Predibase emerged from stealth with its commercial platform that lets both data scientists and non-experts develop flexible, state-of-the-art ML with best-of-breed ML infrastructure. Predibase has been in beta with Fortune 500 enterprises the last nine months who have seen time for model development deployment drop from months to days and used by data practitioners and engineers across each organization.
Technology shines when it helps us get things done in our daily lives, and that’s exactly why a group of around 100 very eager seniors gathered in Odense, Denmark. All older than 65, many up to 85, they decided to stay on top of the latest technological tricks and tools. On this March day, the eye-opener was the often overlooked potential in searching for information using visual tools, like Google Lens.So now the seniors searched their surroundings directly: Scanned trees, plants, animals and buildings, used Translate to get hold of Turkish language menu cards or Japanese sayings, and found product declarations through barcode scanning.The group was taking part in a training set up by Faglige Seniorer, which organizes 300,000 seniors in total. They first partnered with Google back in 2019 to train seniors in using voice to search, and now the time had come to use live images.A room full of people seated at large tables listening to a woman speak.Around 100 seniors gathered in Odense, Denmark to learn more about Google Lens.Two older people looking at cell phones near models of birds.Participants used smartphones to scan images of animals like birds.An older person stands next to a model of a bird.The group was taking part in a training set up by Faglige Seniorer, which organizes 300,000 seniors in total.“Often, when I go for a walk, I stumble upon an unknown flower or a tree. Now I can just take a picture to discover what kind of plant I am standing before,” Verner Madsen, one of the participants, remarked. “I don’t need to bring my encyclopedia. It is really smart and helpful.”Seniors in a country like Denmark are generally very tech savvy, but with digitization constantly advancing — accelerating even faster during two years of COVID-19 — some seniors risk being left behind, creating gaps between generations. During worldwide lockdowns, technological tools have helped seniors stay connected with their family and friends, and smartphone features have helped improve everyday life. One key element of that is delivering accurate and useful information when needed. And for that, typed words on a smartphone keyboard can often be substituted with a visual search, using a single tap on the screen.Being able to “search what you see” in this way was an eye-opener to many. As the day ended, another avid participant, Henrik Rasmussen, declared he was heading straight home to continue his practice.“I thought I was up to speed on digital developments, but after today I realize that I still have a lot to learn and discover,” he said.
When Binti Mwallau started Hasanat Ventures, her dairy processing company in Kenya, she expected some resistance from her peers in an industry dominated by men. But she was surprised to run into more skepticism from her customers. Despite her background in finance and biochemistry, many of them questioned her credibility as a woman entrepreneur.Worried that her gender would affect Hasanat Ventures’ reputation, Binti considered hiring a man as the face of the business. But she eventually decided against it, standing firm in her pride as a solo founder and committed to tearing down the perception that women-run businesses in Africa aren’t as successful as those run by men.“I think we should be challenging the outdated narrative that businesses run by men are guaranteed to be more successful,” Binti says. “Based on research, we’ve seen that businesses run by women actually perform better. We should use this as an opportunity to prove that as a woman, you do stand a chance to succeed in everything that you do.”Just as important to Binti as breaking this bias was giving Kenyans more access to affordable nutrition. “I realized that many people couldn’t afford premium yogurt. So we entered the market with a high-quality product that’s affordable for lower and middle-income earners who have become more health-conscious,” she says.Binti knew she had to drive awareness for her brand, particularly to reach Kenyans who needed convincing about yogurt’s health benefits. So she turned to Google Digital Skills for Africa, which offers virtual classes to help entrepreneurs grow their skills and businesses, and completed a digital marketing course to help her get Hasanat Ventures online.“After participating in the course, we knew our online presence had to be bigger than just social media,” Binti says. “Now that we have a fully functional website, we are actually getting leads from outside Kenya.”As part of the course, Binti learned how to use Google Analytics to measure her website’s performance. She could now monitor traffic insights, analyze pageviews and better understand who was visiting her site.Binti’s determination and passion for her business are showing up in the results. In its first year, Hasanat Ventures supplied over 300 retailers with affordable dairy products. Three years later, it’s grown to support more than 50 farmers and even built its own production facility to keep up with demand.“I really want to make sure that I am visible and speaking up in spaces women don’t usually have access to,” Binti says. “As Hasanat Ventures continues to grow, I am confident I can help change the perception of African women in business.”58% of Africa’s entrepreneurs are women. That’s why we’re empowering them with the platform and tools to grow their businesses. Learn more about our #LookMeUp campaign, highlighting Africa’s women entrepreneurs like Binti who are working to break the bias.
In this contributed article, Sarah Davies, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Nova Credit, explains how alternative data sources are the solution to solving for financial inclusion, the strategic advantages data provides for lenders, and why data collection should be seen as a long-term investment.
Rain, a marketing agency building custom voice experiences for brands, has raised $11 million in venture capital.
In this contributed article, Karen Pieper, VP of engineering at Era Software, discusses how organizations today use real-time data streams to keep up with evolving business requirements. Setting up data pipelines is easy. Handling the errors at each stage of the pipeline and not losing data is hard.
Viable focuses on aggregating customer feedback across channels using AI and GPT-3. The platform offers a full analysis service that provides written analysis on top of the feedback and can be applied to areas such as product management, customer experience and marketing.Read More
WIT Girls: Discover How Technology Powers Art & Music with Apple Join WIT + Apple at their Avalon store and explore your artistic side! Through this awesome opportunity, our WIT Girls will learn art skills with Procreate. They will also get a chance to create their own music with GarageBand. WIT Girls, you won’t want
In recent months, you may have gone out to dinner only to realize you left your COVID vaccine card at home. Luckily, the host is OK with the photo of it on your phone. In this case, it’s acceptable to show someone a picture of a card, but for other things it isn’t — an image of your driver’s license or credit card certainly won’t work. So what makes digital versions of these items more legit than a photo? To better understand the digitization of what goes into our wallets and purses, I talked to product manager Dong Min Kim, who works on the brand new Google Wallet. Google Wallet, which will be coming soon in over 40 countries, is the new digital wallet for Android and Wear OS devices…but how does it work?Let’s start with a basic question: What is a digital wallet?A digital wallet is simply an application that holds digital versions of the physical items you carry around in your actual wallet or purse. We’ve seen this shift where something you physically carry around becomes part of your smartphone before, right?Like..?Look at the camera: You used to carry around a separate item, a camera, to take photos. It was a unique device that did a specific thing. Then, thanks to improvements in computing power, hardware and image processing algorithms, engineers merged the function of the camera — taking photos — into mobile phones. So now, you don’t have to carry around both, if you don’t want to.Ahhh yes, I am old enough to remember attending college gatherings with my digital camera andmy flip phone.Ha! So think about what else you carry around: your wallet and your keys.So the big picture here is that digital wallets help us carry around less stuff?That’s certainly something we’re thinking about, but it’s more about how we can make these experiences — the ones where you need to use a camera, or in our case, items from your wallet — better. For starters, there’s security: It’s really hard for someone to take your phone and use your Google Wallet, or to take your card and add it to their own phone. Your financial institution will verify who you are before you can add a card to your phone, and you can set a screen lock so a stranger can’t access what’s on your device. And should you lose your device, you can remotely locate, lock or even wipe it from “Find My Device.”What else can Google Wallet do that my physical wallet can’t?If you saved your boarding pass for a flight to Google Wallet, it will notify you of delays and gate changes. When you head to a concert, you’ll receive a notification on your phone beforehand, reminding you of your saved tickets.Wallet also works with other Google apps — for instance if you’re taking the bus to see a friend and look up directions in Google Maps, your transit card and balance will show up alongside the route. If you’re running low on fare, you can tap and add more. We’ll also give you complete control over how items in your wallet are used to enable these experiences; for example, the personal information on your COVID vaccine pass is kept on your device and never shared without your permission, not even with Google.Plus, even if you lose your credit or debit card and you’re waiting for the replacement to show up, you can still use that card with Google Wallet because of the virtual number attached to it.This might be taking a step backwards, but can I pay someone from my Google Wallet? As in can I send money from a debit card, or straight from my bank account?That’s actually where the Google Pay app — which is available in markets like the U.S., India and Singapore — comes in. We’ll keep growing this app as a companion app where you can do more payments-focused things like send and receive money from friends or businesses, discover offers from your favorite retailers or manage your transactions.OK, but can I pay with my Google Wallet?Yes,you can still pay with the cards stored in your Google Wallet in stores where Google Pay is accepted; it’s simple and secure.Use payment cards in Google Wallet in stores with Google Pay, got it — but how does everything else “get” into Wallet?We’ve already partnered with hundreds of transit agencies, retailers, ticket providers, health agencies and airlines so they can create digital versions of their cards or tickets for Google Wallet. You can add a card or ticket directly to Wallet, or within the apps or sites of businesses we partner with, you’ll see an option to add it to Wallet. We’re working on adding more types of content for Wallet, too, like digital IDs, or office and hotel keys.Developers can make almost any item into a digital pass.. Developers can use the templates we’ve created, like for boarding passes and event tickets — or they can use a generic template if it’s something more unique and we don’t have a specific solution for it yet. This invitation to developers is part of what I think makes Google Wallet interesting; it’s very open.What exactly do you mean by “open” exactly?Well, the Android platform is open — any Android developer can use and develop for Wallet. One thing that’s great about that is all these features and tools can be made available on less expensive phones, too, so it isn’t only people who can afford the most expensive, newest phones out there who can use Google Wallet. Even if a phone can’t use some features of Google Wallet, it’s possible for developers to use QR or barcodes for their content, which more devices can access.So working with Google Wallet is easier for developers. Any ways you’re making things easier for users?Plenty of them! In particular, we’re working on ways to make it easy to add objects directly from your phone too. For instance, today if you take a screenshot of your boarding pass or Covid vaccine card from an Android device, we’ll give you the option to add it directly to your Google Wallet!
At its Beyond 2022 event, ThoughtSpot announced new features and platform editions designed to modernize and democratize its BI platform.Read More