If you’re anywhere near the tech or financial space, you’ve likely been hearing terms like DeFi, blockchain and smart contracts more and more frequently. Ever since cryptocurrencies and other decentralized technologies came on the scene, they’ve been the subject of much speculation and debate among engineers and business leaders.

Business partners can be co-founders in a startup, multiple owners of an existing business, or a joint venture. In every case, a partner can be an asset, bringing new skills and perspectives to the business; or a burden, making every decision more difficult, and taxing your lifestyle satisfaction. You need to do the due diligence to make that decision before you sign away your equity.

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First, there was Delta. Then Omicron. Now, it’s the Omicron subvariant BA.2.12.1. And, public health officials are keeping a close watch on the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. These waves of cases, caused by infections with new variants, have characterized the COVID-19 pandemic. But how can public health officials know which variants are likely to cause large numbers of cases and which will not take hold in the population?

Riyadh, May 24 (IANS): A novel Artificial Intelligence (AI)-aided diagnostic tool could help overcome some of the challenges of monitoring lung health following viral infection, researchers have found.

Like other respiratory illnesses, Covid-19 can cause lasting harm to the lungs, but doctors have struggled to visualise this damage.

Conventional chest scans do not reliably detect signs of lung scarring and other pulmonary abnormalities, which makes it difficult to track the health and recovery of people with persistent breathing problems and other post-Covid complications.

The growth of fintech in the last few years has been remarkable. According to a YourStory report, fintech and financial services was one of the most successful sectors, raising USD 8.53 billion across 278 deals in FY22 - and this is just one of the milestones that the sector has achieved so far.

In order to capture the year that was, and understand how the year 2022 will progress, the fifth edition of the two-day AWS Fintech Forum brought together different stakeholders and leaders from India’s fintech ecosystem. While Day 1 was dedicated to examining the trends, developments and the ever-evolving face of fintech, Day 2 was all about the tech that powers the finest fintechs today.

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Generative artificial intelligence (AI), autonomic systems and privacy-enhancing computation (PEC) are three technology trends gaining traction in banking and investment services in 2022, according to research firm, Gartner, Inc.

These trends will continue to grow over the next two to three years, contributing to growth and transformation of financial services organisations, the firm said in a release.

Image: Representational image | Photo Credit: Anawat_s

One of the most significant challenges that both established and new entrepreneurs face is connecting with the right people and curating a genuine business network that will lead to mutually beneficial growth and progress. The saying goes for all industries worldwide, "It's not always what you know, but who you know." Networking is a sharing process; an invaluable opportunity to connect, build and amplify. By expanding your network, you can increase awareness for your project/brand, grow your profits, secure investment and so much more.

Female-founded companies account for less than one-fourth of venture funding recipients in every U.S. state with a startup scene. But they’re a lot closer to the top of the spectrum in some states, and much nearer to the bottom in others.

That was the finding from a state-by-state analysis of funding over the past three years to companies with at least one female founder. We focused on 25 states that collectively account for  over 95 percent of total U.S. funding rounds.

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The U.S. Department of the Treasury awarded the first batch of funding awards for the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), a program designed to increase access to capital for traditionally underserved small businesses and entrepreneurs.

The new, expanded SSBCI provides nearly $10 billion to states, the District of Columbia, territories, and Tribal governments to promote entrepreneurship, especially in traditionally underserved communities. SSBCI funding is expected to catalyze up to $10 of private investment for every $1 of SSBCI capital funding. State governments filed plans with the Treasury on using their SSBCI allocation to provide funding to small businesses.

BIO IS BOOMING AROUND THE GLOBE Designing, Building & Finding Research Space for Growing Bio Companies & Bio Clusters

Before the 2022 BIO International Conference begins in San Diego join AURP for an in-person conference focused on building research space supporting communities of bio innovations. Developers, A/E firms, researchers, economic development reps, VC firms, and bio innovation district managers will want to attend.

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The state of venture Reporting on startups and the venture world at a time like this is a series of contradictions. One day, we’re reading about investment giants like Tiger Global seeing about $17 billion in losses. Then the next, I open my inbox to see pitches for nine-figure funding rounds (hello, SpotOn) and the birth of new unicorns (looking at you, Unit).

The power and influence of paid media advertising, including print ads, TV commercials, radio, and even online digital campaigns is waning, in favor of unpaid earned and owned messaging from your website, social media, key market influencers, and existing customer word-of-mouth. But startups need to remember that even zero paid media doesn’t mean that marketing is free.

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Yes, you read the title correctly. The world is at 1,000 unicorn companies as of 2022.

Of course, the term refers to a privately held startup company that has reached $1 billion in valuation. You know some of the major players in the space, like Instacart, Canva and SpaceX.

The term was originally coined in 2013, but back then, unicorns weren’t nearly as common as they were before 2020 and 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic began.

The US National Science Foundation unveiled a new programme in early May aimed at expanding the nation’s innovation ecosystem beyond the large, successful clusters in Boston and the West Coast to secondary cities with undeveloped tech potential.

In doing so, the famed US science funder is trying a new approach to a problem faced by most developed countries: How to spread the tech wealth more broadly? How this American programme fares will no doubt be tracked by research policy-makers world-wide.

Image: The map of US innovation clusters in 2015 - dark blue for innovation leaders, light blue for laggards (grey for missing data.) Source: US Cluster Mapping Project, Harvard Business School.

In this analysis, we evaluate which universities are most proficient at creating new knowledge; embedding it in their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates; and transferring both to new and existing enterprises. Research and discovery are fundamental objectives of universities, but they must be absorbed and infused into private industry to yield an economic return on the investment.

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Aiming to speed the creation of immersive 5G-powered augmented reality (AR) experiences for smart glasses, T-Mobile has launched a T-Mobile Accelerator program that provides resources to selected developers.

“Smart glasses will completely change how we connect and experience the world around us,” John Saw, executive vice president of advanced and emerging technologies at T-Mobile, said in a Wednesday (May 18) statement announcing the first six participants chosen for the program.

With limited resources at hand, companies need to stay smart and efficient when it comes to investing in innovation.

This is a challenging time for many companies. On the one hand, supply chain disruption, labor shortage, raw material and energy price hikes are driving up business costs. On the other, demand is slack due to consumers’ reduced purchasing power and an uncertain global economic outlook. Together these conditions squeeze companies’ profits and cast a shadow on their growth prospects. In this time of difficulty, executives around the world find it more urgent than ever to sharpen their organisations’ innovation strategy to create new markets for growth.

About this event Presentation description:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the world’s largest basic science research institute in the world. Our extramural program represents the biggest funder of basic and clinical research to universities and other research centers. Those funds, as well as research done on the NIH campus by our own faculty, make possible important discoveries every day about the fundamental nature of living things. The NIH Hospital is the largest center dedicated to clinical investigation. The NIH fosters innovation in the commercial sector via our Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Program. Our mission includes improving public health for the global community.

Enterprises often struggle with getting AI projects out of the corporate skunk works and into widespread use.

The objective, AI at scale, has become a rallying point for technologists in the data science field -- and a key theme among the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium's Innovation Showcase finalists. Many of the early-stage companies selected for the showcase pursue some variation on getting AI and machine learning into the mainstream. They'll be discussing their offerings at MIT Sloan's annual event, which runs May 22-23 in Cambridge, Mass.

Burnout has become an unfortunate everyday reality for healthcare professionals. It’s one that preceded the pandemic, but has also been exacerbated by the crisis. Sadly, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of clinicians being overwhelmed by their responsibilities since the outbreak began, and statistics reflect the extent of the problem.