Women Impact Tech is pushing forward a movement: they’re changing the way women are viewed in the tech industry, and therefore, the tech space as a whole. With a mission of building an inclusive community + empowering women in tech to thrive in their careers, Women Impact Tech is taking action by helping organizations with their DEI efforts – from finding great female talent to giving them tools and resources to support women working in tech fields. Women Impact Tech’s President, Paula Ratliff, will be sharing more details with us in this interview with TechBullion.
Please tell us more about yourself?
My name is Paula Bratcher Ratliff and I am the President of Women Impact Tech. I have spent the past 22 years in the staffing industry, the “People Business!” I made a career change in October of 2021 and embraced the opportunity to lead Women Impact Tech. This role is a dream come true for me. Andiamo, the parent company for Women Impact Tech, has the best values that I have seen articulated in the staffing industry: Be Amazing, Do the Essential, Have Fun, Adapt, Have Grit, Have Purpose. I am so excited that I can live these values and drive the mission to create equity in the workforce for women!  
I have spent most of my professional career focused on architecting and leading sales of workforce solutions in staffing, RPO, MSP, and consulting/managed services for Fortune 500 companies in North America and Globally. My other passion for the past 20 years has been leading corporate supplier diversity initiatives, sustainability, diversity, and inclusion. Working with Women Impact Tech allows me to bridge my industry experience and my passion for diversity and inclusion into one leadership role.
 Personally, my wife and I have two small children who inspire me to be the best I can be and to leave the world a better place for them and future generations.
Continue reading: https://techbullion.com/women-impact-tech-is-driving-equity-in-tech-interview-with-president-paula-bratcher-ratliff/

Nearly one-quarter of adults in the U.S. are unbanked (they do not have a checking, savings, or money market account) or underbanked (they have a bank account but also use an alternative financial service product), according to the Federal Reserve. That's nearly 60 million people!
Sheena Allen—raised in Terry, Mississippi, started building apps in college, worked in Silicon Valley and Austin—is uniquely qualified to understand and seize the opportunity that the unbanked and underbanked represent. When others didn't see the opportunity, she stayed steadfast.
Her company, CapWay, provides bank services and financial education via a mobile app. The social content presents financial information that Millennials and Gen Z can relate to.
Allen is a role model for all those women and girls who are told, "no, you can't."
While in college at the University of Southern Mississippi, Allen built her first app. It didn't sell well, but she discovered her passion for technology. She continued to build apps, including Dublin, which, at its height, was downloaded 10 to 20 thousand times per day.
The first in her family to graduate from college, her parents still wanted Allen to have a more traditional career. But Allen was headstrong and saw something else in her future. Much to her parents' chagrin, she wanted to be a techie.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/geristengel/2022/02/09/black-female-founder-from-mississippi-seizes-fintech-opportunities-others-missed/?sh=310b194c1450

Technology is growing and there is no doubt that it will continue to be a part of our everyday lives. Despite popular opinion, the Internet of Things, otherwise known as IoT, is not new technology. In fact, IoT dates back to the 1980’s. IoT is comprised of connected devices, allowing users to access remote functionality in real time. In more recent years, businesses are recognizing the value and putting more toward IoT investments. Here are some IoT statistics you need to know.
IoT at a Glance
As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology continue to improve, IoT is advancing and expanding at a steady rate. Quality providers, IoT connections, wearables, 5G and other enabling technologies are helping to support the development of smart cities, big data, smart homes, increased automation, and more connectivity across the globe.
IoT is comprised of physical devices that communicate with one another over a network or internet connection. If you can control it from another device, you’re using IoT.
Some popular examples of IoT include:

• Amazon Alexa hubs
• Google Home
• Ring doorbells
• Smart watches
• Smart appliances
• Nest thermostats and smoke alarms
• Smart door locks
• Fitness trackers

Astonishing Internet of Things Facts & Statistics
IoT seems like emerging tech, but really the Internet of Things is just a bridge between the physical world and the digital one. Here are some fun facts about IoT.

• The first IoT device was a soda machine at Carnegie Mellon, which led to the development of the first widely used IoT device—ATMs.
• IoT involves so much data that it is measured in zettabytes.
• IoT is responsible for powering smart cities, such as Shanghai, Seoul, New York, Barcelona and Beijing, the top five smart cities according to Juniper Research.

General Internet of Things Statistics
IoT has a ton of business and personal applications.

• PWC reports that 93% of executives believe the benefits of IoT outweigh the risks.
• IoT Analytics shows that 545 of IoT projects are driven by cost savings.
• Global IoT spending is expected to hit $1.2 trillion in 2022, reports IDC.
• According to Cisco, 500 billion devices are expected to be connected to the internet by 2030.

Continue reading: https://connect.comptia.org/blog/internet-of-things-stats-facts

The creation of blockchain technology grabs the curiosity of many, and soon many more people will understand the technology. In addition, Blockchain Technology is useful for other things like medical records, creating digital documents, and maintaining corporate finances.
What is Blockchain Technology?
Scientifically speaking, a blockchain is a collection of blocks connecting data in a sequence. The block is a collection of data and information collected in a block and hash of the previous block.
When a new block attaches to this chain, they act as connectors forming a blockchain.
In other words, Blockchain is stored in a ledger that records and stores in this record-keeping book (Ledger), which is obtainable to everyone but is unalterable. Thus making it perfectly safe and secure.
Blockchain is attempting to solve the problem of intermediaries, also called third parties; the issue of third parties is that they take a minimum of 3 days to transfer money and charge the fee. Blockchain is trying to do this immediately, and the fee is cheaper than a third party collects.
Imagine a chain of blocks; if you change the details recorded in a particular block, the whole block is not altered. Instead, the details are stored in a new block. So, for example, N changed to P at a specific date and time.
Continue reading: https://readwrite.com/understanding-blockchain-technology-made-easy/

For years, brands have been using data to analyze their target audience’s online identity and behavior in order to strategize their advertising efforts. Now, as digital security continues to tighten and consumers become increasingly aware of the information companies can access, behavioral targeting is coming to a slow death. With this in mind, brands need to reevaluate their efforts to generate a sense of trust from their audiences, while delivering relevant ads.
Since the passing of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), consumer scrutiny over third-party data has grown. In conjunction, the sophistication of artificial intelligence (AI) expanded.
Defined by IBM as leveraging “computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind,” conceptually, AI has existed since the 1950s. For a while, it seemed to only appear as a fully formed technology in cinema.
However, over the course of the last decade, it is realizing its true potential. The world might not be at the level of entering the Matrix or being visited by future cyborg versions of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but driverless cars are no longer beyond the realms of possibility, and many now have spoken conversations with devices in their homes.
Continue reading: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2022/02/09/personalization-and-context-ais-surging-role-in-advertising/?sh=79ccf5fa5ce0

Funded by the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, Gulf of Finland (GOF) 2.0 provides Europe and the entire Drone Industry with valuable data and lessons learned. In late 2021, Commercial UAV News spoke with Gokul Srinivasan, Director of Technology at Robots.Expert, a member of the consortium, to get an exclusive in-depth look into the trial.
GOF 2.0, as the name suggests, is the sequel to GOF 1.0, which concluded in 2019 after some exciting results, including Volocopter's flight in Helsinki. SESAR JU did quite a few things in GOF 1.0 - one of the best things that came out was the architecture, which became the reference architecture for use cases in Europe. Following that, GOF 2.0 enhances that architecture and squeezes it into operational planning, validation, and evaluation. In essence, the plan is to focus on safety, security, and a sustainable way of integrating manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, including Urban Air Mobility vehicles, into dense airspace without disrupting ongoing operations.
The first step is to retrofit the architecture from the previous project and make changes in relevant places. Then, SESAR JU will heavily focus on understanding at what point does it fail to know its limitations. Srinisavan told Commercial UAV News that "trying to understand where something fails has two sides." On one side, you can develop a defeat mechanism to make the system fail. On the other side, it can also mean you understand the extent to which something works and, from there, extract the information and focus on Minimum Operation Performance Specifications (MOPS).
Another focus of 2.0 is on the integration of different systems. For example, Srinisavan talks about U-Space service providers working as different entities, such as a company providing better monitoring service, improved situational awareness, or UTM. The idea is that all of them would have to talk to the same system cohesively so that everybody in the airspace consumes this information and can maintain a safe distance from each other, hence focusing on a separation both in a Strategic and Tactical level. Strategic means separating aircraft before they take off, and Tactical focuses on deconflicting airborne situations, such as overlapping flight paths. This could range anywhere from focusing on separation minima to detect-and-avoid measures. That's essentially what GOF 2.0 is trying to do.
About 15 different partners from across the EU are involved in this project. It has a good healthy combination of drone operators, air taxi operators, Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), and Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs). There are also UTM service providers involved and many different service providers, making Gulf 2.0 a system of systems model with many moving parts.
In an international beyond visual line of sight flight from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia, SESAR JU used multiple electronic conspicuity devices simultaneously for the first time. Conspicuity devices consistently report where they are in the airspace so that UTM systems can easily track them. Since Helsinki and Tallinn are both busy and tight controlled airspaces, one of the objectives of this test was to understand how exiting and entering controlled airspaces would work without disrupting ongoing operations, such as not redirecting other flights or shutting down the airspace or runway.
Continue reading: https://www.commercialuavnews.com/europe/flying-drones-across-international-borders-lessons-learned-from-the-gulf-of-finland-gof-2-0-drone-trials

We’re in the middle of an explosion of innovation in drone technology. According to a report by venture capitalist at Phystech Ventures, there has been $5 billion of investment in drone technology in the past two years, leading to the development of no fewer than 170 different air taxi, cargo, and vertical take-off-or-landing craft by almost 130 different companies.
Also: air taxis are hype, not substance, he says.
“From my perspective, [the] air taxi topic is a little bit hyped,” Daniel Shaposhnikov, a partner at Phystech Ventures, told me recently on the TechFirst podcast. “Scalability for the cargo drones will be much closer.”
Why?

 
The air taxis might get the headlines and they might even get the investment dollars because they’re sexy and visual and exciting. But cargo drones solve a massive existing problem — last mile delivery — and they’re far easier to implement. A key reason: safety regulations for craft carrying humans in the air are much more onerous. And, the drone size you need to carry one to four people is easily an order of magnitude bigger than usable cargo drones in active service today. Plus, the fine-grained air traffic control you’d need for manned drones is a significant challenge.
That’s why, Shaposhnikov says, even on air taxi drone websites or presentations, you’ll see a cargo drone in the background.
When we think drones we tend to think electricity and batteries, but a full 35% of the drones under development have good old-fashioned internal combustion engines. Many have hybrid models, some use hydrogen fuel cells, and only three are shipping pure electrical systems today. Current batteries do not offer sufficient power density and cannot power long flights, Shaposhnikov says.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2022/02/07/drone-innovation-check-up-5b-investment-129-companies-170-craft/?sh=170af0338f64

Edge Computing brings new challenges for the lifecycle of facilities and for improving resilience in locations where there are typically no employees, and which are often deployed ad hoc.
Edge operators will need to look at four key issues, which will help them minimise downtime and risk in an infrastructure evolving from mission-critical to mission-critical.
Automation
To manage tens, hundreds or thousands of perimeter nodes that are impossible to control on site, innovative AI-based solutions are needed to provide real-time Edge information based on data about energy consumption and availability, thermal behavior, humidity, airflow, and environmental anomalies.
In this way. Users can "live" optimize consumption while minimizing risks by dynamically adjusting the optimal cooling and power modes.
Single dashboard
A central panel to easily operate on the global and individual status of Edge sites, including alarms, metrics, environmental conditions that may compromise the site.
These operation visualization tools should be tailored to Edge objectives with AI-based alerts that help operators stay informed in real-time about the most critical operational factors.
Dashboard users must understand and anticipate key performance metrics through predictive and dynamic analytics. In short, anticipate what might happen at any remote location.
Physical security
The distribution of the Edge in remote and unattended locations makes it necessary to control the physical security of sites. This is often less than in central environments.
When implementing an Edge computing strategy, it is necessary to consider a greater number of risk and accidental situations. For example, access, power outages and extreme environmental conditions.
Continue reading: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/edge-computing-and-new-challenges-for-the-operator/

Several police forces in England are participating in beyond visible line of sight (BVLOS) drone tests in what may be the first, careful steps toward long-distance use of the craft for routine surveillance and searches for suspects.
Though it’s not yet entirely clear what that program will involve, the UK’s National Police Air Service (NPAS) has selected four drone-equipped law enforcement divisions to help gauge the “capabilities (BVOLS) may provide to police aviation in the future.” Leading that charge is the Norfolk constabulary, along with those of West Midlands, Thames Valley, and London’s Met. All those participants have experienced UAV units and will presumably get a crack at flights well beyond visual contact once the trials pick up speed.

“This is a complex and detailed piece of research work, involving significant regulatory implications, and is still in its very early, exploratory stages,” the NPAS statement reads. “(Testing) is predominantly in area searches for missing and vulnerable people, suspects, vehicles, and property. The project will not only consider drone types but also command and control and hazard detection systems, to ensure compliance with Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulatory policies and procedures.”

Click to expand...

As the process advances, many eyes will be on Norfolk, due in part to the depth and diversity of its police drone activity. The unit currently boasts 22 trained UAV pilots and 20 vehicles – a fleet that has expanded quickly in the past year, and will soon add indoor and fixed-wing craft. 
Its annual report released late last year said the Norfolk constabulary deployed its drones on police missions or in support of fire services 1,484 times, versus 657 the previous year – the first it possessed those aerial assets. Flights included 329 previously scheduled outings and 1,226 responding to reports of various crimes underway. 
Further increases in both the frequency and type of missions flown are expected over time under the UAV boosterism of Norfolk police and crime commissioner Giles Orpen-Smellie, a true believer in their use in law enforcement. 
Continue reading: https://dronedj.com/2022/02/08/uk-units-to-test-bvlos-deployment-of-police-drones/

Many forces deploy drones on a regular basis but under current Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) guidelines, their use is limited as the operators must maintain line of sight with the machine they are controlling.
NPAS will now begin working with four forces – West Midlands Police, Thames Valley Police, Norfolk Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police Service – to explore the capabilities of Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVoLS) drones to see how they may enhance the work of police aviation specialists in the future.
The project will see drones being piloted from up to 20 miles away. Key areas of interest include searching for missing and vulnerable people, suspects, vehicles and property.
A statement released by NPAS said: “The project will not only consider drone types but also command and control and hazard detection systems, to ensure compliance with CAA regulatory policies and procedures.
“Other important considerations will include the potential value for money and environmental gains of drone use, plus a reduction in noise compared to traditional aircraft.
Continue reading: https://www.policeprofessional.com/news/four-forces-to-trial-long-range-drones/

Wouldn’t it be nice, if, instead of relying on adjusters and restoration companies to surmise how much damage was actually caused by a water leak, an insurer could stop the leak almost before it starts.
That’s now the reality for a growing number of insurers who have deployed leak sensors at commercial, institutional and residential properties. These Internet of Things devices are well on their way to becoming standard features of insurance policies
Chubb, known as the world’s largest publicly traded property insurance company, has embraced the technology wholeheartedly and is pushing ahead with thousands of the hockey-puck-sized sensors around the country. More than 300 Chubb-insured buildings now have the systems in place. It’s all part of Chubb’s declared “war on water damage,” which notes that non-weather-related water damage is one of the biggest drivers of losses for the insurance industry.
Two years into its sensor strategy, the company has compiled a number of examples of how the wireless devices have saved the day and prevented millions of dollars in property losses. In a recent interview with the Insurance Journal, Chubb and an official at Providence College in Rhode Island explained how the devices have worked out.
Continue reading: https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2022/02/08/308536.htm

In this episode of the IoT For All Podcast, Teal Communications’ CEO and Co-Founder Robby Hamblet joins the podcast to discuss cellular connectivity and complete solutions for businesses looking to adopt IoT. We go into detail about eSIM technology as Robby talks about what eSIM is, some of its use cases, and how it relates to eUICC. We then expand into private LTE, its relation to eSIM, and opportunities in the space.
In the second half of the episode, Robby provides insights on the IoT landscape with high-level predictions for 2022, challenges the industry faces, and the current mindset of IoT connectivity buyers.
Robby Hamblet is the CEO and Co-Founder of Teal Communications, Inc. Prior to founding Teal, Robby developed one of the industry’s earliest eSIM platforms for connected carmakers GM and Daimler. 
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/podcasts/e158-opportunities-in-private-lte

5 Key Features of an Edge Computing Platform
 
Edge computing is a distributed computing system that allows data to be processed closer to its origin instead of having to transfer it to a centralized cloud or data center.

 
Edge Computing
 
Edge computing speeds up analysis by reducing the latency time involved in moving data back and forth. It also eases pressure on the cloud and data center systems, as they no longer have to support data sources and devices outside the immediate enterprise perimeter, in addition to the directly connected environment. Edge computing is beneficial for internet of things (IoT) use cases as IoT devices are typically wireless and situated in remote locations. 
 
An edge computing platform drives edge computing by:

• Enabling real-time data processing away from the central cloud or data center. 
• Caching, buffering, and optimizing the data close to the edge device or IoT system.
• Transforming the data received by edge devices and IoT into a format that can be processed for analysis. 

According to the 2021 State of the Edge report by the Linux Foundation, edge deployments will increase by 40% between 2019 and 2028 to keep up with enterprise needs. An edge computing platform helps orchestrate these deployments by enabling app services for the edge, secure access, and intuitive infrastructure provisioning without communicating with a central cloud. 
The key features of an edge computing platform include the following: 
1. Edge application support
Applications have to be specifically designed to run on the edge. You might want to port existing applications from the cloud to edge environments, or you might want to develop edge native applications. The platform you choose should come with its development suite. It may also integrate with third-party services for app delivery through application programming interfaces (APIs). 
Continue reading: https://www.toolbox.com/tech/edge-computing/articles/best-edge-computing-platforms/

Asia-Pacific was the fastest growing region for internet of things (IoT) hiring among power industry companies in the three months ending December.
The number of roles in Asia-Pacific made up 23.4% of total IoT jobs – up from 17% in the same quarter in 2020.
That was followed by North America, which saw a -3.8 year-on-year percentage point change in IoT roles.
The figures are compiled by GlobalData, which tracks the number of new job postings from key companies in various sectors over time. Using textual analysis, these job advertisements are then classified thematically.
GlobalData's thematic approach to sector activity seeks to group key company information by topic to see which companies are best placed to weather the disruptions coming to their industries.
These key themes, which include IoT, are chosen to cover "any issue that keeps a CEO awake at night".
By tracking them across job advertisements it allows us to see which companies are leading the way on specific issues and which are dragging their heels – and importantly where the market is expanding and contracting.
Continue reading: https://www.power-technology.com/features/asia-pacific-is-seeing-a-hiring-boom-in-power-industry-iot-roles/

Lately, I’ve been reporting more and more on algorithms that parse incoming data locally in order to make some sort of decision. Last week, for example, I wrote about a company doing voice analysis locally to detect Alzheimer’s. I’ve also covered startups that process machine vibrations locally to detect equipment failures. Each of these examples benefits from machine learning (ML) algorithms that run on microcontrollers, or what we call TinyML.
Running machine learning algorithms locally helps reduce latency. That means a burgeoning machine problem can be detected and the machine turned off quickly if needed. Running machine learning algorithms locally also protects privacy, something especially important in the medical sector.  Indeed, I would prefer that neither Google nor Alexa be aware if I develop Alzheimer’s.
But as companies push sensitive and necessary algorithms out to the edge, ensuring they perform as intended becomes essential. Which is why I spent time this week learning about the security risks facing our future sensor networks running TinyML.
Continue reading: https://staceyoniot.com/how-can-we-make-tinyml-secure-and-why-we-need-to/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrysillis/
I'm interested in mentoring others and looking for a mentor myself.
My focus is on cloud, scripting, and server infrastructure.

The pandemic of the past two years has hit women and particularly diverse women disproportionately hard economically. In the technology industry, which benefited from a faster than average recovery, we’ve actually seen a 2% increase in representation at large global tech firms. However, that doesn’t take into account smaller companies, of which less than half have established company-wide diversity hiring and retention goals.
It also ignores the burnout being felt by women in tech, with work/life satisfaction falling by 38 points, and more than half of racially and ethnically diverse women in the industry rating their work/life balance as extremely poor, resulting in 38% of women planning to leave their jobs in tech in the next two years.
We are in a time of transition and technology stands at the forefront. As we contemplate the future and begin to set the foundations of the new normal, we look to a diverse set of leaders in the tech industry who are actively engaging with these issues, in hopes that we can benefit from the wisdom they have gained through their personal perspectives and experiences.
New Work Paradigms and Challenges
“The silver lining of the past two years is that we have gained tremendous flexibility and insight around our previously narrow definition of work schedules, location, and environment. I am hopeful this expanded mindset will be beneficial to tech leaders rising according to their talent base and skills, rather than immediate life circumstances.” Sipra Laddha, MD - Co-founder, LunaJoy Health.
The transformation of work has allowed employers and employees to find new and flexible ways to continue working, and studies have shown that 57% of technology professionals feel that the move to remote work has made them more productive.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alainapercival/2022/02/08/tech-leaders-talk-how-equity-and-diversity-can-be-achieved-in-technology/?sh=5f7fcd6d2888

Today’s Woman in Tech: Shannon Dennis, Director of engineering at LogDNA
Shannon Dennis is a technical leader with decades of experience supporting enterprise software products and the teams that build them. She’s currently a director of engineering at LogDNA, where she leads the teams responsible for developing and testing all of our products. In the last year, she’s spearheaded a new employee resource group at the company for women in tech, called WiT. With her partnership, the group has become a community for women in the company to share their experiences, advocate for the causes that are important to them, and build skills to grow their careers.
When did you become interested in technology? What first got you interested in tech?
My dad was highly engaged in math and, as a young kid, he blew my mind with how quickly he could calculate in his head. As a result, I was always interested in math and had two really great friends — also women — who were in the STEM-type classes offered, including the programming course offered at the high school, and my interests grew from there.
How did you end up in your career path? What obstacles did you have to overcome?
I was working at a magazine fulfillment house to put myself through college — they would pay for my courses. I was slow and too meticulous at opening mail, so they moved me into a different area, where I worked with two older women who didn’t know anything about technology. It’s a funny story that I noticed it was taking hours for Joyce to complete a change of address for a subscriber. Once I asked her a few questions, I helped her build a query to search quickly based on zip code, last name, etc., and she thought I was a hero. At that point, the rest of the organization noticed I might be better doing something else and I started programming the payment remittance machine and data entry system a few months later. I didn’t expect to start programming professionally at 19, so it happened a little sooner than I thought it would, but it’s where my career was headed anyway.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-dennis-176563.html

If it feels like everyone you know has been talking about NFTs over the past few months, you’re not alone. With so much to learn about the wild world of web3, from metamask to minting, ethereum to #HODL, it can feel overwhelming.
So who exactly is jumping avatar-first into the metaverse? According to Fast Company, 45% of adults have never heard of NFTs. But those who do, “Well, they’re mostly male crypto-adept collectors. One in five online male adults in the U.S. indicated they already own at least one NFT versus just 7% of U.S. online female adults.”
That’s where companies like Curious Addys, Meta Angels, Women in Blockchain and The Hunt come in. Their founders are among the many women on a mission to build inclusiveness into the space, making entry points more accessible and less daunting for the crypto-curious.
Mai Akiyoshi is the founder of Curious Addys, an education-based interactive experience that allows people who are new to the space to learn about it through a series of games. An adorable Octopus named Addy walks users through the process of setting up a crypto wallet, minting an NFT and more. 
“I wanted to start an NFT project,” Akiyoshi says. “Crypto is male dominated and has a very masculine look. I thought bringing in well-designed concepts would bring more women into crypto. Once I really started to explore, I began to realize the power of the communities that NFTs could create. For example, WomanRise attracts people who are focused on women’s rights. Noticing that power, we started Curious Addys, which is the first NFT education project.”
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyschoenberger/2022/02/08/the-women-of-the-metaverse/?sh=27bb07521b8a

Cryptocurrency, blockchain and NFTs have heralded the arrival of Web3, promising to change the way industry does business and interacts with its customer base through a new, decentralized iteration of the internet.
Given its centuries-old craft, the watch industry is notoriously resistant to change and slow to react to outside developments, but the advantages promised by the technology are so wide-reaching that they cannot be ignored without first being explored.
Here HYPEBEAST looks at how the watch industry has already experimented with the technology and the potential benefits left to uncover.
Blockchain
Back in November 2021, Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary appeared at Dubai Watch Week, sitting on a panel discussion addressing crypto, blockchain and NFTs in relation to watches.
O’Leary, a watch collector himself, revealed that he was working on establishing a white paper for the application of blockchain technology to authenticate watches and would eventually like to see brands issue their own industry-standard authentication NFTs with every new watch sold.
“When I want to buy a Patek that’s been out in the market for 17-20 years,” said O’Leary. “I have to get John Reardon [the founder of Collectability LLC] to authenticate it, or someone like him that knows the history of those vintage pieces, it’s expensive and time-consuming because there’s a lot of knock-offs out there. If it doesn’t come with its NFT, then don’t buy it, simple as that.”
Continue reading: https://hypebeast.com/2022/2/how-will-blockchain-influence-watch-industry-nft-cryptocurrency-bitcoin

In today's brand marketing ecosystem mobile is front and center. The massive disruption of TV consumption, shifting from linear to streaming, combined with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on digitalization, has solidified mobile as the most powerful and stable medium for marketers.
According to App Annie's State of Mobile 2022 report, mobile use is growing at a record-setting pace. Consumers worldwide spent 3.8 trillion hours on mobile devices in 2021, and advertisers spent $295 billion trying to reach them. This year, ad spend will climb to $350 billion as mobile devices remain inseparable from their owners.
The challenges facing mobile marketers To facilitate advertisers' growing interest in mobile audiences, marketing technology has stepped up, advancing rapidly to meet the moment. However the influx of piecemeal solutions has caused more noise and fragmentation for marketers who are expected to stay ahead of current trends to keep their companies competitive.
Perhaps one of the most complex challenges marketers face is reaching precise audiences with the highest chance of conversion, and without overspending. Return on ad spend (ROAS) is a key performance metric for any marketer, yet measuring ad spend across platforms, and quantifying the associated business performance, require integrating various tools, leveraging different methods of collecting and analyzing granular data.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has proven its value across many other facets of digital marketing: programmatic ad delivery, creating unique customer experiences, optimizing ad bidding strategies and creating data-backed insights. However, the process of audience-building and segmentation, one of the most crucial stages in marketing, has been left out in the cold. If marketers can't reach the right audience, every effort will fail.
Continue reading: https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/using-ai-customize-audience-segments-and-demographics/2398606

AI can improve your customer experience, protect your company from data breaches, and optimize your HR processes. 
Consumers have incredibly high expectations for companies to deliver faster and more personalized experiences, which is fueling the demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. In turn, the increase in this utilization of AI is driving growth for many startups.
Here are some AI tactics you can use today to scale and grow your business.
Customer experience automation
Around 90 percent of consumers consider an immediate response important, and they demand a connected experience whenever they interact with a brand. Therefore, more organizations are investing in smarter solutions for better customer support. One of the simplest ways to do this is to embrace AI-powered applications, such as chatbots, voice search, and virtual assistants to improve customer experience. These software applications help you to provide quick responses, offer high efficiency, generate leads, and offer personalization.
A recent study of different customer service software found that many providers have several AI-assisted features to remove manual tasks for customer service reps and boost productivity. In fact, 54 percent of customers have daily AI-enabled interactions with businesses that include interaction with chatbots, digital assistants, facial recognition, and biometric scanners.  
When we use a combination of AI and ML, or machine-learning, for gathering and analyzing social, historical, and behavioral data, we can accurately understand customers. Providing personalized real-time assistance to customers with the use of chatbots can place them in high-traffic areas to answer basic questions, offer advice, or help place orders. We can also send highly-customized emails by analyzing topics of interest and detecting patterns to recommend relevant content.
Continue reading:https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/411915

There’s no question that the world around us is getting smarter. In recent years, the exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has created an increasing demand for AI solutions across a broad range of industries.
Accelerated in part by the global pandemic, businesses and governments around the world are recognizing the benefits of becoming early adopters of AI as part of ongoing digital transformation.
A regional hub for AI entrepreneurs At the forefront of this movement (and as far back as 2017), the UAE government released a first-of-its-kind strategy setting a clear roadmap for developing its regional capabilities and becoming the world’s premier AI destination. And it’s looking to become a game-changer, with the region as a whole estimated to accrue 2 per cent of the global benefits of AI – $320bn by 2030. As part of that journey, annual growth in the contribution of AI to UAE GDP is forecast to be 20 per cent or higher.
What that means for UAE-based startups and established companies alike is that opportunities now abound for future market leaders to create and innovate new business models – the kind which disrupts existing markets through AI-driven evolutions. But if you’re running a startup or a scale-up looking to leverage the potential of AI, which industries are currently a priority?
The UAE Strategy For Artificial Intelligence has set out its priority sectors, which include: resources and energy, logistics and transport, tourism and hospitality, healthcare, and cybersecurity.
Here’s a closer look at some of these key industries where AI development is already being embraced:
Continue reading: https://gulfbusiness.com/business-trends-and-startup-opportunities-in-artificial-intelligence/

The ethical principles related to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are fast becoming a critical topic of discussion. These technologies can (and do) confer enormous benefits — helping us use the earth’s resources more judiciously, predicting fraud, preventing identity theft, and more. However, biased data sets, careless misuse, and bad actors can easily turn AI into a weapon with dire consequences.
Fortunately, the Information Technology (IT) industry, non-profit organizations, governments, and academia are increasingly advocating for guidelines to encourage the most ethical use of AI possible. For example, the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence has proposed a set of Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI. The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence published its Code of Professional Ethics and Conduct — an adaptation of the code developed by the Association of Computer Machinery, which bears the same name. As you think about helping your organization develop its own set of principles and policies to enforce an ethical and lawful use of AI, these examples are a suitable place to start. 
Why AI ethics matter
There are many good reasons for your organization to invest the time and energy required to develop a robust code of ethics to guide and regulate the responsible development and use of AI technologies. Here are the four I see as the most critical:
Continue reading: https://octo.vmware.com/why-your-organization-needs-ethical-principles-for-ai/

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are terms that are heard everywhere across the IT security landscape today, as organizations and attackers are both seeking to leverage these advancements in service of their goals. For the bad actors, it’s about breaking down defenses and finding vulnerabilities faster. But what value can AI and ML offer when you’re working to secure an organization?
It would be great to say that these technologies are an end to themselves for your cybersecurity and that merely adopting them means your organization is fully protected. But it’s not that simple. Not all uses of AI and ML are created equal. And—spoiler alert—it’s not all about using the latest algorithms.
However, in order to meet the challenges and speed of today’s threat landscape, AI and ML are vital parts of a holistic security solution and should be focused on the ultimate outcome of preventing every type of attack you can and responding as fast as possible to the ones you can’t.
AI alone is not an answer
Artificial intelligence itself is not a differentiator for security. In fact, there are many different AI frameworks and models in common usage today. Generally speaking, those frameworks come from academia and are open-source, public implementations available to everyone. So, it’s not the AI framework that makes a difference. What differentiates is how the AI is used and what data is available for AI to learn from.
Continue reading: https://www.cio.com/article/304486/beyond-the-hype-understanding-the-true-value-of-ai-ml-in-security-environments.html