Science & Technology

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 02 jul 2015

Technology impacts and improves various aspects of healthcare delivery. Companies and organizations are embracing technological innovations to provide better healthcare services. According to Valter Adão of Deloitte Digital Africa, 'One of the most damaging myths surrounding digitisation is that it is an "all or nothing" process...Healthcare providers do not need to massively overhaul their practices to meet the oncoming wave of new technologies when they can integrate certain technologies within traditional healthcare structures, or adopt technological solutions in a gradual and modularised process.' While mentioning pace of technology adoption, he says that it is going to be sooner. Data management and analytics are two areas that will bring most transformations in healthcare. Patient records on cloud, wearables and monitoring devices and analytics to customize treatment to patients are some of the changes that will happen soon. Concerns of data security and privacy have to be resolved. Technology will also bring efficiencies in medical care processes through mobile devices and apps. Moreover improvements in printing technologies and 3D printing will also make a significant impact in healthcare. Heinrich Pretorius, OKI printing products specialist at DCC, says 'Printing technology is advancing to allow medical practitioners and facilities to use one printer for all their printing needs, as opposed to maintaining several different printers for different types of scans and imaging processes. Printing technology is also evolving to allow users to print directly from medical equipment without the need for time-consuming conversion software or external hardware.' Read on...

ITWeb: Healthcare tech adoption 'not far off'
Author: Michelle Avenant

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 jun 2015

Technology's impact is not restricted to certain industries but every business and their processes are influenced by it. Moreover the increased connectivity and speed of communication has brought about newer challenges. For businesses to survive and flourish in this era of information and communication technology (ICT), newer type of leadership is required to effectively manage and grow businesses and to balance the pace of digital transformation both inside and outside of the organizations. Research points out the shortage of e-Leadership skills in Europe. According to European Commission demand for digitally skilled employees is growing by around 4% a year and that shortages of ICT professionals in the EU could reach 825,000 unfilled vacancies by 2020. Professors, Álvaro Arenas and José Esteves, of IE Business School in Spain define e-Leadership as 'the accomplishment of a goal that relies on ICT through the direction of human resources and uses of ICT...In the case of e-Leadership, both the goal and the resources involve using ICT. An e-Leader must be both business and ICT-savvy.' They mention previous studies that define e-Leaders as having T-shaped portfolio of skills (Vertical Skills- Specialized skills in specific fields like ICT, science, engineering, social sciences etc; Horizontal Skills- Transversal skills like negotiation, ciritcal thinking, design and systems thinking, business and entrepreneurship etc). Their study and research found three characteristics that represent e-Leaders - (1) Innovation is central in e-Leaders' organisations, and the e-Leaders are the force driving innovation. (2) e-Leaders exploit digital trends. SMAC (Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud) tech were exploited. (3) e-Leaders envision and drive change for business performance. Their study also found that to develop e-Leaders requires a variety of educational ecosystem actions. There is learning need in some specialized and technical areas alongwith strong need for developing transversal skills. Multiple channels and formats are required to continuously update and upgrade e-Leaderships skills like MOOCs, blended education, short courses etc. Both traditional and new age learning systems are to be utilized for effective learning. Read on...

Forbes: Anatomy of an e-Leader
Authors: Álvaro Arenas, José Esteves

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 jun 2015

Technology-driven transformation of healthcare is happening in multiple ways. Shomit Ghose of ONSET Ventures explains how medical care is shifting from physician-focused dynamic to patient-focused dynamic through collection and assessment of individual data directly, independent of the physician encounters. According to him, 'Going forward, our cell phones and wearables will be by far our biggest source of health-related data, providing a continuous stream of information that promises, for the first time, to enable the practice of "continuous healthcare". This data is collected non-invasively and will specifically help us understand how patient behaviors affect patient outcomes.' He further explains, 'Continuous healthcare brings a brand new class of fine-grained behavioral data into the clinical assessment process. Further, the provision of this type of real-time data at population scale allows strong correlations to be made between best practices in health and best outcomes. Continuous data, when supplemented with other data sources, promises to revolutionize the current methods of population health, including the monitoring of disease and disease vectors in real time.' This data-driven continuous digital healthcare, with its ubiquitous nature and low-cost, has potential to serve communities and regions that are deprived of basic healthcare infrastructure and facilities of the present medical systems. But providers also have to overcome the concerns of privacy and security to realize the full benefits of digital healthcare. Read on...

VentureBeat: Continuous healthcare - Big data and the future of medicine
Author: Shomit Ghose

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 20 jun 2015

Marketing strategies for startups are different from established companies as they have limited budget and resources. Over the years SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has evolved due to changes and improvements in search engine technologies. SEO strategies for today require a fresh look to keep business relevant in search engine results. John Rampton, entrepreneur and president of Adogy, provides 10 suggestions for startups to develop effective SEO to market their business - (1) Figure Out Your Target Keywords (2) Mobile Friendly is a Necessity (3) Simple is Usually Better (4) Develop and Follow a Marketing Strategy (5) Leverage the Power of Infographics (6) Prioritize (7) Figure Out Your Social Networking Channels (8) Link Building (9) Keep Your Content Relevant (10) Analytics are your Friend. Read on...

Forbes: 10 SEO Tips For Marketing Your Startup in 2015
Author: John Rampton

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 03 jun 2015

Technology is transforming various aspects of education and learning through online courses, web content in various formats, teaching and learning platforms, online exams and assessments, personalization and customization etc. There are people whose ideas, innovations and expertise is influencing the education technology landscape with far reaching implications. Education website Noodle.com provides a list of 18 influencers in education technology - (1) Anant Agarwal, Founder and CEO if edX (2) Steven Anderson, Co-founder of #EdChat on Twitter (3) Adam Bellow, Creator of eduTecher and eduClipper (4) Laura Blankenship, Founder of GeekyMomBlog.com (5) Richard Byrne, Founder of Free Technology for Teachers (6) Rafranz Davis, Instructional Technology Specialist for Arlington, Texas (7) Vicki Davis, Creator of Cool Cat Teacher Blog (8) Jeff Dunn, Co-founder of Daily Genius and Edudemic (9) Lucy Gray, Co-founder of the Global Education Conference (10) Angela Maiers, Founder of Maiers Educational Services (11) Salman Khan, Founder of Khan Academy (12) Nichole Pinkard, Founder of the Digital Youth Network (13) Joel Rose, Creator of Teach to One: Math (14) Christopher Rush, Creator of Teach to One: Math (15) Eric Sheninger, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Leadership in Education (16) Shelly Sanchez Terrell, Co-founder of #EdChat (17) Sebastian Thrun, Founder of Udacity (18) Tom Whitby, Co-founder of #EdChat. Read on...

Tech.co: The 18 Most Influential People in Ed Tech
Author: Kira M. Newman

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 may 2015

Staying close to the customer and fulfil his needs and wants has been the mantra of successful brands and businesses. Technology has brought the customer even closer and given brands the opportunity to better understand and analyze the customer behavior and focus strategies to satisfy him/her. Considering the highly competitive and fast paced world of fashion and luxury, established luxury brands need to think like disrupters by putting customers at the center of their strategies. Disrupters focus on 'jobs to be done' in the present. Clayton Christensen's disrupter framework focuses on consumers' social, emotional or functional problem, and turns business into its solution. This framework makes innovation independent of the latest technology or the hottest new gadget and firmly relies on human behavior. Thinking about customers and their behavior patterns provide brands insights into the future. Understanding the next generation of customers and removing friction from their brand experience with a well thought out solution will hold the key for the brand's survival. Following are four ways established luxury brands can succeed by staying close to the customer - (1) Create a seamless path from inspiration to purchase. (2) Make your brand narrative attainable, intuitive and immersive. (3) Evoke in your customers the feeling of belonging and being special. (4) Serve and reward. Read on...

AdAge: Luxury Brands Must Innovate or Die in the Digital Age
Author: Ana Andjelic

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 may 2015

As businesses continue to pile-up huge amount of data there are opportunities for data scientists to provide meaningful insights to help them grow and succeed. Even startups at their early stages have substantial data that can be utilized for business value. Tianhui Michael Li, Data Scientist and Executive Director of The Data Incubator, gives his view on how a skilled data scientist (DS) can be a catalyst of growth for entrepreneurial ventures - (1) Growth Hacking: DS can utilize social data and web analytics to implement low-cost, high impact marketing campaigns. (2) Customer Retention: Bain & Co. found that 5% increase in customer retention increases profits by 125%. DS can analyze customer behavior and target communication for customer engagement, retention and even identify brand advocates to bring new customers. (3) Personalizing Products and Services: DS can utilize sales, marketing and web data to identify customer needs and wants. This will assist in customizing offerings. (4) Marketing Optimization: DS can optimize every aspect of marketing and advertising from ad budget to ad clicks to actual conversions and purchases, and much more. Read on...

Entrepreneur: 4 Things a Data Scientist Can Do for Entrepreneurs
Author: Tianhui Michael Li

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 may 2015

The value of big data lies in extracting insights and its meaningful use in solving business problems. In recent times organizations have made big investments in technologies associated with it to store, analyze, report and visualize data. Stuart Frankel, CEO and co-founder of Narrative Science, provide his perspective on why these investments haven't got expected returns, limitations of human-powered data science as it is not a scalable solution, unaffordable data scientists and, opportunities and prospects of scalable automated solutions to analyze and interpret data, and obtain hidden insights for business value. According to him, 'Artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to transform data and analysis into relevant plain English communication. AI is shortening employees' data comprehension-to-action time through comprehensive, intuitive narratives.' Following are some examples which he shares regarding use of AI in data analysis - Some mutual funds are using advanced natural language generation (Advanced NLG) platforms, powered by AI, to automatically write fund performance reports in mere seconds; In medical billing, AI scours thousands of billing records across hundreds of hospitals and generates narrative reports that immediately provide the desired analysis; AI solutions are improving customer experience. AI is the first technology to make personalized, "audience of one" communication a reality; Wealth management is beginning to use "Robo-advisors", the automated financial advisor that can offer a low-cost alternative to expensive, human advisor. Moreover AI is being embedded into existing advisory platforms, delivering personalized portfolio reviews and recommendations in natural language to customers. He further explains, 'The commonality across all of these new technologies is that they offer something additional humans cannot provide: the power of scale...In the near-term, the adoption of AI within business intelligence platforms and customer-facing applications will accelerate...The key to all of this is the intersection of AI and advanced natural language generation. We're at the beginning of the next phase of big data, a phase that will have very little to do with data capture and storage and everything to do with making data more useful, more understandable and more impactful.' Read on...

Harvard Business Review: Data Scientists Don't Scale
Author: Stuart Frankel

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 may 2015

Maintaining healthier and longer lives of human beings require efforts at global scale. There is need for cooperation and collaboration among young scientists from around the world. Basic scientific research is one of the critical component that leads to advances and innovations in healthcare. According to Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH), 'Rigorous, well-designed research is essential not only for the discovery of new ways to detect, treat, and prevent disease, but also for the most efficient development and cost-effective dissemination of such advances to the world's poorest peoples.' He cites examples of research-based technologies that are transforming the healthcare landscape - Point-of-Care diagnostics that include a DNA-amplification test which makes it possible to diagnose tuberculosis and detect drug resistance within 90 minutes; Mobile health technologies are already influencing healthcare in remote and poor regions. For example a quarter-sized, lensless microscope that, when connected to a mobile phone, can beam high-quality images of cells and microbes halfway around the globe to computers that can automatically interpret the images; Bioengineers has designed a 'paper microscope', a low cost use-and-throw device that doesn't need a power supply, to quickly and accurately diagnose malaria and other parasitic diseases in low-resource settings; Disease prevention through next generation of vaccines will only be possible through science-based technology and research; Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are fastest growing cause of deaths and would require creative scientific research to identify and implement the right tools to overcome them in resource poor regions. He further explains, 'Indeed, scientific knowledge does not travel only from developed countries to low-income countries - it is a two-way street from which the entire world stands to benefit. Recently, some of the most innovative and cost-effective advances have arisen from research reflecting the needs and ideas of people in poorer countries.' Read on...

Vox: Why the world needs more scientists
Author: Francis S. Collins

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 may 2015

According to a recent report by US Department of Agriculture, nearly 58000 high-skill agriculture-related jobs, requiring at least a bachelor's degree, are expected to open up between 2015 and 2020. But the report estimates that during the same time period fewer than 36000 qualified grads in related fields of study will enter the workforce. US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack comments, 'Not only will those who study agriculture be likely to get well-paying jobs upon graduation, they will also have the satisfaction of working in a field that addresses some of the world's most pressing challenges. These jobs will only become more important as we continue to develop solutions to feed more than 9 billion people by 2050.' 46% of the jobs in agriculture will have management and business orientation. Moreover 27% of the new high-skills jobs will require a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) education. As per the data mentioned in the report for 2012-13 school year, female graduates outnumbered men in agriculture and life sciences, forestry and veterinary programs in US. This shows that women are better prepared for employment in agriculture sector which is becoming more high-tech and high-growth. In a 2014 interview with US News, Claudia Ringler, the deputy director of the International Food Policy Research Institute's environment and production technology division, said 'Improved land management strategies are very important - that includes no-till, precision agriculture and integrated soil fertility management. You need a mix of technologies and approaches.' Read on...

US News & World Report: STEM Skills a Necessity for 27 Percent of New Agriculture Jobs
Author: Andrew Soergel

Latest             ⊲ Newer Posts             Science & Technology             Older Posts ⊳             Last