The adoption of blockchain technology has been lower compared to other emerging technologies mainly due to the difficulty in understanding the technology. Blockchain as a service (BaaS) holds the key to driving mainstream adoption of the technology as it enables companies to experiment with blockchain-based applications.
Listed below are the key technology trends impacting the blockchain theme, as identified by GlobalData.
BaaS
BaaS is a type of software as a service (SaaS) hosted in the cloud that allows businesses to rent rather than build a blockchain platform. It functions as a fully managed blockchain service ranging from project creation to full deployment. BaaS gives companies the possibility to experiment with blockchain applications and smart contracts and take advantage of the benefits of blockchain, such as improved transparency and data security, without worrying about developing expensive in-house competencies and resources.
BaaS is particularly appealing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The BaaS model is dominated by cloud service giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Continue reading: https://www.verdict.co.uk/blockchain-technology-trends/

Corruption is one of the several unwanted constants around the world every year. According to an annual report created by Transparency International, in 2020, corruption was still widely prevalent—and, in several nations, rampant—across the world. What’s worse, the study also found that corruption affected and, in many cases, slowed down the global response to Covid-19. Unfortunately, the point about corruption and catastrophes feeding off each other still holds true to this day. While corruption in certain countries may be higher than in others, it is still everybody’s problem to solve. Eliminating it completely is impossible as it is too ingrained in our social fabric now.
Modern technology provides some hope in our collective crusade against global corruption. For example, the usage of AI in smart cities shows how governments can disperse citizen services efficiently with minimal to non-existent corruption present in the process. The potential of AI to detect and, eventually, reduce corruption in various places of power is high. Therefore, a problem like corruption needs to be handled with AI, along with other elements to support it.
Data Mining to Combat Corruption
Unsurprisingly, if AI is used as an anti-corruption tool, big data and analytics will contribute heavily towards the process too. Here’s a summary of how big data can assist AI with combating corruption: Initially, big data will play a significant role in collecting and compiling corruption-related information from various sources. This information is then fed into AI systems for processing and predictive analysis.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/naveenjoshi/2021/09/19/can-ai-be-used-as-an-anti-corruption-tool/?sh=7d18cad87569

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies offer profoundly important strategic benefits and hazards for global businesses and government agencies. One of AI’s greatest strengths is its ability to engage in behavior typically associated with human intelligence — such as learning, planning, and problem solving. AI, however, also brings new risks to organizations and individuals, and manifests those risks in perplexing ways.
It is inevitable that AI will soon face increased regulation. Over the summer, a number of federal agencies issued guidance, commenced reviews, and sought information on AI’s disruptive and, sometimes, disorderly capabilities. The time is now for organizations to prepare for the day when they will need to demonstrate their own AI systems are accountable, transparent, trustworthy, nondiscriminatory, and secure.
There are real and daunting challenges to managing AI’s new risks. Helpfully, organizations can use some recent agency initiatives as practical guides to create or enhance AI risk-management frameworks. Viewed closely, these initiatives demonstrate that AI’s new risks can be managed in many of the same established ways as risks arising out of human intelligence. Below, we’ll outline a seven-step approach to bring a human touch to an effective AI risk-management framework. But before that, let’s take a quick look at the various related government activity over the summer.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2021/09/19/want-to-develop-a-risk-management-framework-for-ai-treat-it-like-a-human/

When it comes to AI, algorithmic innovations are substantially more important than hardware — at least where the problems involve billions to trillions of data points. That’s the conclusion of a team of scientists at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), who conducted what they claim is the first study on how fast algorithms are improving across a broad range of examples.
Algorithms tell software how to make sense of text, visual, and audio data so that they can, in turn, draw inferences from it. For example, OpenAI’s GPT-3 was trained on webpages, ebooks, and other documents to learn how to write papers in a humanlike way. The more efficient the algorithm, the less work the software has to do. And as algorithms are enhanced, less computing power should be needed — in theory. But this isn’t settled science. AI research and infrastructure startups like OpenAI and Cerberus are betting that algorithms will have to increase in size substantially to reach higher levels of sophistication.
The CSAIL team, led by MIT research scientist Neil Thompson, who previously coauthored a paper showing that algorithms were approaching the limits of modern computing hardware, analyzed data from 57 computer science textbooks and more than 1,110 research papers to trace the history of where algorithms improved. In total, they looked at 113 “algorithm families,” or sets of algorithms that solved the same problem, that had been highlighted as most important by the textbooks.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2021/09/20/improved-algorithms-may-be-more-important-for-ai-performance-than-faster-hardware/

We all know how artificial intelligence has solidified its presence in many spheres of human activity. The technology has been receiving a huge amount of recognition from industry players, investors, and businesses who initiated to equip their machines with intelligence, deploy automation and employ robots to do carry out works.
Even though the applications of artificial intelligence are out in the light, a lot of facts about the technology are still kept in the shadow.
Analytics Insight unravels some interesting facts about artificial intelligence that are less spoken.
A considerate number of AI bots are female
Even though the tech space is lacking women employees, it is noted that most of the AI bots are female. When we talk to Siri, Alexa or Cortana, we get the reply in a female voice. The reason behind this is that both men and women are attracted to female’s voices.
Continue reading: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/interesting-but-less-spoken-facts-about-artificial-intelligence/

It’s likely no surprise that women are still massively underrepresented in the tech industry today. Even with a push over the last few years for more women to pursue careers in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—they still make up a tiny percentage of those working in the field. Data shows that of those doing STEM-focused research around the world, less than 30% are women.
Unfortunately, when you narrow the focus down to women working specifically in smart tech and machine learning, the numbers get even smaller. You might wonder why it matters who is behind the data and code creation when it’s essentially a non-gendered machine or robot doing all of the processing, but it does. Machines aren’t inherently biased, but humans are, and when humans are teaching machines how to learn and what to do, our biases naturally become part of the code.
Our computers, phones, and any other smart devices that we use today utilize technology that mimics our thought and decision-making processes. So if the majority of people working with smart tech such as artificial intelligence are men, then anything that utilizes AI will skew towards the male perspective.
Continue reading: https://womenlovetech.com/women-artificial-intelligence/

• Developing an interoperable network will grow blockchain implementation efforts and expansions.
• Blockchain ecosystems need to be flexible and willing to interact across ecosystems for the technology to be adopted.
• Efforts to develop an interoperable network are still in the early stages.

Developments focused on blockchain innovation are rapidly changing as blockchain’s popularity increased over the years. As blockchain is rapidly disrupting more than just the financial markets, demand for agnostic/cross-chain developments is essential. Prioritizing developments is negotiated by projects, each hoping to solve one crucial element and increase mass adoption.
More Than Just a $2 Trillion Stake
The current market capitalization is $2 trillion despite blockchains behaving as singular and self-reliant blockchains. Unfortunately, this creates communities that damage the industry’s natural growth: Dogecoin’s creator labelled the crypto mentality as a get-rich-quick scheme that benefits only the wealthy, simply because the current behaviors of both investors and developers are focused on their projects’ success.
Interoperability will de-scrutinize the industry’s stigma of being a means for speculation. Naveen Joshi, director at Allerin Process Automation, highlights that interoperability will make adoption at the business level easier, decreasing its technological and implementation barrier. Thus, developing a blockchain agnostic protocol or blockchain will only help normalize the decentralizing technology.
Interoperability Wheels Are in Motion
Existing leading smart contract ecosystems lack the innovative energy to explore more ways to improve their network, as they already focus on scalability. Blockchains like Solana are dabbling with the idea of cross-chain transactions by creating a communication process; however, they are limited. Interoperability entails complete heterogeneity from current developments, facilitating a bidirectional communication order between two autonomous blockchain codes.
In a survey on blockchain interoperability, Rafael Belchior, Ph.D., Researcher at Universidade de Lisboa, illustrates the existence of multiple DLT approaches to interoperability. Belchior notes that “different categories” approach interoperability differently, but all strive for the same end goal of creating blockchain data congruence.
Most of the developments undertaken are between two blockchains; each project has its own approaches, whether it is Wanchain’s non-custodial cross-chain layout connected with Avalanche C-Chain or Solana’s wormhole.
Continue reading: https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/the-push-for-blockchain-interoperability-2619945

It’s become impossible to not have the attention of cryptocurrency and the technology supporting the industry. It’s become mainstream and there seems to be no clear stop of the disruption. It can feel like there are new cryptocurrency projects up popping every day, and that might be because they are. Entrepreneurs are quickly recognizing opportunities to build within this wild west-type financial technology landscape.
A new wave of possibilities for entrepreneurs has risen and the rush to innovate creative solutions for business sectors is just starting. Cryptocurrency and the industries surrounding it have paved the way for real-world contributions, calling for even more disruption in industries that have lacked technological progression in the past. This innovation is everywhere and it’s enabling flows of information and calling for more transparent and secure business solutions.
Now more than ever is the time to be building cryptocurrency application solutions. Entrepreneurs are not acting slowly on real-world change, rather they are expediting how business is being connected across all industry sectors around the globe. These contributing factors are proving real-world use cases in the world of business.
 Let’s explore how blockchains are enabling decentralized applications on the internet today.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
These digital social tokens have become the latest craze. From collecting the most valuable artwork to raising money for charities, NFTs have facilitated the commoditization of media assets. NFTs are digital assets which represent digital content on blockchains. Currently, the most common NFT use cases are media assets such as artwork, music and in-game items. They are minted or created and then can be traded, bought and sold either person to person or through marketplaces. The digital media assets are stored on whichever blockchain they are deployed and are held within a person’s digital cryptocurrency wallet. 
Continue reading: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/380855

By some estimates, there are around 10 billion IoT devices operating in the world today. By 2025, there will be more than 25 billion — a huge increase in so-called “attack surfaces” potentially vulnerable to infiltration. 
And the main culprit for this explosion in vulnerable targets? There are many, from home Wi-Fi networks in a work-from-home world to a lack of two-factor authentication. But one of the biggest sources of potential weakness has come from the proliferation of connected devices — the so-called Internet of Things. 
One example of this newly connected world comes from Impinj, which creates wireless, battery-free RAIN RFID chips that allow producers, distributors and logistics teams to track any kind of consumer product through globe-spanning supply chains. VP of Advanced Technology Megan Brewster explained to Built In that her company’s research and development teams are constantly monitoring the industry and its adjacent threat landscape to ensure they’re always using security best practices. 
To dig deeper into the security issues facing IoT networks — and the strategies used against them — check out our interviews with Brewster and Balbix’s CTO, Vinay Sridhara.
Continue reading and listen to the interviews: https://builtin.com/iot-internet-things/iot-security

Apart from producing food, farmers also protect natural resources - soil, water, and biodiversity. They are also innovators. Since the inception of agriculture, farmers have had to change, adapt and create new ways of cultivating crops, coping with difficult terrain, and enduring extreme climatic conditions and ag weather events. Currently, agriculture is the world's largest industry in terms of people employed and foods produced. Most importantly, it occupies around half of the Earth's habitable land to provide habitat and food for numerous species. That is why sustainability is so critical in farming.
The future of our food and agriculture needs to recognize the successful innovations that farmers are already adopting and help spread them to other farmers. We need to scale up innovation across agriculture to feed a growing and increasingly urbanized population.
Innovation is not limited to interesting ideas, and it is much more than technology. Simply put, innovation is the process by which individuals or organizations first engage new or existing products, processes, or ways of organizing. Sustainable technology in agriculture allows for preservation and restoration of habitats, soil health and water quality improvement. And the need for such tech is especially urgent now when the demand for food is rapidly rising.
In this piece we will break down the main innovations in modern farming that enable sustainable development of this sphere.  
Yield Monitoring
The system for monitoring (mapping) crop yield is one of the stages of introducing precision farming technology, which allows for determining the result of the work from the introduction of all other stages through fixing the heterogeneity of the crop within the boundaries of each field. With the help of special sensors and controllers installed on combines, as well as using displays for precision farming and GPS receivers during harvesting, it is possible to obtain spatially oriented maps of yield and grain moisture. Obtaining such maps is an integral part of precision farming technology and enables yield management and prediction for the next season.
Each field has a different type of soil, a different nutrient composition, and a different amount of moisture. To interpret this data, yield maps are used to analyze the high and low yield zones in each field, hence the most productive field areas. Yield data is the basis of precision farming and allows farmers to make informed decisions at all stages of the introduction and use of precision farming technology.
Yield monitoring subsystems include:

• Creation of yield and moisture maps based on satellite data
• Collection, analysis, storage of yield data for each field, crop and year
• Data processing - identification of different field zones based on various parameters (soil content, moisture, etc)
• Creation of maps for VRA approach application

Information for yield on the same field for several years allows for investigating the factors affecting the yield to make the necessary changes for future yield improvement.
Farm Management
Today, the use of IT in agriculture is not only about the use of computers. Digital technologies enable remote control over the full cycle of crop or livestock production. Smart devices measure and transmit the parameters of soil, plants, microclimate, etc. All this data from sensors, drones and other equipment is analyzed by a particular farm management software. Mobile or desktop applications aid farmers in determining the right time for planting or harvesting, calculating the fertilizer amount, predicting the harvest, analyzing moisture levels for planning irrigation, and much more.
Continue reading: https://www.latinpost.com/articles/152008/20210918/tech-innovations-in-farming-for-sustainable-future.htm

While artificial intelligence (AI) is already effectively assisting human developers at every level of the development process, software development will only get better as it is about to undergo a huge change.
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the way developers work, resulting in significant productivity, quality and speed increases. Everything — from project planning and estimation to quality testing and the user experience — can benefit from AI algorithms.
The impact of AI on software development
AI will undoubtedly impact how developers create applications and how users interact with them in the modern environment. As organizations become more interested in AI technologies, artificial intelligence will certainly affect the future of software development.
Moreover, it is predicted that roughly 80% of businesses are investing in AI, with 47% of digitally advanced companies already defining AI strategies. Even more amazingly, AI tools should provide $2.9 trillion in corporate value in the foreseeable future.
To implement an AI strategy, companies must first comprehend the function of AI in software development by examining what may be changed.
AI: Reshaping the roles of software developers
The software developer's role is already changing, and it may look very different in ten years than it does now. However, it is important to remember that technology will not be able to replace developers anytime soon. The world is still a few years away from AI being able to write code on its own.
Instead, software developers are more likely to execute different activities and establish skills to work effectively with AI on the job. As a result, developers will be needed even more in the future, implying that AI and software development will certainly rise in tandem.
AI: Solving common software development challenges
As established, AI has already been supporting and helping software developers address different software development challenges by doing the following:
Automated code quality through code review and code optimization
Artificial intelligence will become a tool that software developers use to obtain new knowledge, optimize procedures, and, ultimately, produce better code rather than replacing them.
Continue reading: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/380767

Following an artificial intelligence (AI) report published by the United Nations (UN), UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for a moratorium on the sale and use of AI systems that pose a serious risk to human rights until safeguards are put in place. AI applications that cannot be used in compliance with international human rights law should be banned, Bachelet said.
The UN Human Rights Office report analyses how AI, including profiling, automated decision-making and other machine-learning technologies, affects people’s privacy rights. The report details how AI systems rely on large data sets, with information about individuals collected, shared, merged and analyzed in multiple ways. It also cites the risk posed by data breaches as a serious privacy issue.
Continue reading: https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/96123-un-calls-for-facial-recognition-and-artificial-intelligence-moratorium

Artificial intelligence is only a tool, but what a tool it is. It may be elevating our world into an era of enlightenment and productivity, or plunging us into a dark pit. To help achieve the former, and not the latter, it must be handled with a great deal of care and forethought. This is where technology leaders and practitioners need to step up and help pave the way, encouraging the use of AI to augment and amplify human capabilities.
Those are some of the observations drawn from Stanford University's recently released report, the next installment out of its One-Hundred-Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, an extremely long-term effort to track and monitor AI as it progresses over the coming century. The report, first launched in 2016, was prepared by a standing committee that includes a panel of 17 experts, and urges that AI be employed as a tool to augment and amplify human skills. "All stakeholders need to be involved in the design of AI assistants to produce a human-AI team that outperforms either alone. Human users must understand the AI system and its limitations to trust and use it appropriately, and AI system designers must understand the context in which the system will be used."
AI has the greatest potential when it augments human capabilities, and this is where it can be most productive, the report's authors argue. "Whether it's finding patterns in chemical interactions that lead to a new drug discovery or helping public defenders identify the most appropriate strategies to pursue, there are many ways in which AI can augment the capabilities of people. An AI system might be better at synthesizing available data and making decisions in well-characterized parts of a problem, while a human may be better at understanding the implications of the data -- say if missing data fields are actually a signal for important, unmeasured information for some subgroup represented in the data -- working with difficult-to-fully quantify objectives, and identifying creative actions beyond what the AI may be programmed to consider."  
Complete autonomy "is not the eventual goal for AI systems," the co-authors state. There needs to be "clear lines of communication between human and automated decision makers. At the end of the day, the success of the field will be measured by how it has empowered all people, not by how efficiently machines devalue the very people we are trying to help." 
The report examines key areas where AI is developing and making a difference in work and lives:
Discovery: "New developments in interpretable AI and visualization of AI are making it much easier for humans to inspect AI programs more deeply and use them to explicitly organize information in a way that facilitates a human expert putting the pieces together and drawing insights," the report notes. 
Continue reading: https://www.zdnet.com/article/artificial-intelligence-success-is-tied-to-ability-to-augment-not-just-automate/

As the IoT market continues to grow, new kinds of sensors and ways to utilise and drive value from them are frequently coming to fruition. This has resulted in more and more sectors investing in the space to drive further value from data more efficiently.
“There is a plethora of devices in the market, most of which have existed before the term IoT was coined,” said Hassan Sherbaz, IoT solutions architect at Connexin.
“Anything which can be measured from air quality to particulate contamination of diesel, to footfall in a town centre, has probably been around for decades. This is because the physical measuring principles were developed, but the benefit of IoT is the drop in price of semiconductors which makes measuring such variables much more affordable.
“Couple that with advances in low power communication networks and denser batteries, deploying sensors becomes a much more cost effective business case.”
In this explore, we take a look at the different types of IoT sensors that are present in the market today, and what they entail for businesses.
Individual vs system sensors
IoT sensors have proved useful for individuals, as well as ultilisation across company networks, allowing for fast, clear and accurate delivery of data in both scenarios.
“Sensors, in all their forms, are playing a pivotal role in enabling peak asset performance across all IoT applications. They provide a direct line of sight into everything happening in our spaces,” explained Hugues Meyrath, chief product officer at ServiceChannel.
Meyrath believes that IoT needs to be considered in two parts:

1. Individual sensors: “These provide specific information through single purpose sensors: temperature, humidity, CO2, air quality, pressure, vibrations, and presence people in a room.”
2. A “system to call home”: “This includes HVAC unit, energy monitoring, lighting system, and ovens. In this context, the system generates alerts that can take into account not just one sensor or multiple sensors, it can also report on its health which is a combination of things. That’s where it becomes more interesting.
   [/LIST=1]
   “The key difference is that for type 1 you report that temperature is too hot. But for type 2, you could suggest a course of action and part to be replaced.”
   Continue reading: https://www.information-age.com/main-types-of-iot-sensors-in-market-today-123496767/

According to data from PitchBook, the funding for AI deals has continued its furious pace. In the latest quarter, the amount invested came to a record $31.6 billion. Note that there were 11 deals the closed more than $500 million.
Granted, plenty of these startups will fade away or even go bust. But of course, some will ultimately disrupt industries and change the landscape of the global economy.
“To be disrupted, you have to believe the AI is going to make 10x better recommendations than what’s available today,” said Eric Vishria, who is a General Partner at Benchmark. “I think that is likely to happen in really complex, high dimensional spaces, where there are so many intermingled factors at play that finding correlations via standard analytical techniques is really difficult.”
So then what are some of the industries that are vulnerable to AI disruption? Well, let’s see where some of the top VCs are investing today:
Software Development: There have been advances in DevOps and IDEs. Yet software development remains labor intensive. And it does not help that its extremely difficult to recruit qualified developers.
But AI can make a big difference. “Advancements in state-of-the-art natural language processing algorithms could revolutionize software development, initially by significantly reducing the ‘boilerplate’ code that software developers write today and in the long-run by writing entire applications with little assistance from humans,” said Nnamdi Iregbulem, who is a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Consider the use of GPT-3, which is a neural network that trains models to create content. “Products like GitHub Copilot, which are also based on GPT-3, will also disrupt software development,” said Jai Das, who is the President and Partner at Sapphire Ventures.
Cybersecurity: This is one of the biggest software markets. But the technologies really need retooling. After all, there continues to be more and more breaches and hacks. 
“Cybersecurity is likely to turn into an AI-vs-AI game very soon,” said Deepak Jeevankumar, who is a Managing Director at Dell Technologies Capital. “Sophisticated attackers are already using AI and bots to get over defenses.”
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2021/09/17/ai-disruption--what-vcs-are-betting-on/?sh=69a7a6c17754

Brick-and-mortar real estate may seem like the only tangible thing left in an increasingly virtual world, but it too is being taken over by artificial intelligence.
Some of the biggest names in the business, such as Compass, Zillow and LoanSnap, are now employing AI to help find buyers the perfect mortgage and the perfect home. And for real estate agents, it may already be a game-changer.
Most real estate data is public, from land records to title documents, purchase price and even mortgage liens. The trouble was it was an onerous process to go to local offices and obtain all the information. Not anymore. Computer algorithms can now go through millions of documents in seconds, looking through property values, debt levels, home renovations, and even some of a homeowner’s personal information.
At LoanSnap, a San Francisco-based mortgage lender, AI is used in various steps of the mortgage process, from finding the perfect loan type for a borrower to finding the right investor for the loan.
First the borrower’s financial information is put in. Then the system “takes all that information, forecasts it out into the future and looks at thousands and thousands and thousands of options,” said Karl Jacob, CEO of LoanSnap. “That’s different ways of paying off debt, different loan options, and this is one of the first times AI has been turned into something that helps consumers versus harms consumers.”
And for refinances, he said, “We’re building a financial model for someone, and showing them exactly how much money they’re losing on a monthly and yearly basis, and then showing them how they could potentially fix that issue and save money in the future. Again, in seconds.”
Jacob admits that pretty much every company now claims to use AI in some respect but said not all are really applying it to its full potential.
Continue reading: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/what-artificial-intelligence-means-for-homebuyers-real-estate-market.html

The Commerce Department is actively recruiting candidates to serve on the government’s newly-formed National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, or NAIAC—where they’ll inform President Joe Biden and agencies on issues raised by the emerging technology.
At least nine members will serve up to two consecutive three-year terms on the committee, according to a recently released call for nominations. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is charged with providing administrative support to the high-level group.
“The announcement was posted just over a week ago and we have already had a good deal of interest, with more than 65 submissions so far,” NIST’s Public Affairs Director Jennifer Huergo told Nextgov on Friday.
AI is a complex technology that is increasingly prevalent in, and even shaping, many human lives. Agencies’ journeys to embrace the evolving capabilities vary, but they are guided in some ways by the National AI Initiative Act of 2020. The law incorporates many provisions, including ones to fund billions in federal investments over the next half-decade, to produce a broader AI national strategy, and to establish this new committee. Specifically, the policy directs the group to provide federal leaders with recommendations regarding AI-aligned competition, science and research, workforce, equity, strategy implementation and more.
“AI presents an enormous opportunity to tackle the biggest issues of our time, strengthen our technological competitiveness, and be an engine for growth in nearly every sector of the economy. But we must be thoughtful, creative, and wise in how we address the challenges that accompany these new technologies,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. “That includes, but is not limited to, ensuring that President Biden’s comprehensive commitment to advancing equity and racial justice extends to our development and use of AI technology.”
Expert leaders from a wide range of AI-relevant disciplines will be considered for the NAIAC. Once onboard, they will need to provide top government officials with insights around ethics, standards, education, civil rights implications, technology transfer, commercial application, research and development pursuits, and security, among other topics.
NIST already plays a prominent role in developing studies, standards and data necessary to help the government and nation fully realize the promises AI has to offer.
“Much of NIST’s work focuses on cultivating trust in the design, development, use and governance of artificial intelligence technologies and systems and this advisory committee will play a large role in advising the president in these areas,” Huergo noted.
Like every federal advisory committee, the NAIAC must have federal staff to organize, promote and support its meetings. NIST also has experience doing so already, including for the Information Security and Privacy Board.
Continue reading: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2021/09/nominations-national-artificial-intelligence-advisory-committee-are-flowing/185436/

The #SheTransformsIT alliance calls for more women in digital professions and wants, among other things, to enforce gender-sensitive language and IT as compulsory subjects. The more than 50 representatives from politics, business, culture, science and civil society are pursuing a 10-point plan with various measures. According to a study, the proportion of women in information technology and telecommunications (ITC) is 17 percent, and that should change. Companies such as Vodafone, Deutsche Bahn, SAP, Deutsche Post and Bosch support the project.
More “digital women”
As part of the digital promotion of children, the plan provides for the nationwide introduction of computer science as a compulsory subject – with the necessary additional qualifications for teachers and educators. The alliance also wants to promote more women at universities. Germany-wide guidelines for gender-sensitive language and role models to avoid gender stereotypes are also required. Extra-curricular measures should also give girls more opportunities in digitization.
According to the alliance, there is a lack of opportunities to get women into digital jobs and to keep them there. SheTransformsIT has identified a further problem that there is a lack of modern workplaces and care places for small children. The ministries should also anchor the sensitivity to equal opportunities in all areas. The initiative explicitly addresses the education ministries, as they take the decisive measures for school education.
Continue reading: https://marketresearchtelecast.com/more-women-in-it-alliance-wants-it-to-be-a-compulsory-subject/158414/

Part 91 flight department leaders aren’t just aviation experts, they’re also business leaders. After all, they are running a business within a business. And a big part of managing an in-house aviation organization is being in alignment with where the company's going.
“It’s critical that you’re able to understand where the industry is, so you can answer that question the shareholders are inevitably going to ask,” said Sean Lee, global vice president for The Coca-Cola Company. “You don’t get that from an out-of-house solution. Being proactive versus reactive makes for a very strong business case.”
Sean is the newest member of the NBAA board, and he recently spoke to our members about the need for business aviation leaders to have a “seat at the table.” So I asked him about what he has gained from having a seat at the table at Coke.
The two biggest takeaways are alignment and flexibility.
Alignment
Sean told me, “I’m trying to always figure out: What is our value statement? What is the business case for having an internal flight department? Because when it comes down to justifying the cost, the dollar figure usually isn't enough. (At least for most companies).”
By being in the know, Sean said, he’s able to guide his aviation strategy and provide consistent value to the company. “It comes down to whether the department is aligned with the strategy of the company,” he noted. “It’s about understanding the overall direction and delivering value; being proactive and creating solutions. We need to ask ourselves, ‘Can we be responsive to the company’s needs? And, are we aligned with a long-term view of where the company is going?’”
Flexibility
An in-house aviation operation is infinitely more flexible than an out-of-house operation, Sean said. The biggest factor is that an aviation director or v-p will be in the room when decisions need to be made (such as during the height of the pandemic). “Your team will be there to understand what pivots need to occur.”
Continue reading: https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/blogs/ainsight-seat-table

Quick hits:

• Learn how drones can be used to collect data for Industrial Internet of Things applications.
• How artificial intelligence algorithms onboard drones can be used for anomaly detection and pattern recognition.
• Applying modeling software to photos taken by a drone can be used to help in the design, construction, and operations of manufacturing facilities.
• Automation is being incorporated into drones for battery and payload changes as well as automated takeoffs and landings.

Watch the video: https://www.automationworld.com/TakeFive/video/21723019/drones-as-an-automation-tool-take-five-with-automation-world

The 21st-century farmer’s toolkit goes beyond tractors, balers, and mowers. Nowadays, it frequently includes drones too.
Unmanned aerial vehicles can help with a slew of farm tasks, from crop dusting to crop monitoring. The market for commercial agricultural drones is projected to grow from $1.2 billion in 2020 to $5.7 billion by 2025, per Markets and Markets. 
And in the fast-growing world of cannabis farming specifically, the tech is widely used for security as well as crop monitoring, according to cultivators we spoke with. Some companies, like Houston-based drone startup Hylio, are looking to push into the cannabis space with crop-spraying drones too—a common use case among farmers in general—though the company hasn’t yet progressed beyond the demo stage with a cannabis company, and growers say that application is unusual for now.
Samantha Mikolajewski, cultivation manager at medical-cannabis cultivator at Maitri Genetics, told Emerging Tech Brew that because the company is focused on medical marijuana—and therefore grows indoors, to allow for full control over the process—drones aren’t used. But in a previous role at Good Buds Co, a 17-acre outdoor, recreational cultivation site in Canada, she used drones for crop monitoring.
“On a year-to-year basis, getting those high-quality photographs and timelapses really allowed us to monitor microclimates and assess areas where other cultivars would be more applicable to those microclimates,” Mik said. “If we have higher pest pressure or lower plant health in different areas, we would be able to see that [with drones].” 
For Flora Growth, an all-outdoor cannabis company based in Colombia and traded on the Nasdaq, drones are commonly used for security and data collection, Jason Warnock, the company’s chief revenue officer, told us. Warnock said it’s the cannabis-industry standard to at least use drones for security. 
“I think almost every grower uses drones, primarily to make assessments of their property, the security, having a good sense of all the positions around their facilities,” Warnock explained, adding that it’s particularly useful for large grows. 
He also said he’s seen a lot of anti-drone technology in use, because growers are concerned about snooping or the infestation of their plants by a drone unwittingly carrying in pests. 
“Because cannabis itself is very persnickety, it’s very delicate for a weed, growers are very, very, almost secretive—and protective—to not let any foreign...pathogen enter the space, including through drones,” Warnock said. “I’ve seen companies taking efforts, as much as having technologies, to take drones out of the sky.” 
Continue reading: https://www.morningbrew.com/emerging-tech/stories/2021/09/17/weed-farmers-using-drones-crop-cops

Today’s Woman in Tech: Susanna Lawson, CEO and Co-founder of OneFile
Susanna Lawson, CEO and Co-Founder of OneFile has grown OneFile from a start-up of 2 people from her spare bedroom in Manchester to a multi-million-pound company with over 85 employees. In 2017 Susanna was named Forward Ladies/HSBC Business Woman of the Year, as well as receiving the 2019 Outstanding Achievement EVAS award, and 2020 Director of the Year Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. Susanna is on the advisory panel of BAME Apprenticeship Alliance, has sat on the Mayor of Greater Manchester’s Business Advisory Panel and mentors many SME owners.
When did you become interested in technology?
I didn’t come from a tech background, but as I progressed through my career in the education sector, I started to witness the value of technology and how it could help address specific challenges I was facing.
How did you end up in your career path? What obstacles did you have to overcome?
Following my graduation from university, I started working with adults with learning difficulties. Despite having a psychology degree, I had to complete an NVQ in care to prove I had the practical skills required for the role. This was where my involvement in the vocational training sector began.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-lawson-175355.html

Jean O’Neill, philanthropist, angel investor, mentor, and Vice President Channel at Appgate, will serve as a strategic advisor to the humanitarian nonprofit, Aspire2STEAM. According to a statement made today by Cheryl O’Donoghue, the organization’s CEO and Co-Founder, “Jean’s been advising Aspire2STEAM behind the scenes since 2018. Her passion for empowering women in tech and other STEAM-related fields will help guide the continued growth of our scholarship and mentoring program in 2022 and beyond, and we’re excited to have her on our team in this more official capacity.” In 2018 Jean first became aware of Aspire2STEAM’s work to help propel young women and girls pursuing STEAM careers when she and the nonprofit’s Cheryl O’Donoghue co-hosted a major industry tech event sponsored by the Alliance of Women. Jean later participated in two book projects which benefitted Aspire2STEAM scholars. “I’m fearlessly passionate about enabling other women in tech because as an industry it woefully lacks representation,” said Jean O’Neill. “I’ve seen firsthand how our businesses suffer without equal representation, and I’ve also seen tech companies thrive when female perspectives, thoughts, and experiences are included and respected. This is why it was an easy “yes” to become an advisor to Aspire2STEAM. Their work resonates with my core values and the notion of gender equality within the tech community and throughout the world.”
Continue reading: https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/550952514/jean-o-neill-to-serve-as-aspire2steam-advisor

As a leader in the STEM category and advocate of women in STEM, Kathryn Carter, General Manager, APAC Snap, kicks off by saying why it’s important to encourage more female coders.
Kathryn Carter, General Manager, APAC Snap, says: 
Unfortunately, women are significantly underrepresented in STEM fields, making it important to show that learning how to code is not only extremely beneficial, but it can also be fun. Coding is empowering and gives girls an equal shot. It increases their odds of having well-paid STEM jobs. We must also prop up female coders in the media so girls and young women have more role models to look up to.
At Snap, we believe in fostering an inclusive, creative, fun and safe environment for our community. It is about who we are, the values we hold, and what we put out into the world. 
Kathryn Carter is the General Manager of Snap Inc in ANZ, SEA & HK. She joined Snap Inc in 2016 to launch the platform in market and leads a team responsible for driving and managing advertising campaigns.
Continue reading: https://womenlovetech.com/national-coding-week/

“Who Moved My Cheese” by Spencer Johnson is an apt description of what’s happening to the broker community today. You are under attack on all fronts. Carriers are developing direct-to-consumer communication mechanisms, private equity has seen the profit margins for broker companies and has aggressively moved in to acquire and expand, there is increasing pressure on brokers to heavily invest in their technological transformation initiatives to maintain relevance, and now the Internet of Things (IoT) devices have arrived that threaten to disrupt the fundamental insurance business model, and with it, broker commissions. This creates a firestorm for all those who have enjoyed a high renewal rate/lifestyle business for, in some cases, decades.
A very well-publicized example, Hippo Insurance provides to its insureds a smart home kit containing five sensors, which go on front and back doors, one on the ceiling in the kitchen, one near the washing machine, and one near the water heater. In exchange for using these devices, Hippo provides a premium discount of up to 25%. Using these devices is a condition of coverage and is reflected in the policy form.
When you understand that IoT devices have the fundamental opportunity to provide extremely effective risk management/mitigation strategies at scale, which could ultimately reduce insurance premiums by anywhere from 15-40%, there is a definite motivation to at least learn all you can about this threat so you can prepare for if and when it becomes necessary to do so. With the anti-rebating legislation that exists, there is still uncertainty around the go-to-market strategy for these IoT devices, at least for commercial insurance. However, with 60% of insurance companies that have piloted or are considering pilots of IoT programs and 15% of carriers have launched IoT-based solutions, this is something that brokers must pay attention to.
Continue reading: https://www.propertycasualty360.com/2021/09/17/the-internet-of-things-is-moving-the-brokers-cheese/?slreturn=20210817125512