Latest news with #Ergo
Time of India
4 days ago
- General
- Time of India
9 best indoor plants for windowless rooms and dark corners
Not every room is blessed with sunlight, but that doesn't mean it has to be devoid of greenery. Whether you're decorating an internal office, a basement flat, or a windowless bathroom, there are several houseplants that can adapt to low-light conditions and still thrive. These plants not only add visual appeal and texture but can also improve air quality and bring a sense of calm to your space. With the right selection and a little care, even the darkest corners of your home can come to life. Here are nine resilient indoor plants perfect for spaces without natural sunlight. Best low maintenance plants for windowless indoor areas Philodendron Philodendrons are admired for their adaptability and the wide range of sizes they come in. Many species do well in low light. You can train climbing varieties onto a totem for vertical interest or choose compact types that clump nicely in small corners. These plants require well-draining soil, and it's important to note that they're toxic to pets, so place them safely. Snake Plant Snake plant, also known as dracaena, handles artificial lighting exceptionally well. Many indoor spaces have overhead lights on for around eight hours a day, which is often enough for snake plant growth. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like I Thought I'd Live With Ear Ringing Forever – Until I Found This Trick Derila Ergo Undo It is also drought tolerant, making it one of the easiest options for beginners or those who travel frequently. The plant prefers well-drained soil and can grow to various heights depending on the variety. ZZ Plant Zamioculcas zamiifolia, commonly called ZZ plant, is truly low maintenance. It performs admirably with minimal light and sparse watering. In fact, some people manage to keep ZZ plant specimens alive even in what appears to be completely dark rooms. Growth might be slower, but the plant still maintains its lush, glossy leaves with very little care. Pothos Pothos is a fast-growing trailing green with glossy, heart-shaped leaves. It tolerates low light, infrequent watering, and minimal feeding. Its vines make it great for hanging or draping over shelves or walls, and you can get creative, for example, weaving the stems around a small photo to make a living frame. It prefers well-drained potting soil and indirect lighting, though it can manage in dimmer conditions. Bromeliad Bromeliads such as Vriesea or Guzmania bring a splash of tropical drama even in dim environments. In their native habitats, they often grow under thick canopy cover, so they're well adapted to low-light conditions. As long as they have well-drained soil and moderate indirect lighting, they can brighten a bathroom or office with their vivid blooms. Peace Lily Peace lily is known for its graceful white flowers and glossy leaves that thrive under low light. Many of these lilies manage well with only standard office lighting, particularly if they are introduced when young and grown to maturity in those conditions. They prefer shade or partial light and consistently moist soil. Like philodendron, peace lilies are toxic to pets, so caution is advised. Monstera Monstera deliciosa, often called the Swiss cheese plant, can surprise you by adapting to low-light spaces. To improve their growth where windows are absent, compact grow lights can be hung like lamps to provide the needed glow. With proper support and lighting, these dramatic foliage makers can thrive even in windowless rooms. Spider Plant Spider plant is known for its arching leaves and dangling baby plantlets. It adapts well to lower light levels and can flourish in rooms lit only by fluorescent bulbs. It makes an attractive hanging option or desk plant and helps liven up a dull corner. All it needs is well-drained soil and occasional trimming to prevent crowding. Chinese Evergreen Chinese evergreen, or Aglaonema, is a leafy option celebrated for its decorative foliage and resilience. It grows steadily even in artificial or low-light conditions and is known for being exceptionally durable. Grow lights can help it develop more vibrant colouring in truly dark rooms, but it is well-suited to low natural light environments as is. Although these nine varieties tolerate or even thrive in low-light settings, they can benefit from supplemental lighting. Fluorescent or LED grow lights, timed for around 12 to 14 hours daily, help them maintain steady, healthy growth. Choose lights designed for plant use to ensure they get the right spectrum. Bringing greenery into windowless areas isn't just cosmetic. Even minimal houseplants can reduce stress, improve focus and mood, and create a sense of comfort and well-being in otherwise sterile environments. A few well-chosen, easy-care plants can transform your office, basement, or internal room into a more welcoming, peaceful space. Also Read: 7 smart ways to use hydrogen peroxide for healthier plants: Treat fungus, root rot, and more
Time of India
31-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
‘With technology insurance moving from `repair and replace' to prevention'
Mark Klein, Chief Digital Officer at Ergo, leads the insurer's digitalization, marketing and global partnerships. A former telecom and consulting executive, Klein has been with Ergo for nine years. The company, which operates across Europe and Asia in health, life and P&C insurance, recently entered the US market through a $2.6 billion acquisition of digital SME insurer Next. In an interview with Times of India, Klein speaks of how with a goal of becoming the leading digital insurer in its core markets by 2025, Ergo is deploying technologies such as process mining, AI, robotics and phone bots—more than 500 robots and 15,000 daily bot-handled calls—to boost efficiency and customer experience. How does a legacy company become a digital insurer? You've said it's more cultural than technological? That is correct. While most technologies can be deployed on top of legacy systems, the real challenge is cultural. Employees must understand what the technology does and doesn't do. We demystify the tools, give staff a stage to share success stories, and celebrate adoption—even naming robots and marking their 'birthdays.' These technologies take care of repetitive tasks, letting employees focus on complex customer needs. It was an evolutionary transformation. We reengineered core processes gradually, focusing on speed and customer centricity. How did the deployment of AI play out? We began with simple machine learning models, like email classification in 2017. That helped us prepare for broader adoption. Now, with large language models, we focus on three areas: adoption management, scaling use cases, and realizing impact. AI must move beyond pilots and deliver real business value. We have over 110 algorithms in production and a five-year plan to scale across Germany, Poland, Austria, Belgium, Spain, the UK, and Greece. In Germany, we launched "Ergo GPT," a secure ChatGPT-style tool for employees. About 60% of staff use it daily. We also use gen AI to convert unstructured broker emails into structured data and to make internal product documentation searchable using a retrieval augmented generation (RAG) model. How is process mining helping the company? Process mining offers transparency. It helps identify inefficiencies and manual bottlenecks. It creates you the full transparency of a process because it takes the log files out of your IT systems and with that really shows you the full transparency of your process. How long did it take? Which were the different steps? And you see immediately where you still have a lot of manual work, where you have working times, where your process is not so straight. Sometimes you think oh, it's a very easy process. And then you. But you have many, many permutations of that. And with that you can see how to adjust the process, how to further automate the process that you get with process mining. Is Ergo outsourcing to India? Yes, we have our service hub here, our nearshoring location for Ergo Technology Services India (ETS) in Mumbai. The team is over 600 and growing. ETS supports digital initiatives across the group. With digitisation happening at the same time as genome sequencing and predictive analysis in health and telematic insurance in motor, is insurance now more about managing risk than just calculating probability? Both matter. We're moving from "repair and replace" to prevention. In health, that means encouraging healthier lifestyles. In motor, telematics helps avoid accidents. But prediction and probability will still play a role. We are also preparing for new risks such as Cyber risks, climate-related events, and rising health issues, especially in Western Europe. These require stronger coverage and better response capabilities. With Europe having stronger privacy and data security norms. How do you ensure compliance across geographies? We follow strict governance and comply fully with GDPR. We only use customer data with explicit consent and do not use data scraping for underwriting. For rejections, there is always the concerpt of human-in-the-loop. If a claim is approved straight through, AI can handle it. But rejections always require human oversight. HDFC Ergo has launched `Here' app which goes beyond insurance and is key interface for customers. Are you looking to replicate it in other markets? We're exploring that. India's public digital infrastructure makes such services easier to implement than in Europe. Are you bringing anything new to the Indian JV? Yes. India led our group in adopting robotics in 2016. Now we exchange best practices regularly and benchmark progress across markets with four key performance indicators (KPIs): share of online sales, portal registrations, digital interactions, and availability of online products. Customer experience is the key driver. Ergo is investing over €130 million in GenAI infrastructure over the next five years—this does not including staff or operations— this is purely for tech. Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . Discover stories of India's leading eco-innovators at Ecopreneur Honours 2025
Time of India
31-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Ergo to Invest €130 Million in GenAI, Leans on India for Global Tech Push
Mumbai: German insurer Ergo will invest over €130 million over the next five years to build its generative AI (GenAI) infrastructure, with its India operations playing a key role in the group's global technology transformation. The investment will fund the development of core AI capabilities across markets and support the company's ambition to become the leading digital insurer in its core geographies by 2025. 'This is purely a technology investment—building the infrastructure for GenAI. It does not include operating costs or manpower,' said Mark Klein, Chief Digital Officer of Ergo Group. 'We are in the process of scaling AI across all key processes in multiple countries. The time for pilots is over. These systems now have to deliver measurable business value.' Klein added that Ergo has already deployed over 110 AI algorithms across business functions, and is focused on expanding these use cases across seven European markets. 'Scaling is essential. AI doesn't come cheap. If you don't reuse assets and deploy solutions across markets, you will never arrive at a sustainable business case,' he said. India has emerged as a crucial hub for the group's technology operations. Ergo's technology services arm in Mumbai, which employs over 600 professionals, acts as a global capability center for the group. 'We are coming more into a global delivery model, and India offers a clear opportunity,' Klein said. 'India is becoming more and more important for us, not just as a growing market, but as a source of young, tech-savvy talent. The infrastructure here, including the Indian Stack, enables us to implement digital innovations faster than in Europe.' Klein credited HDFC ERGO, Ergo's Indian joint venture, with pioneering several of the group's technology initiatives. 'In 2016, India was the first to implement a robot in our group. I took that back and by 2017 we had deployed robots across our operations. Today, we run over 500 bots globally,' he said. 'We have a Champions League across our markets based on KPIs like digital sales and process automation. India consistently ranks in the top two. ' Parthanil Ghosh, Director at HDFC ERGO, said the company is not only adopting global tech but also driving innovation within the group. 'We have completely overhauled our core systems using Duck Creek, a low-code, modular platform. It allows us to launch new products faster and meet regulatory requirements more efficiently,' he said. Ghosh added that HDFC ERGO has put generative AI into production for several use cases, including underwriting assistance and SME quote generation. 'We built a platform called HEIQ, which takes unstructured data from brokers and generates quotes in under three minutes. This is a live solution, not a proof-of-concept,' he said. The company has also partnered with IIT Bombay to build secure small language models (SLMs) tailored to its business. 'We can't risk exposing our customer data to public models. So we built proprietary SLMs over foundational models like ChatGPT or Gemini in a fully secure environment,' Ghosh said. Klein said these innovations are being closely watched by the group. 'We regularly benchmark our markets, and HDFC ERGO's implementation of core system upgrades and GenAI is being tracked across the group. What they are doing is not just best practice for India—it's becoming best practice for Ergo globally.' Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . Discover stories of India's leading eco-innovators at Ecopreneur Honours 2025
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
How to Get the Black Rabbit Brotherhood Outfit in Lies of P Overture: Easiest Process, Best Tips, and More
Black Rabbit Brotherhood in Lies of P (Image via Neowiz) The Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit in Lies of P Overture is one of the better looking rewards in new DLC. The Overture DLC introduces a wealth of new secrets and rewards, with the Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit standing out as a must-have for fans seeking both style and lore. In this article, we will walk you through the easiest process to unlock the Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit in Lied of P Overture, plus key tips to streamline your journey. Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking the Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit in Lies of P Overture You can follow these steps to unlock the Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit in Lies of P Overture: 1. Stock Up on Sawtooth Wheels Begin your quest at Hotel Krat. Locate the neighborhood business owner and purchase as many Sawtooth Wheels as you can. These are essential for the next step, acting as ammunition in a hidden minigame. 2. Win the Teapot Prize HOW TO BEAT The Black Rabbit Brotherhood 2nd Fight SUPER EASY GUIDE | Lies Of P With your Sawtooth Wheels in hand, head to the nearby booth. Interact with the toy display and use the wheels to knock down all the toys. Once you succeed, a hidden Teapot will drop—grab it, as it's key to maximizing your reward. 3. Trade the Teapot for Maximum Ergo Take the Teapot to the merchant stationed by the locked tram door at the Zoo. Trading the Teapot here yields nearly 14,000 Ergo, a far better payout than selling it elsewhere. This sum is enough for one or two level-ups, depending on your progress. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo 4. Purchase the Black Rabbit Brotherhood Key With your newly acquired Ergo, buy the Black Rabbit Brotherhood Key from the same merchant. This key is your ticket to the secret Brotherhood hideouts. 5. Unlock the Outfit at a Brotherhood Hideout Travel to one of the Brotherhood's secret hideouts—locations like the Carnival Garden or Eventide Hotel Krat are prime spots. Use your key to unlock the door and claim the Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit, along with other exclusive items like masks and hunting apparel. Best Tips to unlock the Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit in Lies of P Overture - Prioritize Sawtooth Wheels: Without enough wheels, you can't win the Teapot minigame. Stock up before heading to the booth. - Trade Wisely: Only exchange the Teapot with the Zoo merchant for maximum Ergo. Selling elsewhere yields less. - Explore Multiple Hideouts: Each Brotherhood hideout may contain different pieces of apparel, so use additional keys if you find them for more rewards. - Follow the Map Closely: The Carnival Garden area is filled with secrets—stick to the left after the horse ride to find the Wandering Merchant and the key. Also read: Can you get Lies of P on Xbox Game Pass? By following this streamlined process—buying Sawtooth Wheels, winning the Teapot, trading for Ergo, purchasing the key, and unlocking the hideout—you'll add the rare Black Rabbit Brotherhood outfit to your collection with minimal hassle. Keep an eye out for additional keys and hidden lore as you explore, making the most of the Overture DLC's rich content.
Irish Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Backing up is the key for business in foiling hackers and ransomware attacks
As in life, the important things in business aren't always the most exciting. You hardly get a thrill from doing the bins or making sure you lock the door behind you on the way to work. Yet, like the peace of mind these acts give, a solid backup strategy is vital for any company's tech infrastructure . Knowing what you are doing is the most important first step according to Lorne Chedzey, chief information officer at Ergo. The Irish IT services business, which expects turnover of €233 million this year, has more than 30 years of experience in the space. Chedzey says that finding support to guide you through a backup strategy is crucial. 'The advisory piece is so important,' says Chedzey. 'When customers are working out where to start with cyber resilience, it helps to work out what the critical business processes are through to the underlying processes for that, to the infrastructure and, ultimately, the data, 'The key thing to focus on is what areas need to be covered and what is the scope for a cyber recovery service.' READ MORE This level of organisation has grown in importance in recent years as EU level regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Operational Resilience Act (Dora), and the second Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS2), have all put greater resilience requirements on businesses of all levels. 'We work a lot with companies in highly regulated sectors. Dora and NIS2 in particular are proving big. If you look at those standards, they are broad and have a lot to them, but all of them are calling out for customers to have cyber-resilience and recovery processes,' says Chedzey. [ Almost 90% of Irish companies hit by disruption or financial loss due to cyberattacks Opens in new window ] The increasing focus on backup plans comes as tech advice has, in Chedzey's description, gone through a process similar to the five stages of grief. 'We believe that even without regulatory requirements, all our customers should look at a resilience service. The approach used to be to keep the bad guys out, then it went to the zero trust idea. Now it's at the point of acceptance that the bad guys will probably get in and we need to have a plan in place for when they do.' He expects an increased focus on resilience strategies now that the acceptance stage has been reached. 'Large organisations are going big into this. They are funding big projects to cover the scope of all their infrastructure. Medium-sized businesses might not need to meet the same regulatory standards but they will still be motivated to do this because they will be the target of a cyber attacker,' says Chedzey. [ Why are we left on our own when it comes to fraud? Opens in new window ] 'The ones that might struggle will be the smaller businesses. They are struggling to make ends meet and they need to come up with lower cost services. There are lighter services available for them that aren't as comprehensive.' Whatever the level, the biggest challenge to accepting the need for a comprehensive backup strategy may be companies not realising its importance until it is too late. 'Backups are one of the most boring IT processes in place but also one of the most important. Too often they get overlooked. They have become more important because of the likes of ransomware attacks,' says Brian Honan, chief executive of BH Consulting and cybersecurity specialist. Brian Honan, BH Consulting. Photograph: Conor McCabe/Jason Clarke Photography 'They [hackers] compromise environments, encrypt all your data and you essentially have the option to either pay the ransom to get your data back or go to your backups instead. If you're not managing your backups in a proactive and secure way, you may find the criminals compromise them as well or delete them.' Honan says companies are wising up to the role backups play when it comes to protecting themselves from cyber attacks. 'Businesses have become more reliant on them due to the resilience they provide. They need to be considered as part of an overall plan. That covers how often you backup, what gets backed up and where you are backing it up,' he says. [ Western European companies now see cyber threat as bigger risk than conflict or inflation Opens in new window ] 'Within this plan, you have to be able to work out how quickly you can recover based on your backups.' It's not just criminals that companies need to be wary of. Natural disasters are increasingly becoming a source of risk for data storage. The regulatory environment does not provide exemptions for acts of god. 'If you are an organisation processing personal data, under GDPR you're legally obliged to be able to make that data available regardless of what the disaster is. It doesn't matter if it's a ransomware attacker, an IT failure, a utility failure or a natural disaster,' says Honan. That's why backups need to be viewed as part of an overall resilience strategy rather than a box to be ticked. 'It all comes back to having a cyber resilience strategy in place but also doing risk assessment and management. Work out what is critical to your organisation, how you back it up, and how quickly you can get them back up and running again?' says Honan. 'The first thing you should do is identify what data you have. Rate the systems in priority of how critical they are to the business, where the data is stored and do some scenario planning.' This view of backups as being part of an IT security and resilience strategy is relatively young. The primary role of this form of storage was long focused on innocent human error. Scott Roberts of Dell Technologies. Photograph: Nash Mancino Photography 'Backups have always been critical for recovery of business data and supporting organisations when things go wrong. What we're seeing now is that things are going wrong more often,' says Scott Roberts, EMEA cyber resilience director at US IT multinational Dell Technologies. 'There are more variables in how things can go wrong. Backups were traditionally in place to support things like the accidental deletion of a file or a system issue in an organisation. As we see now, with attacks on the rise, backups are now a key piece of the strategy for organisations to continue to operate and retain control of their critical operations in the face of adversity.' Roberts says that the evolution in how backups are viewed at an IT level has improved the overall shape of security strategies. 'We've seen a large alignment between what would be traditional infrastructure roles and security pillars. That cross-collaboration is increasing. That's good because it means that the focus shifts from not just backing up the data but recovering it for an organisation and securing it again,' he says. The key advice Roberts offers is for companies to think about backups as tools in the overall resilience strategy of a business. 'I always look at things through a resilience lens, with an eye on bad actors. When it comes to backups, know your backups. Test them and test them properly. Even the simplest backup, if untested, can prove useless in a crisis,' he says. 'Make them immutable. That means they can't be edited or changed. It makes them more resilient to attack. Still, nothing is impenetrable, so look at what can be removed from the attack surface. Should the worst happen, that way you can still have a safeguarded copy of your data.'
