between 2020 and 2025, this will translate into a CAGR of about 22.7%.

According to a Research and Market report, ‘Fintech Market in India 2020’, India is one of the world’s fastest-growing fintech markets. By March 2020, among the world’s emerging markets, India and China registered the highest fintech adoption rate of 87%. Compared to this, the worldwide average adoption rate was 64% only. This accelerated growth has been driven by the Digital India mission and a slew of initiatives such as Jan Dhan Yojana, Unified Payments Interface, Aadhar and Demonetisation.

Dual Influencers

Despite this, the lack of consumer confidence in digital payment modes and the ever-rising threat of data security breaches and cybercrimes were barriers to faster growth. But the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdowns have nudged customers to embrace digital offerings due to the greater physical security of contactless transactions undertaken from the safe confines of homes.

Without doubt, multiple downsides notwithstanding, the pandemic has come as a blessing in disguise for all fintech players. These include the payments (m-wallets and point-of-sales services), lending (banks, NBFCs, HFCs, online lenders, etc.), insurance and other segments promoting digital means of doing business.

Nonetheless, the impact of COVID-19 has been twofold. On the one hand, job losses, pay cuts and furloughs have led to a tremendous drop in discretionary spending, impacting digital transactions too. On the other, housebound families have been undertaking online shopping with gusto. Propelled by the online shopping impetus, digital payment modes have seen around a 42% rise.[1]

Utility bill payments, healthcare, food and grocery shopping, among others, have all been witnessing a swift rise in online transactions. Yet, this growth has been offset by the severe downturn in the fashion, entertainment, travel and tourism sectors, which have almost ground to a standstill. As the lockdown and social distancing restrictions are eased progressively, a bounce-back in these verticals will help the Indian fintech industry log higher transactions.

Meanwhile, automation in the fintech industry is increasing by leaps and bounds. Technologies such as blockchain, biometrics, predictive analytics, IoT, augmented reality, virtual reality, cloud computing and quantum computing, to name a few, are offering incremental as well as comprehensive savings in monetary and non-monetary terms.

Overall, fintech players are benefitting from the higher efficiency, security and faster turnaround times offered by automation – all of which are boosting bottom-lines, leading to greater profitability.

The two technology titans will look to explore enterprise-grade solutions for mobile edge computing and end-to-end private 5G networks that run on open architecture, looking to empower employees by use of 5G-enabled Samsung Galaxy devices.

The expansive collaboration will also see both companies studying how manufacturers can implement Industrial IoT (IIoT) solutions on private 5G/4G networks as well as 5G mobile devices. Naturally, Samsung Galaxy 5G will be utilized to research solutions, but so will Samsung’s end-to-end enterprise network solutions.

IBM on the other hand will bring its network management, hybrid cloud, and edge computing expertise to the table, combined Big Blue’s industrial AI applications and the open-source enterprise framework of leading solutions supplier Red Hat.

The hybridization of these various 4IR technologies by leveraging the capabilities of 5G devices, cloud-native 5G networks, and advanced edge computing platforms, is building up from another recent partnership between Samsung and Red Hat, where Samsung’s 5G network solutions where be built on Red Hat OpenShift containerized infrastructure – allowing enterprises to quickly deploy or customize personalized solutions across any cloud, on-premise, or private network environment.

The goal is to develop open, hybrid cloud solutions that enable enterprises to glean greater insights from data gathered at the frontlines of 4IR organizations – be it from the factory floor, or an oil rig, or a regular office space. The research will ideally result in solutions that can improve operational performance, help reduce workplace errors, and also minimize downtime.

“The move to standalone 5G has accelerated the adoption of IIoT solutions and will require businesses to adopt an edge computing strategy that allows them to manage their IT environments from anywhere,” said KC Choi, Samsung Electronics’ EVP and the head of the Global Mobile B2B Team, Mobile Communications Business. “We are excited to work with IBM to discover how our unique devices, mobile IoT and network solutions can provide frontline workers with access to better data and more actionable insights to take their business to the next level.”

This formidable alliance of enterprise solution giants will also look at adopting crucial 4IR technologies like IoT, AI, cloud, edge computing, and augmented reality (AR) for private 5G networks. At the same time, brand new innovations being co-developed will be aimed at equipping workers with the 4IR-ready tools to identify manufacturing faults using AI-enabled image recognition, use thousands of IIoT sensors to build smart agriculture solutions, or facilitate employee training and productivity using AR.

“The transition of communication networks from proprietary architecture to intelligent, software-defined hybrid cloud platforms enables the creation of enormous new value in the 5G and edge era,” noted Steve Canepa, the Global GM and MD of IBM’s Communications Sector. “5G devices and network solutions from Samsung, along with IBM and Red Hat’s open, hybrid cloud capabilities, can help organizations across all industries accelerate their transformation and solve real business problems, while unlocking the true power of 5G and edge.”

Fifth generation wireless (5G) technology will usher in significant benefit for some of the most crucial industries, not just enhancing connectivity speeds but in securing the next generation network infrastructure against 5G security vulnerabilities.

Unlike its predecessor standards like 3G and 4G which were more geared towards improving the consumer experience over the previous generation, 5G will be the first wireless technology to be largely focused on critical sectors such as hospitals and manufacturing plants, according to a networking cybersecurity expert.

Oscar Visaya, the Philippines’ Country Manager for American cybersecurity specialists Palo Alto Networks, told a virtual briefing recently that while 5G will play an integral role in protecting digital infrastructure in important industries, a new wireless standard like 5G will undoubtedly come with a host of new security issues.

Given how influential 5G will be in the coming years, Visaya says his firm has been consulting with telecommunications operators for at least two years, in preparation to provide comprehensive 5G cyber security support.

“That’s the reason why they’re very serious about 5G security and I’m confident that based on what I’m seeing, they should be ready for rolling out these services for not only the enterprises but also for (the) government,” he said.

For businesses, 5G network security will have to be adequately tested beforehand, to ensure they are up to the rigors of ever-evolving network security threats. “So there has to be some inspection that needs to happen so that you can enforce policies to be able to protect it,” he added.

For the time being, 4G is still the most pervasive connectivity standard in the world, but it will be progressively replaced as 5G infrastructure becomes more widely available over the next few years. Already, companies are also introducing their own private 5G networks, with prioritized bandwidth and low latency for their organizations.

Palo Alto Networks vice president and regional chief security officer for Asia Pacific (APAC) and Japan, Sean Duca, also spoke at the virtual briefing and commented on how 5G cyberattacks are still few and far between for now, as 5G availability is still limited, but that several 5G proof-of-concept attacks “have forced users to drop from 5G to 4G networks, emphasizing the importance of 4G security even as we enter the age of 5G.”

The availability of seasoned cybersecurity experts is also limited, and the pandemic has illustrated how critical cyber security talent will be. In several regions, the private sector stepped up to recruit and train dedicated cyber security personnel.

building a more sustainable talent pipeline, businesses still need to be mindful that these new resources aren’t a panacea for the global shortage,” Duca said, adding that he hopes that more individuals will choose cybersecurity-linked careers in the future.

Read the original article here.

The report has been structured with thorough market research administered by a team of industry experts, dynamic analysts, skilful forecasters, and well-known researchers. The report talks about all significant global Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR and VR) market viewpoints on the current market status alongside notable information.

Some of the leading players featured in the report include Google, Wikitude GmbH, Sony, Microsoft, PTC, Oculus VR (Facebook), Osterhout Design Group, HTC, Samsung Electronics, Magic Leap, Visteon, Zugara, Daqri, Infinity Augmented Reality, Eon Reality, Continental, Blippar, MAXST, Vuzix, Upskill, Apple, Intel

Market segmentation is by product types: Hardware and Devices, Software and Services

Market segmentation, by applications/end users: Consumer, Enterprise, Healthcare, Aerospace and Defense, Others

The varying scenarios of the overall global Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR and VR) market have been shown in this report. Industry participants can reform their strategies and approaches by examining the market size forecast mentioned in this report.

NOTE: Our analysts monitoring the situation across the globe explains that the market will generate remunerative prospects for producers post COVID-19 crisis. The report aims to provide an additional illustration of the latest scenario, economic slowdown, and COVID-19 impact on the overall industry.

Other reports offer better glimmers of hope and positivity for the market, in unpredictable and ever changing times.

Indeed the pandemic itself has helped some providers innovate further and expand operations:

Pandemic Sees companies surge in use of AR 

AREA members offer pandemic support 

The Short term roles of AI and AR in the post-pandemic digital landscape. 

Thanks largely to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital collaboration tools became critically important to enterprises and small businesses in 2020, with multi-person video chats and team messaging apps becoming mandatory as offices moved to remote work, says an article on VentureBeat. Less conspicuously, augmented reality technologies gained traction this year within certain industries, enabling people to “see” digital people, objects, and data as holograms within different spaces; AR allows five co-workers in separate home offices to collaboratively refine a photorealistic 3D backpack design, or sit at a common table in a virtual space for a group discussion.

As 2020 comes to a close, it’s clear that AR took only half steps towards the goalposts I laid out one year ago: Yes, new hardware, software, and wireless technologies reached enterprise audiences this year, but COVID-19 cast a dark cloud over everything, contributing at least somewhat to the predicted thinning of the AR herd without dramatically changing the list of players. What should have been a global rollout of Nreal’s Light AR glasses instead became only regional, 5G and Wi-Fi 6 became more widespread but not ubiquitous, and compelling apps designed for AR headsets began to chase larger markets of VR and mobile device users to build larger user bases.

Even so, the latest enterprise augmented reality trends are significant to technical decision makers because AR will increasingly provide organizations with tools to collaborate from multiple locations, visualize information, and share digital products with both internal and external audiences. Taking COVID-19’s continued impacts into account, here are three enterprise AR trends that are likely to be important in 2021, regardless of whether the virus keeps most people out of traditional offices throughout the coming year.

1. Growing leadership and organization-wide comfort with AR concepts
2. Increased conversion of physical assets into digital assets for AR
3. Continued improvements in enterprise AR hardware

Read about all 3 above points in detail on VentureBeat

The article beings with a true story about Hugh Roddy, VP of global engineering and project management at Chobani. Up until 10 months ago Roddy spent much of his time on the road traveling between the company’s plants in New York and Idaho, as well as periodically heading overseas to check in on the Australian factory. But his road warrior ways have been curbed by COVID-19, and now—like many of his manufacturing peers—he has to manage the projects and operations remotely.

As a result, Roddy has been turning to technology, including HMI (human machine interface) and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and augmented reality (AR) to remotely manage assets and troubleshoot machines. But he also needs visibility into how each plant is operating overall. A few years ago, that may have been a problem. But since Chobani’s adoption of Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform, which he describes as a modern day OT (operations technology) operating system, he’s been able to develop many different applications and dashboards, giving him and his team the ability to manage new projects, assist with the operations of current production lines, and gain an eagle’s eye view of individual plants from the enterprise level.

“When I log into our Ignition system I can see New York, Twin Falls (Idaho), and Australia at any given moment in time,” Roddy says. “The plants are more connected to what is happening downstream and upstream…and at the enterprise level it allows plants to be highly integrated from the plant floor to the executive level and back down.”

While Chobani adopted the Ignition platform years ago, other companies are just now starting their digital development journey—a process that has been put on fast-forward due to COVID-19. Now, every business, regardless of the industry segment, is finding new ways to stay connected.

People and processes
“The pandemic is accelerating the movement to digital and smart factories to keep operations running as efficiently as possible and to share [information] across cells in a plant, lines in a plant, or plants in a network,” says Paul Wellener, a vice chairman at Deloitte LLP and the leader of the company’s U.S. Industrial Products and Construction practice.

Deloitte, together with the Manufacturer’s Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI), recently published a report called “Accelerating Smart Manufacturing: The Value of an Ecosystem Approach,” which indicates that long-term partnerships in the form of an ecosystem can accelerate digital initiatives and drive results. According to the report, while the manufacturing industry was already on a digital transformation journey, it has historically been complicated by the complexity of digitally connecting assets that, in some cases, are more than 50 years old.

The disruption and economic hardship caused by the ongoing pandemic have increased the urgency to accelerate smart manufacturing initiatives for future competitiveness. In a recent MAPI CEO poll, 85% of leaders agreed or strongly agreed that investments in smart factories will rise by June 2021. And, while economists predict that overall business investments could be low for the next three cycles, respondents in the study indicated they are directing a greater share of their factory investments toward smart manufacturing initiatives.

Read the complete article on Automation World.

Saratoga, California-based Mojo Vision has developed a smart contact lens with a tiny built-in display that lets you view augmented reality images on a screen sitting right on your eyeballs. It’s a pretty amazing innovation, but the company has to make sure that it works with contact lenses as they have been built for decades. The partnership with Menicon will help the company do that, Mojo Vision chief technology officer Mike Wiemer said in an interview with VentureBeat.

“It’s a development agreement, and it could turn into a commercial agreement,” Wiemer said. “I’m very excited to work with them.”

Under the joint-development agreement, the two companies will work on various feasibility studies on production and manufacturing, exploring a potential long-term working relationship as Mojo tries to commercialize the technology.

Mojo Vision is developing Mojo Lens, which it calls the first true smart contact lens. Nagoya, Japan-based Menicon claims to be the only company in the world dedicated to all areas of contact lens-related business, including material development, lens designing, rigid gas permeable lens technology, manufacturing of lenses, and care solutions.

Read the whole article on VentureBeat.

Readers may also be interested in a related topic detailed in a recently published article:  The science fiction future of contact lenses, quoting 32 different sources.

In the article, the following questions are answered:

• What is the technology behind smart contacts?
• Can you power it with solar?
• What are augmented reality lenses?
• How close are we to being able to record video using it?

With Infinera’s XTM Series, SSE Enterprise Telecoms leverages an industry-leading optical solution optimized for 5G transport with high-performance synchronization capabilities and low latency. The network’s Layer 2 packet optical aggregation features also provide enterprise customers with high-bandwidth connectivity services over the same network. These benefits extend across SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ network, which upon completion will span over 30,000 km, delivering the high-speed, performance, and reach required to support the growing digital needs of UK organizations.

“This network expansion with Infinera’s XTM Series is key to our UK initiative as it enables new technologies including the IIoT and autonomous vehicles, as well as opening the door to new business technologies such as seamless, instant video streaming and immersive virtual and augmented reality,” said Dave Eddy, COO, SSE Enterprise Telecoms. “Infinera’s XTM solution provided the high performance, scalability, and flexibility required to meet our network needs.”

“The UK market’s bandwidth is growing exponentially, and SSE Enterprise Telecoms is poised to meet this growing demand as it more than doubles its number of connected exchanges,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Sales at Infinera. “We are proud to be a part of SSE Enterprise Telecoms’ network expansion as it ushers the era of 5G with the unique capabilities of Infinera’s XTM.”

The ways in which frontline workers can benefit from AR digital twins mentioned in the article are:

• Navigating and monitoring
• Conducting assisted maintenance operations
• Reviewing complex machinery
• Planning industrial plants and facilities
• Product development
• Inspections
• Visualising and interpreting data (on-site and remotely)

The Arvizio XR Platform enables user to visualise digital twins at table-top or life size scale. It also supports remote 3D collaboration across XR devices such as iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, Magic Leap, and HoloLens 2. Users can also import 3D BIM, LiDAR, CAD, and photogrammetry assets for integration with Autodesk cloud services, such as Fusion 360 and BIM 360. Reality captures and 3D models acts as a “digital canvas” for arranging AR data with the digital twin. It operates as follows:

• A graphical user interface tool associates documents, images, workflow items, and IoT data with objects in the model
• Models and scans are aligned on-site, overlaying AR data on top of real-world objects
• The XR Platform interfaces on IoT data hubs or the cloud, providing integration of live IoT data with 3D objects

Jonathan Reeves, CEO at Arvizio, is quoted to have said that the pandemic has led to increased Industry 4.0 adoption in enterprises, who are “seeking innovative technologies” to improve ROI and productivity. Using their XR Platform, customers can incorporate digital twins and AR to enhance efficiency.

Key feature updates for the Arvizio XR Platform for digital twins listed in the article are:

• XR Connect: collaboration services with shared video, allowing for expert assistance and remote inspection
• Expanded device support: now includes iPhone 12 Pro, iPad Pro with LiDAR, and Oculus Quest
• Arvizio’s advanced hybrid rendering: allows visualisation of large-scale point clouds and models
• IoT data integration and custom integration services: provides customer assistance with AR and digital twin migrations

The article concludes by stating that these new capabilities will be entering Beta this month, with availability expected next month. For information on Arvizio’s website, visit here.