Brands
McDowell’s, DriveU tie up; launch service app
MUMBAI: McDowell’s No.1 Soda has joined hands with DriveU, an app-based start-up, which offers on-demand driver service, to launch a feature within the app called Share, through which friends can commute together. A strong mainstream and digital campaign will be rolled out with celebrity drivers.
The partnership creates first of its kind benchmarks where a consumer brand and a startup come together to provide a need-based consumer offering based on a long-term revenue sharing model. Through this partnership, McDowell’s will provide marketing support and generate demand for DriveU with an ambition of generating half a million downloads and completing one million rides in the first year of association.
United Spirits senior VP marketing Subroto Geed said that the unique association was based on USL’s next generation marketing thinking where there were engaging with the right partners to create a personalised experience. This partnership was a true marketing innovation and that they very excited to be working with a young and edgy start-up, he said.
This innovation was a big move that was expected to dramatically increase DriveU’s user base to meet its revenue targets. DriveU business was expected to grow tenfold over the next year, while operating across India’s top 10 metros, said DriveU CEO Ramprasad Shastry.
Brands
Practo names Cijo George as vice president of artificial intelligence
New vice president of artificial intelligence to mine healthcare data and sharpen care delivery
BENGALURU: India’s healthtech race just picked up speed. Practo has appointed Cijo George as vice president of artificial intelligence, tasking him with wiring AI deep into the company’s sprawling healthcare platform.
George will steer AI strategy and execution, embedding machine intelligence across care navigation, doctor-facing tools and overall platform intelligence. He will work across product, engineering and clinical teams to rewire how patients search for and access care — and how doctors deliver treatment with greater consistency and precision.
He reports directly to Shashank ND, co-founder and chief executive officer.
Shashank ND said years of building healthcare data across patients, providers and treatment outcomes had laid the foundation for more advanced AI applications. Artificial intelligence, he added, can unlock the value of that data to improve patient outcomes and equip doctors with actionable insights. He described George’s experience in building production-grade AI systems as closely aligned with Practo’s long-term vision.
George brings nearly two decades of experience spanning machine learning, AI platforms and product engineering. Most recently at Observe.AI, he led work on large-scale AI systems deployed by global enterprises. Before that, at Belong.co, he drove platform and AI initiatives focused on search and personalisation in the HR technology space. He also worked with the Advanced Technology Group at NetApp, contributing to machine-learning and data-science projects for distributed systems.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science with a master’s degree in high performance computing, George said the chance to apply AI to directly improve patient experience and clinical delivery drew him to the role. Practo’s scale and its extensive longitudinal healthcare data, he added, offer significant room for innovation.
The move comes as digital health platforms double down on artificial intelligence to boost patient engagement, streamline provider workflows and sharpen decision-making. For Practo, the prescription is clear: turn data into diagnosis, and algorithms into advantage.
