London-based Internet of Things security firm Iotic has secured investment of 7.5 million to accelerate growth and meet increasing demand for its pioneering digital twin technology.

Iotic enables enterprises and their ecosystems of assets, objects, companies and people to interact automatically and securely.

The digital software company provides the secure operating environment and tools to create digital twins of any thing, enabling their secure interactions, and building true interoperable ecosystems.

The investment from leading European VCs; IQ Capital, Talis Capital and Breed Reply, will drive rapid deployment, deepen channel partnerships and expand market adoption of its patented Iotic Operating Environment, Twin technology and Event Analytics.

The funding will allow Iotic to capitalise on its patented technology and unique market position.

The Iotic vision is a world where any thing can interact with any other thing - from the smallest sensor,to the largest power station, engine, train and plane along with people, suppliers and customers.

The digital version of a thing, the Twin, has access to all its data and controls throughout its entire life, converting those end points into meaningful events - empowering enterprises to deliver on the promise of AI and Machine Learning, and to truly be digital.

The investment enables Iotic to build on its global pipeline of enterprise customers, including Rolls-Royce Power Systems and BAM Nuttall, who have deployed Iotics technology to overcome fractured, inflexible IT infrastructure and data management problems to solve significant business challenges and create new services and better customer experiences.

Robin Brattel, CEO of Iotic said, This investment is a further major endorsement of our Operating Environment and tools and the business strategy behind them.

Having already secured a number of high-profile clients, we are focused on further development and scaling initially targeting high-value manufacturing, construction and infrastructure sectors.

Our longer-term vision is for our interoperable Twins and their Event Streams to be incorporated into every single technology stack that will help to underpin digital transformation and to deliver a strong return on investment for our customers.

Founded in 2014 out of Cambridge, growing enterprise and channel demand globally has opened up new markets enabled by Iotics new North American operations hub in Raleigh, North Carolina.

This has been supported by the expansion of the management team with the hiring of new COO Hans Weinberg, (previously CIO at ABB, North America), and Kathy Reppucci, (who joins Iotic as VP Marketing from IBM) to deliver global integrated marketing strategies.

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Iotic raises 6.5 million to drive growth of Digital Twin Technology - Prolific London

Mary Fox Luquette, MBA, CLU, ChFC Published 8:00 a.m. CT Nov. 28, 2019

Technology has made tracking our finances and paying our bills a lot easier, but it comes with plenty of its own risks, too.(Photo: Getty Images)

Technology is changing our world.The internet exposes us to exotic locations, foreign lifestyles, and different forms of government. From our living rooms we can watch any number of movies, documentaries, or historical archives with the touch of a television remotes button. We can manage our lives simply by going online.

Technology has offered us a wide array of convenience, opportunity, and information. However, it does come at a price.

Once upon a time, everyone received a pay stub or physical check on payday. It required a trip to the bank and the time needed to make a deposit. Today, we get a virtual stub through a secure email account and our pay is directly deposited. This is convenience. It also means that our accounts are subject to scams, phishing, and hacking. More security is required and multiple passwords need to be created to ensure the safety of our money.

Mary Fox Luquette(Photo: Amy Windsor)

Not long ago we had to go to the retail store for our shopping and spend hours waiting for our turn to be served by the store clerk. Today we can shop online, find just what we want, and have it delivered to our front door in a matter of days no trip to the store is necessary. We can shop from our favorite easy chair. This also means that our credit card number and our identity can be misused by online thieves.For safety purposes, it is important to monitor our credit score and our card statements to catch any felonious activity as quickly as possible.

It wasnt long ago that any banking that needed to be done, had to be done in person. Cashing a check or making a deposit were regular activities done at the nearest bank branch. Today we can take a picture of a check with our smartphone and upload it into our bank account. We have the ability to use an ATM card and withdraw cash with only a little of our time being spent on the activity. Unfortunately, scammers can mimic emails from our bank and convince us to share personal data with them. We must be vigilant on a daily basis knowing that our email can hide deceitful and malicious malware. A simple click can link a thief with our private information.

The internet is loaded with information. We can investigate the return on a stock, view legal documents, or even consult a medical professional regarding our health all from the comfort of our living room. Convenience is becoming an integral part of our lifestyle, however, it must be tempered with the knowledge that we must always be on guard against those who want to do us harm. If an online lifestyle is your goal, make sure that you have observed all of the safety protocols and stay vigilant against scammers and hackers. If you are notified about a potential breach, follow the guidelines suggested to ensure that your accounts stay safe especially the one about changing your password.

Mary Fox Luquette, MBA, CLU, ChFC is a finance instructor in the B I Moody III College of Business at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

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Technology and its impact on personal finance - Daily Advertiser

MOSCOW Russia's largest lender, Sberbank, has added driverless cars to its list of technology ventures, by teaming up with AI transport developer Cognitive Technologies, the two companies said on Thursday.

Sberbank and Cognitive Technologies have signed a legally binding document to create a new company, Cognitive Pilot, they said in a statement.

Sberbank will have a 30% share in the company, while Cognitive Technologies will take 70%. The two companies did not disclose financial details of the deal, which will be completed in December.

The move marks the latest foray into Russia's digital economy for state-owned Sberbank, which finalised the terms of a food delivery joint venture with Mail.Ru earlier this month and agreed to buy an equity stake in the internet company.

The new company will be engaged in developing "digital economy projects in transport, agriculture, computer vision and artificial intelligence," the statement said.

Russian internet giant Yandex currently leads the way in Russia's driverless car market, testing its technology on the streets of Moscow and Israel, with a license to begin testing in the United States from next summer.

Earlier this month, Yandex said it had begun testing autonomous delivery robots.

Cognitive Technologies founder Olga Uskova will head the new venture with Sberbank.

Her company builds components for driverless vehicles, as well as developing autonomous control systems for agricultural machinery, trains and trams.

Its clients include Hyundai Mobis, Russian Railways and Rusagro, a Russian agricultural firm.

This month, Sberbank said it had agreed to transfer a "golden share" it holds in Yandex to a new public interest company proposed by Yandex.

(Reporting by Nadezhda Tsydenova, Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Katya Golubkova and Mark Potter)

Excerpt from:

Russia's Sberbank Agrees Venture With Driverless Technology Firm - The New York Times

FT Seasonal Appeal

Tuesday, 19 November, 2019

It is dry season in a Kenyan national park. A small group of poachers walks along a dried-up riverbed, aiming to kill a black rhino and remove its horns, which could fetch as much as $100,000 on the Asian black market.

The men are concealed by undergrowth on the riverbanks but seen by a poaching alarm system developed by the Zoological Society of London. Their guns and knives trigger the Instant Detect systems hidden metal detector, which activates a camera camouflaged in a bush. The images travel by radio to a base station and then via a communications satellite to the park headquarters, alerting the authorities in time to dispatch rangers and catch the gang.

Similar scenarios will soon be playing out in reserves and parks around the globe, as conservation bodies adopt a high-tech approach in their battle to protect animals. Some of these groups were slow to see the potential for new monitoring tools, but with the aid of groups such as Google they are now embracing the devices as a way to tackle poaching.

WWF estimates the illegal wildlife trade is worth about $20bn a year and has contributed to a catastrophic decline in some species. According to the Living Planet Index maintained by WWF and ZSL, the FTs Seasonal Appeal partner for 2019-20, 60 per cent fewer vertebrate animals (mammals, bird, reptiles, amphibians and fish) live wild now than 50 years ago, with the steepest drops in the tropics.

Although huge falls in populations of some well-known species such as tigers, elephants and black rhinos have been halted and even reversed through intensive conservation efforts, poachers are still killing them while numbers of other animals, including pangolins and many monkeys, are declining fast.

There are many drivers behind the loss of biodiversity, from overfishing and climate change to urbanisation and local pollution. But for some species illegal trapping and killing is the biggest factor in their decline, says Andrew Terry, head of conservation at ZSL.

We have a particular focus on tackling the international wildlife trade but that is embedded in our broader conservation efforts, says Mr Terry.

Zoologists have used camera traps to photograph passing animals for decades but until recently these had no wireless connection, so their operators had to physically visit each one to remove its film and later its electronic SD card, which was often full of useless images of moving branches or other wildlife that had triggered the trap.

The odd thing is that conservationists were slow to take up technology, says Eric Dinerstein, director of wildlife and biodiversity at Resolve, a conservation charity based in Washington DC. We jumped in around six years ago because we saw an opportunity to make a difference with a camera trap with intelligence and connectivity.

Other conservation bodies including ZSL began to develop detection technology at about the same time, working with tech companies that see wildlife protection as a showcase for their expertise. Systems such as ZSLs Instant Detect and Resolves TrailGuard are in the final stages of testing and will be soon ready for deployment in the field.

Conservation organisations dont generally have the resources to recruit and employ expensive software engineers and developers, so we depend on collaboration with the tech industry, says Sam Seccombe, Instant Detect project manager. ZSLs partners include Google and Iridium, the satellite communications operator, while Resolve is working with Intel, Microsoft and Inmarsat, another satellite company.

Googles AutoML system, which enables people with limited expertise to develop artificial intelligence for specific purposes such as image recognition, is being deployed in Instant Detect, making it possible to recognise people or animals instantly from camera trap pictures.

A successful business relies on being able to collect, analyse and interpret data rapidly to make the best business decisions, Mr Seccombe says. The same is true for conservationists using camera trap data. By increasing the speed of image analysis, conservation impact can be made more quickly and be more effective.

Remote wildlife parks have little or no mobile phone coverage, so Instant Detect uses its own radio transmitters to send images to a buried base station and then on by satellite to headquarters. ZSL tested the first version of the system by monitoring Antarctic penguins, Canadian bears, Australian night parrots and Kenyan elephants and rhinos. But it suffered from transmission problems, particularly in dense foliage.

The team has developed a more robust and reliable second version, Instant Detect 2.0, which has had successful preliminary tests in Africa and will undergo more extensive trials in the new year in Thailands Western Forest Complex and elsewhere before operational deployment.

Camera quality was also an issue. Nothing on the market met ZSLs specifications so it developed its own 5-megapixel Instant Detect camera with a wide range of focal lengths, triggered either by an inbuilt infrared sensor that detects heat and motion of a passing animal, or by an external metal detector for poachers.It seems ironic that most trail cameras being used by conservationists have been designed for the deer hunting market, says Mr Seccombe.

Although the camera has a powerful computer chip that could run an automatic image processing system on captured pictures to decide whether they are worth transmitting, this feature will not be used initially, so as not to overload the system. Instead, image processing will take place in the cloud after the images have been transmitted.

Another development in the near future will be the integration of acoustic sensors, triggered by sounds such as a gunshot, chainsaw, engine or animal call. ZSL is developing a machine-learning algorithm to detect shots in collaboration with Google.

Resolves TrailGuard, which incorporates Intel vision-processing chips in its cameras, does carry out AI image analysis locally, so that only pictures of human intruders are transmitted extending battery life and cutting transmission costs. The first version of TrailGuard, operating in the Grumeti reserve in Tanzania last year, detected more than 50 intruders and enabled rangers to make 30 arrests from 20 different poaching gangs and seize 1,000kg of illegal bushmeat.

Mr Dinerstein says Resolve is manufacturing 1,000 updated TrailGuard units, 300 in California and 700 in China, for installation in parks in Africa and elsewhere. The US foundation proposes to protect 100 wildlife parks and reserves over the next two years, by placing TrailGuards on the 10 trails used most actively by poachers in each place. Once satellite modems have been installed, the number of cameras can be increased to as many as 100 per park.

Installation would cost a park an estimated $17,000 in the first year and slightly more in the second year, with future operating expenses for data transmission at about $200 a year much less than alternative protection measures such as flying drones to spot poachers or employing additional rangers.

Anthony Dancer, who manages ZSLs tech programme, warns that new technology cannot stop illegal killing on its own. Most protected sites around the world are terribly underfunded, he says. Even if we make the technology available, many places will not have enough resources to manage the technology or enough rangers for a large increase in enforcement.

Besides poaching for meat, horns, teeth, scales, fur and other valuable products, people also kill animals to stop them raiding crops or livestock. Resolve plans to tackle this growing conservation problem by adapting its TrailGuard hardware to identify animals rather than people, for a project called VillageGuard.

Camera traps, installed along trails used by large animals that eat or trample crops or attack livestock, will automatically detect intruders. The first five targets are elephants and lions in Africa, snow leopards and wolves in Nepal, and grizzly bears in the US. Attached speakers will then frighten away the unwanted animals with alarming sounds such as human shouting.

Beyond the detection of threats to wildlife from poachers or angry villagers, conservation bodies are enlisting information technology to track elusive animals. They analyse the rapidly increasing volume of images emerging from camera traps installed around the world. ZSL uses both machine learning and human volunteers for this task.

Several projects are under way to identify animals through AI. The largest collaborative programme, called Wildlife Insights, sits in Google Cloud and combines the companys machine learning expertise with a group of conservation groups including ZSL. It has been trained to recognise 614 different species with 8.7m images supplied by member organisations and expects to expand rapidly as conservationists feed in more data. Initial accuracy ranges from 80 per cent to 98 per cent, depending on the quality of the image and the distinctiveness of the species.

Wildlife Insights is essentially a massive open source system that will enable people around the world to manage and analyse biodiversity data, says Mr Dancer.

While artificial intelligence becomes an ever more powerful tool, humans will always play an essential role in wildlife identification including amateur as well as expert zoologists. Instant Wild is ZSLs free citizen science app that anyone with a smartphone can use to identify animals in camera images; it has been downloaded 130,000 times. Crowdsourcing analysis of this sort is useful for educating and involving the public, as well as directly assisting with species identification.

Thursday, 21 November, 2019

You dont need to be an expert. You just give your best guess, says ZSL project manager Kate Moses. The result only goes through to the project scientist when 10 people have given the same identification.

Technology is also helping the people on the front line of the battle to protect wildlife: the 300,000-400,000rangers and wardens who work in the worlds parks and reserves, according to the International Ranger Federation. A system called Smart (for Spatial Monitoring And Reporting Tool), developed by ZSL and other conservation bodies, enables rangers to collect and sort out data on their mobile devices about the locations of animals and humans, including illegal intruders, in order to deploy scarce staff as efficiently as possible.

Smart is already being used in 900 protected areas around the world. AI software developed by Harvard computer science professor Milind Tambe will be integrated into the system next year. This predicts poachers behaviour, so that patrols can be directed to likely hotspots of illegal activity.

Tuesday, 19 November, 2019

With animal populations under enormous pressure, technology has huge potential for enabling conservation groups to deploy their resources more efficiently in the battle against poaching and the wider illegal wildlife trade.

We urgently need to innovate, and to create new partnerships with industry, governments and academia, to develop new solutions, says Mr Dancer of ZSL. This is where technology and tech partnerships have the potential to be transformational by enabling us to target our resources more efficiently and more effectively, and to scale our impact.

The primary aim of conservationists is to stop poachers killing animals but, when they fail, advances in forensic science can help to catch criminals in the illegal wildlife trade.

Researchers are enhancing fingerprinting technology to improve the chances of obtaining clear prints from people who have handled animal parts.

Working with colleagues at the University of Portsmouth, ZSL scientists are using gel lifters small sheets coated with sticky gelatin to remove fingerprints from pangolin scales and other unpromising materials such as snake skins. The prints are then read with specialist imaging machines.

Another collaboration, involving City of London police and Kings College London, has developed a new magnetic powder that enables investigators to recover human fingerprints from elephant tusks with much better definition than conventional methods. It can recover prints up to four weeks old, giving more time to gather evidence on criminals who have handled ivory seized by police or customs officers.

Conservationists are also using new genetic analysis in two ways to investigate wildlife crime. First, if poachers leave tiny traces of their DNA on ivory, horn or other material, it may be possible to track them down through a genetic fingerprint.

Second, animal DNA extracted from illegally traded materials can be used to trace its geographical origin. This prospect may be particularly applicable to smuggled ivory, as scientists build up a database showing the genetic differences between elephant populations in different parts of Africa.

Scientists at Liverpool John Moores University have used ultrasensitive DNA probes to help spot illegal animal material within large cargo consignments at borders, ports and customs posts. In a proof of concept study published this month they rapidly identified tiny quantities of tiger, rhinoceros and pangolin DNA.

Please help us support ZSLs urgent work by making a donation to the FTs Seasonal Appeal. Click here to donate now.

If you are a UK resident and you donate before December 31, the amount you give will be matched by the UK government up to 2m. This fund-matching will be used to help communities in Nepal and Kenya build sustainable livelihoods, escape poverty and protect their wildlife.

Read more about our Seasonal Appeal partner ZSL:ft.com/zsl-facts

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Science v poachers: how tech is transforming wildlife conservation - Financial Times

(This story is part of the Weekend Brief edition of the Evening Brief newsletter. To sign up for CNBC's Evening Brief, click here.)

Venture capital funding for clean energy technology companies has declined after years of lackluster performance drove investors to other sectors. But a new fund is making a big bet that it's possible to back clean tech companies at the earliest and often riskiest stages, all without sacrificing returns.

In October, Clean Energy Ventures announced that it raised $110 million for its first fund, which will target "the current capital gap for seed and early-stage investment in promising advanced energy innovations," a press release said.

The firm's strategy rests on the belief that without reinventing the wheel, and without compromising returns, it can identify and fund scalable, capital-efficient start-ups that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

With this influx of capital the fund's three principles, who between them have backed more than 30 early-stage clean tech companies over their combined 40-plus years of investing, are looking to back companies in areas like energy storage, grid connectivity and clean transportation.

"There's a valley of death right now. There's a lot of brilliant technology that's being built but to get to a Series A or Series B it's a long haul," Clean Energy Ventures co-founder Temple Fennell said to CNBC. "Some people consider us a special forces team that's brought in with capital and talent."

In the mid-2000s, the backdrop for clean tech investing seemed almost too good to be true.

Oil and natural gas prices were rising, which accelerated the demand for cheaper renewable energy. The government began issuing tax credits for alternative sources of power. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" captured the nation's attention. Money flowed in as investors looked to profit on the promise of revolutionized industries.

But then the financial crisis hit. It became harder to borrow money. Natural gas prices also dropped, and an oversupply of Chinese-made solar panels flooded the market. Ultimately, more than half of the $25 billion that flowed into the clean tech sector between 2006 and 2011 was lost.

It might seem easy to blame the financial crisis as the primary reason for the failure, but a 2016 research report from the MIT Energy Initiative argued that the majority of companies actually failed for reasons independent of the broader economic backdrop. The venture capital model where investors supply limited funding upfront and expect relatively fast returns was not always conducive to the frequently capital-intensive, longer time frame nature of clean tech companies that were trying to reinvent the landscape.

"Cleantech companies developing new materials, hardware, chemicals, or processes were poorly suited for VC investment because they required significant capital, had long development timelines, were uncompetitive in commodity markets, and were unable to attract corporate acquirers," the authors of "Venture Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Model for Clean Energy Innovation" wrote in 2016.

After combing through the data, the researchers found that "the biggest money loser for VCs was the segment of cleantech companies commercializing fundamentally new materials and processes." For example, solar companies that tried to replace silicon in solar panels ran into difficulties when trying to scale their model.

That said, other areas that also have capital-intensive models, like medical technology, didn't fare nearly as badly. After comparing the two sectors, the researchers found that there were too few large companies willing to acquire clean tech start-ups. This unwillingness, coupled with the time and capital-restrictive nature of venture capital investing, created a challenging environment for clean tech companies.

More than 90% of clean tech companies funded between 2007 and 2011 failed to return even the initial capital to investors, the MIT Energy Initiative found. So it's no surprise that while the need for greenhouse gas-reducing companies was recognized, for the most part, investors became weary of the space.

Investors were beginning to dip their toes back into clean tech when, in 2017, Clean Energy Ventures decided to begin raising capital for its inaugural fund.

The new fund was spun out of Clean Energy Venture Group, a private investment vehicle through which the founders had been investing in green companies since 2005. Investments included companies like MyEnergywhich was acquired by Nest and then, in turn, by Alphabetand Pika Energy, which was bought by Generac.

Dan Goldman, Temple Fennell and David Miller, the three co-founders of Clean Energy Ventures, had invested together before, but informally. That changed around 2016. They identified a need for funding clean tech companies just starting out which the Street was largely unwilling to consider and, given their deep ties to the clean energy entrepreneurship community, founding a new energy-specific fund seemed a logical next step.

They assembled a team comprised of people skilled both technically and operationally, and who had experience growing a company. Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz was among the people who joined the company's strategic advisory board. Initially targeting a fund size of $75 million, the trio wound up raising $110 million.

From the get-go the fund's strategy has been simple: instead of looking for start-ups that are trying to disrupt entire industries, focus instead on those that can improve existing companies.

"We're constantly looking at where we can disrupt the value chain of existing incumbents," said Fennell.

What that means is that the fund might invest, for example, in material companies whose products will help vehicles become lighter and therefore more carbon efficient, rather than in companies trying to fundamentally change the automotive industry.

Underlying every investment is an actionable plan for how that company can meaningfully contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases.

"One of our criteria is we only invest in companies that we believe will reduce at least 2.5 gigatons of greenhouse gases or carbon equivalent tons between now and 2050," Fennell said.

While the fund ultimately wound up exceeding its capital target, Fennell said that it was difficult to entice institutional investors back into clean tech. A good bit of their capital instead came from family offices, which typically have more flexible timelines and investing criteria.

Clean Energy Ventures focuses on start-ups in the United States and Canada that are capital-efficient and scalable.

The fund plans to invest in around 25 companies over the next 4-5 years. The goal of every company in which Clean Energy Ventures invests will be, first and foremost, to drastically reduce emissions. But there should also be a clear path toward commercialization within 3-5 years. Given the accelerated time frame, Clean Energy Ventures typically looks for companies that can plug into "the existing infrastructure and the existing incumbent channels."

The firm currently has seven companies in its portfolio, including SparkMeter, Leading Edge Crystal Technologies and LineVision.

SparkMeter, which has also received funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, led by Bill Gates, offers smart metering solutions for utility companies typically in remote locations. Leading Edge Crystal Technologies, which was spun out of Applied Materials, is developing cheaper, more efficient, and longer-lasting wafers for solar panels. And LineVision focuses on optimizing power grids' reliability and safety, among other things, by using a network of sensors.

The fund has been known to invest alongside large, publicly traded companies like 3M, Emerson Electric and Applied Materials. Sometimes large companies will even bring startups whose technology they are interested in using to Clean Energy Ventures so that the fund can help them hone and scale their business.

Once the startup has gone through several funding rounds and proven that it has market traction and global scalability, Clean Energy Ventures will typically hand it off to larger partners.

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Clean energy technology was thought to be uninvestable. One fund thinks otherwise - CNBC

KOLKATA: Declining rural and urban consumption may have taken a toll on the countrys fast-moving consumer goods makers, but it has not stopped FMCG majors from aggressively scouting for future leaders at top business and technology campuses.

In a testimony to how important campus hiring is as a pipeline of future leadership talent, biggies such as Hindustan Unilever (HUL), ITC, Marico, Godrej and Dabur are expanding their reach across B-schools and top engineering and general colleges, and rolling out new roles for the Class of 2020.

Market leader HUL, for example, has increased its summer internship hiring to top 21 B-schools from top 14 earlier. Marico, which earlier hired only from Tier-1 B schools, has started hiring from IITs and top graduate colleges this year, while Dabur intends to up its intake by 25%. These companies pay between Rs 22-30 lakh to campus recruits.

Many young leaders at Godrej first worked here as summer interns or management trainees before taking on larger roles, said Sumit Mitra, head group HR and corporate services at Godrej Industries and Associated Companies. This is a longer-term talent building investment for us, guided by business priorities and projections. So, it continues to be robust even in a tough year.

This is reassuring news for campuses, where FMCG firms are among the most popular recruiters.

The FMCG sector is going through a rough patch with slowdown in both rural and urban demand. The FMCG market grew only 7.3% by value year on year in the quarter ended September, down from 16.2% growth a year earlier, according to a recent report by market tracker Nielsen. Rural growth dropped below urban levels for the first time in seven years during the September quarter, growing at only 5%, one-fourth of the 20% clocked in the corresponding period in 2018.

Also, several consumer goods and automobiles companies have stayed away from National Institutes of Technology (NITs) this placement season, as ET reported on Monday.

Yet, top FMCG players are apparently going strong on campus placement. No one has told us that theyll go conservative, said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM Bangalore. Dabur India is hiring for functions like sales and marketing, supply chain, packaging development, manufacturing, operations and finance, and has even started a new programme of hiring fresh graduates in emerging areas like ecommerce and analytics. We would be nearly 25% higher than the previous year, said V Krishnan, executive director at Dabur India.

A Marico spokesperson said hiring from 2020 batch is higher than from the 2019 batch as the organisations focus on innovation and new categories has opened up newer opportunities. Campus hiring will continue to remain a focus area, the person said. Campus hires are potential business leaders for the organisation in the future.

HUL has stepped up hiring for its Unilever Leadership Internship Programme by increasing the number of campuses by 50%. The company offers early big jobs wherein students just out of campus are entrusted with responsibilities of managing a region with a turnover of more than Rs 100 crore and leading teams of 20-plus people.

Kanwal Kapil, dean of placements at MDI Gurgaon, said despite the downturn in the FMCG sector, the likes of HUL and Reckitt Benckiser were among the new recruiters in the campus during summer placements.

Campus hiring is a critical pillar of ITCs talent acquisition strategy, said Amitav Mukherji, head of corporate HR at ITC that plans to recruit 80-100 students from leading management and technology campuses through summer internship programme and final placements.

At Godrej, salaries have gone up compared to last year and the company will be hiring similar numbers as the last two years, said Mitra. Godrej group hires from MBA programmes centrally for group businesses, while the groups individual businesses also hire separately from general colleges and engineering schools based on their requirements.

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FMCG firms go on a talent hunt at top business and technology campuses - Economic Times

The Tekk Group & Tablet Hire is one of the first rental companies in the UK, established in 2010 when iPads and tablets were still new to the world. The plan was to allow businesses to find a huge array of IT rentals, offering affordable prices, with a reliable logistics operation, spanning across the seas. Which is now where we find ourselves.

With offices situated in many major cities and intentions toextend to even more. We are quickly making the dream a reality.

Winning Gold in the Peoples Choice Award category the Event Technology Awards is extra special to us because the votes are made by event professionals who have used our services and believe that what we do deserved a vote. We could not have done this without all the votes from our clients and friends who support us and have helped us grow so quickly in the last few years.

San Malik (Sales Director) commented:

This year has been record breaking for us and winning the Award for The Peoples Choice, Favourite Technology Supplier has been the cherry on top! We are delighted to have been recognised for our consistent service within the industry. The whole team are still buzzing from the win and are so proud to be part of The Tekk Group & Tablet Hire.

Our vison going forward is to allow technology to beaccessible and affordable for everyone. We are an ethical company and plan tocontinue sponsoring our charity partners. They have made it possible for us todonate our older stock to work on borders across the world, assistinggovernments to track venerable individuals and saving lives, as well as foreducation and rehabilitation purposes.

We plan to continue the extension of our offices around theglobe and hope to continue being the service that are faithfully relied on formany event and corporate professionals out there.

Our goal is to nurture partnerships to try and provide thehardware paired with the software solutions, for simple integration intoeveryday lives. Education is key to all our progression and we aim onsupporting every aspect from training to showcasing. So, when you plan onrunning an event and you want an easy and dependable service, at a reasonableprice. Think The Tekk Group and Tablet Hire.

To the winners in our category and every other, for all the nominees. Congratulations and heres to another great year for us all!

This content is sponsored by The Tekk Group & Tablet Hire.

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The winner of the People's Choice, Favourite Event Technology Supplier 2019 is The Tekk Group & Tablet Hire! - Event Industry News

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Property Type Single Family Townhouse/Condo Country Homes/Acreage Mid/Hi Rise Condominium Residential Lots Multi Family

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Min. Price100 /m150 /m200 /m250 /m300 /m350 /m400 /m450 /m500 /m550 /m600 /m650 /m700 /m750 /m800 /m850 /m900 /m950 /m1,000 /m 1,050 /m1,100 /m1,150 /m1,200 /m1,250 /m1,300 /m1,350 /m1,400 /m1,450 /m1,500 /m1,550 /m1,600 /m1,650 /m1,700 /m1,750 /m1,800 /m1,850 /m1,900 /m1,950 /m 2,000 /m2,050 /m2,100 /m2,150 /m2,200 /m2,250 /m2,300 /m2,350 /m2,400 /m2,450 /m2,500 /m2,600 /m2,700 /m2,800 /m2,900 /m3,000 /m3,500 /m4,000 /m4,500 /m 5,000 /m5,500 /m6,000 /m6,500 /m7,000 /m7,500 /m8,000 /m8,500 /m9,000 /m9,500 /m10,000 /m

Max. Price$5,000$10,000$15,000$20,000$25,000$30,000$35,000$40,000$45,000$50,000$55,000$60,000$65,000$70,000$75,000$80,000$85,000$90,000$95,000 $100,000$105,000$110,000$115,000$120,000$125,000$130,000$135,000$140,000$145,000$150,000$155,000$160,000$165,000$170,000$175,000$180,000$185,000$190,000 $195,000$200,000$205,000$210,000$215,000$220,000$225,000$230,000$235,000$240,000$245,000$250,000$255,000$260,000$265,000$270,000$275,000$280,000$285,000 $290,000$295,000$300,000$305,000$310,000$315,000$320,000$325,000$330,000$335,000$340,000$345,000$350,000$355,000$360,000$365,000$370,000$375,000$380,000 $385,000$390,000$395,000$400,000$450,000$500,000$550,000$600,000$650,000$700,000$750,000$800,000$850,000$900,000$950,000$1,000,000$1,100,000$1,200,000$1,300,000 $1,400,000$1,500,000$1,600,000$1,700,000$1,800,000$1,900,000$2 Mil$3 Mil$4 Mil$5 Mil$6 Mil$7 Mil$8 Mil$9 Mil$10 Mil

Max. Price100 /m150 /m200 /m250 /m300 /m350 /m400 /m450 /m500 /m550 /m600 /m650 /m700 /m750 /m800 /m850 /m900 /m950 /m1,000 /m 1,050 /m1,100 /m1,150 /m1,200 /m1,250 /m1,300 /m1,350 /m1,400 /m1,450 /m1,500 /m1,550 /m1,600 /m1,650 /m1,700 /m1,750 /m1,800 /m1,850 /m1,900 /m1,950 /m 2,000 /m2,050 /m2,100 /m2,150 /m2,200 /m2,250 /m2,300 /m2,350 /m2,400 /m2,450 /m2,500 /m2,600 /m2,700 /m2,800 /m2,900 /m3,000 /m3,500 /m4,000 /m4,500 /m 5,000 /m5,500 /m6,000 /m6,500 /m7,000 /m7,500 /m8,000 /m8,500 /m9,000 /m9,500 /m10,000 /m

Min. Beds 1 Bed 2 Beds 3 Beds 4 Beds 5 Beds 6 Beds 7 Beds 8 Beds 9 Beds

Min. Baths 1 Bath 2 Baths 3 Baths 4 Baths 5 Baths 6 Baths 7 Baths 8 Baths 9 Baths

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Gator Technology opens operations in Midland - Midland Reporter-Telegram

At a time when onion prices are soaring across the country due to a supply squeeze, a recent survey by Pune-based Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Directorate of Onion and Garlic Research (DOGR) has revealed that farmers employing better technology were able to contain onion crop damage.

The survey, monitoring the effect of erratic monsoon on kharif and late kharif crops in major onion-growing districts of Maharashtra Pune, Ahmednagar and Nasik showed: Heavy rains affected the entire kharif harvest, late kharif standing crop, and rabi nursery. The intensity of kharif crop damage could have been up to 80 per cent in Baramati and Purandar, where the crop was under waterlogged conditions, as farmers practised the flat-bed system of planting, with a poor drainage.

In some areas, heavy infestation of diseases damaged late kharif crop by up to 60 per cent. Besides, rabi onion nurseries suffered up to 50 per cent damage, with heavy rainfall drastically reducing the rabi planting area.

According to Major Singh, a director in DOGR, farmers who employed better technology incurred much less damage.

Singh said in the survey report that some farmers in Purandar who followed the ICAR-DOGR recommendation of raised-bed plantation along with drip irrigation in onion crop suffered only 20 per cent to 30 per cent damage, despite erratic rains. We observed that the main cause for kharif onion yield loss was poor drainage in main fields exposing plants to prolonged periods of waterlogged stress. Under a climate-change scenario, similar unprecedented rainfall events might recur, so we need to create awareness among farmers about the kharif onion production with raised-bed planting, as recommended by ICAR-DOGR, he added.

On price analysis, the survey report said: "Usually kharif onion produce hits the market by October. But, due to heavy rains in 2019, its arrival was delayed to November. According to information from Lasalgaon APMC, kharif onion arrivals this year fell to 2,818 quintals from 50,824 quintals in November 2018. This resulted in an onion shortage in the supply chain, and a price hike thereby."

More:

Better technology helped contain onion crop damage due to erratic monsoon - Business Standard

These technologies enable enterprises to digitally transform the way people interact with each other and their surroundings.

As the decade comes to a close, and we think back to the distant times of 2010, it becomes apparent that the 2010s were a decade of unimaginable digital transformation.

Google, Amazon, Uber, Facebook, and Twitter are some of the major tech companies that have fundamentally changed society. Groundbreaking innovations have revamped actions like communicating with loved ones, ordering food, or hailing a cab. Backing these transformative platforms are thousands of coders, scientists, and researchers, who spend years building new technologies designed to address any and all human concerns or needs.

These are some of the technologies that enabled digital transformation since 2010.

SEE: Digital transformation: A CXO's guide (ZDNet/TechRepublic special feature) | Download the free PDF version (TechRepublic)

The introduction of widespread cloud computing has democratized data collection and increased the capacity of enterprises, allowing companies of any size to forgo the need for costly IT infrastructures and cumbersome maintenance regimens. According to a TechRepublic survey, nearly 70% of companies are either using or considering cloud services.

By moving most services to the cloud, businesses can stay nimble and better manage scale than ever before. The lowering prices of cloud computing have led to the rapid growth of "as-a-service" systems that have given smaller companies access to tools that were previously far too costly. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba are the biggest cloud titans battling it out for supremacy over the market.

With Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) systems all gaining popularity, cloud computing will be one of the defining elements of the next decade. A recent report from Forrester said the public cloud market will reach $411 billion by 2022. The report added that the four leading cloud vendors will generate 75% of the entire $75.4 billion global public cloud infrastructure market.

SEE:More from our Decade in Review series(TechRepublic on Flipboard)

Forrester recently said that enterprises across the world are increasingly turning to automation for a variety of tasks that used to be handled by humans. This is changing the workforce on a fundamental level, prompting fears in the next decade of mass job losses.

But the field is also making enterprises better in a variety of concrete ways. Dangerous, time-consuming jobs at factories are increasingly being done by an army of robots, keeping people away from positions that have historically been damaging to their health.

This has even bled into other fields like customer service, where many companies now use automated systems to respond to basic questions and complaints from consumers.

Part of what's spurring the increase in automation is the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), which is equipping robots and machines with a wider set of capabilities. Enterprises are using AI for everything from security to human resources, allowing computers to handle tasks that have become costly or redundant.

While fears of automation and AI are very real, recent studies have shown that people actually like the introduction of automation and are generally happy computers or robots can handle menial tasks.

SEE: Digital Transformation ebook: Guide to becoming a digital transformation champion (TechRepublic Premium)

The last decade has seen an explosion of access to smartphones, bringing whole continents of people onto the web for the first time. The popularity of smartphones has prompted the creation of an entire ecosystem of mobile apps and tools that people now consider integral parts of their lives.

Uber and Lyft have become verbs, while food delivery apps like Seamless and GrubHub are wildly popular. People use apps to regulate and manage every aspect of their lives, using calendar platforms, workout assistants, and voice memo programs.

Even the way we communicate with each other has changed through our increased smartphone usage. Apps like Signal, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger are the primary mode of communication for billions of people, who send secure text messages, photos, and voice messages across the world in seconds.

Google Maps and other transit apps have made it almost impossible to get lost, with some apps even going so far as to let New Yorkers know what end of the subway to sit for the easiest exit. People can send money to each other, buy movie tickets, and watch their favorite show--all from a device the size of their hand.

There are so many apps emerging that their development has become a running joke for millenials, who regardless of industry, can cite it as a potential source of employment. Expect more of our daily problems to find app-based solutions.

4G has become so widespread that people take for granted the fact that wireless internet access is relatively new.

Mobile operators began rolling out 4G widely around 2012, offering more people download and upload speeds several times faster than 3G. 4G was a game changer because it was faster and more reliable that anything 3G could offer, providing somewhat of a replacement for slow fixed-line broadband; it was also significantly cheaper than 3G.

Coverage steadily increased as the decade rolled along and with the introduction of 5G this year, mobile operators are preparing for even more evolution when a wider rollout begins next year. To give people some idea of the scale of the shift between the two, one analyst compared 4G and 5G to the telegraph industry implementing a staged transition to fax at the end of the 19th century.

The onset of 4G coincided with the widespread adoption of smartphones and other devices, increasingly making more people mobile in more settings.

SEE: Mini-glossary: 5G terms you should know (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

The miniaturization of sensors has changed supply chains across the world, allowing for greater information collection and more organized systems.

Industries like manufacturing and retail have outfitted trucks, storage facilities, and factories with Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other smart tools that can collect information about how they're used and provide insights into how things can be optimized or streamlined.

The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has even become its own field of expertise, allowing companies to collect data on their machines and tools before using machine learning or artificial intelligence to analyze it and provide recommendations.

These systems can even make the workplace safer for employees in some instances, while highlighting places where costs could potentially be reduced. Businesses can study weak spots and see how to limit interruptions in service or catch problems before they crop up.

As more of the workplace is outfitted with this kind of technology and the tools to analyze data improve, expect companies to find even more avenues to optimize their services.

SEE: Digital transformation in manufacturing: A guide for business pros (TechRepublic Premium)

The value of our data is becoming more apparent as more countries begin to pass laws regulating how companies collect and share it. But the ability to analyze the troves of data websites and services collect on us has been able to help businesses transform and adapt to the changes of their industry.

Morgan Stanley recently called the 2010s "the data decade." The improvements in artificial intelligence and machine learning have given enterprises a way to search and sort through data, pulling the most useful insights that can help businesses change with their customers.

Gartner distinguished analyst in Data Analytics & Strategy Douglas Laney said earlier this year that by 2022, 90% of companies will have detailed business plans that "explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency."

It's easier for enterprises to make sound long-term decisions when leaders are using accurate data that has been analyzed and sorted. Some companies are now looking to data for short-term insights as well, opting for platforms that can give real-time information based on an ever-increasing set of data.

SEE: America's coolest company: How Big Ass Fans went from cooling cows to a multinational tech powerhouse (cover story PDF) (TechRepublic)

While Facebook already existed by 2010, the social media industry looks completely different than it did back then, and some of the biggest sites have since emerged.

Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest all came to fruition after 2010, and both Facebook and Twitter have changed drastically since they first debuted. The numbers are now staggering, with billions of avid users on multiple social media sites across the world sharing their thoughts, photos, and more.

SEE: Facebook data privacy scandal: A cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

It would be unthinkable to go back in time and explain to people that it is now required for almost all companies and world leaders to have official Twitter and Facebook accounts. Social media has become one of the most important ways for corporations and leaders to communicate with and hear from people, but it has lead to an unprecedented amount of visibility into the whims and moods of the world's most powerful.

While there has been some backlash against social media sites since 2016, user numbers show no signs of decreasing, and the increasing popularization of smartphones will bring billions more online in the next decade.

Blockchain has invaded almost every industry because of its wide applicability to almost any business that needs a more organized supply chain or increase verification.

After debuting in 2008 as part of cryptocurrency efforts, the distributed ledger technology was quickly spun off into its own field and adopted heavily by the financial industry. For more than five years, banks and financial institutions have used it for everything from smart contracts to the simplification of loan applications. A consortium of banks in Canada have even used the technology to give people more power over the data collected by financial institutions.

In the last two to three years, dozens of industries have begun research into the effectiveness of blockchain, and it has had the greatest impact on supply chains.

Huge retailers like Walmart and fast food companies like McDonalds now use blockchain to source materials and food.

Brazil recently hired IBM to create a blockchain system that would manage the country's birth and death record system, which had been rife with abuse for decades.

Discover the secrets to IT leadership success with these tips on project management, budgets, and dealing with day-to-day challenges. Delivered Tuesdays and Thursdays

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The top technologies that enabled digital transformation this decade - TechRepublic

5G and IoT Adoption to Drive Economic Impact to More Than $220 Billion by 2023

The GSMA has released two new reports at the annual GSMA Mobile 360 MENA event happening in Dubai. These reports highlight the positive economic impact of the mobile ecosystem on markets across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as the transformative impact of IoT technologies on regional governments strategic national visions.

The two reports from GSMA Intelligence The Mobile Economy: Middle East and North Africa 2019 and Realising the potential of IoT in MENA reveal that mobile technologies and services added $191 billion to the regions economy in 2018 equivalent to about 4.5 per cent of regional GDP. By 2023, mobiles economic contribution is forecast to reach more than $220 billion as countries increasingly benefit from the improvements in productivity and efficiency brought about by the increased uptake of mobile services, and 5G and IoT networks are widely deployed.

Marketing Technology News: Vonage Names Former SAP Executive Rodolpho Cardenuto President of the Applications Group

To date 12 operators have launched commercial 5G services in five Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Arab States. Mobile operators in these countries are aiming to be global leaders in 5G deployments, supporting the digital transformation ambitions outlined in strategic national visions such as UAE Vision 2021 and Saudi Vision 2030.

Meanwhile, IoT connections in the MENA region are growing at a rate second only to Asia-Pacific. There are forecast to be 470 million IoT connections in MENA by the end of 2019, rising to 1.1 billion by 2025. The deployment of IoT across MENA is expected to add $18 billion to regional GDP by 2025.

Marketing Technology News: Toppan and D-ID Sign Strategic Partnership Agreement

Backed by proactive government support, mobile operators, particularly in the GCC Arab States, have speedily deployed 5G technology, said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA. Beyond the GCC, the wider MENA region has an opportunity to benefit from the technological developments delivered by 5G and IoT. To fully embrace those benefits the regions governments must support regulatory frameworks and policies that ensure 5G flourishes, including making sufficient spectrum available.

Marketing Technology News: DeleteMe Expands to Help Journalists and Media Professionals Protect Personal Information Online

Original post:

GSMA: Mobile Technologies and Services Adding $191 Billion a Year of Economic Value to Middle East and North Africa - MarTech Series

SEATTLE If youre like millions of Americans this holiday season, theres a good chance youll be taking a flight somewhere. Even if youre not flying yourself, you may well be visiting an airport to pick somebody up or drop them off.

The part you wont see is the inside of an air traffic control tower. It's a darkened room full of screens and air traffic controllers at a terminal radar control facility, or an en-route center that handles flights between cities.

Given Washington's close proximity to the Canadian border, many residents often fly over U.S. and Canadian air traffic control centers.

In many ways, Canadian ATC technology is ahead of the United State's.

In 1996, Canadas air traffic control system was sold by the government and became a private, not for profit corporation known as NAV Canada. Even if you've never set foot in Canada, if youve ever been a passenger aboard an airliner between Seattle and Europe, odds are pretty high that youve flown through Canadian air space to get there and back.

NAV Canada has been widely credited with being able to bring new technologies on faster. Part of that is credited with its ability to borrow money on the private market. Its funding largely comes from fees charged to airlines, including those that fly over the country.

As an example, NAV Canada finished shifting from paper flight strips used to manage aircraft in its air traffic control towers to electronic ones back in 2010. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is only beginning to use electronic strips as part of its NextGen program, and those towers equipped with electronic strips are at Phoenix and Charlotte, North Carolina. Sea-Tac is not scheduled to go to electronic strips until 2025.

It also plays out in other ways-- the Canadian integrated air traffic management system known as NAVCANatm is now being used in London, elsewhere in Europe, Australia and countries in the Middle East.

But the FAA is no slouch when it comes to air traffic control, and the U.S. is a country where flying has never been safer. While still part the government, its also a system serving a country 10 times larger than Canadas, serving 44,000 flights a day and 3 million passengers, according to agency numbers.

One area where the FAA is running ahead is enhancing the situational awareness for pilots and helping them avoid mid-air collisions. And not just airline pilots, but all pilots through a technology known as ADS-Bstanding for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast.

By Jan. 1, 2020, all aircraft, whether theyre airliners or single-seaters, will have to be ADS-B equipped to fly in controlled airspace. With rare exceptions, thats pretty much everybody. Even some drones are being equipped to receive ADS-B signals from another aircraft to automatically get out of the way.

Canada is still working through its universal ADS-B requirements, which also uses more satellite technology, but its not expected to be fully mandatory possibly until 2024.

Read more:

Canada ahead of the U.S. with some air traffic control technologies - KING5.com

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched a global action plan to save the web from political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations and other malign forces that threaten to plunge the world into a digital dystopia.

The Contract for the Web requires endorsing governments, companies and individuals to make concrete commitments to protect the web from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity.

I think peoples fear of bad things happening on the internet is becoming, justifiably, greater and greater, Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, told the Guardian. If we leave the web as it is, theres a very large number of things that will go wrong. We could end up with a digital dystopia if we dont turn things around. Its not that we need a 10-year plan for the web, we need to turn the web around now.

The contract, which has been worked on by 80 organisations for more than a year, outlines nine central principles to safeguard the web three each for governments, companies and individuals.

The document, published by Berners-Lees Web Foundation, has the backing of more than 150 organisations, from Microsoft, Twitter, Google and Facebook to the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation. At the time of writing, Amazon had not endorsed the principles.

Those who back the contract must show they are implementing the principles and working on solutions to the tougher problems, or face being removed from the list of endorsers. If the stipulation is properly enforced, some may not last long. A report from Amnesty International accuses Google and Facebook of enabling human rights harm at a population scale. The report comes weeks after Google was found to have acquired the personal health records of 50 million Americans without their consent.

The contracts principles require governments to do all they can to ensure that everyone who wants to can connect to the web and have their privacy respected. People should have access to whatever personal data is held on them and have the right to object or withdraw from having that data processed.

Further principles oblige companies to make internet access affordable and calls on them to develop web services for people with disabilities and those who speak minority languages. To build trust online, companies are compelled to simplify privacy settings by providing control panels where people can access their data and manage their privacy options in one place.

Another principle requires companies to diversify their workforces, consult broad communities before and after they release new products, and assess the risk of their technology spreading misinformation or harming peoples behaviour or personal wellbeing.

Three more principles call on individuals to create rich and relevant content to make the web a valuable place, build strong online communities where everyone feels safe and welcome, and finally, to fight for the web, so it remains open to everyone, everywhere.

The forces taking the web in the wrong direction have always been very strong, Berners-Lee said. Whether youre a company or a government, controlling the web is a way to make huge profits, or a way of ensuring you remain in power. The people are arguably the most important part of this, because its only the people who will be motivated to hold the other two to account.

Emily Sharpe, the director of policy at the Web Foundation, said: The webs power to be a force for good is under threat and people are crying out for change. We are determined to shape that debate using the framework that the Contract sets out.

Ultimately, we need a global movement for the web like we now have for the environment, so that governments and companies are far more responsive to citizens than they are today. The contract lays the foundations for that movement.

This article was amended on 25 November 2019 to include Twitter among the signatories.

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Tim Berners-Lee unveils global plan to save the web - The Guardian

Accenture has appointed Scott Hahn as its technology lead for Australia and New Zealand.

Hahns new role will span Accenture Labs, Application Services and its list of strategic alliance partners, and will see him take on building Accentures advanced technology capabilities.

Hahn has been with Accenture for over 30 years

Hahn has been with Accenture since 1988 when he started out in the US as a manager. In 1999 he was promoted to global client account lead and in 2017 he was elevated to AAPAC SAP business group lead.

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Hahn said of his new role: I am very excited about the opportunity to lead the technology team in Australia and New Zealand, and to help clients transform their businesses, drive value and accelerate growth.

Powered by data, applied intelligence, cloud and intelligent platforms, I look forward to bringing the best of Accentures local and global capabilities to help accelerate innovation at scale in this region.

Bob Easton, chairman of Accenture Australia and New Zealand, commented: Our clients recognise the opportunity to leverage technology to transform at speed and scale. Scott brings a wealth of experience advising companies, and leading high performing teams around the world. He will bring new insights and create new opportunities for our teams and clients.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Accenture would undergo a round of redundancies, with up to 70 underperforming managing directors set to leave the business.

A day earlier, The Monkeys Mark Green became the lead of Accenture Interactive Australia and New Zealand, with Justin Drape and Scott Nowell taking on co-chief creative officer roles. Michael Buckley departed his role as managing director of Accenture Interactive AUNZ in May this year.

Accenture Interactive announced its acquisition of global creative agency, Droga 5, in April.

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Accenture appoints Scott Hahn as its technology lead for Australia and New Zealand - mUmBRELLA*

Recent advances in deepfake video technology have led to a rapid increase of such videos in the public domain in the past year. Face-swapping apps such as Zao, for example, allow users to swap their faces with a celebrity, creating a deepfake video in seconds.

These advances are the result of deep generative modelling, a new technology which allows us to generate duplicates of real faces and create new, and impressively true-to-life images, of people who do not exist.

This new technology has quite rightly raised concerns about privacy and identity. If our faces can be created by an algorithm, would it be possible to replicate even more details of our personal digital identity or attributes like our voice or even create a true body double?

Indeed, the technology has advanced rapidly from duplicating just faces to entire bodies. Technology companies are concerned and are taking action: Google released 3,000 deepfake videos in the hope of allowing researchers to develop methods of combating malicious content and identifying these more easily.

While questions are rightly being asked about the consequences of deepfake technology, it is important that we do not lose sight of the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) can be used for good, as well as ill. World leaders are concerned with how to develop and apply technologies that genuinely benefit people and planet, and how to engage the whole of society in their development. Creating algorithms in isolation does not allow for the consideration of broader societal concerns to be incorporated into their practical applications.

For example, the development of deep generative models raises new possibilities in healthcare, where we are rightly concerned about protecting the privacy of patients in treatment and ongoing research. With large amounts of real, digital patient data, a single hospital with adequate computational power could create an entirely imaginary population of virtual patients, removing the need to share the data of real patients.

We would also like to see advances in AI lead to new and more efficient ways of diagnosing and treating illness in individuals and populations. The technology could enable researchers to generate true-to-life data to develop and test new ways of diagnosing or monitoring disease without risking breaches in real patient privacy.

These examples in healthcare highlight that AI is an enabling technology that is neither intrinsically good nor evil. Technology like this depends on the context in which we create and use it.

Universities have a critical role to play here. In the UK, universities are leading the world in research and innovation and are focused on making an impact on real-world challenges. At UCL, we recently launched a dedicated UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence that will be at the forefront of global research into AI. Our academics are working with a broad range of experts and organizations to create new algorithms to support science, innovation and society.

AI must complement and augment human endeavour, not replace it. We need to combine checks and balances that inhibit or prevent inappropriate use of technology while creating the right infrastructure and connections between different experts to ensure we develop technology that helps society thrive.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.

Written by

Geraint Rees, Professor of cognitive neurology, University College London

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

See original here:

How the technology behind deepfakes can benefit all of society - World Economic Forum

Being an architect with over 10 years of international experience in proptech has allowed me to witness the rapid changes that technology is bringing to real estate. Virtual reality, virtual home-staging and augmented reality have all made their way into the real estate industry by now. Technology can, and should, impact the way people find their place on Earth. But is what we have what consumers need?

From A Reactive Mindset To A Proactive One

Fun fact: I started my real estate career in New York working at Citi Habitats, and the company's president Gary Malin would always remind us just how important being proactive is. Clients get very frustrated when they reach out to a real estate agent and the agent doesn't follow up promptly. When renting or buying an apartment, time is of the essence. So, providing people with information and data that is critical in their decision-making process, and doing so effectively and proactively, is key to being a successful agent.

Currently, there are a couple of platforms available that allow users to access properties deeds or buildings' documents but they're not always accurate or updated. It'll be interesting to see as time goes by how new or innovative companies use technology to expedite and organize the process of due diligence and generate tools that allow real estate agents to be more proactive to the benefit of their clients.

Increasing Transparency And Honesty Within The Industry

A conversation I had recently with Andro Apacible of New York City real estate firm Mdrn Residential reminded me that often, it's managers and the people closest to customers who are best able to witness friction points from a more intimate perspective. As I often do, I visited a couple of brokerages to see what an agent's day-to-day looks like. Currently, brokers spend much time verifying and cross-referencing property information among several sources, so having one source that reflects the market in real time is what I believe the public needs to capture the fast pace at which we're currently moving.

One centralized platform that captures the most up-to-date inventory, verified listings, access, landlord requirements and broker/tenant incentives could significantly streamline a somewhat disjointed marketplace especially for small and medium-sized companies that often do not have their own tech team and rely on third parties. A platform that provides live and trustworthy data would create a new level of transparency, accessibility and more exposure for brokers, clients and owners.

Expediting The Closing Of Transactions

Any homeowner knows that there are a couple of migraines before the satisfaction of being a homeowner kicks in. In most cases, those migraines originate in the number of documents that need to be signed and reviewed, and all the necessary actions that need to take place before getting your new home getting pre-approved for a mortgage, submitting offers, hiring a real estate attorney, signing the contract, receiving a commitment letter from your bank, submitting a co-op board application and having the board interview, and that's all before closing day.

Can you imagine if you could do most of that online? Currently, there are a couple of companies that are making moves in allowing people to sign documents online, making that part of the process more efficient. But it will be interesting to see how innovative companies can expedite other steps of the process and wrap them up in a true one-stop shop.

Most of us love virtual reality. And on occasion, it could be beneficial to quickly show potential customers the spaces they can expect especially in new developments. However, in most scenarios, VR can still be considered a want rather than a need. While more progressive brokerages might be adopting VR as a form of competitive advantage, there are still a lot of opportunities for outside innovation to make its way into solving customers' problems by creatively using technology to offer more transparency, a speedier process and better education for the general public and real estate agents.

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The Changes We Need: How Technology Could Improve Residential Real Estate - Forbes

The Transportation Security Administration is bracing for a record number of people at airport security checkpoints around the country this Thanksgiving. Nearly 27 million passengers are expected to be screened during the holiday period, meaning travelers could face long security lines. But new technology being tested by the TSA could speed up screenings and address passenger complaints over electronics, liquids and taking off their shoes.

In a field outside Providence, University of Rhode Island researchers are working on new ways to detect and stop explosives popular with terrorists. They're partnering with the Department of Homeland Security on a sensor called a "digital dog nose" that will soon be the size of cell phone. Able to be mounted on a drone, it could can detect homemade explosives as well or better than a bomb-sniffing dog.

They've also created a gel called "Schmoo" that can surround an explosive or chemical agent and flash-freeze it so it can be safely removed from a transit hub.

"We think about how to detect and mitigate the threats for today, while we're still realizing that if we get really good about today's threats, there's going to be a different threat tomorrow," said professor Jimmie Oxley, of the university's Center for Excellence for Explosives Detection, Mitigation and Response. "What would that look like, and how would we attack it?"

About 2,700 miles away, at a new airport checkpoint in Las Vegas, the TSA's newest technology, in an area of Terminal 3 at McCarran International Airport, is being tested together for first time with real passengers. They call it their "Innovation Checkpoint."

"This is a glimpse into the future of what aviation security is going to look like," Jose Bonilla, the director of TSA's Innovation Task Force, told correspondent Kris Van Cleave. "What we're trying to do is, how do we make that a more seamless process for the traveling public, but not giving up on security capability? What you see here may not be here in a year. We may bring in new pieces of technology."

As passengers approach the innovation checkpoint, they'll see dynamic message boards. Next, new ID readers scan your license to quickly validate your identity and confirm you're flying that day, without needing to show officers your boarding pass

From there, carry-on bags go to a CT scanner. Electronics can stay in, and eventually the goal is liquids will, too.

The new scanners can more easily see through all the clutter in bags.

While it's not quite the scanner from "Total Recall," science fiction is coming alive with new walk-by body scanners. They display a generic male or female form and flag an area of the body where there may be a concern. The technology is also better at spotting non-metallic threats that a metal detector might miss.

"The improvement they really need to make for everybody is, don't take your shoes off!" said passenger Patrick Hinke.

"If they can speed it up a bit more, yeah. The ID thing was a little slow," said Keith Ross.

Deanna Sack said, "It's quicker. It definitely pushes people through a lot faster."

TSA hopes it can turn lessons learned at this Vegas checkpoint into reality around the country by 2022. Some of the technology, like the CT scanners, is already being rolled out at some airports.

TSA may also look to expand its use of facial recognition technology in the next few years.

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TSA testing new technology like "Innovation Checkpoint" and "digital dog nose" to speed up screenings - CBS News

Mozilla and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to jointly build new alliance to foster open voice data and technology in Africa and beyond

Berlin 25 November 2019. Today, Mozilla and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) have announced to join forces in the collection of open speech data in local languages, as well as the development of local innovation ecosystems for voice-enabled products and technologies. The initiative builds on the pilot project, which our Open Innovation team and the Machine Learning Group started together with the organization Digital Umuganda earlier this year. The Rwandan start-up collects language data in Kinyarwanda, an African language spoken by over 12 million people. Further languages in Africa and Asia are going to be added.

Kelly Davis, Head of Mozillas Machine Learning Group, explaining the design and technology behind Deep Speech and Common Voice at a Hackathon in Kigali, February 2019.

Mozillas projects Common Voice and Deep Speech will be the heart of the joint initiative, which aims at collecting diverse voice data and opening up a common, public database. Mozilla and the BMZ are planning to partner and collaborate with African start-ups, which need respective training data in order to develop locally suitable, voice-enabled products or technologies that are relevant to their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Mozilla and the BMZ are also inviting like-minded companies and identifying further countries interested in joining their efforts to open up language data.

The German Ministry and Mozilla share a similar vision and work towards the responsible use of automated decision-making and artificial intelligence for sustainable development on scale. Supporting partner countries in reaching the SDGs, today, the BMZ is carrying out more than 470 digitally enhanced projects in over 90 countries around the world. As part of the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, the Federal German Government has agreed to support developing countries in building up capacities and knowledge on opportunities and challenges of AI an area of expertise that the Mozilla Foundation has heavily invested in with their work on trustworthy AI.

Artificial Intelligence is changing and shaping our societies globally. It is critical that these technologies are both trustworthy and truly serve everyone. And that means they need to be developed with local needs and expertise in mind, diverse, decentralized, and not driven by monopolies, says Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation.

Innovating in AI poses complex technological, regulatory and ethical challenges. This is why I am very pleased to see multiple teams within Mozilla working together in this promising cooperation with the BMZ, building on our shared visions and objectives for a positive digital future, adds Katharina Borchert, Chief Open Innovation Officer of the Mozilla Corporation.

The cooperation was announced at Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Berlin and will be part of the BMZ initiative Artificial Intelligence for All: FAIR FORWARD. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed at Mozillas headquarters in Mountain View on November 14.

From left to right: Bjrn Richter, Head of Digital Development Sector Program, GIZ, Dr. Andreas Foerster, Head of Division Digital Technologies in Development Cooperation, BMZ, Katharina Borchert, Chief Open Innovation Officer, Mozilla, Ashley Boyd, VP, Advocacy Mozilla Foundation, and Udbhav Tiwari, Public Policy Advisor, Mozilla

Mozilla believes that the internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible for all people, no matter where they are and which language they speak. With projects such as Common Voice and Deep Speech, Mozillas Machine Learning Group is working on advancing and democratizing voice recognition technology on the web.

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Mozilla and BMZ Announce Cooperation to Open Up Voice Technology for African Languages - Mozilla & Firefox

Throughout his career to date, CEO of Charles Taylor InsureTech, Jason Sahota (pictured) has worn a wide variety of professional hats. Having spent the majority of his career in professional services, he has worked in a diverse range of roles from account manager to service delivery manager to head of sales to CIO of a FTSE 30 company and advisory.

Sahota views his key functional skill as business transformation with a major element of technology and when his present role became available, he seized the opportunity to build a technology company from scratch. Speaking with Insurance Business, Sahota touched on the essential questions of digital transformation in the insurance industry and the role of different entities in the current insurance environment.

The InsureTech arm was launched, Sahota said, with a view of bringing technology to really solve business problems not to be a software product provider. As part of the executive committee of the Charles Taylor Group, Sahota believes his experience on both sides of the table has given him an enhanced understanding of clients utilising technology to drive business value.

InsureTech has enjoyed substantial success in the market to date and Sahota credits this to the involvement of the business across every element of the value chain. Now working with multiple major brokers, carriers and other insurance entities across the value chain as its clients, InsureTech was awarded a five-country contract to implement a policy administration system, INSIS, as the core operating platform for Seguros SURA in Latin America in 2018. Last year it also acquired the insurance-focused technology consultancy and software provider Inworx in Argentina.

I said from day one that I didnt want us to grow as a business just as another London market player, said Sahota. A lot of businesses that grow up in London struggle to become global - I had global in mind from the start. So, I set up in London and I set up in Mexico City.

Being in Mexico City recently, he said, reinforced that this global focus was a good strategic decision. Developing economies have a greater need for insurance, he outlined, and with a greater need for insurance comes more transformation.

The appetite to change in the developing markets is quite a lot greater than the more mature markets in the US and Canada and Europe, Sahota said. While these developing markets still have legacy technology and legacy ways of working, change is not as complicated, both in commercial lines and personal lines.

The two key drivers in the market, as seen by Sahota, are the revenue side with its emphasis on customer retention and acquisition, and the operational cost and operational effectiveness side. He believes that to move the dial and build a successful business strategy, you need to utilize both. To really understand the business problem, you have to understand where the client is and where they want to go, and then question how do we help them get there?

The differentiating factor in every business, said Sahota, is the people. And we dont want everybody to be the same so that the change journey is different for every organization. But technology is not the silver bullet on its own.

On the subject of digital transformation, Sahota outlined what he believes to be the fundamental tenet behind why industry players, including brokers, may be slow to embrace such changes.

I dont think its just about digital transformation, he said. I think theres just the general underlying [principle] that human beings dont like change.

However, we live in a world where change is the norm, said Sahota, and businesses that are going to survive in any industry must be agile. Yet a source of confusion for many businesses, he said, is the mix-up between digital transformation and digitization.

Digitization, he explained, is when organizations use technology on an existing way of working and it does not change the underlying process being utilized. Digital transformation, on the other hand, is changing the way of working through the use of technology.

There is a big step change from one to the other, said Sahota, as people get used to the changes that are coming in technology,

Yet, while Sahota identified this transformation and highlighted the importance of continuing to talk about technology, he said the major change within the insurance sector is the move towards customer centricity. This shift in culture has already occurred in the banking industry, said Sahota, and insurance is not going through a different change, its just going through the change now.

It is difficult for an industry which is inherently and traditionally product-focused to emphasize the customer instead, Sahota said, but this is a fundamental adjustment required of and being embraced by the industry. Customer centricity, customer experience and the customer journey are the most essential considerations and should be at the heart of all transformation and strategy adjustments carried out in the insurance sector, he said.

Sahota additionally outlined how Charles Taylor InsureTechs innovative Tide solution for the standardization and simplification of data throughout the distribution system of a business has been designed with the customer experience in mind.

Many brokers engaged in coverholder business have opted to utilize this product which, through the standardization of the collection, validation, processing and supply of delegated authority data has allowed brokers to spend more time creating a valuable customer relationship, he said.

Between the digital transformation sweeping the insurance industry and the growing demand for the customer at the heart of the business, it seems there has never been a better time for innovative insurance solutions and Sahota is very happy to be a part of this brave new world.

To watch your ideas and visions become a reality and watch individuals achieve their potential [is] fundamentally what I do now, he said. I have the best role ever.

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CEO delves into why "technology is not the silver bullet" for insurance - Insurance Business

The texts kept coming.

Due to a weather forecast PG&E may turn off powerPrepare a plan.

Arriving once, sometimes twice a day until the shutoff hit, the texts referred customers to PG&Es website for updated information about the impending power shutoffs.

But just before the first shutoff on Oct. 9, 2019, many customers found that there was no website it had crashed under a high volume of traffic. And some customers stopped receiving texts because the shutoff had knocked out their cell service, as well.

PG&Es Public Safety Power Shutoff events left nearly one million customers across Northern California without power, and knocked out nearly 60% of cell towers in certain counties. It also highlighted critical gaps in communication infrastructure that local government agencies are now scrambling to address.

California Governors Office of Emergency Services spokesperson Bryan May emphasized that California residents need to develop a habit of turning on cell phone emergency alerts from both utilities and government agencies and checking public safety announcements posted on the internet.

The more redundancy you can build into your own notification plan, the better, said May.

Both state and local counties are trying to provide redundancy through social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The need for redundancy is crucial, especially since the once-dependable landline telephone is no longer immune to power shutoffs.

During the devastating Tubbs fire in 2017, Santa Rosa resident Anthony Covarrubias turned to social media and found a trusted source of information in a local journalist.

She would tweet all through the nightshe would hardly sleep, said Covarrubias. I havent been on Twitter since probably October of 2017, but then during [the recent PG&E public safety power shutoffs] I was refreshing her Twitter feed all the time.

The Tubbs Fire also spurred the Sonoma County Sheriffs Office to install special emergency sirens, which alternate continuously between a high pitch and low pitch and are intended to alert residents of an emergency. The sheriffs department announcement of the new sirens on Facebook implored residents to to pay attention, turn on your social media.

Officials in other counties also use social media during emergencies. Ray Kelly, an Alameda County Sheriffs Office spokesperson, said social media is generally a boon to both residents and the local government.

After the first shutoff in early October, Kelly and his team asked customers to post on Twitter when their power was restored so that the sheriffs department could notify PG&E of lags in re-energization, if necessary.

When we asked people, Let us know when your power was back on, it [created] an interactive space that was taking place on social media between the community and between government, said Kelly. We were all working together for the same bit of knowledge.

But Kelly acknowledges that social media strategies are limited.

It is one of the best tools in our toolbox. But that being said, you cannot rely on it completely to be your entire strategy, said Kelly.

Plus, not everyone uses social media, like Oakland resident Diana Velez.

Im the older generation, said Velez. I would probably go to a website, but I wouldnt think about going to Twitter or Instagram. Social media is not my go-to for information.

Velez lived through the Oakland firestorm of 1991, and understands the need for the precautionary shutoffs. She appreciates the text messages that PG&E sent in advance of the three shutoffs that occurred throughout October. But Velez thinks the utility could have done a better job keeping customers updated with status changes.

If they would sayWere waiting to see what the weathers like right nowso were postponing [re-energization]we can plan around that, said Velez.

The instantaneous nature of electronic communication systems can also mean increased frustration when there is conflicting information.

The night before the second round of power shutoffs, Santa Rosa resident Anthony Covarrubias was woken up by his phone, which was buzzing.

Covarrubias phone was receiving alerts from the Sonoma County Sheriffs Office and the Santa Rosa Police Department via Nixle, a notification system that has been adopted by local governments and agencies across the US.

The alerts arrived in Covarrubias phone, first in English, then in Spanish.

More alerts in both languages followed about evacuations, fire progress and highway closures. They didnt end up affecting Covarrubias exact location, but they kept coming, including an advisory correcting what turned out to be an erroneous evacuation order.

I am an information overloaderwhile my husband shut off his phone, said Covarrubias.

With information being re-posted and cross-posted across platforms, Covarrubias relies most heavily on his countys sheriffs office for accurate information.

In Alameda County, Kelly reminds residents that sometimes the oldest technology is the best.

When all else fails, when everything goes down, we know that its likely our radio stations will be up and running, said Kelly.

Even if residents dont have a portable, battery-powered radio, you can get to a radio in your car and listen to AM radio, he said.

During emergency situations, Alameda County Sheriffs Office collaborates with KCBS, 106.9 FM and 740 AM, a local 24-hour, all-news radio station. Kelly says that during the first round of shutoffs the sheriffs office tested their ability to phone into KCBS and local TV stations.

He also admits that theres always more to do when it comes to keeping the public informed about best strategies.

Were due for a tweet or a message about tuning into the AM radio station if you are unable to communicate via cell phone, said Kelly.

But even as safety officials attempt to patch gaps in local infrastructure, the responsibility of seeking and remaining informed about alternative communication solutions falls to residents.

After Sonoma County lost cell service during the first shutoff, Covarrubias and his husband brainstormed alternative communication strategies.

Right after [the shutoff] we talked about getting radios, and I was like hell, maybe well go satellite, he said.

Covarrubias has never actually seen a satellite phone but knows that people use them in remote locations.

At the very leasta classic radio with batteries, or even a hand crank.

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PG&E shutoffs highlight the usefulness and uselessness of technology in emergencies - Peninsula Press