COVID-19 has disrupted the way we go on about our daily lives. With vaccines on the way, there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel yet the toll on our public health and economy have been major. In 2021, leaders and citizens alike will reflect on lessons learned throughout the pandemic to see what can be done in the future to slow the spread of disease.
Continue reading “Smart Cities Can Defend Against Pandemics”
As agriculture and food systems across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) try to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers must act to unleash the sector’s vast potential to drive sustainable and inclusive growth for decades to come, according to a new World Bank report.
Continue reading “Agriculture in Latin America & the Caribbean is Poised for Real Transformational Change.”
Only way forward is to ensure greener energy generation and increased energy efficiency.
If there is one positive impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is the good news on the environment front. As human beings shut themselves up behind doors and governments, factories and offices remain closed, Mother Nature has healed herself, if only partially.
Continue reading “Smart technologies: where will the energy come from?”
Tech has enabled such skillsets to be bolstered through immersive learning and the like.
Disruptive technologies like AR/VR and artificial intelligence have forced organizations into automating operations. This calls for employees to look beyond their traditional skills – those that has been taken over by AI – and improve upon their soft skills. Continue reading “Organisations shouldn’t turn a blind eye to soft skills”
More than ever, the ability to manage torrents of data is critical to a company’s success. But even with the emergence of data-management functions and chief data officers (CDOs), most companies remain badly behind the curve. Cross-industry studies show that on average, less than half of an organization’s structured data is actively used in making decisions—and less than 1% of its unstructured data is analyzed or used at all Continue reading “What’s Your Data Strategy?”
Group to form consortium with Marubeni to develop 2.4GW power plant in Fujairah
Abu Dhabi Power Corporation (ADPower) and Japan-based Marubeni Corporation on Sunday announced the formation of a consortium to develop the Fujairah F3 independent power producer (IPP) project, which will be the largest independent thermal power plant in the UAE. Continue reading “Abu Dhabi Power to develop largest thermal plant in the UAE”
As all four major Australian banks publicise their aspirations to move to a simplified, more agile and cost-efficient operation, hybrid cloud capabilities are at the heart of enabling this growth and transformation goal. As banking organisations create new business models, cloud will enable a simpler, efficient and more customer aligned bank. Cloud investment is growing.
Continue reading “Banking on the Cloud”
For governments to carry out their day-to-day functions, procurement — or their ability to purchase goods and services — is critical. It is both a service function and a strategic policy tool which can help achieve a broad range of social and economic welfare objectives. It cuts across all areas of public administration and builds on cooperation among multiple public and private stakeholders.
Continue reading “Innovation in Procurement: Why and How??”
Urban logistics are being transformed by bringing together city transport planners, logistics operators, and users of delivery services to apply digital technologies to grow the city economy, while making logistics services sustainable.
Remember how many packages you had delivered to your doorstep last Christmas? How thrilled you were every time the bell rang? Think again. Continue reading “Transformation of Urban Logistics in Smart Cities”
New regulations are boosting the sector.
The clouds over Russia’s burgeoning e-commerce sector are swelling, but that is a good thing as cloud services are expanding on the back of new regulations that are feeding an already fast growing business. Continue reading “Russia’s Cloud Service Businesses Are Expanding”
The benefits of the cloud go far beyond cost and efficiency – it can also have a major impact on a small business owner’s carbon footprint.
With the cost of living continuing to rise, the fear of load-shedding hanging over businesses like Damocles’ sword and Continue reading “SMEs should go green by moving to the cloud”
New technology and regulations, increased client scrutiny into risk management protocols and interest in supplier diversity programs, along with expectations around improving law firm operations and internal controls, have all spurred recent changes in law firms’ procurement functions, making one thing clear: procurement’s value can no longer be judged by savings alone. Continue reading “4 Ways Law Firms Can Evolve Their Procurement Strategies Beyond Savings”
At least 25 percent of the plastics used in new Volvo car models from 2025 will be from recycled materials, the Chinese-owned company said on Monday in an anti-pollution plan praised by the United Nations. Continue reading “Volvo sets goal of 25 percent recycled plastics in cars from 2025”
Indoor vertical farming has been around for quite some time, but leading companies in this industry are starting to garner a great deal of attention from the business press even as investors have poured money into the industry. As the world population continues to expand, so too does the amount of fruits and vegetables needed to feed the world. We are not creating new farmland to accommodate the increase in fresh food required. Vertical farming can be part of the solution to this problem.
Vertical Farming is a High-Tech Endeavor
Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers. Vertical farming incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which is a fancy way of saying that it provides protection and maintains optimal growing conditions throughout the development of the crop.
At the leading firms, vertical farming is a big data, high tech endeavour. At AeroFarms, a leader in the space, their plant scientists monitor millions of data points every harvest. The company says their LED lights are used “to create a specific light recipe for each plant, giving the greens exactly the spectrum, intensity, and frequency, they need for photosynthesis in the most energy-efficient way possible.” This lighting allows them to control size, shape, texture, color, flavor, and nutrition of their plants.
The company has received $100 million in venture capital and has two patents. The titles of their personnel sound much more like what you would find at a high-tech company than at a big farm conglomerate. They have a chief technology officer, engineers, scientists, risk managers, and even a director of intellectual property.
As Covid-19 is entering a new stage in Asia & throughout the world, omnichannel models are helping to unlock suppressed demand. One of which is JD E-Space – JD’s 50,000 square-meter mega experience store in Southwest China’s Chongqing city. JD E-Space’s claim to fame is that it offers consumers the chance to try virtually everything in the store – from go-karts, to washing machines and more. JD E-Space adopts an omnichannel model, where customers can order online for delivery to their homes or buy online for pick up in store, enabling consumers beyond the Chongqing area to “visit” the store virtually. As all of the products are sold through JD’s retail model, consumers still experience same- and next-day delivery, even if they don’t live near the store. Continue reading “Adjusting to the ‘new normal’ – JD.com rolls out Live Streaming Experimental Shopping”
As Americans connect with family and friends online, send their kids to school over Wi-Fi, work or order groceries online, we depend on the security of the internet to manage our daily lives. The communications and transactions that help us connect during this pandemic are protected from prying eyes, criminals, and foreign adversaries by complex mathematical formulas that scramble our data to everyone except the intended recipients. This process, known as encryption, has become an essential protection for operating in modem life even before the pandemic.
Continue reading “Your BACKDOOR to Encrypted Data is detrimental to Cybersecurity and Data Integrity”
Data and some advanced analytics can make those improvements happen.
Big data has become a key differentiator in the ever more complex world of supply chain management. As the pandemic has shown, supply chains are particularly vulnerable to shocks. Now, businesses need to anticipate changing customer needs, strengthen supplier networks and be on top of logistics to respond quickly in a crisis. Continue reading “Clearly, global supply chains need a TWEAK!”
Digital banking is the recent rage in the global finance domain as this disrupts the concept of traditional banking. Talking about digital banking, Germany has witnessed noticeable growth and innovation in the fintech sector, especially in digital banking in recent years.
Continue reading “The Innovative Challengers in Germany that are disrupting the Banking Sector”
They need to give inhouse talent access to what’s happening in ‘upstream communities’
Open source software is highly valuable to the financial services industry, and 93 per cent of the sector’s IT leaders agree enterprise open source is crucial to their organisations. Adoption rates bear out this perspective, with enterprise open source currently making up 40 per cent of software used in the sector and projected to rise to 46 per cent in two years.
Continue reading “Financial Services MUST Think Open Source”
IoT networks are under attack, with potentially dire consequences for organizations that fail to protect them with adequate security and control measures.
Over the past few years, it’s been common place to hear that the FBI had issued yet another alert that warned of cyber criminals ramping up attacks on Internet of Things. Specifically, adversaries are taking advantage of weak authentication, unpatched firmware or other software vulnerabilities, and authentication credentials that can be attacked over the internet, from governments and infrastructure, to some of the biggest brands have all been victims. Continue reading “Overlay Security on IoT Networks to Conquer Vulnerabilities”
COVID-19 has finally imposed the need to expand telemedicine as a viable option
When the pandemic stormed across the globe creating havoc, the healthcare industry was left grappling with a reality that it hadn’t faced in living memory. Hospitals despite being a hot zone in this situation, literally and figuratively, also became a danger zone for several patients who feared venturing past its doors to avoid catching the lethal infection. Continue reading “Hospitals have a cure for their financial woes”
British Airways, Disney, USA Today and BBC are just some of the brands tapping emotion analytics such as biometrics and facial recognition to lift their marketing game.
Facial recognition, social listening, audio analytics and biometrics scanning are just some of the ways emotion analytics is entering the mainstream.
Broadly speaking, emotion analytics is about better understanding how consumers communicate both verbally and non-verbally Continue reading “10 examples of brands using Emotion Analytics to ramp up Customer Engagement”
It will help lay new foundations for businesses and societies post-pandemic.
As countries start to think about what work looks like post the pandemic, we can look at what this means for businesses. While every industry and business is different, there are several commonalities that present themselves to organizations of all sizes. Continue reading “It will require a lot of Tech to re: ADJUST Now”
IoT power use can drain systems. There are some emerging ways to optimize IoT power consumption, though.
One of the greatest barriers to IoT technology is the implementation of sustainable, functional deployment. The multifunctionality of the Internet of Things (IoT) comes at a cost in terms of power. While traditional battery power is the most obvious solution for remote applications, it’s not always economical. Continue reading “Optimizing IoT Power Consumption”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2017 was the most expensive year on record for disasters in the U.S., estimating $306 billion in total damage. The FBI also reported 2017 as having the most incidents and the most people killed in any one year by active shooters.
With this rise in crises across the United States, data and technology have an increasingly important role in improving emergency management departments across the country. Approximately 240 million calls are made to 911 in the United States each year, with at least 80 percent coming from wireless devices, yet many emergency management systems still operate on legacy systems made for wireline phones. As a result, people in need are unable to easily share precise locations or send media messages to responders, making emergency communication and resource coordination more costly and difficult.
Continue reading “The Emerging Technologies that can bring Immense Advantage & Improve Emergency Management”
Nearly 14,000 stores closed on European high streets in the first half of 2020 and retail sales are down to their lowest level since the ’08 financial crisis, with more high street brands coming to an end as we enter 2021.
There’s no doubt that the pressure, stress and financial risk of opening physical stores has never been higher. But there’s good news for those currently treading water; an emergent, new offering for retailers that potentially brings some welcome relief. Continue reading “Is RaaS the solution to shuttering stores?”
Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer and owner of the Zara chain, faces growing competition from younger, online-only players like the growing Boohoo, MissGuided, and the ever advancing international player ASOS. Its rivals are churning out clothes at higher speeds – as little as one week from design to point of sale – refreshing their sites daily with hundreds of new items.
In an attempt to keep its edge, the Spanish company is developing new technologies, hooking up with tech firms and hiring talent from start-ups. Continue reading “Zara looks to technology to keep up with FASTER Fashion”
Jafza offers investors a highly efficient multimodal industrial, trade and logistics hub.
As the dynamics of global trade change, the need for focused zones of developed infrastructure, with ready access to international shipping, has increased. Global manufacturing operations seek such locations to get closer to customers, improve their logistics, and expand into new markets.
Continue reading “Enabling NEW Opportunities for Growth”
Enterprises in virtually every industry utilize a bevy of new technologies that create efficiencies and cut costs through new, advanced virtual services. Many of these organizations are working to harness these virtual technologies through automation to vastly improve the customer experience, whereby digital processes are accessible through optimized services.
Continue reading “Get the BEST from Automation Technologies in 2021”
