Categories
Med/Health Tech

Digital Health Care – Fast Forwarded

Written by Vinita Sethi on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Far too much illness and uncertainty, and far too many disruptions have characterised the Covid-19 pandemic.  With the onset of new waves of infection and emergence of variants, we are confronted with the same question repeatedly – what’s the future of ‘brick & mortar’ healthcare delivery system, and how will we ensure the resilience of healthcare systems?

Each time we have been hit by a new wave or by reinfections, there has been a pause on visits to hospitals, elective surgeries get postponed and even routine vaccination schedules get thrown out of the window. All steps and interventions towards preventive healthcare or chronic disease management are first to be displaced or put on a backburner.

The only silver lining in all this, is the seamless healthcare provided through digital healthcare tools. The pandemic has compressed digital transformation timelines in healthcare to 6-12 months, from earlier estimated 4-5 years.

India has emerged as one of the biggest adopters of digital healthcare– nearly 80 % rise in consumption of digital healthcare services after Covid-19. Aarogya Setu & Cowin have achieved global recognition for contact tracing and streamlining digitalized vaccination processes for our 1.3 billion population. Start-ups and innovations that emerged during the pandemic, be it personal wearables, 24*7 tele-medicine, robotics and 3D printing, or process automations, AI(Artificial Intelligence) & ML(Machine Learning) based predictive tools, all have put digital on a fast track and are transforming healthcare like never before.

There is no turning back, as digital healthcare has improved healthcare outcomes, processes and is building more equity. Covid-19 has given us a moment to rethink healthcare in ways that will help us reach those whose needs and access issues were not being catered to earlier. India’s 900 mn active internet users by 2025, rising tele-density and increasing smartphone base, augurs well for digital healthcare apps and tools. This in turn should lead to more value based, equitable healthcare.

Here is an illustration on how value-based care will get a boost through digital health care modules. India has approx. 77mn people, who are diagnosed with diabetes. This has made India, the diabetes capital of the world. Usually the focus is on episodic acre and it is the patient who visits the doctor with an issue. Digital healthcare is transforming these mechanics and design of healthcare delivery. Diabetes focused apps can connect patients with doctors, give them regular reminders for medicine compliance, updates such as dietary or exercise counselling, at low cost and across geographies. This implementation of continuum of enhances patient experience and standardises outcomes, cost of care, and treatment delivery through a collaborative chain of activities.

This is particularly beneficial to those living in remote or rural parts of our country, where the doctor-patient ratio is dismally low- often just one doctor per 25,000 population. It is estimated that innovative healthcare solutions like tele-medicine could save India between USD 4-5 bn every year, replace half of in-person outpatient consultations, and reduce the cost by 30% less than equivalent in-person visits. Reduced waiting time, on-demand doctor availability, no infection risks, EMRs availability, have all increased the demand for digital health.

Digital apart from strengthening the iron triangle of cost, quality & access, will go a long way in streamlining the supply side- reduced administrative burden on providers, real time updated registries & repositories of doctors and other healthcare workers, availability of full medical history of the patient to consulting doctors, and better time management for doctors who can spend more time on patients. In the not-so-distant future, a software platform could emerge as the biggest provider of healthcare, creating a smart bed less hospital just as Airbnb has emerged as the biggest hotel chain without owning any rooms.

However, for the future of healthcare to be successfully anchored in omni, we need to bridge the digital divide. For instance, 47% of global population is not using the internet, & the cost of available broadband exceeds affordability targets in 50% of developed countries. Similarly, in lower income economies, only 32% of population has basic digital skills.

We need to address these underlying issues of lack of skills, connectivity, affordability and accessibility. Multi-stakeholder participation is the way out, along with upskilling healthcare professionals in digital tools, sustaining investments, and providing conducive policy support. Initiatives such as the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM)  are timely and will provide necessary support for integration of digital health infrastructure in the country.

What stands out most in digital health ecosystem, is that it empowers the patient, who can now make informed decisions about treatments basis medical history, lifestyle preferences and other factors. It offers immense opportunities to integrate continuum of care with insurance and pharma, and thus reduce drops offs in patients’ funnels from diagnosis to treatment. Providing digital health access and tools to all could go a long way in accelerating our mission towards achieving Universal Health Care, that leaves no one behind.

Categories
Food Tech

THE PLANT BASED MEAT MAGIC

Written by Suhail Jindran for Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

The rapid increase in meat consumption shed light on the resource demand of meat production. Cattle are responsible for about 6.52% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (3.19 Gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalents) and the production of 1 kg of beef causes 26.5 kg CO2 emission and needs 15,000 litres of water (equal to 50 days’ household water use per capita in EU). Many researchers suggest that meat consumption need to be decreased to protect and preserve the environmental resources.

So, let’s go behind the scenes to find out how the Plant-Based Meat Magic is done… Meat analogues are based on plant-based proteins and come in various shapes and sizes. But what does the production process look like? And what is the difference between Texturized Vegetable Proteins (TVP) and High Moisture Meat Analogues (HMMA)? Get a glimpse behind the scenes in the following infographic:

Even though meat substitutes are available in numerous forms and consistencies, they are mostly based on two types of plant-based proteins: Texturized Vegetable Proteins (TVP) and High Moisture Meat Analogues (HMMA).

TVP is known for its dry consistency and long shelf life when stored under normal ambient conditions. It is mostly offered as crumbles, flakes or even strips. As a result, it is suitable for several dishes ranging from the classic spaghetti Bolognese to vegan chicken breast. When preparing TVP-based products, they need to be soaked in water or liquid as TVP requires dehydration before use.

HMMA on the other hand is characterized by its high proportion of moisture. It typically consists of 50-80% of water which is about the same as lean meat. Therefore, it is used for many ready-to-eat meat dishes.

Shandi Global was born out of years in the research and development to fulfil the gap found in the plant-based meat market. The target market for plant-based meat includes vegetarians, vegans, non-vegetarians who are seeking to reduce their meat consumption. Shandi Global does not believe in changing human behaviour towards their diet, but instead offer a huge choice by providing a 100% plant-based meat which does not contain any artificial ingredients.

The founders Dr. Reena and her husband Dr. Gaurav both spend over a decade in the food tech and science industry and noticed that the emergence of Plant Based Meat had several flaws and missing elements with a limitation to what the end consumer could prepare as most companies were offering only mince products or burgers and sausages while some were offering soy products with lots of sodium, artificial flavours and additives. This made the couple to think and utilise their combined years of expertise in the food science industry to start deep research to identify the missing links through latest technology and discover each molecule found in meat and in pea protein to match 100% the meat analogue in texture, flavour and appearance.

They developed a complete amino acid profile: Each protein is different due to its precise composition of amino acids. Each amino acid has a very specific function in our body. Hence having high number of proteins is not enough to build muscles and repair body tissues. Right protein with right balance of amino acids is a must to be called as nutrition.

At Shandi, meat does not only contain high protein, but also right proteins with 90% of amino acids in same composition as meat. It has high digestibility like meat and dairy so that nutrients are quickly absorbed.

Today the company is the first in Singapore to have the latest state-of-the-art technology with a patented and custom-built extruder machine that is capable of producing whole slabs of meat like steaks, breast meat or our signature Chicken Drumsticks ™. Our technology differentiates us from the others, as a majority of producers are only “Texturized Vegetable Proteins” (TVP) while we are a step ahead of adapting both TVP and “High Moisture Meat Analogues” (HMMA). The difference in both methods is; TVP is released and directly cut at the nozzle plate, HMMA requires a special cooling die. In the cooling die the material is cooled down while being forced into a laminar flow. This way, a meat-like structure is created, and our custom-built machine does what we have designed it for.

To sum up, plant based meat analogue (i.e., plant-based meat alternatives or substitutes, or vegan meats) are becoming more and more popular. The consumption is also increasing while the primary role of meat analogues is to replace the meat component in meals where the appropriate nutrient content and hedonic value will be provided as well. Using micro biotechnology, it is possible to reverse engineer naturally found molecules in various legumes into a full-bodied muscle meat which looks, feels and cuts exactly like any meat product.

Categories
Mar Tech

Marketers in the “Marketing 5.0” era

Written by Clare Wong on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Convergence of Marketing 5.0 and T-Shaped Marketing

Here we are, on the precipice of a post-covid world, yet another one is brewing…(It’s not the emergence of Omicron if you are reading this in early 2022).

Ever-present Marketing 5.0

You might have heard of Industry 4.0, but I recently came to know of Marketing 5.0 by Philip Kotler – which essentially is the backbone of Industry 4.0. Marketing 2.0 to 4.0 was “Mad Men meets The Social Network with a sprinkle of Suits”, but Marketing 5.0 is “Black Mirror meets Love, Death and Robots” (but there are the good bits, like iOS 14 with their privacy move). Since 2019, Covid got us embracing a kaleidoscope of Digitization, Digitalization, and Digital Transformation. Industry 4.0 effects of Automation, Next Tech and Accelerated Digitalisation, in tandem, Marketing 5.0’s Hyper-Personalisation, Responsible Innovation and Smart-Connectivity. This inevitably caused considerable transformations within societies and market disruptions. Naturally, marketers had to react to this change.

Industry 4.0’s impact on many facets of human lives and societies (Image Source: The Marketing Journal)

Convergence of New Customer Experience and “Next Tech” (Image Source: The Marketing Journal)

Customer Empathy first, Technology second

So, how do marketers fit into this ‘next tech’ vision?

As the book’s name suggests “Technology for humanity”, humans are central to successful applications and marketers are still at the core of Marketing 5.0.

It is not about replacing the human with computer intelligence but rather finding ways in which “machines and people might fit and deliver the most value across the customer journey.” 

Mercè C. (Co-founder, Lead Consultant & Chartered Marketer)

In today’s connected and on-demand economy, relevance is the most important currency. This harkens back to the drivers of marketing evolutions, which are marketing technology and consumer needs. To stay relevant, marketers must adopt a customer-centric approach.

The 5 components of Marketing 5.0 (Image Source: Think Beyond)

Next Technologies’ main purpose is to amplify the capabilities of marketers to create and deliver value. With the rapidly-changing consumer behaviours due to the pandemic, marketers can create solutions that are more relevant than those created by the current-state AI.

Kolter touches on how Technology is adding value to marketing through the above five components with society and sustainability in mind.

Stepping into Marketing 5.0, T-shaped marketers would see the expansion and deepening of various domains (e.g. Behavioural Psychology, Digital Analytics, AR/VR, Service & UX Design).

Am I ready for Marketing 5.0?

The biggest challenge marketers face is the journey from strategy to execution!
Let alone being ready for Marketing 5.0.

In my career journey, I am neither on track with Jack Ma’s career advice nor ready to take on the entrepreneurship path. ​​I believe there is no rush to setting deadlines to attain your career goals (something that Jack Ma begs to differ).

My current goal is to advance from being a T-Shaped to a V-Shaped Marketer by broadening my business acumen, technical know-how while strengthening interpersonal skills. Individuals are rarely capable of achieving a true, deep “V” shape in their skill sets, but a collective unit can. I am blessed to have the opportunity to learn alongside similarly-minded, differentiated knowledge-experts within Google.

If you are just starting your digital marketing journey or at the cusp of a career-pivot, don’t fret – here are some readings that will help you get up to speed with the MarTech Universe (not the Marvel Universe!) and pivot to becoming a T-shaped marketer.

Good Reads and Frameworks:  Marketing 5.0’s Marketer

Have an Awesome 2022, Everyone!

Categories
Mar Tech

WALLED GARDENS AND AD-FRAUD

Written by Aditya Satheesh for Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Low data prices has increased Internet users in India (mobile first Internet market) while propelling the growth/reach of social media giants as well as video content watch time over the last 5 years; but digital media still isn’t the preferred vehicle of marketing for most clients and only accounts for 25-30% of the industry spends, although it is growing YOY.

The adoption of digital media has been hindered by the fragmented digital ecosystem, doubts over ad fraud and effectiveness of the medium, questions over viewability of ads, traditional mindset of brand managers and their lack of understanding of the digital ecosystem. Even until recently, I have been asked to run campaigns targeting the brands HQ or been provided with custom audience lists of senior executives in the company, to be targeted with the brand campaign so as to satisfy and address the question a lot of brand managers ask – I am not able to see my ad; as they compare it to traditional media where ads are shown in an appointment-viewing manner.

The ever-changing pandemic situation has definitely forced a digital pivot, with print and outdoor media taking a hit. Brand managers are forced to consider digital due to its targeting capabilities ensuring low spillage and cost efficiencies. And like learning the ABCs of the alphabets, all brands jump on the bandwagon of Facebook and Google with over 80% budget going to these 2 platforms. The platform scale/reach, along with cost efficiencies as well as brand credibility is definitely unbeatable in the space and hence becomes a no brainer for brands. But as the adoption of the duopoly increases, the strength and power of the walled gardens grow and so do their prices.

As marketers spend more on these platforms, they understand less about their customers as walled garden campaigns and interactions can’t be tied back to the brand’s CRM database. Brands receive a consolidated view of how their campaigns performed rather than an individualized view. There’s no way to verify impression/reach data or understand affinity target selections that work, you simply have to take it on faith. Yet marketers continue to spend more and get less.

A more equitable value exchange needs to be more about standardizing taxonomy and identifiers across all of these platforms to see and understand the customer journey. Today, even having unified unique reach in a digital campaign is next to impossible due to the fragmented ecosystem as well as walled gardens.

With the increased spends on digital, reports indicate that ad fraud rates gone up by 40% in these COVID times. Today ad verification in India is in its nascent stages and only around 10-15% invest on third party verification tools.  The path for safer and more secure digital advertising effectiveness lies in third party ad verification, which ensures that brands are investing in quality media. Third party verification would ensure 4 things mainly

  • Brand Safety/Brand suitability – identify inflammatory/negative content and protect brand image/reputation
  • Ad Fraud – identifying Invalid Traffic to help evaluate efficacy of platform and calculate brands return on media investment
  • Viewability – helps measure effectiveness of ad delivery
  • In Geo – ensure ads served within intended demographics

Advertisers need to understand these underlying challenges as the adoption of digital increases at a rapid pace. Investing in third party verification tools will not only improve trust and transparency in the ecosystem, while also holding publishers accountable and thus help decreasing fraudulent traffic and increasing overall return on investment.

Categories
Climate Tech

Satgana: A Global Venture Studio

Written by Jashna Pillay – Digilah (Thought Leadership)

Want to find out more about our operations and exactly what we can provide to you and your start-up? Or are you looking to make an impact investment and explore the potential of capital for good. You’ve come to the right place!

Why?

Today, the investment landscape is powered by a broader base of investors who are marshaling billions of dollars to tackle one overarching global threat: climate change. “Climate tech VC isn’t just having a moment, it’s entering a new age”, says Andrew Beebe of Obvious Ventures. Climate tech includes solutions aimed at decarbonizing the planet. This has been bolstered by recent trends including a staggering rise in extreme weather disasters, an international push for net-zero emission targets and new technological breakthroughs that can potentially fight climate change. 

We believe that some of the most successful businesses of this decade will stem from solutions addressing the climate and ecological crisis. Based on this premise, Satgana was launched in September 2020 with the aim of being a launchpad for other good companies that develop market-based solutions to solve these issues.

What?

The Venture Studio Model is dedicated to systematically producing new companies. Our mission is to launch and fund planet-positive startups that address the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

The diversity of fund structures positioned to foster and profit from early-stage business development and support is increasing. Incubators and accelerators are the first round of model innovation whereas Venture Studios represent a continuation of this trend. Further, this model thrives on shared solutions, shared talents and shared growth, which in turn result in reduced, distributed costs and better applied efforts. 

How?

For an entrepreneur, starting out may seem like the hardest part. How do you grow an idea from the ground up with little resources, reputation, or staff? You’ve had this amazing idea, you know it has potential, you’ve identified your target market and know how to sell to this demographic. But there’s work to be done in getting a company off the ground. 

At Satgana, we support and invest in impact-driven startups

The best entrepreneurial talent is sought by their ability to solve real world problems and to execute on those ideas. Therefore, our purpose as a Venture Studio is then to test those ideas and back them with funding and resources to launch and grow responsible companies with a triple bottom line approach: People – Planet – Prosperity

How much?

We create bespoke support from the idea-stage until the first round of external funding, which typically occurs through a seed round, 12-18 months after our Venture Studio work.

Our goal is to invest capital in tranches, from 30k€ in founding capital to pay a stipend to entrepreneurs for their first few months, and up to 500k€ in pre-seed capital. The goal is to work alongside entrepreneurs during the “valley of death”, where great ideas are not yet fundable by traditional sources of capital which typically require traction and oftentimes existing revenue and growth.

Where?

We are a globally distributed company, leveraging remote work to tap into global talent and foster collaboration between teams in the Global North and the Global South. We are a diverse team of professionals from a large spectrum of backgrounds across Europe, India and Africa.

We believe that talent is evenly distributed across the world, and so should opportunities. ​At Satgana, we strive to solve wicked problems and we have the opportunity to do so through the flexibility that the Venture Studio model allows. Guided by the SDGs, we see the challenges the world is facing and aim to create start-ups to solve these gaps by inspiring entrepreneurs around the world to build market-based solutions. 

If you’re interested in building an impact-driven startup with Satgana, apply here or, send us your pitch deck to jointhejourney@satgana.com. We are on a mission to build and invest in climate-positive start-ups.

Categories
Digi Tech

OWN YOUR BRAND ON SOCIAL MEDIA TO SUCCEED

Written by Lourd Vijay – Digilah (Thought Leadership)

Founder of LVDS (Lourd Vijay’s Dance Studio)

Hear here if you are not upto reading!

https://open.spotify.com/embed/show/6ukAttNgIccm87g1oHMcWe?utm_source=generator

Social media has very drastically altered the world of business. Every entrepreneur or company has to constantly reinvent themselves to stay afloat; making it a challenge to comprehend the present trends, the ever-changing algorithms, the indecipherable analytics and the sudden upspring of agencies and social media marketers.

For small enterprises like ours that offer niche services like teaching dance, choreographies and performances, and predominantly catering to the hobby-classes market, social media has worked to be both a boon and a bane.

When it comes to delivering great content, dance as an activity and an art form fits perfectly to drive the kind of content that grabs enough attention, likes and follows, but then the big question is “does it bring a brand like ours a measured, tangible outcome?”

We, in the past have had an array of professionals, agencies, freelancers and interns with a social media background who have helped us with our presence but unfortunately the returns and benefits have been dismal. The ad spends have had no valuable outcome as the leads were largely irrelevant and were from a geographical region that wasn’t where we operated within. However, the influx of user-friendly and life-saving tools such as Canva for great creatives, IMovies or Inshot for video edits & Wix for intelligent websites, has lowered our dependence on social media professionals while also empowering us with a better sense of aesthetic. Functional tools such as these are the need of the hour.

My experience has made it very evident that organic growth is the only way forward in an industry like ours. Which means we need to churn out great content every single day. Our quest, hence, is to answer this sole question – “What is great content?”

Over time we have built a better hit-ratio for the kind of content we post. The turnaround time to interact with our followers has also improved drastically and our costs have reduced leading to faster and better ROI(Return on Investment).  This has obviously come at the cost of some preliminary investment in terms of time and resources. The effort seems to have paid off for now, which we hope continues until Metaverse decides to throw us off with new algorithm alterations.

Therefore, my learning’s from building my business through social media has been:

  • Look beyond vanity metrics, clearly stating your KPIs
  • Use reports and analytics to see what is working and what is not on a regular basis
  • Most important own your brand, personality and tone

Being optimistic, we hope to overcome the setbacks Covid has caused and evolve into a national brand and an enterprise that operates across varied geographies. The graduation to being a national brand would enable us to hire the brightest minds from the social media industry who can drive up value from the word ‘go’.

Until then, Canva is the tool for survival.

Categories
Ad Tech

An overview of Location-based Marketing

Written by Christian Geissendoerfer – Digilah (Thought Leadership)

Here we are in today’s world of Marketing 5.0, where technology and digital transformation play a significant part, it is essential that marketers leverage this to address customers’ needs and truly make an impact with their marketing strategies.

Over the past decades, the older approach to marketing at the local level has undergone a paradigm shift. Businesses are all required to adjust and adapt new technologies to keep up with the dramatic shifts in consumer behaviours.

Increasing brand awareness and position in the hearts of consumers has become extremely difficult, particularly in today’s fiercely competitive market.

  • How to increase revenue?
  • How to interact and attract customers to shop?
  • How to optimize marketing activities?

Those are problems that keep every business owner up at night but have yet been solved.

So how do businesses step up their marketing game? By integrating technological tactics to deliver their messages to target customers at a granular and personal level. In this article, we would like to discuss a new marketing strategy that is Location-based Marketing.

How does it work?

Location-based marketing is the technology of using location data that is shared from GPS, online transactions at shopping malls, grocery stores, or photos. Using this data, marketers will be able to reach their desired audiences with more relevant advertising and content. 

Location-based marketing works great for any and all retailers, brick and mortars, restaurants, and small local businesses. It is the best fit with these industries because of customers’ physical footprint, which synchronizes with location data. Based on their actual previous customers, marketers can create an exact set of lookalike audiences for their strategy, thus retargeting and driving those customers to return and increase loyalty.

Let’s take a deep dive into the reasons to use Location-based marketing.

Attract more customers and increase engagement

Location-based marketing can help attract more customers by bringing a business to the users at a time when they are interested in purchasing that business’s product/service. For example, there is a gym and its customers are people who live in that area. What they can do is to create ads on Facebook and limit the range to people in this area, which increases the potential customers for their services.

Build trust relationship between your target audience and your business

When selecting a target in a specific location, you can include in the advertising information about your business for the target based on the specific characteristics they represent in that area. The content should be relevant and help them feel more connected to your business. From there, nurture their beliefs with your business.

Increase profits from Active Marketing

The ultimate goal of the business is to increase sales and profits through marketing activities. Collecting, analysing, and using location data can help businesses entice more people to participate in promotions, helping to optimize marketing.

To conclude marketers love location-based marketing because it allows them to provide the users with relevant and personalized offers and messages. “Factual reports that “84% of marketers currently use location data in their marketing and ad campaigns, and 94% plan to in the future.” Hence like with any technology the key with location-based marketing, is to test, measure and refine. 

At YOOSE, we combine cutting edge technology with deep expertise, experience and passion to help global brands and advertisers capture the opportunities of this fast-paced, ever-changing world of mobile advertising. Our location-based marketing solution is tailored to deliver the most impactful campaigns and ensure the best ROI for our customers.

Categories
Food Tech

MEAT ANALOUGES

Written by Priyanka Prajapati, Dr Meenakshi Garg and Dr Rajni Chopra

Digilah (Thought Leadership)

Author’s Email: meenakshi.garg@bcas.du.ac.in

Global Meat consumption continues to perceive an upward surge as demand is driven by population growth, individual economic gain, and urbanization. However, meat production would have a severe environmental impact and high ecological footprint due to increased land and water resources used during livestock rearing. Moreover, a shift in consumer preference has been observed towards consuming plant-based products due to awareness about health hazards associated with red meat. This created a significant break for food industries to develop a plant-based meat analogue that contains similar textural and nutritional attributes present in meat. According to the report published by Mordor Intelligence, the market for meat substitutes is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.91% up to the year of 2026. The term “meat analogue” is defined as a meat-free food product resembling texture, flavour, haptic experience, and nutritional status to original meat products. The result obtained from life cycle assessment studies depicts that meat analogues could be proved as a sustainable alternative to animal-derived meat as they have considerably lower environmental footprints. Different types of Plant protein currently employed in manufacturing meat alternatives are soy protein, Wheat gluten protein, and pea protein. Many nutritional components like high-quality protein (egg protein and whey protein), vitamin B12, calcium and iron have been incorporated in meat analogues to compete with original meat nutritive value. However, manufacturers have to depend on extensively processed ingredients or/and genetically modified (GMO) material in endeavoring meat-like texture and other sensory characteristics. Leg hemoglobin is a legume protein that carries heme molecule. This molecule is produced from GMO yeast and governs meat analogs’ color, texture, and flavour. Based on the study of Egbert and Borders (2006), the given formulation produced meat analogue having improved sensory qualities.

S.NoIngredientAmount (%)
1.Water(50%- 80%)
2.Plant- based Protein(10%-25%)
3.Non textured Protein(4%-20%)
4.Flavour compounds(4%-20%)
5.Lipids (0%-15%)
6.Binding agents(1%-5%)
7.Colouring Compounds(0%-0.5%)

Texturization of plant protein is an important step in achieving similar texture, appearance, and taste as like original meat products. Plant-based proteins need several transformational changes to achieve the fibrousness of meat muscles. The native globular shape of plant protein is converted to the linear shape of textured protein by applying different texture profiling techniques (e.g., extrusion technique, electro-spinning, proteins hydrocolloid blends, high temperature conical simple shearing, freeze structuring, and 3D Bio-printing). The standard method of modifying plant proteins are electro-spinning and extrusion. Electro-Spinning produces thin fibers of plant protein by using a blend of protein solutions assembled into meat analogues through binding materials. Due to its complexity and high manufacturing cost, this method was not suitable for large-scale production.

The extrusion technique is predominant because of its robustness and versatility to produce different kinds of products. This technique involves modifying the protein configuration by undergoing several changes in its structure like (denaturation, unfolding, crosslinking, and alignment). The viscoelastic mass of plant protein is extruded in one or twin-screw extruders and involves various operational steps like (compression, shearing, heating, and cooling) to impart meatiness. This process offers several advantages like high product yield, affordability, and is energy efficient.

Bio-printing and freeze structuring are some of the emerging techniques to modify plant protein’s structure. Bio-printing is also known as 3D printing, which involves digital modeling of food formulation. Paste of Plant protein is filled in the cartilage that builds the structure of meat analogue. The major drawback faced by the Bio-printing technique is its high cost of production, complexity in spatial structure, and scalability. On the other hand, freeze structuring produces meat analogues that mimic the original meat product by freezing the protein solution, followed by the formation of ice crystals that produce porous, well-aligned and interconnected fibers of plant-based protein.

The primary requisite of a plant-based meat analogue is the proper textural profiling which mimics the texture of muscles fibre and is responsible for the characteristic meaty flavour. The intended applications of meat analogue and type of plant protein determine the technique used for texture profiling. The ongoing research has already overcome many challenges of meat analogues products like (improving microstructure, taste, and healthiness) and affordable product price and increased product convenience. However, certain technological barriers and devoid of regulatory measures are some of the sectors that need improvement.

REFERENCES

  1. Boukid, Fatma. (2021). Plant-based meat analogues: from niche to mainstream. European Food Research and Technology. 247. 10.1007/s00217-020-03630-9.
  2. Kyriakopoulou, K., Dekkers, B. and Van der Goot, A.Z. Plant-Based Meat Analogues. Sustainable Meat Production and Processing, Chapter-6, 103–126. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-814874-7.00006-7
  3. Sun, C., Ge, J., He, J., Gan, R., & Fang, Y. (2020). Processing, Quality, Safety, and Acceptance of Meat Analogue Products. Engineering.7(5): 674-678
  4. Mordor Intelligence, Meat substitutes market – growth, trend and forecast (2021 – 2026). https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/meat-substitutes-market
  5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanabandoim/2019/12/20/what-the-fdas-decision-about-soy-leghemoglobin-means-for-impossible-burger/?sh=21d7f89957f6

Categories
Fin Tech

Transformation of the Indian Debt Market

Written by Sashi Kumar M C, Investment and Merchant Banker – Digilah (Thought Leadership)

Director at Solargise

The Balance of payment crisis in 1991, brought the liberalization of the Indian economy and with it came reforms of the financial system and capital markets. The thrust of these reforms was to promote a diversified, efficient, and competitive financial system, with the objective of improving the allocation of resources through operational flexibility, improved financial viability, and institutional strengthening.

The contagion effects of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis further lent impetus to strengthen the domestic financial system. Reforms principally focused to: (i) Mitigate risks in the financial system; (ii) Efficiently allocate resources to the real sector; (iii) Make the financial system competitive globally; and (iv) Open the external sector.

India’s capital markets too were injected with reforms, specifically through the creation of various institutions such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in 1992, an insurance market regulator (IRDAI) in 1999, and a pension market regulator (PFRDA) in 2003. National Stock Exchange NSE was incorporated in 1992. It was recognised as a stock exchange by SEBI in April 1993 and commenced operations in 1994 with the launch of the wholesale debt market.

These were a fall out of the report by L M Bhole, a professor of Economics at IIT-Bombay, who noted that “There are two major inadequacies which characterize our stock market. First, while the primary market is widespread, i.e., the new issues are distributed nation-wide, the secondary market is narrow, localized, fragmented, and imperfect. The stock exchanges do not have uniform settlement periods and dates; there is no national clearing system, and they are not integrated into a single unified national market system. Second, while a significant part of the primary market is in debentures, almost the whole of secondary market is in equities. In many developed countries, debt securities, especially long-term debt securities, account for a major part of the trading volume on stock exchanges.

Not just that, Indian bond markets had to fight its way into the very quagmire of corruption and kickbacks, Lack of Transparency plagued the market, as did in-efficient price discovery methods. Defaulted Bond holders raised fingers on credit rating agencies and they in turn raised questions on data sanity. One to one negotiations led to unethical means to place the bonds at unjustified premiums that led to a mismatch to traded market yields.

In contrast to equity markets, the bond markets have been held back by the more restrictive regulatory framework. Several reforms were introduced to the government bond market in 1992 when the price of newly introduced bonds was set by auction.

But it was not until 2005—11 years after the equity market—that bond market became an electronic order limit market. Adoption of Technology to achieve the set goals.

Over the past two decades, the Reserve Bank of India has adopted a strategy to create an efficient market infrastructure to enable safe trading, clearing and settlement. State-of-the-art primary issuance process with electronic bidding and straight-through-processing (STP) capabilities. An efficient and completely dematerialized depository system within the central bank. Delivery-versus-Payment (DVP) mode of settlement. Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS). Electronic trading platform (Negotiated Dealing Systems – Order Matching) (NDS-OM) and a separate Central Counter Party (CCP) in the Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (CCIL) for guaranteed settlement.

Today, The Bond market activity has grown rapidly. Government securities market (G-Sec), corporate bond market and derivatives markets have become broad-based in terms of participation. Technology has given the ease and access to transact from anywhere, it has helped broad base not only investors but also products. Thus, driving the overall debt market size to a little over USD 2 Tn.

Government Bonds make majority of the market with sovereign yield curve spanning up to 40 years. Corporate Bonds are expected to double their growth to achieve Rs. 65-70 Lakh crore by 2025. Primary market issuances have increased resulting in large benchmark issuances. The volumes in secondary market have increased. The bid-ask spread of on-the-run securities continues to be low and so are the impact costs.  

With the increase in Fintech activities in this space, bond markets have spread their wings to reach all investors. So much so, that RBI now allows individuals under the Retail Direct Scheme, to buy Government Securities, SDLs, T-bills and Sovereign Gold Bonds.

Amidst all these positives brought about by the adoption of technology and digitalization, the regulators forget a key component – Human Resource.  Since 1992, a generation of Bond Market professionals have served a full cycle and retired.  A huge set of Bond traders and dealers, both in the primary and secondary market today face a different future……?

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Digi Tech

Digi Tech

Leveraging Instagram for Your Small Business

Written By Shoni Duesling – Digilah (Thought Leadership)

Life Coach at https://www.instagram.com/twelveinchesaway/

With 1.3 billion users, Instagram is the second most popular social media platform behind Facebook, making it one of the most effective tools to help small businesses grow their brand. While its high number of users means that small businesses can reach more people, Instagram’s visual nature offers a great potential for building strong brand identity and brand loyalty.

How to leverage Instagram

So, how can you leverage Instagram for your small business?

Capitalise on the Visual

Potential clients will form an opinion on your business after just one look at your Instagram feed. That is why it is vital to communicate your brand identity as clearly as possible. To do this, you first need to get clear on your branding. Choosing a look and feel you want to communicate is the first step, after which you can choose a cohesive design consisting of your colour scheme, fonts, icons and/or images that align with your look and feel. Once you have done this, start posting! You can post tips, quotes, diagrams, photos, videos, basically any content that communicates clear and important messages to your community. A great way to build brand loyalty is by letting people know who is behind the brand; so, post photos or videos of you and your team. You can also use Instagram Stories (posts that disappear after 24 hours) to share announcements, tips, or behind-the-scenes snippets of what is happening in your business. Regardless of your strategy, create a cohesive look for your brand and capitalise on the visual.

Engage With Your Community

The more you engage with your community, the better. Engagement increases brand loyalty and it allows you to open up a two-way conversation so that you can better understand and serve your community. One means of engagement is to include a call to action in your feed posts. A call to action could be asking people to click the link in your bio, asking a question they can answer in the comments, or asking them to like, share or save the post. Another way to engage is to greet new followers. Take a moment to message each new follower. You are building a business, but you are also building a community with other human beings – take advantage of the opportunity to connect with them. Yet another way to engage is through the built-in engagement tools in Instagram stories. You can create polls, quizzes, or ask questions. Once you have posted a story, save it as a highlight so that it will permanently show on your feed for old and new visitors alike. Engaging with your community is one of the most enjoyable and beneficial things you can do for your small business.

Collaborate!

Reach more people with your business by collaborating with Instagram’s IG Live feature. This feature allows you to live stream for up to 4 hours either on your own or with other businesses, past clients, or whoever would be relevant to your community. One benefit of IG Live collaborations is that you get to engage with your community in real-time as they type in questions or answers to your questions. A second benefit is that you and the person you are collaborating with can share your expertise on your products and/or services in depth. Third, your sharing can build brand loyalty, as your community gets to know you and the person you are collaborating with through a longer video. Lastly, both you and the person you are collaborating with will likely gain new followers from each other’s communities.

At the end of the IG Live, you can share it in your stories and tag the person you collaborated with and (if you are the one who hosted the video) you can save it to your page for future viewers. So, think of one person you could collaborate with and reach out to them.

Over to You

So now it is over to you. Instagram is one of the best platforms to use for your small business. Through capitalising on the visual, engaging with your community, and collaborating with others, you will be on your way to establishing a clear brand and creating a community who will support your growing business for years to come.