India gains on innovation index; Google’s Android for enterprise gets ISO stamp

India spent $50 billion on research and development in 2017 and is now ranked the 52nd most innovative country. Google has received an ISO 27001 certification.

India 52nd in the world on driving innovation

The global innovation index of 2019 has placed India at the 52nd spot in terms of driving innovation and best practices. The country has improved by five positions since last year.

The top five on the list were Switzerland, Sweden, USA, the Netherlands, and the UK. This was followed by Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Germany, and Israel.

The rankings are published annually by Cornell University in association with INSEAD, GII Knowledge Partners and the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation.

This is the 12th annual report by the university where over 129 economies were studied.

The report said India was ranked sixth when it came to public and private research and development (R&D) expenditure in 2017. India spent $50 billion while the US at number 1 spent $511 billion in R&D, according to the report.

Google’s Android enterprise gets ISO certified

Google said in a blog that its enterprise-grade Android solutions have been given an ISO 27001 certification.

The post, authored by Fabien Cardineau, product manager of the Android enterprise wing, said IT security practices, procedures for android application programming interfaces (APIs) and the managed Google Play services would now meet “strict industry standards for security and privacy.”

Along with the ISO 27001 certification, the post added that the service organisation control (SOC) 2 and 3 reports on the company’s IT security practices also provided confidence to its enterprise users.

A SOC report details the level of trust for a company’s clients (regarding compliance in security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy), which are of relevance to the clients of Google in their financial reporting needs. In a way, the report builds trust and transparency.

The ISO 27001 report points out the best practices in security and a list of control regarding information risk management.

The SOC 2 and 3 reports were given based on the principles laid out by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Trust Services.

Synechron announces new accelerator solution

The New York-based financial services digital consulting provider Synechron announced the launch of a new accelerator solution - The Data Science Accelerator.

The company said it is the latest solution in its artificial intelligence (AI) data science accelerator programme.

The solution was specifically created to solve complex financial challenges that are expected to arise after the 2021 deadline for the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR).

LIBOR is a benchmark for interest rates of major banks for internal lending between for short-term loans. It is widely used in the international interbank market.

In 2017, the UK Financial Conduct Authority announced that it would no longer require banks to submit the information required to calculate LIBOR by 2021. As a result, LIBOR will no longer exist and trillions of dollars in financial contracts relying on LIBOR or its overnight equivalents must be revalued using alternative benchmark rates.

An official release said the solution would help companies use a robust data science toolkit that would help with large-scale enterprise transformations.

The data science accelerator would reduce costs by 80% as well as speed up the contract review process by 30 times, the release added.