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Looking For Venture Capital? Here’s How One 50+ Founder Landed A Deal To Improve Lives https://ift.tt/2S7vZQ8 “I have always been passionate about healthcare and advocating for older adults,” said Lauren Driscoll, founder and CEO of Project Well. Driscoll came up with the idea while at the Columbia University Startup Lab in February 2019. Project Well partners with health plans to offer personalized food solutions to diet-sensitive chronic disease and food insecure members. Food insecurity is broadly defined as the disruption of healthy food consumption because of a lack of money and other resources. By the end of the year, Driscoll was already courting a potential investor. Last month, she cinched the deal for seed money from the newly launched Primetime Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm. The critical factors for her success? A great idea and the courage to see it through, being in the right place at the right time and networking. When Driscoll first met veteran investor Alan Patricof and, later, wellness executive Abby Miller Levy, she knew they were raising funds for Primetime Partners. Driscoll also felt her business theme would be an excellent fit for their unique niche. Driscoll introduced herself to Patricof at Columbia's Startup Lab in late 2019. She was aware of his interests in the aging space and thought he would be interested in the work she was doing, which focused heavily on Medicare Advantage Members. They had a friendly chat, but no contact information was exchanged. Less than six weeks later, Driscoll met Levy through a mutual acquaintance. “Abby had read the deck I used when talking to health care plans about a partnership – it wasn’t even an investor presentation at that point,” said Driscoll. “But she digested it, understood the value proposition right away and gave me a bunch of actionable suggestions. She’s very warm, but also direct, matter-of-fact and clear. It was an excellent first meeting.” In the months to come, Levy supported Driscoll with the continued development of her concept. “She helped me start thinking about Project Well as a market platform. For example, I began saying Project Well is a food as medicine offering.” As the informal advisory relationship continued, Levy told Driscoll not to think of her as a prospective investor. “She really just wanted to help me,” Driscoll said. Whether Primetime ended up being an investor or not, Driscoll already knew that Levy gave great advice and she was all ears. When Driscoll asked Levy to look at her investor deck in April of this year, Levy suggested a meeting with Patricof. Driscoll pitched them both and, after the formalities of due diligence, the deal was sealed in mid-August. By that time, Primetime Partners had officially launched and Driscoll was one of the first founders to benefit. A Business Concept Founded on ExperienceAfter receiving her masters in public health, Driscoll went to work in the Clinton White House as policy support staff. She later went to Oxford Health Plans, where she ultimately ran its Medicare business, including screening members for non-medical needs, such as food insecurities, transportation needs or even potential loneliness. From the screening, they were able to connect members with community-based organizations to meet their needs. “That work ended up being very important,” explained Driscoll. “Today there’s a greater degree of recognition that social determinants of health are key contributors to overall health and associated healthcare costs. But at the time, that was cutting edge and our results were compelling.” After taking a decade to stay home with her kids, Driscoll jumped back into healthcare. She spent seven years as an advisor for Leavitt Partners, helping private sector healthcare companies navigate the Affordable Care Act. As the firm grew, her attention once again shifted to older adults, medicare, dual-eligibles (those on Medicare and Medicaid) and addressing social detriments of health. Though COVID-19 was not part of her inspiration for founding Project Well, Driscoll admitted the pandemic increased awareness of the concept of food as medicine. "COVID has shown a bright light on healthcare inequities and also driven so much food insecurity. In some parts of the country, the food insecurity rate is as high as 40 percent now, where a limited household budget makes consistent nutrition difficult. There's this extraordinary recognition of the need." A Personalized Food SolutionWhile medically tailored meal companies already exist, in addition to food banks providing food to the people who need it, Driscoll is focused on the private sector. “Healthy food vendors produce an appetizing, appealing product and there’s a huge range of those vendors out there. That means we can potentially personalize food offerings for individuals, so they enjoy it much more. If food is medicine, you want people to enjoy it because that is a huge motivator to eating well and staying healthy.” Project Well personalizes a food solution after getting to know an individual, including their preferences, particular circumstances, and clinical needs. "That can look like prepared meals, meal kits or groceries from a food bank, but usually it's a combination," said Driscoll. "Often, our service is structured as a dietary behavior change intervention. We want someone to have a Project Well experience as if they've gone through an experimental education program, observing first hand how much better they feel when they eat well.” Advice to the Over-50 Founder“Don’t be afraid if you have a good idea that’s pulling at you. It’s okay to start from scratch,” Driscoll offered. Good ideas amass supporters and other people who see your value proposition and want to partner with you. Before you know it, an idea becomes a company that’s serving a mission.” Some development takes longer, which is why seed money is essential. Because Project Well is a new concept, health plans are just beginning to experiment. Although they ran a pilot with the New York City health system and produced compelling results, Driscoll wants more evidence of impact. "We need to prove there will be enhanced member engagement, member satisfaction, improved healthcare outcomes and reduced medical cost," explained Driscoll. "For now, we're piloting as opposed to a proper offering. We're waiting for clear proof of concept. We are going to measure engagement, satisfaction, outcomes, and looking retrospectively at medical costs.” At the moment, Project Well is nearing a large-scale pilot with a national Medicare Advantage plan. “We're also talking to several other plans and provider groups, including a Medicaid plan serving high-risk pregnant moms, which we are excited about!" In the meantime, she is building a bigger team and investing in technology that will empower them to better match people with food solutions that delight them and are good for their health. Not to mention, Driscoll has the ongoing advice and counsel from Levy and Patricoff. "The mission pulls me through," Driscoll reflected. "It's such a worthy mission to improve the lives of people suffering. Having great minds like Abby and Alan behind me, with their strong networks, is so important in achieving that mission. We're going to improve the lives of a lot of people." Business via Forbes - Entrepreneurs https://ift.tt/2YlOx3y September 27, 2020 at 02:44PM
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Will RISC-V be a contender now that Nvidia is buying Arm? https://ift.tt/2ECOskC The microprocessor industry’s unfolding saga got a big plot twist a couple of weeks ago when Nvidia paid $40 billion to buy Arm, the world’s leading processor architecture. That deal turned some heads, as it meant a proprietary parent company was taking over a business that openly licensed its architecture to all comers. Nvidia and Arm promised the ARM architecture would continue to be available for licensing, but you could see other players looking for a backup plan. One of the alternatives is RISC-V, a rival architecture that is royalty-free and open. Though the architecture was created a decade ago by university professors, RISC-V has been building its ecosystem for years and has started to hit its stride with big licensees like Western Digital, SiFive, and even Nvidia itself. Now the question is whether RISC-V will gain even more momentum, whether from China or from big tech platform owners like Intel or Qualcomm, who are both investors in SiFive. I talked with RISC-V International CEO Calista Redmond, who has over 20 years of management experience and is a veteran of open systems, about the company’s outlook. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. VentureBeat: Did you have a rush of people come to you and start conversations after the deal? Or was that already happening? Calista Redmond: I haven’t noticed a specific new interest in RISC-V in the last week. But it’s been a very steady stream. We’ve had a lot of visibility over the last few years, especially coming through our global forum that we had on September 3. On the heels of that, it’s difficult to discern exactly where the interest is coming from. But we are noticing a deepening of our current members in their interest, including Nvidia. They’ve spoken publicly about their ongoing commitment to RISC-V. It’s not surprising, honestly. They’ve been great, open collaboration partners as long as I’ve worked with them, which dates back to OpenPOWER as well. They’re continuing that. VentureBeat: I thought it was funny that they’re still supporting it. Redmond: If you look at the models of many large organizations, it follows a very clear pattern. The large multinationals have entrenched or existing investments in the programs and products and things that they’re already doing. Sometimes it’s through relationships. Sometimes it’s through their own IP. Western Digital, Nvidia, Google, and others have leveraged RISC-V as part of their portfolio. Having that diversity has been something that’s grown over the last 10 years or so. We’ve seen that. It’s not just as a lever to weigh against other alternatives. It’s a genuine interest, whether it’s coming in at a microcontroller level or looking at RISC-V for their new workloads, where they don’t have existing investments already. VentureBeat: Arm talks a lot about its ecosystem. I’m curious about whether you see the RISC-V as ready in the same way or whether it’s making a certain amount of progress to show that whatever you’re able to do on ARM, you’re able to do with RISC-V. Redmond: It hasn’t always necessarily been an apples-to-apples comparison. ARM is very proficient in many workloads, but not across the full spectrum. Intel has had a relative share on parts of the ecosystem that have been entrenched for years, investing there. When we look at operating systems and some of those common areas, we’re continuing to see growth and investment in that. We haven’t seen any of that drop off. Our growth from our membership continues at a very significant clip. We’ve increased by more than 50% this year from where we landed at the end of 2019. That ecosystem continues to be spread across many areas, including software, chip design, tools, foundries, and others that are all around the table. It’s not just the hyperscalers or the OEMs or any of those that are taking up a share of these things. It’s all stakeholders. We see a continued interest from universities and other types of organizations that are levering. Today we have about 15 relationships that we’ve grown over the last year with other organizations. If you look at security, we have a great relationship with Global Platform in setting security standards. These are industrywide types of things. We also have relationships with others that are involved in the software space, the tools space, different geographic locations. There are lots of alliances that are working on some of the local agendas in various geographies as well. We’ve also seen institutes start popping up that are dedicated to RISC-V. Overall, the trajectory of ecosystems is going well. I don’t think it’s at hyperspeed, because there’s real work that needs to get done. But there’s been a lot of learning across multiple architectures so far that’s accelerating the ecosystem growth for RISC-V. Luckily for us, RISC architecture is not something new. VentureBeat: Do you think that there will be any change in the perspective of companies here because the headquarters of Arm is going to change to the U.S.? Redmond: From what I’ve read, the headquarters is anticipated to stay in the U.K., but the parent company is of course in the U.S. How the geopolitical winds blow, I think it’s a little early to tell. There are a lot of regulatory hurdles to overcome for that transaction. My understanding is it could be 12 to 18 months. I think folks are not rushing to any conclusions on that yet. Whether the home base changes from one country to another, it doesn’t matter to RISC-V. RISC-V doesn’t have a geography or entity with a hold on it. As an open source organization, that’s how the licenses work. That’s something that’s been understood in the export control world for a long time. It’s also something that many regions or nations look at as an investment that won’t have a barrier thrown up later. If you look at the European Union, the EPI initiative has designated RISC-V as a key piece of technology for acceleration in AI, simply because that allows them to build on top of that for regional independence, some of that sovereignty that’s sought when it comes to technology. If your base building blocks, you can be assured, are free and open, then you can locally develop whatever you like, whatever works for your implementation, the boundaries you’re working in. It’s our belief that no single entity, whether it’s a country or a company, should control the technology. VentureBeat: I know Nvidia was very excited about taking Arm into the datacenter and into AI, more on the high end. Do you also have a lot of projects that are on that high end? Redmond: RISC-V started off with a lot of embedded applications. We saw a lot of growth coming out of that new frontier, whether it’s IoT or embedded or industrial. Some of the new applications, where new investment was welcome, or new ways of thinking, new architectures — as the collective experience of the industry has grown, we see this moving very quickly into scale-up. You look at Alibaba Cloud, which is leveraging and has road maps around RISC-V. You look at the European Processor Initiative. That’s all about scale-up, and HPC. You look at some of the other announcements that members have made around the PC, like SiFive. You see members growing in onboard across mobile. We’ve just grown our board of directors from seven to 16. We have a great diversity of interest there, both geographically as well as industry, other stakeholders. VentureBeat: I noticed that Nvidia didn’t buy the internet of things part of Arm. I don’t know if that seems significant to you at all as far as competition goes. Redmond: I haven’t dug as deeply into the pieces and parts, looking at that. I spent a long time doing acquisition and divestitures, and I know that it’s important to look at your portfolio as you embark on any type of acquisition or partnership or divestiture and understand the implications there. As they looked at their portfolio and the Arm portfolio — I certainly would not be in a place to speak for them about what fit or didn’t fit. But every company is looking at the strategic outcomes they’re going for, and not a near-term quick flip. If one plus one doesn’t equal more than three, there’s probably no point in going through the acquisition. VentureBeat: Do you also get any specific feedback on RISC-V companies in China and what they’re thinking? Redmond: The sentiment I’ve gathered so far continues to be very positive for RISC-V. We continue to see companies and organizations investing. We have a great collaboration set up there between Berkeley and Tsinghua University. There are some other institutes that have started to come to fruition around RISC-V. We continue to see a lot of great interest there. The sentiment I’ve heard specific to any proposed acquisition — it is a proposed acquisition at this point. It’s not a done deal. But it’s been more of a wait-and-see. There’s a lot of noise in the system right now, but I don’t think anyone is making a quick move if they have a strong investment already in place. VentureBeat: What about on the MIPS side? Has anything there caught your attention? I know they’re in their own strange transactions right now. Redmond: They are going through some things, and it’s very similar to the Arm story. Many of our members have investments in multiple places. Looking for synergy across architectures is where our interest lies. We understand and appreciate that there are a lot of great minds working on each of these. When it comes to how transactions are going to play out, we haven’t seen a need to take any specific actions on any of it. VentureBeat: I saw that Intel and Qualcomm were investors in SiFive. Some of that seems clear, what their motives might be. Do you also see any of that happening on a larger level? Redmond: There’s a growing understanding that having multiple architectures is a smart investment. You don’t want to have all the eggs in one basket. It depends on what you’re doing. If you want to go into a particular space, you have some assets that can help take you there, and you need to fill in the blanks with something from a different architecture, that’s a smart move. I don’t have information specific to the Intel/SiFive relationship or the Qualcomm relationship there. I know that Qualcomm has been a great investor in RISC-V, holds a seat on the board and everything. We continue to see a lot of activity from our partners there, as well as from SiFive, and we continue to see that spilling into additional areas for growth. VentureBeat: Has RISC-V dealt pretty well with anybody forking or trying to fork the architecture? Redmond: Not at the ISA level. There’s a temptation to go build something if you don’t already have it readily available. It may be a short-term solution for experimentation. But we haven’t seen that at a production level. We do engage quite a few folks to work with those base building blocks, to make sure we’re on the same path and stay there together. We have 43 different workgroups right now, working on all kinds of extensions to the base ISA. But we’ve had no signs of a fork of the ISA itself. VentureBeat: Anything else on your mind that’s timely today? Redmond: I anticipate that between now and the end of the year, we’re going to have more insight into how the landscape is going to come together. We’re excited about our early December summit. We’re going to have a lot more news to share there about the progress of not only RISC-V International, but also to help amplify the progress our members are making. Right now we’re nearly complete on some of our compliance tests. We’re moving ahead in fast-forward on many of these other workgroups. We see a lot going on there. Business via VentureBeat https://venturebeat.com September 27, 2020 at 02:15PM
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Joe Biden makes plea to GOP Senators to 'take a step back from the brink' and hold off on Amy Coney Barrett vote https://ift.tt/3jawftB
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Sunday asked for the Senate to hold off on voting for President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, and wait for the results of the November general election. Biden, speaking from the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, appealed to Republican Senators in asking that they respect the will of the voters and allow them to participate in the process. "If we're going to call ourselves a democracy, their voices must be heard," Biden said. "I urge the American people to keep voting and let your current senators know that you want to be heard before the vote on confirmation of a new justice. I urge every senator to take a step back from the brink." Biden's comments came after days Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death set off a political fight among congressional lawmakers over Trump's intention to nominate a replacement before the election. Top Democrats suggested extraordinary action might be taken to block a nomination after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that Trump's nominee would receive a vote on the Senate floor, breaking with his previously described reasoning for blocking President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016. Biden encouraged lawmakers to "take off the blinders of politics for just one critical moment and stand up for the Constitution that you swore to uphold." He continued, saying that "Just because you have the power to do something doesn't absolve you of the responsibility to do right by the American people." Biden reiterated that Trump should proceed with the Barrett nomination if he is reelected to a second term, but should withdraw Barrett's name if he loses the election. When asked about possibly expanding the Supreme Court, Biden demurred, saying that he wasn't going to make that issue "the headline" of his comments and instead emphasized the importance of protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. "I am focused on one thing — making sure that the American people understand that they're being cut out of this process that they're entitled to be a part of," he said. "The cutout is designed to take away the Affordable Care Act and your health care in the midst of a pandemic." Biden was then asked what he hoped to accomplish at the first presidential debate on Tuesday. "Just tell the truth," he said, before walking offstage.
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Business via Business Insider https://ift.tt/1IpULic September 27, 2020 at 01:21PM
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Democrats condemn Trump for gloating about an end to Obamacare less than a day after announcing his Supreme Court nominee https://ift.tt/2HAShbg
President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that it will be a victory for the United States if the Supreme Court dismantles the Affordable Care Act. "Obamacare will be replaced with a MUCH better, and FAR cheaper, alternative if it is terminated in the Supreme Court. Would be a big WIN for the USA!" he wrote. This comes less than a day after the president nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon, died on Sept. 18. Barrett, a deeply conservative judge, has in the past spoken out against the Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — which was signed into law by President Barack Obama. In 2017, she criticized Chief Justice John Roberts, writing that he "pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute." She continued: "He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power; had he treated the payment as the statute did — as a penalty — he would have had to invalidate the statute as lying beyond Congress's commerce power." Trump's tweet on Sunday drew instant backlash from Democrats. "President Trump just admitted his nominee will strike down the Affordable Care Act," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on Twitter. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Barrett's confirmation will deal a devastating blow to American people with preexisting medical conditions. "What I am concerned about is anyone that President Trump would have appointed is there to undo the Affordable Care Act. That is why he's in such a hurry," Pelosi said. —Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2020 On "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, said that Barrett's stance on the Affordable Care Act is evident and has the potential to strip millions of necessary health insurance in the midst of a pandemic, according to the Hill. "It's very clear from her writings, multiple writings, that she will be the vote that takes away health care for millions of Americans, including 130 million people and counting with pre-existing conditions, and of course those are going up every day because of the health pandemic," Stabenow said. And Rep. Frank Pallone, of New Jersey, described Trump and Barrett as poised "to destroy our health care." —Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) September 27, 2020 Senate Republicans plan to begin Barrett's confirmation proceedings on Oct. 12, with the goal of having her on the bench by Election Day on Nov. 3. A week later, on Nov. 10, the Supreme Court is scheduled to consider a challenge to the constitutionality of Obamacare.
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Business via Business Insider https://ift.tt/1IpULic September 27, 2020 at 12:57PM
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The tech sector can — and must — disrupt social inequity https://ift.tt/2S5n2H6 As scores of headlines expose systemic racial injustice and COVID-19 thrusts organizations even deeper into digital transformation, it’s clear that we’ve arrived at the corner where technology and social equity meet. But it’s a far cry from a friendly encounter – more like a bad collision. Recently, we’ve seen news of Facebook’s unacceptably imbalanced workforce and some organizations are even rolling back longstanding inclusion programs, including Google. There’s just no way around it: Tech is still playing an active role in perpetuating some of the challenges we face around social equity. If we don’t make changes from the top down, the industry will not only miss the mark on recruiting diversified talent but will also continue to function like an exclusive club, playing an adverse role in our society and reinforcing system inequities. Eventually, products and services will fail to meet the greater needs of society. Innovation will be stunted. The good news is that this troubling dynamic can be mitigated – even reversed. After all, the tech sector prides itself on being a legion of determined disruptors, right? Recognize your organization’s role and take actionIn recent years, forward-thinking business leaders have spent countless hours trying to drive home the value proposition of diversity and inclusion to partners and investors. I believe we’ve reached the point where those sitting in the board room generally understand that being silent is no longer an option. However, some business leaders are hesitant to take a stance beyond diversity mission statements and supportive social media content. While these are great first steps, we need to do more than just talk about it. We need to be bold and we need to take action. Understandably, most brands and business leaders aren’t expert authorities on social justice and equity. But it’s not an excuse. Inaction is a mistake. Now is the time to conduct a social equity audit and ask some questions that may be difficult to answer all at once: Where are the gaps in your organization and how can you bridge them? Where are the gaps in the geographic and digital communities you serve? How can you improve your supply chain of suppliers and vendors to promote social equity? Where in the conversation about inclusion, Black Lives Matter, gender gap, the digital divide, or systemic inequity does it make sense for your company to weigh in? What support or resources can your company provide? How can you improve and monitor your progress? Answering these questions can help your organization develop a working blueprint for building social equity into your business operations internally and externally, ensuring that your role in supporting social equity is backed by tangible actions and measurable results. Design your products and services for more equitable outcomesAs business leaders focus on what social equity means within their workforce and internal operations, we cannot ignore the intrinsic link between equity and economics. In particular, as players in the larger economy, every organization should actively analyze the product and service lines they’re putting on the market. Consider the broad spectrum of diversity in your audience, everything from race, gender, sexual orientation, geographic location, religion, disabilities, age, health, etc. Then you must understand the impact your products and services have on all segments of your audience and how widely accessible they are. Who are you leaving out? Who are you potentially hurting? For starters, immediately discontinue products, services, or revenue streams that explicitly harm underserved communities. For example, this could include dating apps that encourage sexual racism with search filters or any companies that engage in or are attached to predatory lending practices. It’s also necessary to look at your product suite and identify implicit or unintentional biases. Examples of this would be harmful algorithms that create “filter bubbles” or location data for apps that redline neighborhoods, which explains why Pokémon Go offers fewer PokéStops in minority neighborhoods and thereby limits minority participation by its design. The next step requires investment of time and money, deploying a formal research and development (R&D) effort so you can address any inequities your organization is inadvertently creating. This effort may lead to refining or even completely overhauling product design — including navigation, language barriers, technology requirements, aesthetics, user interface, algorithms, and more — to improve the accessibility and user experience (UX) across various communities. Be sure that you include a diversity of test users in your product development and testing processes so you can build UX with their first-hand input in mind. Making social equity R&D an ongoing investment will keep your organization ahead of the curve, allowing you to redesign products and launch derivatives to provide the best possible coverage of the marketplace, particularly underserved audiences. Mend the digital divideInternet access and the ability to effectively use digital technology are imperatives for full participation in our society’s economic and social activities. Increasingly, people are going online for important life choices, from finding lower prices for products and services to making better informed decisions about their healthcare. With the rise of virtual learning sweeping the U.S. amid the COVID-19 shutdowns, the digital divide has never been more menacing. More than one-third (35%) of households with children ages 6 to 17 and an annual household income below $30,000 a year lack high-speed internet connectivity at home, compared with just 6% of such households earning $75,000 or more a year, according to recent data from Pew Research Center. Broadband gaps are particularly prevalent in Black and Hispanic households with school-age children, especially those with low incomes. These are harrowing trends, suggesting the education gap will continue to spread. Not having internet access in today’s economy puts citizens at a distinct disadvantage. It also disconnects them from the organizations that could potentially serve them. Allowing the digital divide to persist is not only socially irresponsible but also potentially detrimental to innovation within the technology sector. As tech leaders, we have both a moral obligation and a clear incentive to invest in a pipeline of future talent which, currently, we are sorely missing out on due to the digital divide and subsequent education gaps. Investment in mending the digital divide will also empower new classes of consumers that are currently being shut out of the tech landscape and digital economy. It takes a villageIn a shifting marketplace where change and challenges swarm, businesses need strong leadership to adapt and deploy products and solutions to solve our greatest problems. Currently, most companies are focused on bolstering liquidity, rerouting supply chains, and implementing business processing automation or virtualization solutions. But these efforts will be for nothing if we lose connection with our communities. I don’t intend to undermine the many leaders that are making great strides in fostering inclusive cultures, eliminating biases in hiring and driving engagement in their organizations. But I’m also not afraid to say it: Insulated action will only get us so far. The conversation needs to move beyond just hiring Chief Diversity Officers (though I do think there’s merit there) and diversifying our boards (which definitely still needs to happen). It’s not just about our own organizations. It’s about bridging the gaps in our economy. And as providers of technology intended to improve how we live and work, our industry has a prominent role to play in the transformation. If we’re going to achieve social equity, we need a collective effort across the entire tech industry, and it starts at the top. Now more than ever, business leaders need to focus on the systemic issues that impact our communities at large and then advance strategies that bridge social gaps, empower end-users, and disrupt inequity. Sean Clayton is co-founder and CEO of Myosin, a data-science powered marketing platform and consultancy. A Dallas native and 15-year digital media veteran, he also serves as a strategic advisor to cross-industry technology and consumer brands. Business via VentureBeat https://venturebeat.com September 27, 2020 at 12:28PM
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Koch-backed advocacy group launched a 'full-scale' campaign to push Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation https://ift.tt/30cWgkI
Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a political advocacy group backed by billionaire Charles Koch, is campaigning to support President Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, the group said in a press release Saturday. "[AFP] today commended President Trump for nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court," the group said in the release, adding that it "now commits the full weight of its permanent grassroots infrastructure to drive her confirmation to the high court." AFP said it will launch its campaign with "several waves of targeted direct-mail, layered digital, and other tactics to follow in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia." The group said in addition to its grassroots efforts, it had set up a website for constituents to contact their senators in those key states after advocacy groups and congressional lawmakers called for Congress to hold off on or delay a nomination from Trump. Trump's nomination announcement on Saturday came one week after liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death and reports detailing her dying wish as dictated to her granddaughter, that her Supreme Court seat remains vacant "until a new president is installed." Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins broke ranks from their Republican colleagues days after Ginsburg's death when they both said a vote on a replacement for the court should wait until after the election. Other top Democratic lawmakers echoed calls for a delayed confirmation process, even warning extraordinary action to block a nomination from Trump, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly promised Trump's pick would receive a vote on the Senate floor. This campaign is the latest in the group's history of rallying Trump's supreme court nominations that includes efforts backing Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017. Charles, who is CEO of Koch Industries, and his brother David, who died last year, have a long track record as two of the largest donors to conservative political causes. The Koch brothers did not donate to Trump in 2016 but instead launched grassroots efforts to boost GOP candidates in key Senate and House races. Charles previously criticized some of Trump's policies including the travel ban targeting Muslim immigrants. In 2018, he expressed frustration with "the divisiveness of this White House" and signaled that he would potentially be open to backing Democratic candidates. Last year, the Koch network told donors that they would not support Trump in 2020. Barett has a record of opposing aborting rights, and if she is confirmed experts say it is likely that the Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in America is overturned.
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Business via Business Insider https://ift.tt/1IpULic September 27, 2020 at 12:15PM
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5 steps I took to grow my idea of being a professional bridesmaid into a full-time job and successful business https://ift.tt/30cmML6
I first got the idea to start a company called Bridesmaid for Hire after I'd been a bridesmaid at over a dozen of my friend's weddings. One night, two distant friends called me up and asked me to be their bridesmaid, and I thought to myself, " Jen! You hardly speak to these people. This should be a job! You should get paid." I acted on that idea shortly after, posting an ad on Craigslist offering my services to strangers as their hired bridesmaid for the day. I knew the idea was worthy of a full business plan because so many people vented about how their friends just couldn't be the support system they needed on their wedding day. Other people said they didn't have a lineup of people to pick from them, and had to ask distant relatives or friends they hadn't spoken to in years. After I started the business, so many people told me they thought of this idea years ago, but never acted on it. And while having a business idea is great, it doesn't mean much if you don't act on it. I did, and turned my idea into a business that's serviced hundreds of clients over the years. Here's the five steps I took. First, I tested the idea with an audienceOnce the idea popped into my head, I acted instantly. I knew if I asked people in my life what they thought about me starting a business where strangers could hire me to be their bridesmaid, they'd probably laugh or completely dismiss it. But they weren't my target audience. So I went to a place where a lot of people go to look and search for things — Craigslist. I posted an ad there offering my services as a professional bridesmaid. I hoped the ad would tell me if there was general interest in this idea, and also the reason behind the interest. I posted the ad and got hundreds of emails from potential customers who wanted to hire me. This helped me validate the idea and then start designing a business model. I now had to identify the 'why' behind the problemI went through the hundreds of emails I received, started to read through the problems and reasons behind why these people wanted to hire me, and began to notice common things. People wanted to hire me because they had friends who were filled with drama or had complicated, busy lives. People wanted to hire me because they didn't have close friends anymore, but craved a support system for their wedding. People wanted to hire me to have an unbiased person to vent to and provide advice along the way. After identifying these buckets of problems, I was able to create my initial package offerings to attract customers based on their specific needs. Next, I built the infrastructure for my businessWithin days of the ad getting a lot of traction, I built a website, shared package details, and gave people an opportunity to reach out to me if they were interested. This allowed me to establish a brand for the business, build credibility, and give the idea a home. I was able to educate potential customers, share details of what to expect using a brand new service that never existed, and even allowed them to learn more about me as the business owner and service provider. Doing this allowed me to put the idea into motion and legitimize the business quickly. I launched with a few test weddingsI booked my first five weddings in less than a week after posting the Craigslist ad. They were all paying customers, but I used their weddings as case studies to help me understand how to improve my business. They taught me what details I needed to add into customer contracts before we worked together, how to restructure my pricing to account for pre-wedding phone calls and meetings, and more. These test weddings allowed me to get mistakes out of the way and improve the business fast. I continued to optimize and improve over the first yearTo make sure the business continued to grow and be successful, I had to innovate a lot during the first year. Within months of launching, I added new packages (virtual bridesmaid and packages for maids-of-honor) and hired people to help me work the influx of weddings that were coming in. Keeping a growth mindset allowed my business to grow and scale fast. The best businesses start off with an idea you can't forget about. But what makes one person take the idea and run away with it first is a strong passion, a tight strategy, and the determination to not let rejection or failure stop them.
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Business via Business Insider https://ift.tt/1IpULic September 27, 2020 at 12:03PM
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Post 9/11 proved even the most wary of Americans would travel again. Here's why Booking Holdings' CEO believes the same will happen after COVID-19 https://ift.tt/36cwUak
The travel industry has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Even as stay-at-home orders are lifted, travel activity remains at depressed levels with people continuing to worry about safety and opting to stay put. In August, Booking Holdings — which owns Kayak, Booking.com, Priceline, Rentalcars.com, OpenTable, and Agoda — reported that gross bookings fell by 91% in the second quarter. Revenue additionally fell 84% from the same period last year to $630 million. Glenn Fogel, the company's CEO, has worked at Booking Holdings in various capacities for almost 21 years. In a recent interview with Business Insider, he said looking at how travel fared after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 is "a good analogy for today." "Each crisis, when you're in the middle of it, you're at first afraid that travel is never going to come back. Is this going to be something that's going to go on forever? And when will it stop? But after you've been through a few of these, you realize it's always going to come back," he said. He lived in Manhattan at the time of 9/11 and remembers some people uttering they would never get on a plane again. "But it wasn't that long before people started traveling again. Yes, there were changes. The security was much stronger," he said. Airlines including Delta and JetBlue are currently blocking out the middle seat to allow for social distancing on flights. An August survey found that travelers are willing to pay as much as 17% more to fly with an airline that is blocking out middle seats. Airlines are also requiring passengers to wear masks on planes, and airports have signs reminding people to stay six feet apart from each other. Meanwhile, hotels are advertising their revamped cleaning protocols to entice travelers to book a stay. Hilton, for example, partnered with Lysol maker RB and the Mayo Clinic to come up with a new set of procedures amid the pandemic. Today, Fogel is hopeful that more protections and technology will be rolled out so that people feel safer traveling. "I think people just have an innate desire to travel," Fogel said. "We're gonna take a little bit of time, but I assure you travel in a few years will be bigger than it was before this terrible epidemic." Read the full interview with Glenn Fogel here.
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Business via Business Insider https://ift.tt/1IpULic September 27, 2020 at 11:33AM
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7 steps to successfully merge finances with your significant other https://ift.tt/3j6Ohgn
I like to tell the story that on my first date with my now-husband, I decided I was really into him based on two topics in our meandering conversation: old limos with blue velvet interiors and spreadsheets. Little did I know, but that conversation would be an analogy for our discussions two years later while combining finances. I'm the free-spirit who enjoys buying cheap and quirky things that I don't mind losing when they wear out quickly or I get tired of them… Meanwhile, my husband Ryan is the finance guru who prefers to save up and buy something expensive that lasts — and then take damn good care of it to ensure that happens. How in the world were we going to make this work? "[W]e almost always marry our financial opposite," David Bach, author of "Smart Couples Finish Rich," told Forbes. "You're either born to save or you're born to spend, and financial opposites attract. That can lead to enormous power struggles and trust issues and regular fights." But it doesn't have to be that way. We have had our share of "discussions" (okay, sure, a few would be more accurately categorized as fights), but fast-forward three years and I'd say we've got a good routine going for us. And wonder of wonders, most of the time, combining finances is actually fun! But when we make our budget, set goals, and meet them, it often feels like we've summited a mountain to find a party in our honor. So, how did we get from there to successfully combining finances? We were older when we met and both had established careers, so we had the luxury of combining two good incomes. Not everyone has that. But these basic principles can help you start wherever you are. Set goals for your happily ever afterWe started with the big conversations. What do we want retirement to look like? What do we want our lives to be like between now and then? Are we having kids? In a lot of ways, this was taking advantage of the normal desire to plan our lives together, but we put numbers to everything and came up with workable financial plans. Take advantage of combined income right awayWe'd just become DINKs (dual income, no kids) and wanted to take advantage of the excess income while it was new and focus on combining finances that way, too. Since our goals included providing for JJ+RW=4eva, we started by estimating what we'd need for retirement and putting as much as we could afford toward that goal. We both increased contributions to our 401(k)s and opened a brokerage account that would give us more flexibility if we wanted to retire early. Then we calculated how much we'd need in emergency savings and started adding to that as well. Focus on the essentialsMoving in together decreased our expenditures, so we mapped out our new reality with budget categories for the essentials. This sparked conversations that weren't nearly as fun as daydreaming about all the trips we'd take in retirement. Is Ryan's monthly haircut essential? What about my weekly lunches with friends? They sure seem essential to me. The electric bill was easy enough to agree on, but we went round and round about some of the categories. As a way to mitigate some of this, we moved on to step four. Focus on the funWe each opened (or kept) individual accounts for "fun money," one of the ways we strayed away from couples finances. A portion of our paychecks are directly deposited into these accounts and we spend them however we like. Some of the contested categories for essentials (and an accompanying amount) were moved to this section. For instance, if either of us buys a meal when we're not dining together, it comes from fun money. Plan for "extra" moneyRyan gets bonuses through his company with some regularity, and I do side gigs of various sorts. Initially, we didn't factor these things into our budgets and disagreements arose about how to handle them. Eventually, we agreed on a percentage: 25% of any money outside of our normal paychecks goes to our individual accounts, and the remaining 75% goes to the joint account. We categorized the extra income as a "reward" of sorts, so it feels like that to the awardee. However, all that "extra" adds up, and we didn't want to fritter that away. Revisit regularlyIn the last three years, we've had a kid and bought a bigger house, both of which come with plenty of ways to spend money. At least every six months, we look at the budget and recalibrate our categories. Are we overspending on dining out? (Not right now!) Have we finished paying off this item we bought on 0% financing? We also revisit when we need to make big decisions, like do we put our son in daycare part-time or full-time, or can we afford to do that remodel we've talked about? Have funWe've had our fair share of fights about money, but overall, it's a fun way for us to connect. We use it as an opportunity to revisit our dreams, make new ones and accomplish goals together.
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Business via Business Insider https://ift.tt/1IpULic September 26, 2020 at 08:09AM
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Popular deepfake apps are making it easier than ever to make AI-powered manipulated videos — spawning new memes, and an increased potential for abuse https://ift.tt/36cLnmG
Dozens of heads bob in unison over a techno beat, their facial expressions synchronizing to match the face of a TikTok star lip synching the lyrics. As she mouths the words, videos of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Benedict Cumberbatch, an Easter Island head, and the clown from "It" follow along in perfect lock-step. Unsurprisingly, the video isn't real — rather, it's an example of an AI-generated deepfake, and part of a meme that's sweeping platforms like TikTok and Instagram. While deepfakes have typically been seen as sophisticated technology outside the reach of amateurs, new consumer-facing apps are making it increasingly easy to generate convincing lookalike videos that appear to show a person saying something that they never actually said. So far, the arrival of these apps has spawned memes and social media trends that are mostly harmless — but experts warn that the increasing availability of the technology could spawn a misinformation crisis.
New technology powers a deepfake explosionMany of the latest deepfake memes were made using RefaceAI, a new app that has built its own machine learning frameworks that enable users to take a selfie and merge it with a target video or gif to create a deepfake. Unlike face masking tools found on apps like Snapchat, Reface generates an entirely new video using the twin inputs, CEO and cofounder Roman Mogylnyi told Business Insider. "Before, making a deepfake video could take a week or more, and even then you wouldn't be satisfied with the results," Mogylnyi said. "It was a challenge for us ... we wanted people to have Hollywood level post production on their phone." Reface was founded by a group of Ukrainian software engineers but is incorporated in the US. After piloting an early version of their technology as a web service last year, Reface debuted on the App Store and Google Play stores in January 2020. Since then, it's popularity has skyrocketed. Memes made with Reface have been retweeted by Elon Musk and Britney Spears, and the app soared to the top of app store charts in more than 100 countries. It has been downloaded more than 42 million times, and has been used to make hundreds of millions of deepfake gifs and videos, according to Chief Business Officer Dima Shvets. —chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) August 26, 2020
Reface currently makes money through advertisements and premium subscriptions on its app, but its creators envision building an entire Reface platform similar to Snap's Bitmoji or Apple's Memoji that users could use to personalize their interactions and use across social media. The advancements are raising new concerns about abuse — and measures to stave it offExperts have warned for years that deepfakes could pose a unique misinformation threat if they're weaponized to mislead people about the actions of an individual or public figure. As the technology becomes more widely available, those concerns are amplifying. One of the earliest uses of deepfakes was to harass women by creating synthetic porn videos that grafted their faces onto sexually explicit content without their consent. It's also been used for political misinformation — a deepfake video that appeared to show Belgium's prime minister making false claims about COVID-19 went viral earlier this year before it was debunked. Deepfake technology could be evolving too rapidly for public understanding to keep up, according to Nina Schick, author of a book titled Deepfakes: The Coming Infopocalypse. "Unfortunately, I think synthetic media is so fun, the technology is so nascent, it's such an area for growth and so much private investment is backing it that it will just explode and the ethical and moral considerations will be three steps behind," Schick told Business Insider. Reface is already taking steps to counter potential misinformation, Mogylnyi said. It has pornography detection meant to automatically remove nudity. The app currently only lets people make deepfakes using gifs or 10-second videos, and Reface is building out digital watermarking for all videos before it expands the tools available to users. "Currently, in my opinion, we're only giving users access to 10% of the technology's capabilities," Mogylnyi said. He added that Reface has shared its API with companies like Facebook to help build tools to detect deepfakes, and that Reface is working on its own detection tool that would let people upload media to check whether it's synthetic. That approach was echoed by Sergey Tokarev, a lead investor of Reface who feels the technology's promises outweigh its potential risks. "No technology can be safe from misuse in a negative way. But does it mean that technology should not be developed?" Tokarev said. "My point is that all technologies should serve the world development and be used in good faith." Startups are focusing on teaching people about deepfakes and how to spot themOther startups dabbling in deepfake tech are choosing to deploy it through narrow avenues in order to avoid abuse. Kapwing, a San Francisco-based startup that makes video editing tools geared towards influencers, published a tutorial that links to the code to create a deepfake synced to one specific song that became popular on TikTok, without giving people tools to make a wider range of deepfakes. The video has been viewed more than 500,000 times. "We've been very careful about our approach to this," Robert Martin, a strategist at Kapwing, told Business Insider. "I'm reluctant for us to do much more with this technology than what we've done here." As deepfakes become more widespread, there could be a rise in "deepfake literacy," or people's general awareness of deepfakes and ability to spot the telltale quirks inherent in the videos. But future advances in technology could make deepfakes even more seamless — and, according to Schick, deepfakes becoming commonplace could reduce people's trust in real media. "Everything can be fake, and everything can be denied" Schick said. "The democratization of this type of manipulation of media is just one step into the future, but I don't think we're ready for it."
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Business via Business Insider https://ift.tt/1IpULic September 26, 2020 at 08:03AM |
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