Through an app on our smartphone, tablet and laptop, we can order food delivery, send flowers to friends, pay utility bills, exchange ideas with people across the world and even learn how to grout bathroom tiles. We are a generation rapidly becoming entirely dependent on technology. The country’s defenses rely upon technology. As does its economy. Yet, many of the very innovators and drivers behind the scenes, who are coding our conveniences into reality, are working in hostile environments within tech companies that are not only failing women and nonbinary technologists but are also extremely harmful to their well-being.
In a recently released report, Technical Equity Experience Survey (TechEES 2021), from AnitaB.org, a global non-profit dedicated to supporting women and non-binary technologists, revealed that a startling 100% of respondents reported harassment in their workplace.
Read that again. One. Hundred. Percent.
Experiences in tech have gotten worse for all marginalized genders, but are increasingly worse when the data are broken down by intersectional identities. People of color (Black, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islander) reported increased feelings of race-based discrimination. And, only 63.5% of all women and non-binary techs surveyed reported a sense of belonging, with Black respondents reporting a startlingly low sense of belonging. Couple these revelations with other staggering stats around pay disparity, maternal leave policies and more, and the situation gets bleaker by the minute.
Empirical data and the lived experiences of the respondents paint a portrait of an industry plagued by unregulated, often insensitive workplace culture, rampant apathy from those in positions of power, and feelings of frustration, exasperation and defeat. We know if an employee is not able to show up as their authentic self to work and be treated with dignity, their psychological safety will be affected, and workplace productivity will suffer.
When women are valued in their workplaces, given equitable opportunities to advance in their careers, and provided with needed support, entire communities are uplifted. We also know that when these particular sets of circumstances exist, productivity and profit increase, resulting in healthy economic progress.
Policymakers agree. Chairwoman of the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has been working for decades to support and protect marginalized peoples in the STEM workforce and academic studies. She said recently, “America has endless potential to compete globally in science and innovation, but we cannot succeed if we leave behind any of our nation's brain power. A strong, diverse STEM workforce is essential to addressing the scientific and societal issues we face. Throughout my time in Congress, I have championed initiatives to ensure we have a STEM workforce that reflects the diversity of America. With the provisions that the House Science Committee has fought for in the innovation and R&D legislation currently moving through Congress, we are working to ensure anyone who wishes to pursue a career in STEM has the support and tools they need to succeed. And importantly, these provisions will help build safe workspaces in STEM by directly addressing sexual harassment.”
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendadwilkerson/2022/08/18/the-chips-act-why-women-and-non-binary-technologists-need-protections-now/?sh=1753de8e4728

Biotechnology lies in the middle of biology and technology. Through modern technologies, it uses biological processes, organisms, cells, molecules, and systems to create new products for the benefit of humanity and the planet. In addition, it contains laboratory research and development through bioinformatics to explore and extract from biomass through biochemical engineering to develop high-value products. Biotechnology operates in various fields, such as agriculture, medical, animal, industrial, and others.
White biotechnology, related to creating products demanding chemical processes from biomass, can also be one of the solutions to the energy crisis by producing biofuel. The latter can be used for vehicles or heating.
Each organization working in the biotechnology sphere maintains voluminous sets of data stored in databases. This data must also be filtrated and analyzed to be valid and applicable. Such operations as drug manufacturing, chemical analysis, enzyme studies, and other biological processes should be backed by computerized solid tools for high performance and accuracy, as well as helps to reduce manual errors.
One of the most helpful technologies that help to manage the biological processes, drug production, supply chain, and deal with data within biotech is Artificial Intelligence.
It interacts with data received through scientific literature and clinical data trial. AI also manages incommensurable clinical trial datasets and enables virtual screening and analyze the high volume of data. As a result, it reduces clinical trial costs and results in discoveries and insights for any field in which biotech operates.
Continue reading: https://readwrite.com/why-is-artificial-intelligence-crucial-for-biotechnology/

Earlier this week a new type of stablecoin (aUSD), built on a platform (Acala), which itself was built on a blockchain (Polkadot), fell from its $1 peg to $0.009 (which rounds to zero as far as I’m concerned), following an attack on one of the platform’s liquidity pools. If the words following “attack on” seem to be oddly specific, that’s because they are.
Acala wasn't attacked, hacked and thwarted directly. Rather, the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool, something built on top of Acala, was attacked, hacked and thwarted directly. The exploit was successful and allowed bad actors to create billions of aUSD for themselves. This influx of new aUSD crushed the price of the stablecoin strictly through immense supply dilution.
This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here.
aUSD has since recovered, but only after the Acala community voted to destroy the billions of the improperly minted aUSD. Never mind that the minted aUSD wasn’t really improperly minted and never mind the need for a centralizing force to come in to fix this mistake, let’s instead look at how cryptocurrency protocols are only as secure as what’s built on top of them.
Move fast and break everything
aUSD isn’t the first crypto thing that has been broken or hacked (e.g. Ronin for $625 million and Wormhole for $326 million) – it’s just the flavor of the week. But we should be clear here: aUSD didn’t necessarily stop working, and the attackers didn’t rappel into a building to physically break into the mainframe or something.
Continue reading: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/in-crypto-base-layer-security-isnt-enough

In March 2022, over $625 million worth of cryptocurrencies were stolen from the Ronin Bridge protocol as a result of a malicious attack from hackers, marking the event as one of the biggest cryptocurrency heists ever. In June, Harmony One’s Horizon Bridge lost over $100 million in an attack. In August, another $200 million was lost from the Nomad Bridge as a consequence of an exploit of a vulnerability in its underlying technology — smart contracts.
In total, Chainalysis estimates that over $2 billion worth of digital assets have been stolen from blockchain bridges in 2022 alone. This figure accounts for approximately 69% of all stolen crypto funds in the year.
The frequency of these bridge hacks has become a warning signal for users and a significant threat to building trust in blockchain technology. As adoption of cryptocurrency accelerates, the industry is facing growing pressure to fix the flaws that have allowed these exploits.
In this article, we’ll look at why blockchain bridges have become an essential part of the crypto ecosystem, the difference between trust-based and trustless bridges, and the potential weaknesses in each model that enabled hackers to siphon funds in each one.
What are blockchain bridges?
Blockchain bridges, also known as network bridges or cross-chain bridges, are a tool designed to solve the challenge of interoperability between blockchains. Bridges have become a necessary component of the blockchain industry because, as it stands, blockchains operate in silos and cannot communicate with one another.
For example, users cannot use bitcoin (BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain or ether (ETH) on the Bitcoin blockchain. So if one user (let’s call him Billy) who holds all his funds in BTC wants to pay another user (let’s call her Ethel) for an item but Ethel only accepts ETH, Billy hits a wall. He can’t send BTC directly to Ethel. He can take extra steps to buy ETH or trade a portion of his BTC for ETH, but BTC cannot be sent directly to Ethel. This can be seen as a major disadvantage in comparison to fiat currencies and credit cards, which can be used across several providers.
Blockchain bridges aim to eliminate this issue.
Continue reading: https://www.coindesk.com/learn/are-blockchain-bridges-safe-why-bridges-are-targets-of-hacks/

One of the most influential factors that determines whether girls will pursue a career in the technology industry is having a parent or teacher who encouraged them to study computer science, according to a survey from Girls Who Code and Logitech.
While there’s a high share of women in science-related health care jobs, women continue to be underrepresented in engineering, computer science, and physical science jobs. Tech companies and K-12 schools are being asked to do their part to bridge the gap.
“In the broader tech industry, we see that gender equality remains a challenge,” said Delphine Donné, general manager and vice president of creativity and productivity at Logitech. “We want to make a difference.”
“The objective is simple: inspire more girls and young women to join and stay in STEM. But first, we had to understand what women currently experience and what successful women have done to get where they are today,” she added.
When asked who had the greatest influence on their decision to pursue a career in tech, 60 percent of adult female respondents said a family member or a friend and 50 percent said a teacher.
The survey, published Aug. 9, was conducted by market research firm Ipsos from Feb. 7-18 and asked 400 adults working in the technology and IT industries about their paths to those careers.
Continue reading: https://www.edweek.org/technology/the-key-to-getting-girls-interested-in-stem-could-be-their-teacher/2022/08

The technology industry has been a challenging environment for women at times, but it is presenting new opportunities as organizations explore the value of diversifying their workforces and their executive ranks. “Actions are the best ally when it comes to creating opportunities for women in tech. Not only do they speak louder than words but they are the only way to create meaningful change” said Mary Ann Yule, president and CEO of HP Canada, who has spent her entire career in and around the technology sector.
Yule made her remarks July 21 at the Women in Tech Leadership Forum, hosted by CDW and in partnership with YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. The event featured a panel of speakers who addressed how organizations can remain competitive by attracting, supporting and retaining women in technology.
During the forum, the speakers noted that while women have made strides in the IT industry, there are still opportunities to foster more diverse talent — and to face the equity challenges exacerbated by the global pandemic.
"There’s been this history of being excluded in the technology space, but it’s truly an amazing environment for women to thrive.”
A 2021 report from the Pew Research Center noted that “from February 2020 to February 2021, a net 2.4 million women and 1.8 million men left the labor force.” Men have returned to work at a higher rate than women, said Ellen McRaith, vice president of talent acquisition at CDW.
Continue reading: https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2022/08/women-advance-tech-change-must-continue

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has described the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) as more revolutionary than the discovery of fire or electricity. According to PwC, it has the potential to contribute $15 trillion to the global industry by 2030.
I have worked with countless organizations on their AI strategies; however, companies wanting to capitalize on AI face significant barriers regarding the skills and resources needed to put it to use. To bridge this gap, many businesses turn to AI consultancies. These experts have the specialized knowledge and experience required to help companies deploy AI to create more intelligent products and services, improve their internal processes, and ultimately make better use of the data available to them.
One of the most frequently asked questions I get from clients is: can you recommend an AI consulting firm to help us turn our AI ambitions into practice? So here are my top ten that are generally considered to be the best at what they do.
QuantumBlack
QuantumBlack is the AI consultancy arm of McKinsey, which began as a data and analytics firm working in the field of Formula One racing. It uses an approach that it describes as Hybrid Intelligence – combining the power of technology and people to solve problems for clients by leveraging machine learning and bespoke tools such as its Brix code-sharing platform.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/08/17/what-are-the-10-best-ai-consulting-firms/?sh=59259f8a58d3

AI is still in its infancy because we still don’t fully understand how our brains work – so how far are we from having a human-like AI?
A Google engineer recently claimed one of the company’s LAMda chatbots was ‘sentient’ — meaning it can express thoughts and feelings. Blake Lemoine claimed the chatbot — which was designed to have free-flowing conversations — had conversations with him about complex subjects such as rights and personhood.
He has since been fired on the grounds his claims were “wholly unfounded,” yet this has created such waves (and in some quarters alarms), because the majority of AI that we engage with on a daily basis (knowingly or unknowingly), for example face ID to open your iPhone, isn’t built to act in the same way as a human brain does. So how close are we to a human-like AI?
The truth is nowhere near at all. For now, sentient AI remains in the realms of Netflix’s sci-fi category. But that’s not a bad thing.
We know humans are great at a general set of tasks but even as humans we all have jobs, areas that we specialize in and focus on to become better and better at that one thing. Looking at industry, given the technical difficulties of building AI which mimics the all-encompassing capabilities of a human brain, focus has been placed on building applications of AI technology to solve specific business problems.
Continue reading: https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/cyber-security/what-does-ai-meaning-human-brain-sentient-b1017657.html

Artificial intelligence has received a great deal of attention in recent years due to its significant contribution to transforming businesses and strengthening industries. The digital marketing sector is continuously evolving, with new technologies being introduced on a regular basis. As a result, there is no doubt that some of the technologies have the potential to significantly change our conception of the online consumer journey. Artificial intelligence has strongly changed how businesses are functioning. It not only helps the company to work better, but it also significantly contributes by allowing them more time for companies to focus on creativity and innovative solutions. AI is also having a big impact on the digital marketing industry. Many businesses are incorporating artificial intelligence into their digital marketing strategies. AI enables more accurate targeting and personalized customer interactions. Artificial intelligence technology allows you to make more accurate and well-informed predictions about customer behavior,  by which companies can incorporate more relevant marketing strategies. AI technology can also help you speed up your marketing efforts. This helps to improve your marketing performance by providing high-quality content while also saving you a significant amount of time and money. Here are a few excellent ways to incorporate AI into your digital marketing strategy.
1. Chatbots with Artificial Intelligence- 
Chatbots are the most prominent example of how artificial intelligence technology is altering the face of digital marketing. Chatbots serve as one of the most efficient digital marketing tools, particularly for use on social media and your website. Combining AI and chatbots can assist you in providing an automatically generated user experience that answers questions, actively helping visitors to your website in understanding your company’s offerings. AI-enabled chatbots can improve your customers’ experiences and interactions by providing immediate solutions to their queries 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An instant response allows users to solve problems quickly, resulting in a positive customer experience for your customers. If used correctly, the chatbot will enhance your brand’s image and increase the level of trust associated with your business.
Aside from providing immediate responses to customers, incorporating AI and chatbots into your digital marketing strategy can assist you in gathering essential data about your website’s visitors and following up with personalized offers on your behalf. You can use this data to improve your chatbot marketing strategy as well as your overall marketing to create good financial and communication results.
2. Increased Personalization with Artificial Intelligence
The constantly rising effect and benefits of AI in digital marketing are constantly being used for new and innovative applications, and we can only speculate on how the changing face of marketing will look in a few years. Personalization is a hot topic in the business world. People expect personalization from their favorite brands. They want to be heard, and there isn’t any better way to do so than to personalize the advertisements. Alas, not all companies understand its significance. According to a 2017 Accenture report, nearly 41% of users switched to competing brands because of a lack of trust and poor personalization. 
Continue reading: https://www.medianews4u.com/digital-marketing-leveraging-artificial-intelligence/

Like every other industry, marketing has been on a decades-long journey of change driven by constant advancements in data management, analytics and technology, along with external influences such as privacy legislation, market fluctuations, consumer trends and social sentiment (not to mention a global pandemic). But I think the next era of transformation in marketing will be like no other, with technologies like machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) playing a more prominent role than ever before. With new technologies come elevated restraints and the need for moral metrics.
Today’s shifts revolve around the clear truth that consumers have raised the bar by controlling their relationship with brands and determining their own levels of engagement. And every business survives and thrives based on its command of the customer experience. I’ve found that consumers demand relevance, convenience, memorability and consistency in every moment of interaction with a brand, no matter the channel they’re using. And they demand trust and transparency—with consent playing a much bigger role in the exchange of personal information. The sum of these parts ultimately helps determine customer loyalty.
Our increasingly contextual world means that insight goes far beyond demographic and behavioral data. It’s a wider universe where there are exponentially more signals to round out a customer view. Data is consumer currency, and experience is the builder of trust, so you should know who your customers are and use the infinitely available data to anticipate and meet their needs. This requires a delicate balance between engaging smart, predictive technologies, such as ML and AI, and honoring the ethical standards that build trust between brands and customers.
Continue reading:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/08/17/the-role-of-ethics-in-the-evolving-world-of-marketing-ai/?sh=564f002c2e97

While dealing with regulations and ever-present concerns over security, the global financial services ecosystem is in the mood for innovation. Traditional banks, fintech firms and investment platforms are finding ways to reinvent services and satisfy consumer aspirations quickly, whether this involves open banking, blockchain or digital currencies.
This raises a question for enterprises in other sectors, especially those in B2B markets: Can company leaders afford to ignore these developments? Let’s take a closer look.
1. Open Banking: Watch Closely
With open banking, customers can choose to share their personal and financial data with third parties they trust, such as tech startups and online financial services providers. Banks open up their APIs, which creates opportunities for these non-banks to offer apps that provide fast payments, helpful account information and other services.
Currently, the major business opportunity is with consumers, who are attracted to financial services that are more visible, simpler to use and easier to track. In the U.K., over 26 million open banking payments had been made by the end of 2021, an increase of more than 500% in 12 months.
The B2B world has yet to take the plunge in a big way, but open banking offers great promise. Currently, ERP vendors spend a lot of energy creating specific integrations for their enterprise customers to help them deal with different formats, security measures and certificates for each bank. None of these are standardized—but they could be with open banking and readily available APIs. This would free up significant resources for ERP vendors to create more value for their customers.
With open banking, enterprises could achieve greater agility through faster payments, as well as more timely account information, managing cash receivables and payables directly through their ERP. Right now, some exciting proof-of-concept work is underway in this area at my own company, Unit4. Opportunities are also being discussed publicly by the likes of JPMorgan and the global financial group BBVA.
However, it’s not yet clear how the financial model could work out for banks and businesses. Watch this space.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/08/16/how-ready-are-enterprises-for-open-banking-blockchain-and-digital-currencies/?sh=16f8f1b2fcc5

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. It was Billy Ocean who first sang it. But in the tech industry at least, it’s the blockchain industry that’s truly lived it.
There really are few other industries like this one. With fates tied to the crypto markets - and most often to Bitcoin directly - blockchain technology seems to be permanently at the mercy of market sentiment. But scratch the surface a little, and you might find that’s not so helter-skelter as it appears on the charts.
In what’s shaping up to be one of the toughest market periods for crypto to date, this is a perfect time to reflect on the challenges, but also the opportunities, that building a product or working with an advertising solution or platform in the blockchain industry entails. Ready for lesson number one? Evaluate your market.
Product-market fit
Nothing encourages innovation quite like adversity. And in blockchain, it’s in market conditions like these that projects with true utility and longevity begin to shine through.
Like the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s, blockchain has had more than its fair share of self-reported ‘world changers’. Brands that claim to do everything from revolutionizing finance to transforming data storage, or even bringing about the fourth industrial revolution are numerous. But they won’t always be so.
The last bear market for crypto in 2018 mercilessly separated the wheat from the chaff. This year’s cycle is proving to be no different, and projects with weakly defined use cases are finding themselves adrift now that retail investors are leaving the markets.
The upside of a niche product-market fit is that boom-bust cycles become irrelevant when technology truly fills a market need. And in 2022, no industry is quite so needy, technologically speaking, as advertising, which is now growing at an unprecedented rate and crying out for a transparent solution to tracking and paying for advertising campaigns.
Continue reading: https://www.thedrum.com/profile/the-digital-voice/news/when-the-going-gets-tough-blockchain-gets-building

By now, almost everyone who spends time in the tech space knows that blockchain technology is having a moment. It is a digital technology that has gained prominence in recent years, especially concerning the cryptocurrency industry.
How you could be using blockchain to grow your business
Blockchain technology is not just for tech-savvy bitcoin traders, however. These days, businesses of all kinds, from beauty products to gaming, are jumping on the blockchain bandwagon, and for a good reason. Utilizing blockchain technology in your business can grant it greater efficiency, visibility, transparency, and tracking, among other perks.
Transforming digital business
Blockchain technology has solidified its usefulness among various businesses, with the global market valued at $5.92 billion in 2021 and is forecasted to hit $17.9 billion by 2024. That exponential growth can be attributed to the successes a variety of businesses have found with blockchain technology. The more people recognize its potential and apply the technology to their businesses, the larger its influence becomes.
The injection of blockchain technology into small and medium business ventures also helps the economy at large. Greater access to this technology, and ease of making and receiving payments, can help businesses scale. This, in turn, leads to overall job growth and a strengthening of the market. While initially used to power the digital technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the emerging applications behind blockchain stand to disrupt tech as a whole.
Finance
Blockchain’s influence on the financial markets is evident. It provides a way to create secure, hack-proof logs of sensitive activity, making it tailor-made for international financial transactions. Blockchain technology reduces the middle-man operations of decades past, creating cheaper and more efficient ways of sending and receiving money.
Lack of access to finances can be one of the biggest issues that small and medium businesses face, despite the significant role that these businesses play in the global economy. For instance, small and medium ventures represent roughly 90% of businesses and 50% of the total workforce worldwide. Giving those ventures an easier way to make payments, receive payments, and grow revenue only stands to bolster the strength of these businesses on the world stage.
Furthermore, blockchain technology allows these companies to bridge financing gaps and adapt to many challenges that may be thrown their way in the midst of building or growing their business. Decentralized financial structures allow businesses access to funding without intermediaries, opening up options where unfunded or underfunded ventures often run the risk of failing.
Continue reading: https://appdevelopermagazine.com/using-blockchain-to-grow-your-business/

We consistently see and hear about a shortage of tech talent in the news. This issue is growing, as the need for tech talent far surpasses the available supply chain. In fact, a recent global report from Gartner states that IT executives list IT talent shortages as the most significant barrier to adopting 64% of emerging technologies, ahead of cost and security. This is a staggering increase from only 4% in 2020.
As an industry, this tech talent gap will negatively impact innovation, adoption, and ultimately our ability to compete in an increasingly tech-first world. Now, let me just say, there are plenty of people with more expertise than this analyst on fixing our education systems, job journeys, and STEM issues overall. However, as a female in the industry, I can’t help but think that there is one simple element we could start to work on right now to help: keeping women in our industry.
Important Statistics for Women in Tech
Let’s look at a few statistics to shed some light on the causes and effects of the gender gap in the technology industry and why, if we perhaps focused some attention on this issue, we could at least conserve more talent in our industry.

1. Only 24% of computing jobs are held by women. With such a low percentage of women in tech, we have no women to spare in the industry
2. These very same women, already in short supply, are leaving the tech industry at a 45% higher rate than men.
3. Women in tech also report facing more burnout than their male colleagues during the pandemic. A report from TrustRadius showed that 57% of women surveyed said they experienced more burnout than normal during the pandemic, compared to 36% of men who felt the same.
4. When surveyed by JS Group in May of 2022 63% of women said they felt a declining sense of belonging in the tech industry and 44% believed their prospects for success had further diminished over the same time the year prior.
5. In 1984, 35% of tech roles were held by women. In 2018, 32% were held by women. Now, in 2022, the forecast is even lower. This declining trend is a symptom of the change in our overall talent management systems. We are making it simply too hard to be a woman in technology. Period.
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   Continue reading: https://accelerationeconomy.com/future-office-of-the-cxo/how-to-employ-and-empower-more-women-in-tech/

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an everyday reality and business tool spurred by computer advancement, data science and the availability of huge data sets. Big tech companies – Google, Amazon and Meta – are now developing AI-based systems. The technology can mimic human speech, detect cancer, predict criminal activity, draft legal contracts, solve accessibility problems, and accomplish tasks better than humans. For businesses, AI promises to predict business outcomes, improve processes and deliver efficiencies at substantial cost savings.
But there are growing concerns with AI, still.
AI algorithms have become so powerful – with some experts labelling AI as being sentient – that any corruption, tampering, bias or discrimination can have massive implications on organizations, human life and society.
AI algorithms and digital discrimination
AI decisions increasingly influence and impact people’s lives at scale. Using them irresponsibly can exacerbate existing human biases and discriminatory measures such as racial profiling, behavioral prediction or sexual orientation identification. This inbuilt prejudice occurs because AI is only as good as the amount of training data we can provide, which can be susceptible to human biases.
Biases can also occur when machine learning algorithms are trained and tested on data that under-represent certain subpopulations, such as women, people of color or people in certain age demographics. For example, studies show that people of color are particularly vulnerable to algorithmic bias in facial recognition technology.
Biases can also occur in usage. For example, AI algorithms designed for a particular application may be used for unintended purposes for which they were not built, which results in misinterpretation of outputs.
Validating AI algorithm performance
AI-led discrimination can be abstract, un-intuitive, subtle, intangible and difficult to detect. The source code may likely be restricted from the public or auditors may not know how an algorithm is deployed. The complexity of getting inside an AI algorithm to see how it’s been written and responding cannot be underestimated.
Current privacy laws rely on notice and choice; therefore, the resultant barrage of notifications asking consumers to agree to lengthy privacy policies is seldom read. If such notices were applied to AI, it would have serious consequences for the security and privacy of consumers and society.
Continue reading: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/08/how-the-responsible-use-of-ai-can-create-safer-online-spaces/

During the previous decade, emails evolved into much more than just text communications. It is safe to say that Email has unquestionably changed the way we communicate. Email marketing has made it easier for marketers to reach out to potential customers on a large scale.
We now pay attention to pre-header content, tone, word arrangement, hierarchical graphic organization, hero photos, gifs, and external linking options, all of which have the potential to elevate an email marketing campaign.
According to Statista, the global number of email users will surpass 3.8 billion by the end of the year. This represents a 100 million increase over 2017, expected to exceed 4.2 billion by 2022.
With the popularity of smartphones and social media, new digital developments will only help email marketing grow and become a more optimized, visible advertising option.
AI and Email marketing
Marketers each have preferred strategies and tools that work best for their brand. However, when it comes to email marketing, everyone always talks about the same things. So, what's new, you might ask? We call it artificial intelligence.
Without a doubt, AI is an enthralling force in our daily lives. Automation technology is being adopted by nearly every industry today because it reduces costs and simplifies complex processes.
Even in email marketing, signs of AI and machine-learning-powered solutions are quite visible. That is because AI can help you improve and streamline your email marketing campaigns
In email marketing, artificial intelligence (AI) is used to sculpt campaigns, influence textual content and copy, and ensure that every message is customized for the reader.
Artificial intelligence assists you in identifying relevant data and ignoring irrelevant data. You can modify and analyze data for programming and reprogramming based on AI experimentation and extracted information.
Continue reading: https://www.mid-day.com/brand-media/article/how-is-artificial-intelligence-changing-email-marketing-23241264

As businesses adopt Artificial Intelligence in recruiting at an increasing rate, it’s critical that they know how to leverage the technology to mitigate bias rather than worsen it.
Despite signs of a recession, hiring is a key concern and a challenge for many industries, including hospitality, healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics report, there are currently 10.7 million vacant jobs in the US. Talent teams must find ways to be more successful and efficient in the current environment.
Using Artificial Intelligence can help make the hiring process swift and efficient. Additionally,

AI can be an effective tool for exposing hidden hiring biases and igniting change, forcing companies to review their historical hiring data and improve their recruitment strategies.

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Biased Hiring Trends
Because bias is the process of identifying patterns in data, data scientists will claim that all data is biased. Some bias is needed, such as the bias used to recommend job roles to individuals based on their desired location, interests, skills, and job title. When building algorithmic models, it is helpful to encourage biases that fulfill these preferences to match candidates with positions they are interested in and recruiters with the best candidates to fill open positions. Bias is advantageous here for both employers and job applicants.
However, social bias worries regulatory organizations and hiring teams. On the basis of age, gender, or other demographic characteristics, this bias rejects job candidates. Another example of social bias is a discriminating preference for individuals who attended particular institutions or listed certain former companies on their resumes.
Continue reading: https://enterprisetalk.com/featured/how-companies-can-achieve-success-with-artificial-intelligence-in-hiring/

Should designers care about artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML)? There is no question that technology is adding texture to the current zeitgeist. Never could I have imagined seeing a blockbuster hit where Ryan Reynolds emerges as a conscious non-player character in a video game and a flop where Melissa McCarthy negotiates humanity’s future with a James Corden-powered superintelligence within a year of each other. But does learning AI and ML’s ins and outs really matter for the creative professions and our nebulous, invaluable way of operating?
Helen Armstrong, a professor of graphic design at NC State, thinks so. In fact, for her it is imperative. “[AI] is everywhere and has already transformed our profession,” the preface to her new book reads. “To be honest, it’s going to steamroll right over us unless we jump aboard and start pulling the levers and steering the train in a human, ethical, and intentional direction.” The book is Big Data. Big Design. Why Designers Should Care about Artificial Intelligence and its gospel is a primer for designers of all cuts — landscape, graphic, industrial, or otherwise — to get oriented to a brave new world of human-machine relations.
When I say gospel, I do not mean it ironically. Armstrong’s prose is tinged with the passion of an evangelist trying to open our eyes to the great and terrible possibilities of AI-driven design practice. A book of this nature is sorely needed. As Brent Chamberlain and I argued last year in a Landscape Architecture Magazine article, the built environment professions are in the midst of an unprecedented technological transformation that is so overwhelmingly expansive yet so subtle it can be easy to ignore — even if for the mere sake of mental and emotional preservation.
We landscape architects need some particular stirring in this regard. The complexity and timescale of our working medium combined with a mostly healthy skepticism towards new technology for new technology’s sake can sometimes make it seem like the profession is perpetually playing catch-up. Big Data. Big Design. offers the catch-up without condescension, taking the generalist view that every design discipline needs to understand machine learning better regardless of pre-existing technical prowess.
The book’s structure is straightforward, with four main sections sandwiched by a preface and conclusion. The scale of discussion in these sections oscillates between broad definitions of what exactly AI and ML are (Armstrong uses the terms AI and ML interchangeably) and more specific examples of how they are used in design practice.
Continue reading: https://www.archdaily.com/987336/things-you-should-know-about-artificial-intelligence-and-design

Marketing Artificial Intelligence, by Paul Roetzer & Mike Kaput, is a nice image of the state of artificial intelligence (AI) focused on marketing solutions. This is a good book to introduce marketing management to the state of AI applications aimed at them. I do mean the title reference to a brief slice of time.
The chapters are each focused on an area of marketing and how AI can help, then they are followed by a list of companies providing products in those areas. Note that in all new markets, not just AI, that means the list could be quite different in twelve months. Readers should understand the market is evolving. This book will be good through 2022 and most of 2023, but realize this should be a starting point and everyone should do their own investigation as to the current state of solutions for their needs.
The first few chapters, as with all good business books, are an introduction to the high level concepts. The end of chapter three has a good set of initial questions, but “Will AI improve what you do?” should be at the very top of the list. It is a thread that runs through the book, but that should be more prominent.
The next chapter is a bit humorous. Everyone in marketing should have hear about the classic Four P’s: product, price, promotion, place. The authors want to focus on their consulting, so they’ve borrowed and changed to create Five P’s for AI, resulting in planning, production, personalization, promotion, performance. This is cute but problematic. What they describe is useful, but it isn’t limited to AI. This is not significantly different than for any marketing program. People tend to forget that AI is a tool. It’s not unique and it’s not a panacea.
In chapter six, they describe predictive and prescriptive analytics as something AI, but it’s not. Business intelligence (BI) has been doing that for decades. In many areas, AI can add more value, especially for identifying relationships in larger datasets. Again, though, AI is a step forward, not a giant leap.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteich/2022/08/16/marketing-artificial-intelligence--a-nice-time-slice-view-of-ai-in-one-arena/?sh=23ecaa3846f2

Tezos India came about in 2020 when entrepreneurs and developers were leaning toward a public blockchain for developing projects on it. The company saw an opportunity to introduce Tezos to the Indian developer community when people were gravitating towards Ethereum and started building on it, and subsequently Tezos India came into being.
Tezos India is a hub for builders, creators, and innovators which aims to encourage the Indian developer community to create and scale novel projects on Tezos. "We want to promote the Tezos ecosystem in India and make it easily accessible for the people, as crypto and blockchain are the soaring topics of the industry. Tezos India enables people to effortlessly join the Tezos ecosystem as we confide by our belief that a great ecosystem is the sum of all of its players. Revolution and sustenance of the Web world is what we aim for," said Om Malviya, president, Tezos India.
Despite blockchain technology being around for more than ten years, it still appears to be attempting to establish itself as a popular revolution, aside from the speculative excitement surrounding cryptocurrencies. In a 2018 PwC poll of CEOs, 84 per cent said they were actively engaging with blockchain. According to their more recent Time to Trust report, blockchain technology could add $1.76 trillion to the global economy and 40 million employees by 2030.
Challenges that were encountered by the company were in the initial stages of establishing Tezos India. The company is witnessing over 30 projects that are being built on Tezos blockchain itself. Another challenge the company faced was finding developers as the developers were not ready to jump into Web 3.0 because of career opportunities and choices.
Digital identity maintained as an NFT can be used to address a variety of issues, including granting rights to an identity and protecting the data-driven metrics associated with that identity in a particular protocol. Users also have total control over the information that the NFT discloses, protecting their privacy and control over their data. Living Avatar NFTs have the potential to develop into an important tool and integral part of Web 3.0 and the metaverse.
Continue reading: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/433474

Blockchain is a method of recording information in a way which makes it difficult or impossible for anyone to alter, hack or cheat the system.
Blockchain is basically a digital ledger that records transactions. It is distributed throughout the entire network of computers on the blockchain. Every block in the chain holds a number of transactions. Each transaction added to the ledger of each participant is recorded every time it occurs. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is a distributed database that can be managed by multiple participants.
Blockchain is a type of DLT where transactions are recorded using an immutable cryptographic signature known as a hash.
What is Blockchain Technology?
Blockchain was created in 1991 to secure and store digital data. Blockchain is an open ledger that can be accessed by multiple parties at once. Blockchain’s primary benefit is the inability to alter recorded information without agreement from all parties. IBM explained that every new record is a block with an unique, identifying hash. A blockchain is formed by linking the blocks together to form a chain of records. Blockchain technology is used to create Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Blockchain allows for the verification and traceability multi-step transactions that require verification and traceability. It is able to provide secure transactions and reduce compliance costs. Blockchain technology can be used to manage contracts and verify the product’s origin. It can also be used to manage titles and deeds, as well as voting platforms.
Continue reading: https://thecryptobasic.com/2022/08/15/five-significant-benefits-of-blockchain-technology/

Woman’s Month is more than just a month of celebrating the women in our lives – our mothers, sisters, daughters and wives. It’s about appreciating everything the previous generations have accomplished, offering us the freedom to achieve what we set our hearts on today. Lucy Whyte, QA Analyst at PayFast, reflects on what it means to be a woman in tech, her journey of developing her skillset and why she loves doing what she does.  
I started as a tester by chance, or call it fate if you will, by working as a Compliance Officer in a call centre in Cape Town that sold funeral cover and legal plans. We needed software that could automate leads with an inbuilt phone system. The Director of a Software House (who I thought was just a Client Manager at the time) came to the call center and taught me how to use the system so that I could teach my other colleagues. 
We developed a good working relationship, so when I resigned from the call center out of frustration and told him I was leaving, he asked me to meet him at his office the following Monday and to bring my CV along. So off I went, and after a five-minute interview, he offered me a job. He created a position just for me, on the helpdesk, and then from there introduced me to manual testing and sent me on a course to develop the skills I needed for the job. 
Growing my career in tech 
Unfortunately, that company went under two years after I joined them. Luckily, I was handpicked to join some of my colleagues who were starting their own company. As there were only five of us, I started wearing different hats and ended up as a tester and trainer full time as the company grew. This was where I got fully emerged and gained a passion for this role. However, I felt like an imposter because I never attended tertiary education like my peers around me. Yet, despite this, I happily remained at the company for 10 years. 
Continue reading: https://www.payfast.co.za/blog/my-journey-as-a-woman-in-tech/

Boxer Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth,” and that’s how Robert Cioffi of Progressive Computing Inc. felt after experiencing a cybersecurity incident firsthand.
During a recent panel discussion at ChannelCon 2022, “I’ve Been Compromised, Now What?” Cioffi and Jay Tipton of Technology Specialists got vulnerable about their experiences being hacked. Cioffi said when it comes to cybersecurity, preparedness only goes so far.
“You can’t cover every permutation; we don’t have infinite resources. You’ve got to do enough that’s prudent, you’ve got to keep improving and keep trying,” he said. “Experience is a really wicked teacher.”
A Tale of Two Hacks
“A headline-making July 4 cybersecurity attack hit about 1,500 companies in 2021,” said Wayne Selk, CompTIA’s vice president of cybersecurity programs, who hosted the panel discussion at CompTIA ChannelCon. While hackers demanded $70 million from their victims, Tipton and Cioffi found themselves spinning out instead of diving in.
“I’m not a touchy feeling kind of guy, and stress to me is something you deal with, but in that high stress situation we were figuratively coming apart at the seams in ways that I can’t describe,” Cioffi said. “Everybody in my company always looked to me as the guy with the answers and I was staring into an abyss.”
The stress caused him to freeze — a common traumatic stress response — and waste valuable time. Tipton experienced the same challenge. Even with an incident plan and a hundred priorities to address, his problem-solving skills failed him. “I couldn’t make a decision, I couldn’t process it all,” Tipton said. It took support from confidants in the cybersecurity community to get them refocused and ready to work on a solution.
Unexpected Challenges
Tipton had an incident response plan, but it didn’t do him much good. The only copy was tied up in the attack. “Everything was in [the platform],” said Tipton. “What I never thought to think of was, ‘What if that goes down? What if I can’t get to it?’” Eventually he remembered an uncorrupted backup where he could access a copy of the plan, but he didn’t think of that solution until a full day later.
Cioffi’s challenge was in communicating the right message. A breach coach walked him through some suggested language, but he couldn’t get behind it. “I said, ‘If I give them this legal speak, it’s going to destroy 30 years of relationships.” In the middle of a data breach, you’ve still got to maintain communication and manage your business relationships. 
Continue reading: https://connect.comptia.org/blog/how-two-msps-got-punched-in-the-mouth-things-you-don-t-consider-until-you-get-hacked

In order to compete in today’s aggressive and continually changing marketplace, MSPs have to keep evolving as well—not just in products and services, but in how the entire sales process works… or more specifically, how it works for your customers.  
Alex Farling, co-founder and channel chief of Lifecycle Insights, detailed the top three things MSPs—or any sales team—can do to elevate their sales operations and make lasting, meaningful connections with current and potential customers during a session at ChannelCon 2022.  
1. Understand Consultative Selling 
The traditional way of selling used to be transactional, whereby one party provides and the other buys. While effective to a degree, this old method is no longer a driving force behind vendor partnership or provider decisions.  
“As the saying goes, ‘people buy from people’ so building that relationship is important, especially for MSPs,” said Farling. “It’s becoming a hyper-competitive space and we want to go deep and wide with our customers. That only happens with good relationships.”  
The needs and expectations of today’s customers have changed. Companies research online before contacting a potential provider and they start the discovery process with more information and education than ever before. If your sales team is focused on closing the deal instead of building the relationships, it’s likely you’re missing out on chances to make your expertise, customer service and other products and services the invaluable partner of potential customers. 
“Bringing the cash register to the first meeting cuts out all opportunity to know your customer and find out what exactly they need,” said Farling. In today’s marketplace, the biggest challenge in sales operations is moving from a business transaction to a business conversation. “Consultation is a conversation,” he said. “And you don’t want to be left out of the loop.” 
Continue reading: https://connect.comptia.org/blog/three-ways-to-truly-elevate-your-sales-operations

There have already been more than 700 MSP mergers and acquisitions in 2022, with likely exponentially more M&A conversations taking place every day. During a recent panel discussion at ChannelCon 2022, 63% of attendees said they were thinking of selling their companies, or at least wanted an option to sell. More than 40% said they are considering the purchase of another company.
But amidst all the current economic tumult, is now a good time for managed service providers to buy, sell, or should they wait it out? The answer, as you might imagine, is—it depends. It’s also not so much as when should you sell, but how and why, according to  the ChannelCon panelists in a session titled “Should You Sell or Grow? Mergers, Acquisitions and Exit Strategies for MSPs.”
“The headline news is scary, with 9% inflation, high interest rates, and signs of recession,” said John Holland, managing director of Corporate Finance Associates, an investment banking firm based in Laguna Hills, Calif. “We don’t have a crystal ball for the future, but in the IT space M&A still is very hot. We just closed a deal with a $55 million cybersecurity VAR and there were a multitude of acquirers interested. Demand for MSPs with recurring revenue is still robust. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that M&A is down compared to last year. But to keep that in perspective, last year was unusually high. It’s getting back to normal rate of transactions, rather than collapsing.”
Why Are You Buying/Selling?
Bill Moore, president of Thrive CFO, a business finance firm in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., cited four reasons why MSPs, among other businesses, might typically look to make an acquisition:

• In-Market Consolidation
• New Market Expansion
• Strategic Acquisition
• The “Acqui-Hire

“The strategic acquisition brings in new products or services to sell to clients. Security presents that opportunity now,” Moore said. “As far as ‘Acqui-Hire,’ getting quality technicians is difficult. Some MSPs are looking to acquire a company not for its customer base, but for its technicians. They’re not just looking at the owner, but at the people and their skillset.”
Continue reading: https://connect.comptia.org/blog/msp-m-a-is-it-buying-season-selling-season-or-waiting-season