As the EU’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act fights its way through multiple rounds of revisions at the hands of MEPs, in the US a little-known organization is quietly working up its own guidelines to help channel the development of such a promising and yet perilous technology.
In March, the Maryland-based National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a first draft of its AI Risk Management Framework, which sets out a very different vision from the EU.
The work is being led by Elham Tabassi, a computer vision researcher who joined the organization just over 20 years ago. Then, “We built [AI] systems just because we could,” she said. “Now we ask ourselves: should we?”
While the EU’s AI Act is legislation, NIST’s framework will be entirely voluntary. NIST, as Tabassi repeatedly stresses, is not a regulator. Founded at the beginning of the 20th century, NIST instead creates standards and measurement systems for technologies ranging from atomic clocks to nanomaterials, and was asked by the US Congress to work up AI guidelines in 2020.
Unlike the EU’s AI Act, NIST does not single out any particular use of AI as off limits (the Act, by contrast, could ban facial recognition in public spaces by the authorities, albeit with exceptions for things like terrorism).  
And as NIST’s guidelines dryly note, its framework “does not prescribe risk thresholds or [risk] values.”  In other words, it is up to developers to weigh the risks and advantages of unleashing their AI systems on the world.
“At the end of the day, we truly believe that there isn't one size fits all,” said Tabassi. “It's up to the application owner, developer […] whoever is in charge, to do a cost benefit analysis and decide.” Facial recognition by police, say, is a much riskier prospect than using it to unlock a smartphone, she argues. Given this, prohibiting a particular use case makes no sense (though recent compromise texts on the EU AI Act suggest there may be exceptions for unlocking phones).
The EU AI Act repeatedly emphasizes that there needs to be ultimate “human oversight” of AI. NIST’s guidelines don’t mention this, because whether or not it is needed all comes down to how AI is being used. “We truly believe that AI is all about context, and ‘AI without a human’ doesn't mean much,” said Tabassi. NIST is not trying to regulate to that level of detail, of when exactly a human should be in the loop, she stresses.
Continue reading: https://sciencebusiness.net/news/how-us-plans-manage-artificial-intelligence

Accra, Ghana / Weiterstadt, Germany, May 19, 2022 – German drone delivery pioneer Wingcopter and Continental Drones Ltd., a subsidiary of Ghana- and Dubai-based Atlantic Trust Holding, have signed a partnership agreement to help establish drone-based delivery networks with thousands of Wingcopter drones across the African continent. These networks will dramatically improve the reliability and efficiency of existing supply chains but also help create completely new ones. The companies today announced that Continental Drones has become a Wingcopter Authorized Partner (WAPP) for 
all 49 sub-Saharan countries. Over the next five years, the goal of the two partners is to deploy 12,000 Wingcopter 198, the world's most advanced delivery drone, throughout Africa, making it the largest commercial deployment in the global delivery drone industry to date.
In many African regions, insufficient infrastructure is one of the biggest barriers to universal health coverage and economic development. Setting up large-scale drone delivery networks across African airspace will propel logistics in these countries to a new level and help build an entirely new transport framework - much faster, cheaper, more sustainable, and more efficient than the development of conventional ground-based infrastructure with all its unhealthy and climate-damaging emissions.
Bridging the infrastructure gap through the deployment of large fleets of Wingcopter drones, even in the most remote places, will allow governments and the private sector to leapfrog inefficient infrastructure to climate-neutral, reliable, and fast logistic capabilities. Wingcopter’s technology will be deployed to improve the livelihoods of millions of African people, for example through the on-demand delivery of medicines, vaccines, or laboratory samples but also essential goods for daily use. In addition, it has the potential to turbocharge the economic development of the countries in which the Wingcopter networks will be established by connecting communities more effectively and by creating thousands of new job opportunities to operate these delivery networks. As the Wingcopter 198 is fully electric, it contributes to a more sustainable African logistics sector and help move economies towards net zero emissions. 
Continue reading: http://uasmagazine.com/articles/2500/12-000-delivery-drones-for-worlds-largest-commercial-deployment

Since the pandemic, more companies have been incorporating automated artificial intelligence and machine learning-based platforms to assist with the screening and hiring of employees. According to a recent study from The Sage Group, 24% of businesses have started using AI for acquiring talent, with 56% of managers planning to adopt these technologies over the next year. AI can augment the recruiting process by automating time-consuming recruiting and hiring tasks to more accurately identify the right candidates for a position, ensuring diverse and fair selections and reducing bias in the workplace—a common goal businesses are looking to achieve.
Hiring teams face a great deal of pressure these days to hire for business growth while simultaneously keeping up with rising turnover rates, which can have a costly impact on the business. A broad estimate shows the average cost per hire is just over $4,000 per employee and the cost of turnover is even higher at approximately one-fifth of an employee’s annual salary). With the ability to efficiently analyze large volumes of data instantaneously, AI significantly reduces the time spent finding and recruiting great potential candidates. Intelligent hiring platforms integrate AI, automation and predictive analytics with pre-hire assessments and a range of interviewing tools to identify qualified candidates with more precision and increase hiring efficiency and quality of hire. Using AI in candidate assessments can help identify those who are likely to be a turnover risk.
How does this work? AI is fueled by data, and the more information an AI-based platform has, the better it will be at delivering results based on that data. Due to its machine learning capabilities, AI looks for patterns in data, and makes assumptions based on its findings. Therefore, in recruiting and hiring, AI can be trained to look for a job candidate’s skills and competencies to determine that person’s potential for a particular role. It can find statistical correlations between the applicant’s characteristics and the various skills required of the open position to determine the applicant’s success rate, as opposed to focusing on past experience or “culture fit” (i.e., similar characteristics, qualities and interests)—traditional methods that may lead to bias.
Continue reading: https://www.benefitspro.com/2022/05/19/ethical-ai-in-hiring-makes-good-business-sense/?slreturn=20220420100156

As the insurance industry increasingly uses and relies on artificial intelligent (AI), it must also better understand the potential for bias and other challenges that can be introduced by such technology, and learn how to mitigate these, says Toby Harris from Travelers Europe.
The world looks different now compared to early 2020. The pandemic has heightened organizations' reliance on technology to complete tasks, as well as the challenges of attracting and retaining staff. It has called for new ways of working that are likely to become permanent for many. 
Artificial intelligence (AI) is among the technologies playing a growing role in helping organizations operate. It can collect insights about a business, track customer patterns and make recommendations that, ideally, lead to better-informed actions.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, AI was being applied to a range of industries in an effort to reduce errors and lessen the need for human labor to complete tasks ranging from driving vehicles to performing surgery. It was also supporting less serious decision-making—helping marketers track the success of their campaigns, for example, or alerting retailers to potential fraud or problems with the customer journey. 
Now, organizations are seeking out such AI-driven benefits not only to thrive but to survive. According to new research by Capital Economics that was commissioned by the UK government, business adoption of AI in the UK is expected to grow from 15.1 percent in 2020 to 22.7 percent in 2025. This equates to an additional 267,000 businesses adopting AI in their operations during that time. By 2040, the research predicts overall adoption of AI to reach 34.8 percent, with 1.3 million UK businesses using the technology.
Continue reading: https://www.intelligentinsurer.com/article/overcoming-bias-in-artificial-intelligence

PUPILS from a school in Uddingston are among the first in Scotland to try Skills Development Scotland’s (SDS) new Drones in Construction activity.
Designed in partnership with Balfour Beatty, the activity has been added to the My World of Work Live programme, which uses technology to engage young people and bring the world of work to life.
Working in small groups, pupils learn how to control and safely fly a drone, discover how they are used in the construction sector, and take part in challenges. The aim is to inspire young people and help them understand the future careers they could explore.
Cheryl Smith, Uddingston Grammar’s principal teacher of design and technology, said, “Our pupils found it very exciting to help launch the Drones in Construction activity today and, along with their fantastic new flying skills, have a new understanding of the wide variety of construction careers across Scotland. This type of hands-on practical learning brings fun to the classroom, and they enjoyed every minute.”
John Cairns, social impact manager at Balfour Beatty, added, “We are delighted to support SDS’ work to enhance career education for pupils. We’ve invested heavily in work-based learning opportunities at Balfour Beatty, with a breadth of apprenticeship opportunities available, so we know first-hand how important it is to provide career inspiration and encourage young people to consider a career in construction.”
Suitable for pupils in S2-S3, the free experience is available for schools across Scotland to book through My World of Work.
Continue reading: https://projectscot.com/2022/05/scots-pupils-rise-to-new-drones-in-construction-activity-challenge/

As a chief executive in the tech industry, I know first-hand the challenges our industry faces when it comes to increasing diversity. Recent statistics from the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) show that women make up about half of the workforce in the United States, but fill only 26 percent of professional computing jobs. 
Across India, women held just 26 percent in IT and ITES roles, according to the Zinnov-Intel India Gender Diversity Benchmark Report 2021. The report further highlights that the Indian corporate ecosystem has only 11 percent representation of women in senior leadership roles, 38 percent in the junior level, and 20 percent in mid-level roles. 
In this article, I have distilled my learnings about the state of women in tech and across industries, their current challenges, barriers to inclusion and advancement and what businesses should do to level the playing field for women. 
Women want more opportunities to train 
What we hear from our clients repeatedly is that women want professional development and training opportunities. And they want this more than work-life balance, even more than a bigger paycheck or employer-sponsored childcare. 
Women want to be adequately compensated 
While women crave opportunities to advance professionally, there’s no shying away from other issues they also face as women in tech. While an equitable salary is a leading challenge, work-life balance, and lack of equity with male counterparts are other key challenges. 
Continue reading: https://yourstory.com/socialstory/2022/05/when-women-win-we-all-win-heres-how-to-bring-women/amp

Women have made inspiring progress in the workplace. Last year, for example, the number (and diversity) of women in the C-suites of Fortune 500 companies reached an all-time high. And yet, despite this progress, women remain highly underrepresented in corporate leadership.
Improving this will bring important benefits. Women often excel in essential leadership capabilities such as professionalism (self-motivation, work ethic, resilience), networking, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, outperforming men in all but one of 12 different emotional intelligence measures according to a study by the global consulting firm Korn Ferry . Other studies have found that innovative companies benefit from having women at high levels of leadership—and that female leaders are seen as honest and ethical more often than men are.
Building a more nurturing environment for women is part of creating a more inclusive workplace overall, and the subject of a recent Bain & Company study, The Fabric of Belonging: How to Weave an Inclusive Culture. Based on interviews and surveys of more than 10,000 people, of whom 4,500 were women—in seven different countries and across all levels of their organizations—the authors found that women who feel excluded at work are three times more likely to quit than those who feel included.
This is important information for managers battling the Great Resignation and women’s relatively higher level of burnout. Inclusive organizations have an easier time attracting talent across demographics. And a truly inclusive environment is critical for retention. The study found that employees experiencing low inclusion are up to six times more likely to actively pursue new jobs compared with those in similar demographics experiencing high inclusion. Those who feel “fully included” are also much more likely to promote their place of employment to others than those who feel “not at all included”: +71% vs. –83%.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmichels/2022/05/18/building-a-workplace-that-women-and-others-find-inclusive/?sh=2aed372f4e36

The emergence of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance is raising the stakes for secure online finance. For payments professionals and the ecommerce world, it's vital to understand the emergence of blockchain-based domains, issues around security, and how this impacts financial payment processes.
Financial institutions and processes have always had the largest targets on their backs when it comes to cybercrime. Cybercriminals target bank employees, their customers, and even their suppliers, as well as intermediaries through which funds are regularly processed back and forth.
This is why when the opportunity presented itself back in 2012 for firms to get their own domain extension, financial firms lined up. There are now domain extensions for HSBC, CITI, JP Morgan, Barclays, AMEX, VISA, and several dozen other large financial firms. We’re talking about top-level domain extensions that contain just the trademark with no .COM.
These corporate extensions promised enhanced security to combat fraud. In practice though, very little progress has been made in the last decade in adoption of these new extensions, as the pain to migrate to a new extension appears larger than the gain to stay with the legacy one.
Now, with the innovation of blockchain, financial firms and related enterprises need to determine what their brand’s presence will look like on the decentralized web. The decentralized web will be a collection of metaverses where consumers will live out their virtual lives. The compelling rationale that drove largest financial firms back in 2012 to get their own top-level domain extension still applies. But now, these domain extensions need to be compatible with the decentralized web.
Fortunately, a Web3 (aka, the decentralized web) solution exists, aiming to accommodate financial firms.
Continue reading: 
https://thepaypers.com/expert-opinion/the-blockchain-brief-what-payments-industry-professionals-should-understand-about-web3-domains--1256438

Live events are coming back in a big way. Multiple-day music festivals, rollicking stadium concerts and big-time sporting events have resumed with gusto upon the cautious easing of Covid-related restrictions, but fans can expect some significant changes in the way they secure admission to such experiences.
Blockchain technology is undoubtedly poised to disrupt the ticketing industry, but not in the way that many may think. To understand the benefits and limitations of blockchain-based technologies within the events space, including NFT applications, one needs to understand how the industry works. When you buy a ticket for an event, what happens behind the scenes can vary wildly. Here are just a few illustrations:
Scenario 1: You purchase a ticket from a venue’s website for an event within its space. The venue is the merchant of record and handles all aspects of production and promotion of the event, including paying the DJ or artist a set fee (typical) or percentage of sales. The model remains the same no matter how popular the artist may be.
Scenario 1B: Identical in every way to the above scenario, except a third-party ticketing platform (such as Eventbrite or Tixr) charges the customer’s card and provides them the ticket. The third-party platform takes a small fee and sends the rest to the venue; it has no involvement in production and no minimum number of tickets it must sell through promotion.
Continue reading: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture-council/articles/how-blockchain-nft-technologies-could-change-event-ticketing-1354873/

All the world collects information, but few businesses know how to use it truly effectively. Gathering data is the easy—and inexpensive—part. What’s harder is determining how to analyze the information into meaningful insights and then implement processes and procedures based on those findings to make businesses more effective, efficient and profitable. That’s where the true value of data lies—as well as the opportunity.
Today, several of the most valuable organizations in the world are data-driven companies, such as Facebook and Amazon. Data is their key and fundamental asset and they’ve constructed whole business models around using data as an advantage over competitors. The good news is that data mining and analysis can also help any size company in virtually any industry or region be more successful. The key to unlocking that potential is understanding how to use emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, drones and internet of things (IoT) to gain more valuable insights.
“It’s imperative that everyone starts to look at data as an asset. It’s just not for operations, it’s not just a by-product of your digital products,” said Mechie Nkengla, CEO and chief data strategist at Data Products LLC and a member of CompTIA’s AI Advisory Council. “In the next several years, it is likely organizations will start to consider data assets part of the value of a company.”
Why Collect All that Data?
After years of collecting data, companies today are starting to recognize it’s imperative to have a strategy and process to maximize and even monetize their data. Typically, data is used in three ways: to improve customer experience, to reduce costs and to create new revenue. Internal and external drivers are often leveraged to harvest data, according to Nkengla.
Internal drivers include those that improve operations across all business functions, such as finance, end-to-end supply chain visibility, customer support and marketing. Internal drivers focus on improving customer service and employee experiences.
External drivers look for ways to use data to boost the bottom line. One of those, monetization, uses data as an asset. “You’re looking at data as a means to improve a product or service you make or sell,” Nkengla explained. “Data can also be used to bolster the inherent value of a company—positioning the company as an innovator, for example, to gain more prestige in the industry.”
As MSPs and other tech companies start exploring how to help customers make more sense from their data, here’s a look at how four emerging technologies are being leveraged—and advice for getting in on the action.
Artificial Intelligence Brings Data Analysis, Outcomes to New Levels
Enterprise use of AI has grown 270% during the past four years, according to Gartner. Chief among its benefits: strengthening customer experience by offering a personalized interaction, which can result in brand loyalty and an overall more efficient online experience.
For example, one utilization of AI is computer image and vision understanding, which includes the ability to provide facial recognition for enterprise use. Applications today can map more than 500 characteristics of a human face, use that data as a reference image, ingest it in real time and analyze it to determine appearance, age, places, objects and even emotion.
“Computer analysis of pictorial information is quite powerful for the enterprise. But with great power comes great responsibility. Responsibilities to ensure that the solutions are used in an ethical manner and their operations are consistent and reliable,” said Nkengla. “The usage of computer image and vision within the enterprise runs the gamut from self-driving cars, cancer detection, safety management in manufacturing and construction, to public safety monitoring by first responders.”
Continue reading: https://connect.comptia.org/blog/innovative-tech-solutions-will-transform-the-way-we-use-data

Analytics, augmented by artificial intelligence, offers a means to deliver self-service business intelligence (BI) environments.
In recent times, a cry has gone out from many enterprise users: why can’t our business intelligence (BI) and analytics tools be as fast, easy and intuitive as Google searches? Yes, Google has spoiled us.
BI and analytics tools have been around for decades, their value to enterprises has been limited. In 2021, “Gartner found that BI and analytics adoption among all employees was 30%.,” according to Wayne Eckerson, writing in a recent report out of Eckerson Group. “That is only slightly better than the 20% rate I discovered when running similar studies in the 1990s.”
Enterprises have attempted to boost adoption with more user training, while vendors have spruced up and simplified their user interfaces. Still, that didn’t get to the heart of the issue — the need to enable greater self-service analytics with up-to-the-minute insights.
Continue reading: https://www.rtinsights.com/putting-more-intelligence-into-business-intelligence/

The need to effectively generate insights from your business data is undeniable. As per Gartner’s study on business composability, 51% of the more than 2,000 CIOs surveyed will increase investments in analytics in 2022.
Savvy practitioners will leverage the power of cloud, create a sound governance model, connect applications to a data fabric and revisit the models often to refine them. However, driving business composability supported by meaningful business insights is often a complex endeavor. In this post, I’d like to highlight two aspects that can set your artificial intelligence initiatives up for even greater success.
The first is about goals-driven design thinking that allows you to ask the right questions at the right level, and the second is the creation of a closed loop to truly magnify the power of your insights. This approach is being driven by the data science framework at one of my companies, Ignitho Technologies, in partnership with Cambridge University's "frugal innovation" concept.
Asking The Right Questions At The Right Level
A technique called "design thinking" can help with this. However, let me start by outlining a common risk. Often, organizations start a data analytics project by gaining an understanding of the use case and the problems faced by the stakeholders. Then, they define a solution, quantify its benefits and get started with the implementation. But by zooming into a problem and then trying to solve it right away, you can risk missing the bigger picture.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/05/18/how-to-unlock-the-power-of-ai-in-your-business/?sh=69580a2c75bf

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the new electricity. This is how Stanford University colleague Andrew Ng describes the wide adoption and deep impact we’re seeing with AI. It’s a strong statement to make but one that has merit given the unprecedented pace of advancements in recent years. AI is transforming the way people are living their lives. It’s opening up doors that were previously in the realms of imagination.
You’ve used AI in face and voice recognition and heard of its deployment in self-driving cars and autonomous robots. Although these applications are fascinating to see, I believe one of the most intriguing uses of AI is in harnessing it to enhance and augment human sensory perception and communication. Our eyes, ears, skin, nose and tongue are all sensors that interact with our brain, helping us develop a model of the world we’re in and how we experience it. The idea of using technology to augment these processes to enhance our perceptual capabilities is no longer science fiction.
When I left a Silicon Valley-based tech giant and joined the hearing industry, hearing aids were a lot different than they are today. In the old era of computing, engineers handcrafted algorithms to endow the devices with different settings that needed to be manually invoked for various listening situations. Now, we’ve entered a new age of computing in which machines use AI to become smarter based on the data they’re trained on. Like a child learns based on experiences, these devices are able to make decisions on their own by analyzing and classifying the surrounding environment based on machine learning techniques. When it comes to hearing technology, this has opened up a new world of possibilities.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/05/19/how-artificial-intelligence-is-opening-up-a-new-world-of-possibilities-in-hearing/?sh=50c669834e6f

Cathie Wood is possibly the best-known advocate for innovative and disruptive technology. The blockchain and Web3 as a tech epitomize these qualities in abundance. 
In an April statement, she declared ARK Invest’s prediction for the future of Blockchain development and application. She compiled 3 main segments:
A – The Money Revolution – Bitcoin.
B –  Financial Revolution – DeFi – Ethereum and Logarithmic Finance.
C – The Internet Revolution – Web3 – The Cosmos Hub.
A – The Money Revolution (BTC)
Bitcoin needs no introduction. A global decentralized, peer-to-peer database for value transfers.
Satoshi Nakamoto (the creator’s pseudonym) created the perfect asset to change money forever, under the most perfect circumstances. Using a pseudonym to deploy the very first blockchain and cryptocurrency meant there was a distinct intention from the creator not to give Bitcoin an identity. This feeds into the decentralized revolution that BTC then went on to foster.
The pseudonym underlines the concept that BTC as a currency is for everyone and could have been created by anyone. These two points are central to the definition of Bitcoin and, as Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter and Square) says, makes Bitcoin tangible. 
No more than 21 million Bitcoin will ever be in circulation. Furthermore, the mining process and algorithms to solve become incrementally more difficult to fulfil the more BTC is mined.
Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet is heralded to have roughly 1 million BTC inside it as well, which hasn’t moved since the conception and founding of Bitcoin. 
Continue reading: https://www.alphr.com/the-abcs-of-blockchain-and-web3/

What are the blockchain use cases in 2022? Blockchain technologies can create a wide range of new applications beyond cryptocurrencies and bitcoin. The technology’s capacity to generate more transparency and fairness while also saving businesses time and money affects various industries, from how contracts are fulfilled to making government operations more efficient. Before we get started, here’s a list of the best blockchain books in 2022. However, the global blockchain market is expected to reach nearly $17.9 billion in 2024, with a five-year CAGR of 46.4%. But, how and why do we use it?
BLOCKCHAIN USE CASES AND HOW THEY HAVE CHANGED THE INDUSTRY
The distinction between simple blockchain-based applications and the hype is one of the most difficult aspects of blockchain. This may be tough because there are only a few substantial-scale real-world blockchain applications other than bitcoin. It has four types, and if you want to know them, we have already explained the 4 types of blockchain.
When Bitcoin was first released in 2009, it was described as a decentralized currency system operated by thousands of machines distributed across the globe, reducing reliance on centralized authorities. This network of computers, known as the blockchain system, uses distributed ledger technology to build a permanent record of transactions secured by cryptography and agreement among the computers that contribute to it, among other things.
Blockchain, like bitcoin, can be used to develop a wide range of services in finance, logistics, and public administration by providing greater security, transparency, and traceability. The global blockchain market is expected to reach nearly $17.9 billion in 2024, with a five-year CAGR of 46.4%. Even governments are enacting new legislation to boost blockchain usage. So, what does blockchain technology do so effectively that it has drawn so much interest?
Continue reading: https://dataconomy.com/2022/05/blockchain-use-cases-2022/

“Code is law” has become a catchphrase in this age where transactions of all sorts are being shifted onto blockchain platforms. Some use the term to suggest that code should replace law in many respects when it comes to these transactions. Others use it to defend against claims that they have acted wrongly and argue that they are simply using technically complex rules to outsmart others on a digital platform and obtain outcomes (like wealth) that others did not believe could or would occur.
Drawing from his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lawrence Lessig is credited with coining the phrase “code is law,” which is the title for his 2000 Harvard Magazine article. In these writings, Lessig explores issues with the then-nascent internet, and posits that the absence of government regulation does not mean there should be the absence of any regulation. Instead, Lessig asserts that code written by software engineers will provide the rules of interaction and embody value judgments that will set rules for how broader society interacts in cyberspace.
Lessig’s writing came twenty years ago when less was known about how code and regulation would intersect. However, I see his writings as prescient. Lessig’s main argument is that we must collectively understand how code regulates the internet, as it is the basis of our interaction with the digital world. Since code does not employ discretion the way humans do, an automated governance structure will change the nature of law online. He notes that code can either “embed, or displace, values from our constitutional tradition,” and that we can ensure that values are not displaced by understanding the regulator of the internet: code. His article makes three main points:
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/05/17/code-is-law-during-the-age-of-blockchain/?sh=1841ea7d2adb

HR professionals whose work is concentrated in workplace learning and development manage an array of practical day-to-day learning objectives to build individualized and institutional knowledge, with an eye toward the future and a plan to stay a step ahead. 
Melike Aydin, chief learning officer and co-founder at UP School, has served in marketing roles at multinational companies Nestle, General Mills and Danone, but she said her true passion was in understanding the principles of learning and development and improving education for all. 
UP School leaders Aydin and Mina Ilkoz, co-founder and CEO, met through youth training organization Young Guru Academy, where Aydin, then president of the organization, led learning and development programs with a global annual reach of more than 10,000 young people. 
Then they “decided to do something about the drastic gender inequality in tech,” Aydin said.
Now at UP School, the pair deploy education and empowerment to women online through a culture of “Sisterhood.”  The edtech company touts a 98% graduation rate — 80% of whom are hired by tech companies within just a few months of graduation. 
Aydin discussed successes and challenges of her work at UP School in an email exchange with HR Dive, which has been edited for clarity.
HR DIVE: Up School, located in Istanbul, Turkey, is an interesting model of L&D to produce greater numbers of women in tech. Please share more about the organization and your perspective on the necessity for this model.
MELIKE AYDIN: UP School students learn technical skills like web and mobile development, data science and robotic process automation, as well as life skills like resilience, creativity and collaboration. 
A recent report from the World Economic Forum shows that we need 135 years to close the gender gap. Women deserve better than that. Female workforce represents only 30% of the tech sector globally and in developing countries like Turkey, it is even worse — 10%. 
Continue reading: https://www.hrdive.com/news/female-tech-job-training-learning-and-development/623765/

Today’s Woman in Tech: Chitra Balasubramanian, Chief Financial Officer, CircleCI
With more than 20 years’ experience accelerating business growth through data analysis, Chitra Balasubramanian is best known for scaling cutting-edge, innovative technology companies, starting with PricewaterhouseCoopers, RetailNext, and now CircleCI.
As the current Chief Financial Officer, and one of two C-suite females at fast-growth unicorn CircleCI, her decision-making skills and poised, resilient leadership have led the company through major challenges and successes to become the leader in continuous integration for software engineering teams.
Chitra is as impactful and inspiring in the community as she is in the business. She serves on the Board of Trustees for the Computer History Museum and mentors young female entrepreneurs helping them resolve business challenges. She is a certified public accountant and holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
When did you become interested in technology? What first got you interested in tech?
After college I started working at PricewaterhouseCoopers and became one of the first subject-matter experts on financial auditing for its Center for Advanced Research. This division was an innovation think tank responsible for the design and development of advanced technologies that solve previously unsolvable problems for the firm’s core practice areas. As part of my role, I was offered the opportunity to work in Silicon Valley, which is where I really got to see how technology was built. I became fascinated by cutting-edge, innovative technology and have found myself in the tech world ever since.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-balasubramanian-177368.html

While we’ve been talking about and imagining artificial intelligence for years, it only has recently started to become mainstream, and accepted for a wide range of applications – from healthcare analytics to Google Maps and Roombas. At the same time, cybersecurity has been strangely slow in embracing this important technology.
There are several reasons for this: too much hype about early “black box” AI claims; misconceptions about the technology; and a persistent belief among the security old guard that AI can’t be trusted and will never match human intuition for spotting the real threats.
It’s time to move beyond these misconceptions, and look at concrete examples of how automation, AI, and machine learning have been effectively applied to improve security coverage and accuracy, while dramatically reducing costs. The real question is not whether AI or human intuition is better – it’s how we can effectively combine the two, enabling intelligent automation that takes on routine decision making by learning from human experts.
Urgency of the Problem
Because we’re in the middle of a cybersecurity crisis, we need to move beyond theoretical discussions of the pros and cons of AI and get serious about adopting more advanced technology to meet urgent needs. Today’s realities make updating our approach to security an imperative:

• A significant increase in the number of attacks, and damage caused – ransomware payments, OT network shutdowns, loss of corporate IP, and loss of private information
• Attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, bypassing many of our legacy security strategies
• There is a huge shortage of skilled security analysts, and they don’t want to be burdened by repetitive manual work – throwing bodies at the problem is neither practical nor effective
• The legacy perimeter security model is obsolete, as the battle is moving to widely distributed cloud applications, and virtual infrastructure
• The attackers are embracing AI and ML whole-heartedly, launching more sophisticated attacks that quickly learn and adapt to our inadequate defenses.

Continue reading: https://securityboulevard.com/2022/05/its-time-to-put-ai-to-work-in-security/

Garry Kasparov, probably the greatest chess player in history, lost to an IBM supercomputer in 1997. But today, he is a strong proponent of artificial intelligence (AI). At a TED talk in 2017, Kasparov said, “Machines have instructions; we have a purpose. We will need intelligent machines to help us turn our grandest dreams into reality.”
AI is all about how machines and humans can collaborate—how machines can take over tasks they can do better and faster, so humans can focus on what only they can do. Many industries have embraced AI technologies and are already experiencing transformative outcomes. However, insurance companies have been slow to expand their digital capabilities.
Covid-19 changed that. A rise in call volumes and an unfortunate increase in medical emergencies, deaths and business interruption claims reinforced the belief that investing in AI-related technologies can pay off. It helps to engage with customers faster, supports distribution, settles claims faster and can help in fraud detection.
But that is only scratching the surface. AI has the power to completely revolutionize how insurance products are experienced. Let's explore.
Faster And Personalized Experience
If I go online to buy auto insurance, I could get an instant quote and complete the purchase in minutes. As telematics and sensor devices for homes, vehicles and wearables multiply, insurers have more real-time data about customers. This enables them to instantly create risk profiles, price the premiums appropriately for the risk and personalize products.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2022/05/17/how-ai-adoption-can-impact-the-insurance-industry/?sh=12916e968e33

As artificial intelligence and machine learning technology continue to advance the digital business landscape, you may ask yourself: Can I trust these systems to keep my brand reliable and to remain ahead of the competition?
Building trust in AI is critical to successfully adopting technology-driven strategies that push the envelope and drive efficiency in business operations. While some may be hesitant to fully integrate these technologies into workflows and put processes on autopilot, we have been using AI and ML technology for years. Google Maps, text editors and chatbots are all examples of AI technology that we use frequently—and most people don’t think twice about the accuracy or reliability of their applications.
Still, there are some genuine concerns about how much we can rely on these technologies as they become more advanced and hold more weight in successfully executing critical aspects of our businesses. So, how can companies continue to learn about these technologies to gain enough trust to adopt them on a larger scale?
Evaluating AI Performance And Processes
Trusting AI-driven technology for business starts with trusting its performance and processes. You may already know that a stable and trustworthy AI executes tasks using robust and up-to-date datasets compiled specifically for the industry or market in which it operates. The overarching concern then is how well and how quickly an AI can model data to make predictions appropriately.
The foundation of trust in AI lies in high-quality data. Without timely, tangible and accurate data, you can expect AI data modeling to fall short of your needs and expectations. Businesses can ensure high-quality datasets by vetting and minimizing the number of data sources used. Ultimately, data must be compatible with an AI’s systems and processes to remain accurate and viable.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2022/05/18/can-you-trust-ai-to-help-navigate-todays-digital-business-landscape/?sh=46507fa9395f

Gals Bio CEO and founder Hilla Shaviv with her Tulipon device. (Courtesy)
Five years ago, Israeli entrepreneur Daniella Gilboa showed a group of male investors a viral photo of a newborn surrounded by the 1,616 IVF syringes used by her parents in their prolonged fertility struggle. The investors had blank looks on their faces. None of them understood the meaning of the image, she gathered.
Nowadays, things are different. The landscape for technologies specifically focused on women’s health and well-being — or femtech — has grown significantly, and Gilboa, an embryologist and statistician, has succeeded with AIVF, a B2B (business-to-business) company she co-founded in 2018. AIVF developed the first-to-market platform for IVF clinics that applies data science and artificial intelligence (AI) to make the IVF process more accurate and efficient. The result is less money spent and less time to achieve pregnancy for potential parents.
“The ecosystem in Israel is changing. Femtech is becoming an interesting conversation, and VCs are looking for femtech opportunities,” Gilboa said.
Israel, known widely as the startup nation, is becoming a font of innovation for femtech. It is still an uphill battle to secure funding, but with women being half the global population and making 80% of healthcare purchase decisions, investors are starting to perceive the rewarding possibilities.
“Femtech is growing and expanding. You no longer have to explain to people what it is,” said Sharon Handelman-Gotlib, co-manager at FemTech IL, a community of 2,600 Israeli femtech entrepreneurs and supporters.
According to Start-Up Nation Central, an Israeli organization that tracks the local tech ecosystem, the Israeli femtech landscape includes about 130 startups and companies. In 2021, approximately $160 million was invested in Israeli femtech companies, down from about $215 million in 2020, but similar to 2019’s figures with $157 million in investments, according to SNC’s data.
Continue reading: https://www.timesofisrael.com/women-entrepreneurs-are-leading-the-charge-to-make-israel-a-femtech-powerhouse/

1. Intro
I come from a Persian community and I can't emphasize how bad things are for women, especially in tech. Most of people in Persian community have not a single clue what "Women In Tech" means or what its purpose is! And I'm pretty sure it's not just the Persian community!  
A while ago, there was a tweet about "Persian women in web 3 (or blockchain, I don't really remember)"! And the comments were truly disgusting. The amount of men joking about it and acting like it's about dividing genders, were just disgusting! And then they called us?? women?? sexist?? towards men???!!!
But anyways, you know what the sad part is? it's that it wasn't just men, there were a few women who were making fun of it as well !!
Remember ladies :
So you see? This is why we need to talk about the term "Women In Tech" and (hopefully!!) educate some people!
2. The Term "Women In Tech"
Some people find it empowering to be called "women in tech" and some might find it slightly problematic and damaging! Well, 'problematic' and 'damaging' might not be exactly the right words. Let's just say this term could have some negative effects!
And in this section I'll be covering both the good parts and bad parts of being called "women in tech"!
Continue reading: https://nazanin-ashrafi.hashnode.dev/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-woman-in-tech

Like many emerging technologies, blockchain is still trying to find its footing in the business world. But this hasn’t stopped startups from embracing the technology and working to bring it into the mainstream.
If you’re one of these startups or simply interested in learning more about blockchain marketing strategies, you’ll want to read on. This post discusses some of the best ways to market your blockchain services.
1. Design A Modern Website
The first thing you’ll want to do is design a modern website. This website should be easy to use, and it should look professional. More importantly, it should explain what your blockchain service is all about. You should have a clear mission statement outlining your goals and value proposition.
Make sure to list all of the features of your blockchain service so that people can get a good understanding of what makes you unique. And don’t forget to include contact information so that people can reach out if they have any questions.
2. Educate Your Visitors
It’s no secret that blockchain technology is revolutionizing business and finance. However, many people still don’t fully understand what it is or how it works. Start educating your audience about the basics of blockchain technology and why it matters.
Continue reading: https://readwrite.com/how-to-market-blockchain-services/

Many people have heard of Bitcoin, but only a small percentage fully understand how crypto investments work.
According to 2021 data from the Pew Research Center, nine out of ten Americans say they know a little bit about crypto. Still, only 16 percent say they have invested, traded or used some form of crypto. While you may not need to know how the technology behind crypto works, it is important to learn how investing in crypto can benefit your business.
Is It Common for Businesses to Invest in Crypto?
It has become increasingly common for mainstream businesses to get involved in the cryptocurrency space. For example, Tesla purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin in 2021, adding that the company would also start accepting Bitcoin as payment for its products.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are becoming more than a confusing trend or a risky investment opportunity–businesses of all sizes are accepting crypto as a viable payment alternative.
However, it can still be a challenge to determine if your business is ready to invest in crypto. Where can you start?
Advantages of Investing in Cryptocurrency
It’s important to consider the advantages and disadvantages of investing in crypto. For example, does it fit into your business plan, and will it help your business meet its financial goals? Is crypto too confusing for my business to get involved with?
Consider the following advantages associated with crypto investments to make the decision a bit easier.
Continue reading: https://www.worth.com/business-investing-crypto-blockchain-risk-reward/