TigerAir rebrands to Scoot

Bengaluru July 25, 2017 - Nine months after Scoot and Tigerair announced their intention to pursue a single brand and operating licence under the enhanced Scoot brand, the airline industry today bade farewell to Tigerair Singapore as its last flight departed Singapore for Tiruchirappalli at 2305 on 24 July.  From today, all previous Tigerair flights will be operated under the Scoot brand and Scoot flights will operate under the TR flight designator code. This marks the completion of the Scoot-Tigerair integration process that began last May when the airlines were brought under a common holding company, Budget Aviation Holdings.

After successfully commencing operations in India last year, award winning value airline Scoot is all set to take up new destinations under its umbrella that were running under Tigerair. These include Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Tiruchirappalli and Lucknow which will now operate under the single brand name – Scoot from 25 July 2017.

Scoot CEO Mr Lee Lik Hsin said, “As we come to the end of Tigerair’s journey, we open up a brand new chapter for Scoot. Building on what Tigerair and the old Scoot had achieved since their respective inceptions, we are stronger than we have ever been before, and consequently in an even better position to offer our guests more choice, connectivity and value. The enhanced Scoot that we are introducing today is spunky and sassy, and promises to create more travel opportunities for our guests.”

To celebrate the merger to the single Scoot brand, special one-way promotional fares from Bengaluru will start from as low as INR 5,599 to Singapore, INR 9,799 to Bali, INR 10,499 to Hong Kong, INR 12,499 to Melbourne/Sydney among others. Additional 10% discounts are also available through promotional codes for a booking period from 25 July to 6 Aug 2017.

“Scoot was very well received after the launch of our first three destinations in India last year, the response was remarkable. We hope to create the same impact in Bengaluru, Tiruchirappalli, Kochi, Lucknow and Hyderabad by bringing great prices without compromising on the safety and comfort of the passengers. When flying with a young and passionate airline like Scoot, our guests can expect a safe, reliable and contemporary travel experience with a unique attitude – Scootitude.” said Bharath Mahadevan, Country Head, India, Scoot.

New Destinations

In conjunction with this single brand celebration, Mr Lee also disclosed the five new destinations that Scoot will call at by June 2018.  Among them are Honolulu, Scoot’s maiden USA destination, and Harbin in Northeast China. The remaining three are short-haul destinations - Kuching and Kuantan in Malaysia, and Palembang in Indonesia.

Coupled with the addition of the previous Tigerair network, the five new services will bring Scoot’s total destination count to 65 across 18 countries.

New Uniform

Beyond new destinations, Scoot’s crew members, affectionately named Scootees, will be outfitted with new uniform designs bearing a refreshing, yet distinctively Scoot look.  The new uniform for female crew members cuts a flattering silhouette with its asymmetric dress design and higher waistline, while that for male crew members features sharper angles for the yellow highlights on the polo shirts.

Both male and female crew uniforms also feature fun details, such as black buttons sewn on with yellow thread to provide a subtle feature for the male crew uniforms, and thicker fabric for the Scootees to stay warm during cabin service. The new uniforms represent a fresh start for crew of both airlines, while Scoot’s signature black and yellow colour combination have been retained, carrying on the spirit of fun and spontaneity of the Scoot brand.

Escape the Ordinary

In conjunction with the brand enhancement, Scoot has also changed its Get Outta Here! tagline and adopted a new slogan, Escape the Ordinary. 

“Scoot’s new tagline, Escape the Ordinary, is reflective of our growth as an airline brand,” said Mr Lee. “It is more relevant to the global market now that our network has grown as it is aspirational to our inner wanderlust, and inspires us to travel and explore the world.”

Scoot also rolled out its first A320 aircraft, previously operated by Tigerair and repainted with the Scoot livery, named “Conscious Coupling” in commemoration of the integration between Scoot and Tigerair. The current Tigerair fleet will be progressively repainted and the complete livery change is targeted to be by mid-2018.

Log on to www.flyscoot.com to find out more.

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About Scoot

Scoot is the low-cost, medium-to-long haul arm of the Singapore Airlines Group. Scoot took to the skies in June 2012 and merged with Tigerair Singapore in July 2017, retaining the Scoot brand and positioning it well for a new chapter of growth. Scoot has carried over fifty million guests and now operates a fleet of 14 state of the art, widebody Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 23 young and modern Airbus A320 family aircraft, with six more Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 39 Airbus A320neo aircraft on order. Scoot’s network presently encompasses 60 destinations across 17 countries, with Harbin, Honolulu, Kuantan, Kuching and Palembang to join the network soon. Scoot provides – in addition to fantastic value airfares – a safe, reliable and contemporary travel experience with a unique attitude – Scootitude. Offering amenities including on-board Wi-Fi Internet connectivity and in-seat power as well as the ability to redeem and accrue Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, Scoot was voted 2015, 2016 and 2017 Best Low Cost Airline (Asia/Pacific) by AirlineRatings.com and ranked in the Top 10 of the World’s Best Low-Cost Airlines in 2015 by Skytrax. Scoot is passionate about changing the way people travel long distance. Book your tickets at FlyScoot.com or contact our Call Centre. Find out more on FlyScoot.com, Facebook.com/FlyScoot, Instagram.com/FlyScoot, and Twitter.com/flyscoot.

INNOVATION on ‘Watchdog for Agriculture Farms’ from Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Technology College wins Chairman’s Award at Texas Instruments India Innovation Challenge Design Contest 2016

Bangalore, July 22, 2017:  Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Technology College, Coimbatore bagged Chairman’s Award for the best innovative product for the Texas Instruments India Innovation Challenge Design Contest 2016. This was announced at the grand finale held at IIM Bangalore and was presided by top minds in academia and industry. The dignitaries present were Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Shri NS Raghavan, Shri Harkesh Kumar Mittal, Dr. Anita Gupta, Prof. G Raghuram, Dr. Peter Balyta and Sanjay Srivastava.

The first runner up for the Texas Instruments IICDC 2016 is the team from IIT Kharagpur for their innovation on tracking sleep disorder and the second runner up is from Dream Institute of Technology, West Bengal for their innovative solution on safety ensuring wearable. Total 30 teams participated in the finals which received 1.5 crores as product development fund. Out of these, Jury selected 10 teams which will receive INR 2Crores seed fund and opportunity to be incubated at NSRCEL, IIMB.

The 2016 TI IICDC saw participation from ~11,000 engineering students across 624 colleges in India. The collaboration with Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) has helped to nurture the young engineering minds and support the Make in India Program at IICDC 2016. In the 10 months long challenge, the participants saw an intense mentoring program from IIMB and TI. TI provided technical resources and guidance throughout the contest, including tool support and mentoring to design & help the students make their prototypes. DST provided funding of INR 3.5 crores to the student start-ups, which went towards the product development and seed fund. The online platform MyGov, promoted active participation of Indian citizens in the country’s governance and development, helped students from all different corners of the country to register for the IICDC through the MyGov portal.

Commenting on the award ceremony, Mr. Laxmi Kant Tiwari from IIT Kharagpur, one of the selected 10 teams said, “We feel honoured and privileged to emerge winners of this year long challenge. It feels all the more exciting to know that we competed amongst the best minds in the country and we were chosen by eminent jury members as the winning idea. We are confident that we will be able to work on this innovation further with the assistance and guidance from TI, IIM B and our mentors. We are all thrilled to start our new journey as entrepreneurs”

At the heels of the results, Texas Instruments India Innovation Challenge Design Contest (IICDC) 2017 is now open for registrations at www.ti.com/iicdc

About Texas Instruments: Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is a global semiconductor design and manufacturing company that develops analog ICs and embedded processors. By employing the world's brightest minds, TI creates innovations that shape the future of technology. TI is helping approximately 100,000 customers transform the future, today. Learn more at www.ti.com. For more information on the global TI university program, visit www.ti.com/university.

About IIMB & NSRCEL: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) builds leaders and entrepreneurs through holistic, transformative and innovative education. An EQUIS accredit school, IIMB is an acknowledged hub of academic activity in India and globally. IIMB’s research centres include the Centre for Public Policy, the Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, the Centre for Financial Markets & Risk Management, the Centre for Corporate Governance & Citizenship, the Centre for Software & IT Management, and the Centre for Supply Chain Management. The N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) incubates start-ups and provides free mentoring for budding entrepreneurs. NSRCEL currently incubates 18 start-ups – perhaps the largest number for an incubation center in an academic institution.  In 2016-17, NSRCEL conducted 500 mentoring sessions and over 50 events. Through its rapidly growing open mentoring initiatives, it is conservatively estimated that NSRCEL may have directly impacted in excess of 10,000 entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs or other participants in the ecosystem since it was established in 2000.

About DST: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) set up in 1971 by the Government of India plays a pivotal role in promotion of science & technology in the country. The department has wide ranging activities ranging from promoting high end basic research and development of cutting edge technologies on one hand to service the technological requirements of the common man through development of appropriate skills and technologies on the other. One of the mandates of DST is to support innovations, science and technology based entrepreneurship development and technology business incubation activity through National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (https://www.nstedb.com/). The board engages with academic and R&D institutions and also partners with leading industries to promote entrepreneurship across the country.

About MyGov: MyGov is a novel initiative taken by the Government of India to build a crucial partnership between Citizens and Government with the help of technology for materialising the real potential of India. Through this platform, the Government encourages public participation towards Good Governance by seeking ideas, suggestion and creative talent of citizens.  MyGov’s focus is to empower citizens to work hand in hand with government to channelize their collective energy into constructive nation building. National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has designed, developed and hosted the MyGov and twenty (20) of its Sub-Domains.

Paytm Gold is now available as cashback

Bangalore 20th July, 2017  : Paytm now enables customers to get their cashback as Paytm Gold. This will combine the spending & saving experience with an asset that is close to the hearts of Indians. Paytm Gold bought from MMTC-PAMP is stored in their 100% secure insured lockers at no additional cost to the customer. The company aims to encourage the habit of saving each time they spend, thus achieving long-term wealth creation for its users. Accumulated gold can be delivered or sold back to MMTC PAMP instantly.

Launched in April, Paytm Gold has been attracting thousand of customers, making the platform the country’s largest jeweler in terms of footfall within days of launch. More than 60% customers are choosing to buy and accumulate gold according to their budget instead of selling or requesting delivery, without worrying the heavy fees for gold storage in physical lockers. To accelerate this rapid adoption, the company is now servicing all pin-codes, making the product available at every nook and corner of the country. This will enable every Indian, irrespective of location and income level to save in Paytm Gold.

Krishna Hegde, Snr. Vice President – Paytm said, “We have observed that many of our customers were shopping and converting their cashback into pure gold. To encourage this trend further, we are introducing cashback as Paytm Gold. Now you can save gold for long-term wealth creation irrespective of location or income level. That means, whether you are shopping online, paying utility bills or buying movie/travel tickets, you can earn pure gold kept for free in MMTC-PAMP’s secured lockers. This will transform the way the Indian consumer saves.”

 Mehdi Barkhordar, Chairman at MMTC-PAMP India said, “Our partnership with Paytm is built on the foundation of making it easier for every Indian to buy, store and redeem highest quality gold. Launching cashback as Paytm Gold is a natural extension for us, as it would allow every customer to put aside a portion of their money every time they are transacting. This money would then be converted into pure gold purchased from and stored in MMTC-PAMP lockers with complete flexibility in redemption. We believe this is the largest number of customers a jeweler has served in this country in such a short period.”

Paytm Gold has made it accessible for every Indian to buy, store and sell pure gold instantly. The product has witnessed huge interest across cities and towns from Burdwan, Dhanbad, Warangal, Kanchipuram to Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Customers at more than 8,000 pincodes have chosen Paytm Gold as their preferred savings instrument. On the Paytm platform, customers can buy 24K 999.9 Gold from MMTC-PAMP (India’s only Internationally Accredited Refinery) instantly and store it in the country’s most secure, 100% insured lockers at no additional charge. Consumers can buy gold for as little as Re. 1, democratizing access to a wider set of customers as it will make investing in gold more affordable.

 About Paytm:
Paytm is India’s largest mobile payment & commerce platform. With the current user base of more than 225 million, Paytm is on a mission to bring half a billion Indians to the mainstream of the economy using mobile payment, commerce and recently launched Payment Bank. Paytm is founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and is the Consumer brand of India’s leading mobile internet company One97 Communications.  Paytm is headquartered in the National Capital Region, India. The company’s investors include Ant Financial (Alipay), Alibaba Group, SoftBank, SAIF Partners and Mediatek.

Airbus Bizlab Season 2 Bengaluru Launched

Bengaluru, 20 July 2017 – Airbus BizLab announced the successful culmination of its second season through a flagship event in Bengaluru. At the event, the start-ups who were selected to work with different Airbus teams in India and across the world over the last six months showcased their concept models and ideas of transforming the aerospace sector.

 The season two was launched in January 2017 in the presence of the then French Foreign Affairs Minister Mr Jean-Marc Ayrault. It had received 137 applications from nine countries. All the five selected start-ups – Neewee, Stelae Technologies, EFLIGHT, SYmbosim and Qualitas Technologies have today either started working with Airbus or are associated with the aerospace sector.

 The event was attended by Bruno Gutierres – Head of Airbus BizLab, Pierre de Bausset – President and MD at Airbus India, Srinivasan Dwarakanath – President, Commercial Aircraft at Airbus India and Siddharth Balachandran – Airbus BizLab Leader, India. The importance of B2B start-ups across various sectors was also discussed over a panel discussion.

 Commenting on the success of the second season, Bruno Gutierres said, “We are thrilled to have worked with such exciting start-ups in season two. It is re-assuring to see the potential and quality of entrepreneurs in the Indian start-up ecosystem. We are hoping to create more opportunities for start-ups to work in the aerospace and defence sectors.”

 Apart from working with the start-ups in the cohort, Airbus BizLab in India will soon be launching a community of B2B start-ups working in areas such as Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Electric Propulsion, Factories of the Future, Space Tech & Solutions, Image Processing, Cyber Security, IOT & Robotics.

 Elaborating the importance of the community Siddharth Balachandran said, “Every season we can accelerate only five or six start-ups but we keep receiving adhoc requests from Airbus teams globally checking if we have a start-up working on a specific problem that they face. So, from now on, we will have a ready pool of registered start-ups in the community to pick from. We will also organize regular events for the community to help these start-ups better understand the world of Aerospace & Defence.”

 Bizlab is a part of Airbus’ innovative strategy to bring together start-ups and Airbus “intrapreneurs” to work and speed up the transformation of their innovative ideas into valuable businesses. Through its six month “acceleration programme” for early stage projects, Airbus Bizlab gives access to a large number of coaches, experts and mentors in various domains.

 The call for applications for Season three in Bengaluru is now open and BizLab is inviting interested B2B startups to apply for the acceleration program.


Selected start-ups from Season 2:

Neewee from BLR – developed a solution “procuSense” which helps companies identify bottlenecks, optimize/improve performance from their supply chains – currently pursuing pilots in Airbus globally

Stelae Technologies from BLR – created Artificial Intelligence software which transforms unstructured content into structured, searchable and indexable output – partnered with Tech Mahindra to propose a digitilisation project for Airbus

SYmbosim from BLR – specializing in the accelerated design of composite materials/structures – currently in discussion to run a pilot with one of the Airbus teams

eFlight from BLR – integrates flight planning, filing & logging for business aviation pilots – signed a partnership with one of the Airbus subsidiaries
Qualitas Technologies – a Machine Vision and Deep Learning start-up that automates visual processes in manufacturing – recently delivered a pilot for an Airbus team in Toulouse and is awaiting the final nod for implementation

Kids welcomes Peppa Pig to Bangalore

Bangalore, 15^th July, 2017:  Viacom18 Consumer Products, the consumer products arm of Viacom18, welcomed the internationally acclaimed character of Peppa Pig and her brother George, to India. The show - Peppa Pig, started to air in India on Nick Jr. from December 2016 along with fast growing video on demand platform Voot and rapidly gained a massive following among tiny tots and their parents in India; following which, Viacom18 is enhancing the viewer’s experience further by providing an exclusive meet and greet with their favorite characters across the city and exclusively at a Hamley’s outlet in Bangalore.

The two toons, Peppa and George visited Honeybeez Play School and amused the kids with their presence and also exhibited their wide range of attractive and kid’s friendly merchandise. The preschoolers watched episodes of Peppa Pig, learnt interesting lessons, played exciting games, participated in creative activities and had lots of ice-creams while having a lot of fun. The kids also won Peppa Pig themed products from Peppa herself and their joy knew no boundaries.

To magnify the celebration, Viacom18’s consumer arm, in association with international toy brand Hamley’s, are also hosted a ‘Peppa Pig Welcome Party’ which kick started in Bangalore. Kids across all age flocked to the Hamley’s store and experienced the joy of meeting their most loved characters. Moreover, they also took part in an array of activities such as- maze games, Peppa Pong games, coloring contests and even a magic show. Kids in Bangalore had an unforgettable day and carried back with them bag full of memories and Peppa Pig merchandise.

ABOUT VIACOM18 CONSUMER PRODUCTS:

Our mission is to create a unique brand experience for fans of all ages by bringing Viacom 18’s most favorite brands and characters like MTV, Roadies, South Park, Colors, Nickelodeon along with a growing portfolio of acquired third party brands like FC Barcelona, Peppa Pig to name a few to life through innovative and exciting merchandise.

Viacom18 Consumer Products is a significant player in the fast growing and evolving licensing and merchandising business with its diverse portfolio. By creating exciting and engaging products we aim to bring alive our brands and characters in the lives of our fans. Through various associations, Viacom18 has cut beyond the conventional L & M categories giving the consumers a slice of its.

At Viacom18 Consumer Products, we aim at continuously creating enchanting products to reach out to infants, tweens, teens and young adults by being a part of their everyday lives.

ZIPPO SHINES BRIGHT AT THE 6TH EDITION OF BANGALORE OPEN AIR!

Bangalore, July 3^rd 2017 – More than 1500 music lovers from across India came together to celebrate and enjoy pulsating rock and metal music, at the 6th season of the Bangalore Open Air music festival. Hosted at the lush Royal Orchid Resort and Convention Center, the festival witnessed some of the best talents from both Indian and International bands.

An exciting highlight of the festival was the Zippo Flame Art which was setup at the venue. Symbolizing the passion and love for rock music, the flame art created fun and magical moments for the artists and the crowd, which they won’t forget for years to come!
The festival goers also got to witness the Zippo Encore area in all its glory! From unleashing their creative spirits at the ‘Zippo Custom Contest’, to trying their luck at the ‘Zippo Wheel of Fortune’ and celebrating their inner-passion through face-painting, the Zippo Encore Area had an activity for everyone. The attendees also had a chance to find their perfect Zippo windproof lighter from the host of exclusive collectibles available.