Author: Michelle Kung

Have you ever experienced notification fatigue? That’s the industry term for when your mobile apps prompt you to act so often that the notifications themselves become a burden, rather than a helpful reminder. In fact, if you look at the number of notifications that are opened in the industry, it’s “less than eight percent,” says Daniela Jinich, a business development manager at Neura. Neura aims to transform mobile notifications using AI and machine learning to create context-rich user profiles that can deliver notifications to customers when they need them. Given the current open rates, Neura’s got a big task ahead of them.

We live in a golden age of travel, a time when it’s never been easier (or cheaper) to book a flight to a far-flung locale. It seems everyone is either planning a trip, on vacation, or sharing enviable photos from their latest jaunt. But according to Luke Shaughnessy, the operations manager of Fraugster, an anti-fraud startup, our credits cards haven’t been keeping pace.

Companies used to assume that computing infrastructures would remain on-premises before eventually moving over completely to the cloud. That assumption has been proved false, as more organizations recognize the need for a hybrid cloud. This could be for regulatory reasons—the financial and health care sectors, for example, might be required to keep some of their workloads on data centers—or other concerns.

Michael Huth, CTO of XAIN, talks about how his company’s products enable communication between systems, what industries benefit from their product, and what’s next.

Whether you’re adventuring through an unfamiliar  country or closing an overseas business deal, there’s no question that in our increasingly globalized world, conversation is key. And while functional multilingual AI transactions are likely on the technological horizon, when it comes to forging meaningful connections across cultures, true personal communication is essential. As Nehal Shah, director of engineering at Babbel, puts it, AI is “growing rapidly, evolving at a tremendous pace, but there’s still no replacement for human interaction or that human element.” Especially when it comes to picking up a new language, humans simply need to connect.

“There’s a burgeoning ecosystem of African entrepreneurs that wants to make products for the community. They want to see upliftment amongst their friends and family,” says Murray Legg, the accelerator director of Founders Factory Africa. “And they want to make a difference in the world.” Founders Factory Africa is the newest addition to the Founders Factory accelerator and incubator brand, which was formed in London in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs Brent Hoberman and Henry Lane Fox.

If you live at a distance from farm country, agriculture might seem like an unchanging industry, built around traditional methods and relatively low-tech tools. Even a Google Image search primarily brings up pictures of tractors plowing through fields. However, the economic risks of agriculture actually force farmers to be early adopters of new technology. As a result, today’s farms can be just as high tech as any office you’ll find in Silicon Valley—especially when it comes to data.

This April marks a quarter century since the formal end of apartheid in South Africa, when Nelson Mandela was elected as the country’s first black president. Since then, the country has become the second-largest economy on the continent and home to a dynamic, growing tech scene. But that success has not been evenly distributed. By any measure, according to a World Bank report last year, South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. “The only hope that this country has is deep, inclusive growth,” says Jenny Retief, CEO of Riversands Incubation Hub, a startup initiative helping the country’s diverse entrepreneurs thrive. “You only get economic resilience and multi-faceted growth by having a lot of business across a lot of industries.”

In 2009, Johannes Reck, a student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, arrived in Beijing one day earlier than his friend and classmate, Tao Tao. Tao, who knew Beijing well, was able to serve as a local guide to Reck once he arrived, and the trip was a success. Without Tao, however, Reck found himself at a loss as to where to go or what to do.

When creating your startup’s online presence, it’s essential to understand the vital role that content marketing plays. From blog and social media posts, to videos, and press releases – good content lasts forever and can do wonders for your SEO. Director of Marketing at HubSpot for Startups, Amanda Sibley, shares the benefits of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content. She discusses how this cost-effective alternative to traditional marketing can differentiate a startup’s brand and build authority, reputation, and a voice of influence.