Microsoft AI Awards 2.0 celebrates innovation in AI in India

New Delhi: Committed to enable the deployment of AI by customers and partners to drive positive change, Microsoft has announced winners of the prestigious AI Awards 2.0. Held in Mumbai on February 24, 2020, the second annual edition of the awards were presented in seven different categories, honouring companies that have implemented Microsoft AI tools to deliver meaningful impact. Winners were jointly felicitated by Jean-Philippe Courtois, Executive Vice President and President, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations and Dr. Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India.

The AI Awards 2.0 were open to all Microsoft customers and partners who continue to foster and marshal AI-led innovation. Participants were adjudged on their use case scenarios, application and impact across seven categories. 11 customer and partner organizations were selected from applicants from a wide variety of fields including AI in education, finance, cybersecurity, prevention of crime, aviation, marketing and sales and more. The winners were shortlisted by Ernst & Young and screened by an independent jury panel, which included Mr Jayesh Ranjan, IT Secretary, Telangana; Mr Mukesh Nigam, MD, CRIS; Dr Gautam Shroff, Vice-President, Chief Scientist and Head of TCS Research and a member of TCS Corporate Technology Council; and Mr Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India, said, “The breadth of innovations recognized in these awards demonstrate the impact that Indian organizations can deliver through cutting edge AI development. In our second year, we have seen these awards flourish – they have grown to highlight the innovative, creative and thoughtful approach of our customers and partners to AI. This reflects our own mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more through innovation, empowerment and responsibility.”

Following is the complete list of recipients of AI Awards 2.0 and the winning implementation of Microsoft AI tools:

1. Best AI Application in BFSI

Microsoft customer: Paisabazaar.com for their ‘Chance of Approval’ model that enables personalized recommendations to increase product conversion for loans & credit cards using Azure ML.

Microsoft partner: Best AI Application in BFSI – Eugenie (Fractal) for developing scalable AI suites that can detect financial frauds with more than 90% accuracy from high volume transaction data using unsupervised ML techniques.

2. Elevating Customer Experience with AI

Microsoft customer: Paisabazaar.com for creating a highly efficient pre-qualified loan system to ease the loan process by leveraging customer profile matching credit history.

Microsoft partner: Resulticks Digitals India Pvt. Ltd. for leveraging machine learning and AI capabilities to enable micro-targeting, boost marketing campaign effectiveness, and empower insightful benchmarking.

3. Most Innovative AI Solution

Microsoft customer: Mindtree, a leading digital transformation and technology services company, for developing a predictive analytics solution for a leading airline player to ensure maximum occupancy with optimal yield.

Microsoft partner: Paladion for developing an AI driven enterprise cybersecurity platform that enables customers to reduce their MTTD security breaches by 85%.

4. Best AI solution for Societal Impact

Microsoft customer: UST Global, who in partnership with EmancipAction, built a human centric platform to collate information and provide meaningful insights from clinical research study performed on children exploited by human trafficking.

Microsoft partner: Talview Inc. for empowering students with limited means for higher education by providing remotely administered AI-based progressive assessments.

5. Empowering Employees with AI

Microsoft customer: Decision Point Pvt. Ltd.. for a recommendation engine for feet on street that enables them with overview of product line and gives better inputs to the dealers/retailers based on various parameters.

Microsoft partner: Disprz for using AI to help employees accelerate their careers through personalized online courses and videos depending on a user’s role, skill needs and past learning history.

6. Best AI Application in Manufacturing

Microsoft customer: Decision Point Pvt. Ltd. for using AI to optimize the beat path for feet on street (FOS) to maximize sales and productivity.

Microsoft partner: Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt Ltd for an AI assistant that interacts with the on-field technician to help resolve fault codes at the elevator panel.

7. Emerging AI Focussed Start up – ConceptBytes for their “Smart Surveillance”, a SaaS platform, which safeguards the intend of enterprises on their existing surveillance systems. It leverages Hybrid Edge AI to provide actionable insights from data and video streams.