From the rainforest to the ocean, artificial intelligence is decoding nature’s most complex data patterns and is proving to be a game-changer in conservation.



For as long as there has been wildlife conservation, there has been a need for data. In order to understand ecosystem health, animal behavior and population trends, you have to be able to measure what’s going on in nature. And while there are many ways to do this, from drones to tracking devices, thermal cameras and even rangers on-foot, satellite imagery and camera traps have made study- ing wildlife movement a little bit easier. Not only can conservationists collect ample data, there’s minimal disturbance to animals. When it comes to analyzing the imagery, all that’s really needed is someone who can recognize an animal and there are many training programs to do just that.



But to really understand ecological trends, there are many creatures that are simply too small to be captured through pictures. “With very big animals like elephants, you can see them using satellite data which is great but a significant portion of the ecosystem is hidden,” says Dr Juan Lavista Ferres, who has worked in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) for over 20 years, and is the Chief Data Scientist of Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab. Luckily, those animals that are undetectable in satel- lite imagery make up for their size with sound, which is where acoustic data comes in – and in the case of ani- mal sounds, bioacoustic data. “From a noise perspec- tive, they are there,” laughs Ferres. “There is no corre- lation between the size of an animal and the sound it makes. Very small animals can make a lot of noise and can do very specific frequencies.”



<h1 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-nature-s-silent-signals">Nature’s silent signals</h1>



There’s huge potential in environmental recordings (bio- acoustics are important bioindicators —they are nature’s health signalers) and the good news is that a lot of the data is already available. At the AI for Good Lab, Ferres and his team have continuous surveillance recordings from the Amazon that go back to 1992. The problem is that there are only a handful of scientific experts who can understand what is going on when the data is visualized, and then interpret the frequencies to identify specific animals. “It’s extremely niche. In the case of bioacoustic data, you need a huge level of expertise and there are very few people in the world that can recognize these sounds and frequencies,” adds Ferres.



Another challenge is that going through all of this audio takes time. Ferres says that many of the record- ings he has run non-stop, day and night, for 365 days. “A person would need to be listening to these sounds for a whole year to get through just one year’s worth of data. Now imagine that you have multiple recordings in one forest?” There’s simply too much data for hu- mans to process manually, which is why AI is such a game-changer in conservation – it’s making research a much more efficient process. AI can learn from these experts to automate identifying and classifying animal sounds across large datasets. “We can go through all of the recordings and understand how the health of the ecosystem is changing,” says Ferrers. “Now that we have more compute and better models, we can work with these different types of data, whether it’s images, videos or acoustic data.”



<h1 class="wp-block-heading">Under the sea</h1>



One of the AI for Good Lab’s first projects using acoustic data was with endangered beluga whales in Alaska us- ing underwater sensors. “You can capture the sound of these whales, their vocalizations,” says Ferres. Because sounds travel much further than visual cues, with acous- tic data, researchers can detect (and even potentially identify) different types of whales over vast distances in the ocean, far beyond what would be possible with visual observation methods. “There are particular frequencies in the water that will be very difficult to detect without AI,” adds Ferres. “You can’t solve a problem if you can’t measure it. By doing this, we can actually start measuring the problem.”



Working with different industries and partners throughout the world, Ferres’ hope is that now that the information is in these AI models, more people will be able to use them to track animals over time. All the work that comes out of the AI for Good Lab is also open source which means all of the projects are freely available to re- searchers and organizations worldwide. “It’s a complete philanthropic effort. We give up the idea. We publish everything. All the work we do is for the societal good,” he says. “AI is not just the solution, but sometimes it’s the only solution we have.”

Botswana. Woman photographing giraffe in Chobe National Park with tablet.

Work On The Wild Side: How AI Is Helping Conservation In Africa And The Huge Potential Of Environment Recordings

With The Spurt In Healthtech, AI-powered apps Are Now All The Rage Offering Groundbreaking Interventions In Africa’s Battle against Rising Obesity Rates.



It’s an issue that affects a bulk of the continent’s population.



In Africa, where rising rates of obesity present a growing public health crisis, researchers and innovators are now turning to artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools to combat the epi- demic. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2022, 2.5 billion adults worldwide were classified as overweight, with over 890 million living with obesity. The problem is becoming especially urgent in low- and middle-income countries. In Africa alone, the number of overweight children under five has increased by nearly 23% since 2000, signaling a dramatic shift in public health needs across the continent.



One of the figures joining the battle against obesity through AI Richmond Essieku, a Ghanaian doctoral student at Texas Tech University. Essieku has reportedly identified 13 genes as potential biomarkers for obesity, with four of them already confirmed. His research is now being translated into a practical solution: an AI- powered mobile app, tentatively titled Generating Artificial Intel- ligence (AI) Based Algorithms to Model and Predict Genotype-by- Socioeconomic Status Interaction for Precision Obesity Detection. This app is designed to model the interaction between genetics and socioeconomic factors in order to provide a more accurate picture of obesity risk in individuals, particularly in Africa, where such nuances are often overlooked.



AI-powered tools like Essieku’s app are not the first examples of how AI can help address the complex factors contributing to obesity. Globally, AI has been used in various ways to combat obesity — from monitoring dietary habits to creating personalized fitness plans. In the United States (U.S.), platforms like Lark Health use AI to offer real-time health coaching, helping users monitor their eating habits and physical activity.



Similarly, Noom, a popular weight-loss app, uses AI to provide personalized advice and insights into user-behavior, which can lead to long-term lifestyle changes.



With the number of smartphone subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa expected to reach 689 million by 2028, according to Statista, mobile technology offers a promising platform for AI-powered health interventions. AI-driven mobile apps can help individuals monitor their weight, track their food intake, and maintain healthy levels of physical activity. These apps can be tailored to include traditional African foods in dietary rec- ommendations, making them culturally relevant and easier for users to adopt.



The global applications point to the potential for similar systems tailored specifically to African contexts. Abideen Ola- supo, founder of MyAIFactchecker, an AI fact-checking platform based in Nigeria, highlights the importance of culturally-local- ized solutions. “We want to build people’s confidence in explor- ing how they can interact with AI to find safe and effective ways to combat obesity,” Olasupo tells FORBES AFRICA. “For a long time, many have turned to harmful concoctions that negatively impact their health. Africa’s unique challenges cannot be under- stood from the outside, which is why we’ve been researching the solutions people seek online. Obesity, in particular, is a sensitive issue that many feel ashamed to confront.”



MyAIFactChecker is one of several platforms working to ensure that AI solutions are tailored to Africa-specific chal- lenges. Olasupo explains that the platform sifts through different themes, including health and nutrition, to ensure that data is lo- calized and actionable. He notes that combating obesity in Africa requires integrating AI into the daily lives of Africans in ways that are culturally relevant and accessible.



AI’s ability to personalize interventions is especially critical when considering the unique challenges Africa faces in address- ing obesity. Many Africans live in ‘food deserts’ — areas where healthy food is difficult to find or too expensive to buy. Physical activity can also be limited by unsafe environments or long work- ing hours, making traditional approaches to weight-loss difficult to implement.



Africa’s healthcare infrastructure faces significant challeng- es, including a shortage of healthcare professionals and limited access to health facilities. AI is helping to alleviate these issues by offering remote monitoring and telehealth services for obesity management. In countries like Nigeria and Ghana, where access to healthcare is often limited, AI-powered remote health services could provide essential support to individuals looking to manage their weight.



AI-powered health apps are gaining popularity in Africa, also offering personalized recommendations for diet and exercise.



In Nigeria, the startup WellNewMe is using AI to provide us- ers with customized health assessments based on their lifestyle choices. The platform uses machine learning algorithms to ana- lyze users’ eating habits, physical activity, and medical history. It then generates recommendations to improve their health and reduce the risk of obesity-related conditions. For example, users can receive tailored meal plans, exercise routines, and lifestyle tips, all customized to their specific health profiles.



A similar initiative is underway in Ghana, where mPharma, a healthtech company, has developed the mymutti Mobile app. While primarily used to offer affordable medications, the app has recently integrated an AI-powered feature that tracks users’ body mass index (BMI) and offers recommendations for healthier liv- ing. Users receive customized tips on maintaining a balanced diet, increasing physical activity, and managing weight through simple lifestyle changes.



In Rwanda, AI is being used to improve access to healthcare in rural areas where obesity is on the rise. The Babyl Health plat- form, which uses AI to provide remote medical consultations, has been instrumental in helping individuals in rural communities access healthcare services. Through the app, users can consult with doctors about weight-related issues, receive prescriptions, and get referrals to local health facilities for further treatment.



Farming innovations to support the health sector



AI’s role in combating obesity extends beyond healthcare to the agricultural sector, where it is being used to improve the avail- ability of healthy, affordable food. In Nigeria, the startup Zenvus is leveraging AI to help farmers increase crop yields and reduce food waste. By using AI-powered sensors, Zenvus collects data on soil conditions, weather patterns, and crop health. This data helps farmers make informed decisions about when to plant, irri- gate, and harvest their crops, resulting in higher yields and more efficient food production.



Another example is FarmPin, a South African agritech com- pany that uses AI and satellite imagery to monitor crop health and predict food shortages. By analyzing data from farms across the country, FarmPin helps farmers optimize their production and ensure a steady supply of fresh produce to local markets. This, in turn, makes healthy food more accessible and affordable, reducing reliance on processed foods that are often linked to ris- ing obesity rates.



Public health experts are also optimistic about the potential of AI to offer scalable solutions for obesity prevention in Africa. Opeyemi Adam, a public health expert based in Lagos, explains that AI could help overcome some of the challenges of limited healthcare resources in many African countries. “Obesity is often thought of as a personal issue, but it’s deeply systemic,” Adam says. “AI offers a way to analyze large amounts of data and iden- tify trends that would otherwise go unnoticed, which is crucial in places where healthcare resources are stretched thin.”



Adam also points out that many Africans lack access to per- sonalized health advice, something AI could help bridge. “With AI, we could create more personalized health plans that take into account not just the individual’s body weight or fitness level, but also their lifestyle, environment, and even their genetic makeup,” he says.

Scientists Working on Powered Exoskeleton Project in Lab.

Weighing In On The Use Of AI In Helping Combat Obesity

<a href="https://www.forbes.com/"></a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/search/"></a>Hugging Face has become the launching pad for large language models but its popularity has also proven a draw for cyber criminals.



Security researchers Protect AI have found tens of thousands &#8220;malicious&#8221; models on Hugging Face, the Github for artificial intelligence.© 2023 Bloomberg Finance LP



Hugging Face, the primary online repository for generative AI, has hosted thousands of files containing hidden code that can poison data and steal information, including the tokens used to pay AI and cloud operators, according to security researchers.



Researchers from security startups ProtectAI,&nbsp;<a href="https://hiddenlayer.com/research/silent-sabotage/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Hiddenlayer</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wiz.io/blog/wiz-research-discovers-critical-vulnerability-in-replicate" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Wiz</a>&nbsp;have warned for months that hackers have uploaded “malicious models” to Hugging Face’s site, which now hosts more than a million models available for download.



“The old Trojan horse computer viruses that tried to sneak malicious code onto your system have evolved for the AI era,” said Ian Swanson, Protect AI’s CEO and founder. The Seattle, Washington-based startup found over 3,000 malicious files when it began scanning Hugging Face earlier this year.



Some of these bad actors are even setting up fake Hugging Face profiles to pose as Meta or other technology companies to lure downloads from the unwary, according to Swanson. A scan of Hugging Face uncovered a number of fake accounts posing as companies like Facebook, Visa, SpaceX and Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson.



One model, which falsely claimed to be from the genomics testing startup 23AndMe, had been downloaded thousands of times before it was spotted, Swanson said. He warned that when installed, the malicious code hidden in the fake 23AndMe model would silently hunt for AWS passwords, which could be used to steal cloud computer resources. Hugging Face deleted the model after being alerted to the risk.



Hugging Face has now integrated ProtectAI’s tool that scans for malicious code into its platform, showing users the results before they download anything.



The company told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;it has verified the profiles of big companies like OpenAI and Nvidia starting in 2022. In November 2021, it began scanning the files often used to train machine learning models on the platform for unsafe code. “We hope that our work and partnership with Protect AI, and hopefully many more, will help better trust machine learning artifacts to make sharing and adoption easier,” said Julien Chaumond, CTO of Hugging Face in an email to&nbsp;Forbes.



The risk from malicious models has been substantial enough to warrant a joint warning from the United State’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Canada and Britain’s security agencies in&nbsp;<a href="https://media.defense.gov/2024/Apr/15/2003439257/-1/-1/0/CSI-DEPLOYING-AI-SYSTEMS-SECURELY.PDF" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">April</a>. The NSA and its British and Canadian counterparts cautioned businesses to scan any pre-trained models for dangerous code, and then only run them away from critical systems.



The hackers that have targeted Hugging Face typically inject rogue instructions into the code that developers download from the site, using it to hijack the model when it is run by an unsuspecting target. “These are classic attacks but they&#8217;re just hidden within models,” Swanson said. “Nobody would know that the model is doing these nefarious things and it would be incredibly hard for them to be able to trace that back.”



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/05/09/the-2-billion-emoji-hugging-face-wants-to-be-launchpad-for-a-machine-learning-revolution/">Hugging Face</a>&nbsp;was last valued at $4.5 billion when it raised&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-24/ai-startup-hugging-face-valued-at-4-5-billion-after-fundraising" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">$235 million</a>&nbsp;in August 2023. The eight-year-old startup founded by Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf pivoted from running a teenage-focused chatbot app to a platform for machine learning in 2018. It’s now raised $400 million to date and has been dubbed the Github for AI researchers.



“For a long time, AI was a researcher’s field and the security practices were quite basic,” said Chaumond. “As our popularity grows, so does the number of potentially bad actors who may want to target the AI community.”



Update: Protect AI clarified that the number of malicious models it found was in the thousands, not tens of thousands.

Hugging Face Illustrations As Nvidia Announces Partnership

Hackers Have Uploaded Thousands Of Malicious Files To AI’s Biggest Online Repository

South Africa’s first electric minibus taxi, eKamva, was unveiled at the Smarter Mobility Africa Summit in Johannesburg today.



It was launched alongside an integrated electric vehicle (EV) business model and charging infrastructure called ‘flx EV’.



The prototype electric minibus is a project by GoMetro, Powerfleet, formerly MiX Telematics, alongside electronics manufacturer HSW, ACDC Dynamics’ charging network, and Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Engineering.



The 15-seater electric minibus has a 70kWh battery capable of a 200km range for commutes; and 80% of its battery recharges within 45 minutes from its 50kW DC charging support.&nbsp;



Justin Coetzee, CEO of GoMetro, tells FORBES AFRICA that the journey started two years ago, when the world started going electric. “We asked ourselves, why isn’t there an electric minibus?”



Most electric buses available were 9m in length, so after a challenging search across Europe and China, GoMetro eventually found a Chinese model that could be turned into a South African-specific minibus.



“If we’re going to electrify the minibus sector, we’re going to have to do it ourselves. This is a proudly South African project alongside our industrial partnerships,” says Coetzee.



The flx EV website will soon allow minibus taxi owners and operators to apply to be added to the waiting list, while the flx app will let owners manage fleets, monitor vehicle status, prepay for charging, and find its nearest charging hub.



GoMetro will be taking eKamva on a roadshow later this year, targeting taxi ranks, associations, and hubs in South Africa’s Western Cape.



“That to me is the highlight – the industry is at the start of the journey with us, so we have to make sure that whatever they want out of an electric taxi, we listen,” adds Coetzee.



GoMetro plans to build a hub at the Century City taxi rank in Cape Town, and Stellenbosch, and hopes to have its first 10 to 20 electric taxis operating by the second half of 2025.



“There’s a huge market of private sector van usage for people movement, which goes beyond the taxi industry that we will be addressing, such as staff transport, hotel shuttles etc, but first, we need to get our model right,” says Coetzee.



Rudi Kriel, transport economist and Head of Programme at GoMetro, shares that the eKamva will either be sold outright, through a leasing model or a different type of model, such as purchasing the vehicle but leasing the battery, so the buyer still owns the asset.



“The battery will stay in the vehicle, but the ownership remains with flx EV. You just pay a subscription fee per month to have access to the battery, charging facilities and the like; it’s a model commonly used in Africa,” says Kriel.



GoMetro hopes the taxi industry will adopt the new technology on the electric minibus, which would ultimately improve operations, with its claim of up to 70% lower monthly running costs.



“At the end of the day, the taxi industry are business people, right? If you give them something they can save money on, they will be interested. And that’s the plan here, to save people operating costs, and to improve the environment,” says Kriel.



While no pricing has been confirmed for the eKamva, Coetzee hints at a ballpark figure of between R1 million (approximately $57,730) to R1.5 million ($86,600).

Image supplied

‘A Proudly South African Project’: Start Of The Journey For The Country’s First Electric Minibus Taxi

Spatial computing isn’t here just yet but it’s coming and we need to be prepared. Globally-reputed tech futurist, Cathy Hackl, tells us more in an exclusive interview about the new hardware. 



The first time most people heard the term ‘spatial computing’ was when Apple unveiled its Vision Pro headset. With a hefty price tag and limited availability, this futuristic piece of technology quickly got everyone talking. Who would buy an Apple Vision Pro? Is it not just another virtual reality (VR) headset?


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="155" height="215" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Untitled-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-63153" style="width:195px;height:auto"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Cathy Hackl</figcaption></figure></div>


“Most people don’t understand what spatial computing is,” says Cathy Hackl, a tech futurist and author who is often referred to as the ‘Godmother of the Metaverse’. “It is not one piece of hardware or one single technology.” Hackl explains that spatial computing isn’t VR or augmented reality (AR), it’s the future. “We are seeing an expansion of computing and an evolution of the web happening side-by-side. The convergence of all of these emerging technologies happening at the same time? That’s spatial computing.”



The computing evolution



Computing has already gone through an evolution so the fact that there’s something new shouldn’t come as a sur- prise. First, there were big, expensive mainframe com- puters that most people didn’t have access to. This was followed by the personal computer, a desktop that sat at your home or work.



“It was the first time that many of us engaged with a computer,” says Hackl. What followed next was mobile computing. Portable laptops and smartphones “and we now have a supercomputer in our hands that we don’t go anywhere without”, she adds. “What we’re starting to see now are other kinds of devices like facial computers, AI companions, smart glasses… but at the same time, the web is evolving. There was first the worldwide web which was followed by the mobile web and now we’re going into the spatial web – the metaverse.”



When you combine these three elements – advanced computing, spatial internet and new hardware being created – what you come out with is spatial computing. “It’s a 3D-centric form of computing that at its core uses AI computer vision, extended reality and a multitude of technologies to start to blend virtual content and experi- ences into someone’s experience of the physical world,” Hackl says, adding that spatial computing will not only alter human-to-human communication but also human- to-computer interaction.



And you can see this shift starting to happen with large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence (genAI). “For many years we have been adapting to technology but this time, it’s technology starting to adapt to us,” she says. “Spatial computing will result in new interfaces, software, hardware, data types and levels of connectivity. It’s not simply VR or the Vision Pro – that’s re- ductive and limiting. 



A new interface



Hackl anticipates that in the next 12 to 18 months, we’re going to see new hardware thrown at us – attempts at new form factors, new ways for people to interface with technology. She says that there will be big advancements in audio and smart glasses and although the mobile phone isn’t going anywhere just yet, there is a new form factor coming.



There are already companies like Magic Leap that are focusing on building spatial computing devices for the enterprise. Partnering with a mining company, they used their Magic Leap 2 headset as a worker training tool, overlaying key data into the physical world for immer- sive, real-time guidance. “With spatial computing, the physical world becomes the interface and that in itself is revolutionary,” says Hackl. “I think, in general, people are ill-prepared for what’s about to come.”



What’s next, says Hackl, is that we’ll be able to access data through spatial computing devices. “Accessing that data layer will be a huge step in human computer inter- action and it’s going to allow for more robots and autono- mous vehicles,” she says. AI plays a crucial role in this because in order to make use of big data, information has to be processed in real-time. This is how robots navigate the physical world; they use spatial intelligence and large action models (LAMs). The difference between a LLM and a LAM is that LAMs go beyond language by under- standing user intentions. LAMs can perform complex tasks through direct interactions with various applica- tions and systems.



Convergence, not AI



Although Hackl insists that spatial computing is still years away, we need to be ready for its impact. The line between the physical and virtual world has already starting to disap- pear if you take into account what people are spending their money on. For the generation coming up, virtual assets (like buying Robux, Roblox’ in-game currency) already have more value than physical assets. To reach this demographic, companies like Walmart have created entire worlds inside Roblox where an item purchased in-store will have a digital twin inside the game. Hackl, who was Walmart’s metaverse advisor in-residence, helped them with this project: “They’re starting to think about this new customer who wants to consume content as well as products and services.”



To prepare for spatial computing, Hackl advises that businesses don’t buy a hundred Apple Vision Pros. While it is what she calls an ‘early’ spatial computer, the headset will evolve and other technology brands will follow. “A couple of decades ago AI was in this evolu- tionary phase and now it’s revolutionary. Spatial com- puting is now evolutionary but it will be revolutionary,” says Hackl. “AI seems to be the word of the year but I think it should be convergence because that’s what we’re truly seeing – a convergence of all of these incred- ible technologies.”

metaverse

The Computers Of The Future And Insights From The ‘Godmother Of The Metaverse’

Xtalpi, a Shenzhen-based AI drug discovery company, saw its shares soar 108% on the Hong Kong stock exchange over the past week, boosting its market cap to $5.5 billion.



The stock price rise comes on the back of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.xtalpi.com/en" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Xtalpi’s&nbsp;</a>sales growth and its more than $135 million deal with Chinese billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/zhu-gongshan/">Zhu Gongshan’s</a>&nbsp;energy company GCL Group.



Known formally as QuantumPharm, the Hong Kong-listed company posted a 28% year-over-year rise in revenue to 102.6 million yuan ($14.4 million) in the first half of 2024, the company said in a filing last Wednesday. Xtalpi attributed the sales growth to the increased number of customers of its AI-powered drug discovery services. Its customers include Pfizer, Johnson &amp; Johnson, Sino Biopharmaceutical subsidiary Chia Tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group and CK Life Sciences, the biotech arm of Hong Kong billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/li-ka-shing/">Li Ka-shing’s</a>&nbsp;CK Hutchison Holdings.



Part of the revenue growth came from its first-ever milestone payment, at an undisclosed amount, from Signet Therapeutics, a Chinese biotech startup backed by Xtalpi and Forbes Midas Lister&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-liu/">Richard Liu’s</a>&nbsp;5Y Capital. The milestone payment came after a potential drug the two companies co-developed for diffuse gastric cancer, a form of stomach cancer, received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin human clinical trials.



Xtalpi’s net loss, however, widened 46% to 1.3 billion yuan in the first six months of 2024 from the previous year. The company said it’s due partly to the drop in interest income and an increase in expenses such as the listing fees. Xtalpi has continued to invest heavily in research and development, spending 210.4 million yuan in the first half of the year, though that’s roughly 10% less from the previous year.



Meanwhile, Xtalpi in late August entered into a five-year partnership with Chinese energy and power company GCL Group in a deal worth more than $135 million. Under the collaboration, the two companies will jointly research and develop new materials in areas such as lithium-ion batteries, which are used in electric vehicles.



Cofounded by Wen Shuhao, Ma Jian and Lai Lipeng—three Chinese quantum physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—Xtalpi combines AI, quantum physics, cloud computing and robotic automation to find novel molecules that could be developed into new medicines. Its drug candidate for primary hyperoxaluria, which causes kidney stones, is set to enter clinical safety evaluation for human in Australia in the first half of 2025, Xtalpi said.



Recently, Xtalpi has also expanded into discovering new chemical compounds for applications such as agriculture, cosmetic, healthcare, as well as petrochemicals and new materials for EV batteries.



The company has attracted investors from the likes of Tencent, Chinese billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/neil-shen/">Neil Shen’s</a>&nbsp;Hongshan (formerly Sequoia China), 5Y Capital, Google, U.S. billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-yass/">Jeff Yass’</a>&nbsp;Susquehanna International Group, Chinese tycoon&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/tse-ping/">Tse Ping’s</a>&nbsp;Sino Biopharmaceutical and SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, among others.



Xtalpi was the first to go public under a Hong Kong new listing rule for specialist technology companies with smaller market cap and lower revenue, which was introduced more than a year ago to revive the city’s sluggish IPO market. After raising HK$989.3 million ($126.7 million) in its IPO in June, Xtalpi is set to be included as a constituent stock of Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index on Monday.

Doctor holding tablet showing brain human and body anatomy futuristic technology

Tencent-Backed AI Drug Researcher Xtalpi’s Shares Double On Revenue Rise

Do You Prefer AIOr The Personal Touch? Some Insights On How Africa’s Hotel Sector Is Set To Welcome A New Era Of Hospitality.



Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the economic landscape and expected to boost global GDP by trillions of dollars in the coming years. It is one of the most significant commercial opportunities in the world. But how will it play out in the hospitality and tourism industry?



According to HotelTechReport’s State of Hotel Guest Technology Report 2024, 70% of the 400 hotel guests they surveyed said they still prefer the human touch when managing complex queries and 65% would like the technology in their hotel to be more advanced than what they have at home.



It’s a knife edge – on one hand, people are the heart of hospitality, on the other, ignoring the value of AI can potentially impact a hotel’s future. If a hotel can’t offer personalization, experience enhancement, chatbot support and AI-curated services, will it be left behind? Or will this make it an oasis where the lack of technology is the value-added service, whilst AI runs in the background, smoothing over the bumps and easing guests into their experiences?



Some hotels have already stepped into technology with immersive experiences and digital room replicas. “We launched our first use of AI for our meeting experiences called Meetings Unbound,” says Stephanie AbouJaoude, Senior Area Director of Marketing &amp; Communications – Middle East, Africa, Turkey &amp; Mediterranean at the Radisson Hotel Group. “We’ve leveraged AI technology to offer these creative and visual meeting experiences for our delegates.”



This is very much in line with what is being described as the ‘era of hospitality’ where personalization, engagement, human connections, and the co-creation of experiences are becoming the standards against which hospitality is measured.



There is a need for data, insights, and emergent technologies to provide the sector with the tools they need to ensure they meet the expectations of an increasingly discerning traveler.



“You have to ensure the guests you’re attracting are delivered what they’re expecting. Personalized experiences are absolutely essential, everyone wants that Instagram image, that experience,” says Neil Hughes, Managing Director, Providence Hotels, who also points out that while he does use a digital ecosystem to connect with customers, the use of AI remains at the base level. “I think people need human interaction. AI is cold – no matter how you load it with chatbots and virtual assistance, you will never achieve the personal level you can with a human on the phone. AI is valuable and absolutely can support personalization, but we’re not at a level where we will turn an AI engine on and it can handle everything from campaigns to customer service.”



A warm greeting and shining eyes.



Certainly, this is what most people would prefer rather than being caught up in a tangle of technology which is invariably frustrating and complex. Is AI ready to use the technology?



“The truth is AI is in use by the hospitality sector in Africa, and it is being used in really interesting ways,” says Chris Godenir, General Manager of Dream Hotels’ Peninsula All-Suite Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa. “We’re using it extensively in our back-end to manage check-ins, applications, arrival emails, questionnaires, WhatsApp conversations – we always provide people with the option to turn to a human, but we use the AI to the best of our ability in our business.” While AI is not comprehensively in use by hotels across the continent, it’s not an unknown entity. As Jerry Mabena, CEO: Motsamayi Tourism Group, says: “There are two types of guests in Africa – the more established, older market and the younger generation looking for unique opportunities. The latter is where I see AI playing a big role, engaging with this technology-savvy market and curating experiences for them. AI allows us to start moving into a space where we can draw in a wider number of people by creating iconic, African experiences.”



He adds that people are also now traveling for a purpose, seeking out experiences that allow them to touch the earth lightly and AI can help the industry prioritize and meet these expectations more effectively. However, there is a need to look ahead at how AI may negatively impact the sector. It’s not a plug and play solution and it brings with it a host of risks – some expected and some unexpected.



As Noor Kapdi, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson Africa for law firm Dentons, concludes: “The AI industry isn’t regulated in Africa, it’s hardly regulated in other parts of the world, and this creates both opportunity and risk. There’s the ethics of it – if we know how people sleep, how they like their coffee in the morning, these are deeply personal insights and managing this privacy is challenging. The only way it will be measured is through the ethical standards of each country, and we have yet to see how AI will manifest in the hospitality industry or what the consequences will be.”



AI can ease the burden of back-end admin, smooth over the wrinkles in customer engagement, simplify customer onboarding and reimagine their experiences, but it is still so new, untested, and fresh that hotels stepping forward into its potential should approach it with a balance of caution and innovation. It is not a technology leaving Africa in its dust – the sector is very much aware of what AI can do. Perhaps, instead, it is Africa that would like it to remain in the dust, for just a few more spectacular sunsets.

Smart Robot Assistant On Reception

Hospitable Tech? Africa’s Hotel Sector And AI-Based Hospitality

Coaching programs that rely on artificial intelligence are cheap, accessible and increasingly popular for practicing tough workplace conversations or getting tips for negotiating a raise. But privacy questions and skepticism over the quality of non-human answers could slow adoption.



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You’ve trusted artificial intelligence&nbsp;to plan a vacation itinerary, write a cover letter for a new job and even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2024/02/14/dating-apps-ai-chatgpt-tinder-hinge-bumble-match/#:~:text=YourMove%20AI%20bills%20itself%20as,and%20generate%20dating%20photos%20compatible">flirt on your behalf with your next date</a>. But would you trust it with career advice?



A growing number of businesses are betting you will. Coaching or workforce learning platforms like BetterUp, Multiverse and LinkedIn—as well as startups like Valence and Wisq—are only some of the AI-powered coaching chatbots entering the market.



During a time of layoffs and budget cuts, as companies seek to help workers hone their interpersonal skills, AI is emerging, ironically, as a cheaper and more accessible alternative to traditionally high-cost human coaching.



AI coaching refers broadly to a variety of apps and programs that are powered by generative AI technology and provide advice about tricky situations or career challenges. Users query a chatbot and get real-time, interactive feedback on everything from the best way to negotiate a raise to how to search for a new job to how to delegate work or give feedback to teammates.



This is still a relatively niche business—Gartner’s HR practice tells&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;it is still too small of a market to measure—but both employers and workers are starting to embrace it. Its emergence comes at a time when more people and companies are seeking help with career development, and understandably so. In an economy where fewer people are quitting or changing jobs, workers are nervous about promotion opportunities. Meanwhile, many also feel frustrated by a lack of hands-on management training during the pandemic or concerned about how AI is already reshaping job descriptions and making some of their skills obsolete.



Some 47% of companies surveyed by LinkedIn for its&nbsp;<a href="https://learning.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/amp/learning-solutions/images/wlr-2024/LinkedIn-Workplace-Learning-Report-2024.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">2024 Workforce Report</a>&nbsp;said they are investing in career mentoring and coaching for their workforce, and a survey by Gartner found that 42% of employees would be comfortable asking an AI coach about the next steps in their career. Another survey by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.intoo.com/us/blog/unlocking-organizational-success-report-press-release/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">INTOO</a>, a career and outplacement firm, found that nearly half of respondents aged 21 to 26 think they get better advice from AI, including ChatGPT, than from their managers.



So it’s no surprise that startups are attracting investments and companies are rolling out new products. For example, in June, Menlo Park, Cal.-based Rising Team closed an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rising-team-raises-8-million-series-a-and-introduces-personalized-ai-leadership-coach-for-building-high-performing-teams-302165554.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">$8 million</a>&nbsp;seed round that it’s using in part to add an AI leadership coach,&nbsp;<a href="https://risingteam.com/#aRTiHelps" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">aRTi</a>, to its team performance platform. Management AI coaching tool Wisq, which has raised over $40 million in funding since May 2021,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wisq-launches-first-personalized-ai-guide-for-managers-302113194.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">launched a new program</a>&nbsp;aimed at mid-level managers in April.



“Employers are all over it,” says Ujjwal Singh, chief technology and product officer at London-based apprenticeship startup Multiverse, adding that 64% of its customers now use its AI career coach. That’s up 15% from last quarter. “They’re really pushing this hard.”



Yet even as demand rises, AI career coaching faces hurdles to widespread adoption, including concerns some workers may have about the privacy of employer-provided sessions and questions about the quality of tools’ responses. More customized responses rely on personal information users may be hesitant to give—and on the real-life experiences that human coaches can draw upon when counseling clients.



Some early research suggests that in some scenarios, AI coaching can be as effective as the human version. For example, a study&nbsp;<a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0270255" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">published</a>&nbsp;in the journal PLOS found that research groups using human coaches and those using AI coaches were just as efficient when it came to reaching set goals.



But at this point, skepticism is still warranted. “We&#8217;re a long way from a typical human being wanting [coaching] from a machine,” says Joseph Fuller, a Harvard Business School professor who co-leads its Managing the Future of Work initiative. But, he adds, given the rapid improvements in AI, “it’s pretty dumb to bet against them.”



This much is for sure:&nbsp;AI coaching is a lot cheaper for employers than the human variety, which, with an average cost of&nbsp;<a href="https://coachingfederation.org/app/uploads/2023/04/2023ICFGlobalCoachingStudy_ExecutiveSummary.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">$244 an hour,</a>&nbsp;has typically been provided only to companies’ top performers or senior executives. (For comparison, Wisq charges between $50 and $150 per user per year for a combination of human and AI coaching.) It&#8217;s also designed to be accessible, with several AI coaches integrated directly into apps most workers use daily, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams.



In 2023, the American market for coaching was worth $14.2 billion, according to market research firm IBISWorld. During the pandemic, Zoom enabled coaches to take on remote clients, expanding their client base further, points out Carlos Cuadrado Ortiz, an associate principal and coach at consulting firm Korn Ferry.



AI could be a big accelerator for the industry, enabling companies to provide coaching to more employees and human coaches to serve more clients by using AI tools to address the simplest questions. That explains why some big career businesses are adding AI features or acquiring smaller startups. LinkedIn, for instance, launched an AI virtual coach in October that helps users find new jobs personalized to their profile. The AI coach’s answers pull from large language models that are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mariagraciasantillanalinares/2024/06/13/linkedin-releases-ai-resum-and-cover-letter-help-for-premium-users/">trained</a>&nbsp;on advice provided by a handful of human coaches who earn royalty fees.



In March, BetterUp, a coaching and mental health platform that has reached&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2021/06/07/venture-funding-for-mental-health-startups-hits-record-high-as-anxiety-depression-skyrocket/">unicorn</a>&nbsp;status (it was last valued at $4.7 billion in 2021 according to Pitchbook), acquired Practica, an early AI coaching provider, to grow its own AI offerings. (The company still offers human coaching to all users.) The new AI services include a “role play” function that lets users practice conversations with a voice-prompted chatbot about thorny topics, such as asking for a raise or sharing critical feedback. The AI might tell a user, for example, that they sounded defensive when delivering bad news or too nervous when making a case for a promotion.



Meanwhile, startups like Toronto-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.valence.co/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Valence</a>&nbsp;and Paris-based&nbsp;<a href="https://coachello.io/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Coachello</a>&nbsp;added AI chatbots to their online coaching services last year. Grettel Seiger, a leadership development manager based in Basel, Switzerland, started trying out Coachello with a small group of employees a month ago and says it’s been a way for colleagues to get help earlier in their careers without the high cost.



Those who’ve started using it have opened up about the dilemmas they face, she adds, noting “you don’t feel judged” like you might with some managers. Asking the AI chatbot follow-up questions has also helped her define exactly what help she needs. “The whole process became cathartic,’’ she says.



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But good coaching,&nbsp;and good advice, is rarely about quick answers; it relies on probing questions—or in AI speak, collecting more data. “Coaching is about guiding someone in a certain direction, [or] nudging people,” says Multiverse’s Singh. “I don’t think AI is quite there yet” when it comes to complex, relationship-focused questions, he adds.



At a broad level, some AI tools have been known to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2024/07/11/this-ai-powered-coach-catches-hallucinations-in-other-ai-models/">make up answers</a>&nbsp;or at times give&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2024/07/23/target-employees-hate-its-new-ai-chatbot/">wrong information</a>. Massara Almafrachi, a third-year law student at Western New England Law School, says that asking an AI chatbot for career advice has resulted in confusing and irrelevant answers. “I’m already confused about my career,” she says. “AI [only] throws me in a bigger loop.”



Katie Kirsch, the founder of a coaching company called Lume and a 2024&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/katie-kirsch/">Forbes&nbsp;Under 30 listmaker</a>, says she may one day incorporate AI features into her platform. But earlier this year she tried out AI tools herself and found the advice lacked nuance: &#8220;The kinds of conversations [my human coach and I] had felt impossible to replace in the AI format.&#8221;



AI chatbots, after all, are only as powerful as the quantity and quality of the data they have been fed, and how well the tools are built. To provide a personalized approach, AI coaching companies must successfully coax users to divulge specific, personal information, says Harvard’s Fuller. “You end up having this chicken-or-the-egg problem of not having access to a lot of data until you’ve got the quality that you can only get by having a lot of data,” he says.



Then, there’s the question of sensitive information. Most AI coaching companies offer their services directly through employers, which could make users leery of asking what they really want to know. How many employees who want advice on leaving a job or dealing with a toxic boss would feel comfortable entering those questions into a chatbot offered by their employer?



AI coaching providers respond that confidentiality agreements prevent the tools from sharing personal details with employers, and any reports generated for employers show only aggregate and anonymized results. (Some, such as BetterUp, also say users can opt out of having their data train language learning models, while others, such as Valence,&nbsp;<a href="https://support.valence.co/en/articles/9100961-valence-s-ai-coach-nadia-introduction-and-faqs#h_06ffdb4c89" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">say</a>&nbsp;it does not use employee conversations with its chatbot to train its models.)



Meanwhile, “workers are generally aware that a company-provided tool is tailored to enhance the company’s goals, which don’t always align with theirs,” says Hatim Rahman, management professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, who studies AI’s impact on employment.



Despite potential privacy fears and the fact that AI coaching models still have a lot to learn, tech-savvy workers are increasingly embracing them. “There is no judgment built directly into the tool,” says Michael Woodward, director of New York University’s Coaching Innovation Lab. “It’s purely mathematical.”



In addition to Gen Z workers, another unexpected demographic has become an unlikely power user of AI coaching: Middle-aged men. Multiverse reports it is seeing the most growth among people aged 40 and up; as of June, 46% of eligible employees older than 40 used Atlas, its AI-powered coaching service, compared to only 31% of users 24 and under.



Men in their 40s are one of the largest groups using BetterUp’s AI coaching feature, too. “These are [groups] where coaching may still be stigmatized,” says Moritz Sudhof, vice-president of AI at BetterUp. But if given the chance to share their career dilemmas with a chatbot, they’re actually “ready to open up and bare their weaknesses and problems.”

Chatbot concept. open AI, Artificial Intelligence.

Your Next Career Coach Could Be A Chatbot

Navigating the complexities of our future is big business – and big money. Here are some of the more eminent global futurists offering fresh insights into future tech and a better tomorrow.



At the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, there’s one particular session where people start queueing around four in the morning to get a seat. It’s not one of the big-name music performances or a movie screening with awards buzz, it’s a keynote by Amy Webb.



Webb, who is the founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute (FTI), is a futurist. She’s a professor of strategic foresight, a data and research-driven field that unpacks what could be in an increasingly complex world. Webb’s 2024 Tech Trends Report, which is downloaded more than a million times every year, is made up of just under a thou- sand pages of insights businesses rely on to navigate the future.



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IN HER TALK AT SXSW, AMY WEBB SAID THAT THE NEXT STAGE OF AI IS MERGING DIGITAL SUPERCOMPUTERS WITH HUMAN TISSUE. THIS IS SOMETHING WEBB REFERS TO AS ORGANOID INTELLIGENCE, OR O-AI. SHE PREDICTS THAT BY 2039, O-AI WILL BECOME THE FOREFRONT OF COMPUTATIONAL EVOLUTION, MERGING HUMAN-LIKE DECISION-MAKING CAPABILITIES WITH THE SPEED OF TRADITIONAL COMPUTERS. IN SIMPLE TERMS, WEBB SAYS THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE BIOCOMPUTERS OUT OF HUMAN BRAIN CELLS – WE WILL GROW COMPUTERS RATHER THAN BUILD THEM.
</blockquote>



Predicting what comes next may be big business but it’s not necessarily new. While modern futurists use data to forecast pos- sible future scenarios and spot emerging opportunities, the science of probability – long-term planning – has been around since the 1940s. And before futurology became an academic field and job role, science fiction authors like H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clarke, were recognized as futurists with an uncanny ability to foresee the world to come. Today, there are a number of well-known futurists sought out by industry giants (and the government) to steer business strategy and adapt to disruptive change. Businesses are hiring futurists to tell them the things they don’t want to hear so that they can prepare for unfore- seen inevitabilities.



Meet the futurists



As the founder of Singularity University and the XPRIZE Foundation, Peter Diamandis is a Silicon Valley digital futurist and engineer who has started over 25 companies. Now in his 60s, Diamandis (whose net worth has been reported to be around $200 million) has many innova- tive projects underway. While tickets to attend his membership-only Abundance Summit begin at $10,000, Diamandis is attempting to change the world with his large-scale XPRIZE competitions that tackle domains like climate, space, biodiversity and deep tech. According to the Key Speakers Bureau, Diamandis’ speaking fee starts at $60,000 – and that’s for a virtual, not in-person, appearance.



As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more and more popular, there’s a good chance that futurist Ray Kurzweil will be mentioned. Kurzweil, who has received 20 honorary doctorates is a computer scientist and futurist with a 30-year track record of accurate predic- tions – his written predictions, of which there are 147, have an 86% accuracy rate. Kurzweil’s first predictions around AI came out in 1999 and while many people felt that his views were radical when he said that computers would be as intelligent as humans, his estimated date of 2029 doesn’t seem so far off. Kurzweil’s net worth is reportedly around $30 million, most of which comes from the four companies he success- fully founded based on his research and academic prizes. One of his boldest predictions is that immortality will be achievable by 2030 with nanobots – tiny robots that can repair human bodies on a cellular level.



In an interview, he famously said: “By the time we get to the 2040s, we’ll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that’s singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter.”



Webb, who has been called ‘one of the five women changing the world’, recently wrote a book called The Genesis Machine with fellow futurist, Andrew Hessel. The book, which won a Gold Axiom Medal, explores synthetic biology, a controversial and emerging techno-science. Biotech, which is something both Webb and Hessel focus on, was a key part of Webb’s 2024 Tech Trends Report. In her talk at SXSW, she said that the next stage of AI is merging digital supercomputers with human tissue. This is something Webb refers to as organoid intelligence, or O-AI. She predicts that by 2039, O-AI will become the forefront of computational evolution, merging human-like decision-making capabilities with the speed of traditional computers. 



In simple terms, Webb says that we will be able to make biocomputers out of human brain cells – we will grow computers rather than build them. Hessel is a pioneer in synthetic biology, microbiologist, geneticist and futurist. He is also the co-founder of a company called Hu-mane Genomics Inc. that engineers synthetic viruses to target cancer cells. “Biology is a very different medium than computing but there are fundamental similarities,” he wrote in a blog post talking about synthetic biology in Af-rica. “Africa is geographically well-positioned to benefit from synthetic biology. Much of the country is in the biological power band of the world, blessed with ample sunlight, fresh water, fertile soils, and incredible biological diversity. But it is also vulnerable to changes in climate, particularly shifts in rainfall and heat waves,” he continues. Hessel has seen first-hand how AI tools are supercharging all aspects of digital biology and predicts that DNA printers are on the cusp of a major upgrade. He believes that in the next five years, we will be able to print and assemble microbial-scale genomes — at reasonable cost and turnaround times.



In the workplace



No matter whether you call them futurists, fu-turologists, foresight practitioners or horizon scanners, it’s becoming increasingly common for organizations to employ professionals with these titles. According to the Univer-sity of Houston, around 25% of Fortune 500 companies have futurists on staff. They’re also commonplace at government agencies as well as non-profits. Andrew Bolwell, for example, is HP’s chief disrupter. In his role, he unpacks megatrends like microfluidics – working with tiny amounts of fluid with precision. Even though printers already do this, Bolwell is talking about even smaller amounts, fluids the fifth of a size of a human cell (or a thousand times smaller than a raindrop). With the microfluidics market projected to be worth $64.94 billion by 2029, according to Mordor Intelligence, the possibility of 3D-printing vital organs may become a reality.



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&#8220;BY THE TIME WE GET TO THE 2040S, WE’LL BE ABLE TO MULTIPLY HUMAN INTELLIGENCE A BILLIONFOLD. THAT WILL BE A PROFOUND CHANGE THAT’S SINGULAR IN NATURE. COMPUTERS ARE GOING TO KEEP GETTING SMALLER AND SMALLER. ULTIMATELY, THEY WILL GO INSIDE OUR BODIES AND BRAINS AND MAKE US HEALTHIER, MAKE US SMARTER.”&#8211; Ray Kurzweil
</blockquote>



When Dr Werner Vogels, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President at Amazon, one of the globe’s most innovative companies, looks into the future, the world takes note.



The well-known futurist, who releases tech predictions for the year and beyond, also happens to be one of the highest-paid CTOs worldwide – it’s no wonder his live speaking fee reportedly starts at $100,000. One of Vo-gels’ predictions is that women’s healthcare, femtech, is on the rise. “Women’s healthcare is not a niche market,” he writes in his tech predictions report. “At AWS, we’ve been work-ing closely with women-led startups and have seen first-hand the growth in femtech. In the last year alone, funding has increased 197%.” 



With increased access to capital, technologies like machine learning, and connected devices designed specifically for women, Vogels believes that the world is at the precipice of an unprecedented shift, not only in the way women’s care is perceived, but how it’s administered. From women in rural areas who have been historically underserved medically to female athletes whose training was modelled on what worked for men, femtech will finally see women’s care move from the fringes to the forefront.



As companies strive to achieve aggressive sustainability targets, there are now climate and environmental futurists emerging as key strategic advisors, guiding businesses in navigating the complexities of climate change, resource management and eco-friendly practices to secure long-term viability and environmental stewardship. For Gerd Leonhard, a German futurist, green has become the new digital and sustainable is the new profitable. In a recent keynote, he said that he’s optimistic about climate change and global warming because we already have the tools we need to solve it. “We’re going to suffer for 15 to 20 years in the process of fixing this,” he predicts, “but we’re now getting ready to do this… technological advancements offer solutions that can help tackle these challenges. It will be essential to find a balance between economic progress and environmental preservation.”



Leonhard, like other consulting futurists, is working with companies to help them understand the next decade and develop foresight. “It’s not predictions, it’s understanding, intuition and imagination,” he explains in a podcast, adding that being a futurist is similar to being a therapist. His job is to essentially point his clients in the right direction; clients who happen to be tech giants, business leaders and government officials around the globe.



The future, today



There’s no question that history is happening now and futurists provide a way to understand current trends as well as anticipate what’s to come. Futurism is essentially risk management because every industry is experiencing dynamic change. In the last 50 years we’ve made more progress than in the previous 250,000 years and it’s been said that the next 10 years will bring more change than the previous 100. Of course, the future is unpredictable and futurists are not fortune tellers – they get things wrong. However, their value lies in their ability to analyze data and identify patterns. By incorporating foresight into strategic planning, businesses, governments and other organizations can adapt more effectively to emerging trends, mitigate risks and seize the moment. In a world characterized by rapid technological advancements, the role of the futurist has become increasingly indispensable in shaping a better tomorrow.

GUI (Graphical User Interface) concept.

The Fortune Of Foresight: Futurists On Tomorrow’s Tech

Afam Onyema is bringing essential services and educational opportunities to those in need, also creating pathways for young girls to succeed in Nigeria.



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“Every time a girl tells me she wants to be a nurse or an engineer, I feel a sense of fulfillment.”
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Afam Onyema stands at the intersection of legacy and ambition, driven by a vision ignited in the heart of his father.



“My dad always told us about his story and his dream, which started very small. We just tried to do little things to help in Nigeria,” Onyema recalls.



His parents, Godwin and Nma, were native Nigerians who had embarked on a journey to the United States (U.S.) in the mid-seventies, fueled by the desire to help their homeland. Godwin, a trained doctor, and Nma, a nurse, envisioned a future where they could save lives and uplift their community.



Growing up as the second of four children, Onyema absorbed his father’s story and decided to step away from a legal career to build GEANCO, an organization established by Godwin in 2005. The name GEANCO is derived from the initials of the Onyema family — Godwin, Ebele, Afam, Nche, Nma, and Chukwugozie — and aims to create opportunities and transform lives in Africa.



&#8220;We started with medical missions, performing surgeries and bringing surgeons over. From there, we began to build relationships, establish credibility, and gain experience,” shares Onyema, GEANCO’s co-founder and CEO.



Navigating the complexities of operating in Nigeria while based in the U.S. posed unique challenges, he understood that establishing a solid infrastructure was crucial to GEANCO&#8217;s success. He leaned on his cousin, Obinna Okoye, who established a team in Nigeria to handle local operations. With this foundation in place, Onyema could focus on leadership, strategy, and fundraising.



However, raising funds for a vision still in its infancy was daunting. “In those early days, I was asking donors to believe in a dream,” he admits. Yet, through persistence and the support of early believers, GEANCO began to flourish, evolving from a small organization into a force for change.



With each successful mission, GEANCO began to build a reputation for excellence, attracting attention from high-profile supporters like Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, David Oyelowo, Brad Pitt and Oprah Winfrey.



With each trip to Nigeria, Onyema witnessed the tangible results of GEANCO&#8217;s work. He visited communities where shipping container clinics provided essential medical services, allowing mothers to give birth in safe, hygienic environments. He met young girls whose lives were transformed by scholarships and mentorship programs, fostering their aspirations in STEM fields.



“I can’t describe the joy of seeing these girls, full of hope and determination, knowing we’re helping them reach their full potential,” he says.



Despite the progress, Onyema acknowledges the persistent challenges facing Nigeria. “Good governance could solve many of these issues,” he states. “With the right infrastructure — clean water, power, and education — Nigeria could become the Singapore of Africa.”



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“With the right infrastructure — clean water, power, and education — Nigeria could become the Singapore of Africa.”
</blockquote>



Recognizing the disparities in educational access for girls in Nigeria, the foundation formed a partnership with The Smiths Group Foundation to launch an initiative aimed at empowering young girls through science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The initiative&#8217;s cornerstone is the STEM Leadership Summits, designed to ignite a passion for STEM among participants in Junior Secondary 3 to Senior Secondary 1.



“We want to expose them to the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in a modern economy,” Onyema explains, excitement evident in his voice. “We’re not just building knowledge; we’re building a community of future leaders.”



“We want these girls to understand that a successful career in STEM is within their reach, regardless of socioeconomic challenges,” he explains. The program features panels led by Nigerian female STEM practitioners, including Nigeria&#8217;s first female pilot, to inspire and mentor participants.



The summits offer hands-on workshops, with practical sessions on cutting-edge technologies such as solar power systems, drone assembly, 3D-printing, and the Internet of Things. Onyema believes that engaging the girls in projects of their choice would foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of STEM fields.



“We want them to see how engineering solutions can transform their communities,” he emphasizes.



To provide ongoing support, the initiative would also launch an online platform offering free access to 240 STEM lessons tailored to the Nigerian curriculum. This approach ensures that thousands of disadvantaged students, even in remote areas, could benefit from STEM education.



Through the David Oyelowo Leadership Scholarship for Girls, Onyema witnessed dreams take flight. What started as a modest initiative in Abuja expanded to serve 45 girls across four schools. The scholarship offers full tuition, healthcare, and social and psychological support to young female survivors of terrorism and gender inequality.



“Every time a girl tells me she wants to be a nurse or an engineer, I feel a sense of fulfillment,” he shares. “We’re creating pathways for them to succeed.”



As Onyema stands on the brink of a new chapter for GEANCO, he remains hopeful: &#8220;We&#8217;re really excited about this work and hope to gain more support for it. We’ve been incredibly blessed by the supporters who have kept this initiative going for over 17 years, and we aim to continue for another 17 — or even 70 years. With the support we need, we can reach more girls, inspire them, and provide them with brighter hopes for the future. We love what we do and feel fortunate to be able to make an impact, and we hope more people will recognize our mission and partner with us in this important work.&#8221;

Afam Onyema (Image supplied)

The Nigerian Powerhouse Fulfilling His Father’s Dream Of Transforming Lives With Support From Global Celebrities

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Shares of Google parent firm Alphabet fell 3% to a 2024 low on Thursday, after OpenAI launched a test version of SearchGPT, a new artificial intelligence-powered search engine to be implemented into ChatGPT that could enter OpenAI into an internet search market dominated by Google.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



SearchGPT, a new search engine created with OpenAI’s AI models, launched as a temporary “prototype” among a small group of users—<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/25/24205701/openai-searchgpt-ai-search-engine-google-perplexity-rival" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;including about 10,000 people—and publishers, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/25/24205701/openai-searchgpt-ai-search-engine-google-perplexity-rival" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>.



Alphabet shares fell to a new 52-week low of $167.32 as trading closed on Thursday.



SearchGPT summarizes information from websites and then provides short descriptions with an attribution link instead of linking directly to a website, and allows users to ask follow-up questions or open other relevant links in a sidebar.



In one example, searching for musical festivals in Boone, North Carolina, in August results in a list of each festival and a short description, followed by a link to a website for that festival, with a sidebar with links to other relevant results like event scheduling or ticket sales.



Publishers will be able to “manage how they appear” in search results, according to OpenAI, noting publishers can opt out of having their content used to train OpenAI’s models while still appearing in searches.



OpenAI said it plans to “integrate the best of these features” into ChatGPT in the future, though the company didn’t specify which features would be included.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



It’s not immediately clear how long the testing period will last and when SearchGPT will become more widely available.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



There has been speculation on a new search engine from OpenAI this year, as the company moves to compete with Google in the search market. Bloomberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-07/openai-is-readying-an-ai-search-product-to-rival-google-perplexity" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;in May—citing a person familiar with the matter—that OpenAI was developing a new search feature for ChatGPT intended to compete with Google and the AI search startup Perplexity. At the time, OpenAI was “aggressively trying to poach Google employees” to develop the product,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/7/24151616/openai-is-entering-the-search-game" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to The Verge. OpenAI was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-plans-announce-google-search-competitor-monday-sources-say-2024-05-09/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;planning the new search engine in May, before Google announced plans for its Gemini AI products at the company’s annual developer conference. OpenAI has partnered with several publishers over the last year, including the Associated Press, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal parent News Corp, and Politico and Business Insider’s parent company Axel Springer, among others. The partnerships allow OpenAI to use content by each publisher to help answer user queries and train the company’s AI models.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



The New York Times <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/britneynguyen/2023/12/27/new-york-times-sues-openai-and-microsoft-billions-owed-for-ai-copyright-infringement-case-claims/">filed</a> a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in December alleging “unlawful use” of millions of copyrighted articles by the publisher being used to train AI models. The Times alleges OpenAI and Microsoft’s technology that powers ChatGPT and Bing Chat, now called Copilot, could “Generate output that recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it and mimics its expressive style.” OpenAI filed a <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/82a013b9ba852548/9d4b1790-full.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">motion</a> to dismiss parts of the complaint, suggesting users did not use ChatGPT or other products from the company as a “substitute” for a subscription to the Times. The lawsuit is ongoing.

In this photo illustration a Open AI logo is displayed on a

OpenAI Announces AI-Powered Search Engine That Could Challenge Google—And Alphabet’s Stock Drops 3%. Here’s What To Know.

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Google parent Alphabet came in above Wall Street’s lofty expectations in its second-quarter earnings report released Tuesday afternoon, as the internet behemoth continues to rake in tens of billions of advertising dollars.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Alphabet’s $84.7 billion of second-quarter revenue was slightly above average analyst estimates of $84.2 billion, according to FactSet, a 14% year-over-year increase.



The company tallied earnings per share of $1.89, also topping forecasts of $1.84, while its $23.6 billion net income was just shy of Q1’s prior record of $23.7 billion.



Shares of the Silicon Valley kingpin rose slightly immediately after the earnings announcement.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Alphabet’s report is part of a flurry of second-quarter earnings, with 25% of S&amp;P 500 companies scheduled to report fiscal results this week, according to Bank of America. A digital age conglomerate whose products include leading search engine Google, paid cable alternative YouTube TV, Microsoft Office 365 competitor Google Workspace and generative artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT’s rival Gemini, Alphabet is an advertising business at its core. About three-fourths of its Q2 revenues were from ads, including $49 billion from its search business and $9 billion on YouTube ads. Like it has been for many other big tech stocks during the AI boom, it’s been a very nice stretch for Alphabet stock, returning about 50% over the last year and over 100% from its late 2022 low. Alphabet is the fourth-most-valuable company in the world by market value, worth nearly $2.3 trillion as of Tuesday’s stock market closure, trailing only fellow West Coast tech companies Apple, Microsoft and AI golden child Nvidia in market capitalization. Google paid its first ever quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share last month.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



31%. That’s how much higher Alphabet’s second-quarter adjusted earnings per share was than the same period last year. The company is expected to contribute to the fourth-greatest share of profit growth to the S&amp;P,&nbsp;<a href="https://advantage.factset.com/hubfs/Website/Resources%20Section/Research%20Desk/Earnings%20Insight/EarningsInsight_071924.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to FactSet, trailing only Nvidia, Google Cloud competitor Amazon and advertising foe Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



Alphabet’s potential <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research/google-biggest-acquisitions-infographic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">largest-ever</a> acquisition, a $23 billion purchase of Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2024/07/22/google-is-not-buying-wiz-for-23-billion-after-all/">fell through</a> late Monday after the sides were <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/google-near-23-billion-deal-for-cybersecurity-startup-wiz-622edf1a?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a> in advanced talks for a deal last week.<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/"></a>

FRANCE-ECONOMY-TECHNOLOGY-VIVATECH

Google Earnings Top Estimates With $24 Billion Quarterly Profit

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



With companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta dropping increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence products, crowdsourced rankings have emerged as a popular—and virtually only practical—way of determining which tool works best, and LMSYS’s Chatbot Arena has become possibly the most influential real-time gauge.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



While most organizations choose to measure their AI models against a set of general capability benchmarks that cover tasks like solving math problems, programming challenges or answering multiple choice questions across an array of university-level disciplines, there is no industry benchmark or standard practice for assessing large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Meta’s Llama 3, Google’s Gemini and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/06/26/anthropics-claude-what-to-know-about-chatgpt-rival-after-latest-model-trounces-industry-giants/">Anthropic’s Claude</a>.



Even small differences to factors like datasets, prompts and formatting can have a huge impact on how a model performs, and when companies choose their own evaluation criteria, it can make it hard to fairly compare LLMs, Jesse Dodge, a senior scientist at the Allen Institute for AI in Seattle, told Forbes.



The difficulty in comparing LLMs is magnified given how closely leading models score on many commonly used benchmarks, with some companies and tech executives&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/Ahmad_Al_Dahle/status/1780993216118210899" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">claiming</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/AnthropicAI/status/1803790676988920098" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">victory</a>&nbsp;over rivals with differences as narrow as 0.1%., so close it would likely go unnoticed by everyday users.



Community-built leaderboards deploying human insight have emerged, and in recent years their popularity has exploded in step with the steady boom of new AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Mistral.



<a href="https://chat.lmsys.org/?leaderboard" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The Chatbot Arena</a>, an open source project built by research group&nbsp;<a href="https://lmsys.org/about/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">LMSYS</a>&nbsp;and the University of California, Berkeley’s Sky Computing Lab, has proven particularly popular and has built AI leaderboards by asking visitors to compare responses from two anonymous AI models and vote which one is best.



Its scoreboards rank more than 100 AI models based on nearly 1.5 million human votes so far, covering an array of categories including long queries, coding, instruction following, maths, “hard prompts” and a variety of languages including English, French, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-s-the-best-ai-model-on-chatbot-arena">WHAT’S THE BEST AI MODEL ON CHATBOT ARENA?</h2>



The top five AI models on Chatbot Arena’s overall leaderboard are:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>GPT-4o</li>



<li>Claude 3.5 Sonnet</li>



<li>Gemini Advanced</li>



<li>Gemini 1.5 Pro</li>



<li>GPT-4 Turbo</li>
</ol>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Figuring out how to evaluate AI models is set to become increasingly important as more AI tools are rolled out and adopted across society. While benchmarks are important, Vanessa Parli, director of research at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, told Forbes they are also important as “goals for researchers to hit when developing models.” It is important to remember that “not all human capabilities are quantifiable” in a way that we can accurately measure but are nonetheless desirable to have in AI models, Parli said. There is also a clear need for benchmarks to assess traits like “bias, toxicity, truthfulness and other responsibility aspects,” especially for organizations dealing with sensitive information like healthcare companies, Parli said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“The benchmarks aren’t perfect, but as of right now, that’s the primary mechanism we have to evaluate the models,” Parli told Forbes, cautioning that “researchers can somewhat easily game the system” today, with AI models quickly saturating benchmarks. “I think we need to get creative in the development of new ways to evaluate AI models,” Parli said. “



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



Measuring intelligence is tricky when we do not know what it is we are supposed to be measuring. There is no universally accepted definition of intelligence in humans, let alone a way to measure it, and the possibility, nature and scope of animal intelligence has divided scientists for centuries. While AI benchmarks have typically focused on the ability to perform a particular task, more general assessments will be required in the near future as researchers make progress towards their goal of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI is capable of excelling and possibly matching humans across a broad set of domains rather than at just one task such as walking, moving boxes, identifying tumors on scans and playing chess.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-useful-is-chatbot-arena-for-evaluating-ai-models">HOW USEFUL IS CHATBOT ARENA FOR EVALUATING AI MODELS?</h2>



“The rankings [Chatbot Arena] gives are something that I trust more than most other rankings,” Dodge told Forbes, “because it uses a real human to say whether they prefer one generation over another.” Parli suggested assessments like Chatbot Arena could “implicitly evaluate factors” we want in our AI but are less quantifiable than something like coding ability. But she did stress that something like Chatbot Arena should not be the only evaluation method used, saying there are “many factors that should be important to organizations when evaluating models” and it “does not cover all of them.”



.

Einstein And Musk Chatbots Are Driving Millions To Download Character.AI

What AI Is The Best? Chatbot Arena Relies On Millions Of Human Votes

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple tallied yet another all-time high share price Monday after a pair of investment firms meaningfully hiked their price targets for the stock, the latest positive push for Apple stock ahead of the hotly anticipated release of generative artificial intelligence iPhones.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Apple stock rose as much as 2.9% to a new intraday peak of $237.23 in Monday trading, with its over $234 share price by mid-afternoon on pace to top last week’s record close of $232.98, growing Apple’s market capitalization to a world record $3.59 trillion, more than $200 billion higher than the next largest company, Microsoft at $3.36 trillion.



The lift came after Bloomberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-15/apple-sales-in-india-surge-33-to-8-billion-as-chinese-market-slows" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;33% year-over-year growth in Apple’s India sales, a strong indication of the company’s global growth potential amid questions about&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/05/02/apple-earnings-come-in-hot-as-china-blow-less-painful-than-feared/">declining</a>&nbsp;sales in its key China segment, as well as bullish notes from analysts at Loop Capital and Morgan Stanley musing on Apple’s earnings potential as its debut of its first AI iPhones is just months away.



Loop Capital analysts led by Ananda Baruah changed their recommendation for Apple stock from a hold to a buy, upping its share price target from $231 to $300, the highest of any analyst tracked by FactSet, implying an Apple fair market value of $4.6 trillion, some 28% higher than it now stands.



The firm said it sees an opportunity for Apple to distinguish itself as the “Gen AI base camp of choice,” likening it to how Apple benefited from the initial release of the iPod and iPhones in capturing consumers’ attention and capital over the last two decades.



The Erik Woodring-led Morgan Stanley group named Apple its favorite U.S. IT hardware pick and hiked their target from $213 to $273, implying 16% upside and a $4.2 trillion market cap.



Morgan Stanley similarly upgraded expectations for the “impending” iPhone upgrade cycle, projecting some 498 million new iPhone sales in its 2025 and 2026 fiscal years and $488 billion worth of iPhone revenues during that time frame, a 22% increase from the $399 billion Apple is projected to bring in during its 2023 and 2024 fiscal years ending in September.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“Never in Apple&#8217;s 40-year history has the iPhone installed base been so large (1.3b+ devices), replacement cycles been so extended (at 4.8 years), and a new technology been limited to such a small cohort of users (8% of the iPhone/iPad installed base) all at the same time,” declared Woodring.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



After years of speculation, Apple officially&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/06/10/apple-finally-unveils-iphone-ai-features-the-next-big-step/">announced</a>&nbsp;its “Apple Intelligence” generative AI plans on June 10, including the integration of the hit ChatGPT chatbot into the iOS operating system scheduled for a September release. Apple stock is up more than 20% since that announcement, outgaining the S&amp;P 500’s 5% gain as investors&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/06/11/apple-stock-hits-all-time-high-minting-200-billion-ai-rally/">bought into</a>&nbsp;the company’s AI vision (the stock had lagged other big tech names like Microsoft due to a perceived deficit in the AI arms race). Apple, which had been the world’s largest company for most of the last decade,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/06/12/apple-reclaims-crown-as-worlds-most-valuable-company-from-microsoft/">overtook</a>&nbsp;Microsoft as the largest company in the world last month, having lost the title from January to June.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Don’t expect evidence of an iPhone renaissance in Apple’s earnings report due Aug. 1: Analyst forecasts call for the weakest quarterly iPhone sales since 2020’s quarter ending in September, according to FactSet, at $38.7 billion. Consensus forecasts call for a record $72.4 billion of iPhone revenues this holiday quarter, though.

Apple Store in Shanghai, China

Apple Stock Hits Record High On AI iPhone Anticipation — As Analysts Predict $5 Trillion Valuation

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple finally joined the great AI arms race this week after months of lagging behind big tech rivals like Google, Microsoft and Meta, unveiling a series of products juiced with artificial intelligence that it has pitched as a more secure, privacy-focused alternative to how its competitors process requests in the cloud.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Apple, which for years has sought to position itself as one of Silicon Valley’s most privacy- and security-focused firms,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/06/10/all-the-major-features-unveiled-at-apples-keynote-from-ai-iphones-to-siri-enhancements/">previewed</a>&nbsp;an array of AI features at its annual WWDC event on Monday including voice transcription, Siri upgrades, improved photo editing and integrating OpenAI’s popular chatbot ChatGPT into devices.



Apple said its new features — part of the company’s broader vision for AI it calls “Apple Intelligence” — have been designed with privacy “at the core,” which it said will be achieved by keeping as much of the computer processing needed to fulfill an AI task as possible on users’ devices, rather than shipping it off elsewhere in the cloud.



Many firms rely on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-cloud-computing-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-cloud/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">cloud computing</a>&nbsp;for their AI services, a system that delivers computer services like data processing, software and storage remotely over the internet, given the high computer processing and power demands required to fulfill many requests and the need to use this data to answer the request means it cannot be hidden from providers in the same way that encrypted messages are.



By nature, data processed in the cloud is more vulnerable to access and exploitation than data processed locally on the device itself, and Apple said its AI features will prioritize keeping data on users’ devices by making use of whatever resources like battery and processing power they have at their disposal.



Inevitably, some AI tasks will require more power than an iPhone, Mac or other Apple device can muster, and for these Apple said it has developed a new privacy-preserving method of sending data to cloud servers.



Apple said it will only send absolutely necessary data to cloud servers, will encrypt it on the way there, and will not save or use any data aside from what is necessary to complete the AI task, adding that it will allow independent researchers access to inspect and verify the system’s security.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Apple’s privacy-focused debut to the AI arms race has reignited a long-simmering debate over data privacy in Silicon Valley. Unlike many of its marquee competitors such as Alphabet’s Google, Instagram parent Meta and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/27/the-data-game-what-amazon-knows-about-you-and-how-to-stop-it" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, Apple cares less about collecting user data as more of its profits come from hardware like iPads, iPhones and MacBooks. As a result, Apple can afford to position itself more as a privacy-focused firm, though at times it has still found itself&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/sep/23/apple-user-data-law-enforcement-falling-short" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">under fire from activists</a>. Apple is now trying to capitalize on its privacy reputation when it comes to rolling out AI as well, going as far as to promise not to utilize user data for quality control or maintenance either, which is usually standard. It is clear Apple plans to use privacy as a key differentiator between it and its primarily cloud-using, data-collecting rivals. Many of these have already been attacked by digital rights groups and consumers over their use of user data and AI features, including field leaders like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd11rje1mrro" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Microsoft</a>, ChatGPT maker&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68128396" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">OpenAI</a>&nbsp;(which has gotten billions in investments from Microsoft),&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw99n3qjeyjo" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Meta</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://mashable.com/article/adobe-users-outaged-new-policy-trains-ai-their-work" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Adobe</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/google-defeats-class-action-over-ai-training-data-now-2024-06-06/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Google</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“You shouldn’t have to hand over all the details of your life to be warehoused and analyzed in someone’s AI cloud,” Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91138692/apple-data-privacy-ai" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;at the WWDC event on Monday, highlighting a crucial difference between it and other companies.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC</h2>



Elon Musk was so incensed at Apple’s decision to partner with OpenAI for its “Apple Intelligence” vision that he threatened to bar Apple devices from his companies’ campuses. He branded Apple’s AI tools as “creepy spyware” and claimed the connection to OpenAI represented an “unacceptable security violation.” In posts that were later corrected by crowdsourced fact-checkers on his own social media platform, X, formerly Twitter, Musk said it was “patently absurd” to think Apple could ensure OpenAI protected user data and alleged the company had “no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over.” Musk has a history of feuding with OpenAI, which he cofounded and later left amid alleged conflicts of interest, and particularly with fellow<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/16/musk-reignites-feud-with-sam-altman-over-openais-ditched-non-profit-promise/"> cofounder Sam Altman</a>. He also founded and runs what could become a major competitor to OpenAI, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/11/03/elon-musks-artificial-intelligence-startup-launching-its-first-product-saturday---heres-what-to-know-about-xai/">xAI</a>, and styled its only product, chatbot Grok, as a direct rival to ChatGPT.

gettyimages-1207642189-594×594

Apple Promises AI Privacy: Here’s Why It Claims Its AI Tech Will Be More Secure Than Competitors

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Microsoft has asked some of its artificial intelligence and cloud business employees in China to consider moving out of the country, according to a Wall Street Journal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsoft-asks-hundreds-of-china-based-ai-staff-to-relocate-amid-u-s-china-tensions-b626ff8c?st=5hewt0npk1e448n&amp;reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report</a>, amid ongoing geopolitical and trade tensions between Washington and Beijing as the Biden administration attempts to curb China’s access to advanced technology, including AI.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Journal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsoft-asks-hundreds-of-china-based-ai-staff-to-relocate-amid-u-s-china-tensions-b626ff8c?st=5hewt0npk1e448n&amp;reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;that around 700 to 800 Microsoft staffers in China have received offers to move to countries including the U.S., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.



The staffers in question are mostly engineers of Chinese nationality working on machine learning and cloud computing.



The tech giant&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-asks-hundreds-china-based-staff-relocate-amid-us-china-tensions-wsj-2024-05-16/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">responded</a>&nbsp;to the report, saying internal transfers are a “regular part” of its global operations, and confirmed “an optional internal transfer opportunity” was offered to some workers.



Microsoft said it remains committed to its China business and will continue to operate there.



It is unclear if any of the workers have taken up Microsoft’s offer and what impact a large number of transfers would have on Microsoft’s cloud business and AI research efforts in China.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news-peg">NEWS PEG</h2>



Earlier this month, Reuters&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-eyes-curbs-chinas-access-ai-software-behind-apps-like-chatgpt-2024-05-08/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;the Biden administration was planning fresh restrictions against exports of proprietary AI models like those that power Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to certain adversarial nations like China and Russia. There are currently no restrictions on companies like OpenAI, Microsoft and Google from selling or licensing their advanced AI models to almost any foreign entities. U.S. government officials are concerned that these advanced models—trained on a large amount of data—may be misused by rival powers. In February,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/02/14/staying-ahead-of-threat-actors-in-the-age-of-ai/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Microsoft</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://openai.com/index/disrupting-malicious-uses-of-ai-by-state-affiliated-threat-actors/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">OpenAI</a>&nbsp;reported that cyber threat actors from Russia, China, and Iran have been using the ChatGPT-maker’s tools to increase the sophistication of their attacks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



Last month, Microsoft announced an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/04/16/what-to-know-about-g42-the-emirati-ai-giant-that-just-got-a-15-billion-investment-from-microsoft/?sh=6f7ef5f97596">investment</a>&nbsp;of $1.5 billion in the United Arab Emirates-based AI firm G42. Microsoft said the deal had been carried out in “close coordination with the governments of both the UAE and the United States.” The deal was reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/843796a6-191c-4828-8bc9-d6648e4b460e" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">orchestrated</a>&nbsp;by the two governments after the Biden administration expressed concerns about G42’s close links with Chinese firms. To address U.S. concerns ahead of the deal, the UAE-based firm agreed to phase out the use of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6710c259-0746-4e09-804f-8a48ecf50ba3" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Chinese equipment</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/82473ec4-fa7a-43f2-897c-ceb9b10ffd7a" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">divested</a>&nbsp;its stakes in Chinese companies including TikTok’s parent ByteDance.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Efforts to curb China’s access to AI software and services follow the Biden administration’s crackdown on shipments of advanced AI chips, like the ones designed by Nvidia, to China. In October last year, U.S. officials<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/britneynguyen/2023/10/17/biden-administration-limits-chinas-access-to-ai-chips-like-nvidias-to-curb-military-development/?sh=2cfac3661c90">&nbsp;unveiled new rules</a>&nbsp;under which AI chipmakers need to obtain special licenses to sell their semiconductors to China and other adversarial countries, including Iran and Russia.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsoft-asks-hundreds-of-china-based-ai-staff-to-relocate-amid-u-s-china-tensions-b626ff8c?st=5hewt0npk1e448n&amp;reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Microsoft Asks Hundreds of China-Based AI Staff to Consider Relocating Amid U.S.-China Tensions</a>&nbsp;(Wall Street Journal)

Storefronts And General Views Of Cologne

Microsoft Offers To Relocate Some China Staffers Amid US Efforts To Curb Beijing’s AI Access, Report Says

There’s mythology and mystery in the mix as gaming developers tap into the rich history of Africa telling stories that go way back in time.



The African gaming market sits on the cusp of global potential as studios shake up Western foundations with mythology, mystery and inclusivity.



In Nigeria, Maliyo Games has partnered with Disney to create a mobile game for an animated series called Iwájú. Mekan Games in Kenya launched a hypercasual game called The President which became the number one mobile game in the United States in 2022 with more than 10 million downloads. Kiro’o Games from Cameroon is a thriving studio producing games, animations and applications. 



And, in South Africa, there’s Khumo Moerane who collaborated with Leti Arts from Ghana to create a game demo called Karmzah Run about a superheroine archaeologist with cerebral palsy. Leti Arts’ game Sweave was recently accepted into the Gameloft platform. Moerane’s parent company is ITTHYNK Gaming and his studio is called Disputed People.



They are also developing an entirely new gaming franchise in South



Africa called PRYDE: The Lion of Africa which is based on African gods and mythology, and is still in development.



“Folklore and mythology are the cultural artifacts of our ancestors. They tell us what our ancient cultures valued and what lessons and morals were so important to them; they wanted to pass them on to future generations,” says Moerane to FORBES AFRICA. “These mythologies give us insight into how our ancestors saw themselves in relation to other people, the land and their spirituality, alongside the flora and fauna of Africa.



“The game taps into the stories that comprise the rich history of Africa as part of the studio’s commitment to celebrating the continent. “We want to reignite the awesome that is Africa.



Remember the wonder and joy of the epic godly powers within us and, in the process, awaken the world to the real magic that sits here, in Africa. These stories have survived despite all the turmoil that has befallen the continent and we want to carry them forward.”



The game is an ambitious one but it has energized Moerane and the people he’s collaborating with to create it because it is Africa- centric. The world is starting to pay attention to African games and the talented people creating them. There’s an energy in the sector that may yet shift the narrative away from Africa being a place where big companies come to sell their games.



“The value has traditionally been concentrated in Europe, America and China as companies do what they can to create games that appeal to those markets,” says Moerane . “I think that’s the tricky part for Africa – how can gaming within this market gain traction and visibility?”



For gamers in Africa, it’s a question most would like answered. Other than South Africans used as ‘bad guys’ in games like Uncharted, or locations across Africa used to enhance the thrill of a game filled with American accents, there are few games that connect directly with the local gamer. Since the first monsters stepped through a portal (Half-Life) or the first space marine battled the forces of hell in space (Doom), gamers in Africa have had little representation.



“I’ve been gaming for years, and it hit me that I’ve never actually played a game with an African hero or set with African mythology. This was an awakening for me,” says Moerane . “It has inspired my work on PRYDE: The Lion of Africa. 



“It has been a challenge – we’ve had to find the right talent to help us. We’ve collaborated with students and with people who want a chance to use their skills to create a game because they love gaming. We’ve also connected with people at game jams, like the one in Kenya. But what we really need is business people who have the acumen to run a studio. Corporate-minded people to support the creatives so this industry can soar,” hopes Moerane.

Khumo Moerane; image supplied

Gaming Gains: The Tech Tapping Into African History

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple’s new line of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-events/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">iPad Pros</a>&nbsp;will include a processor the company claims is an “outrageously powerful chip for AI,” as the tech giant laid the groundwork for long-anticipated generative AI features across its products amid&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/02/apple-sales-ai-iphone-earnings-regulations/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">investor concern</a>&nbsp;that it’s falling behind in the race to harness the new technology.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



The new M4 chip represents an upgrade over the M2 chips that powered the last generation of iPads and the M3 chips that power Apple’s current generation of MacBook laptops, the company said in an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-events/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announcement</a>&nbsp;Tuesday.



Tuesday’s announcement didn’t offer specifics about potential AI features that could be built into Apple tech, though Tim Millet, Apple’s vice president of platform architecture, gave one example, claiming that users would be able isolate the subject of a 4K video and remove the background with just a tap in Apple’s Final Cut Pro app.



Millet said the neural engine powering the AI capabilities in the M4 chip has been included in Apple chips for years, but this latest neural engine is 60 times more powerful than Apple’s earliest models and “more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC today.”



On Tuesday, Apple announced a new line of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">iPad Pros</a>&nbsp;that the tech giant called its thinnest yet, coming in 11-inch and 13-inch models with OLED screen technology starting at $999 for the 11-inch model.



It also announced its new&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/ipad-air/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">iPad Air</a>, running on the M2 chip,which comes in a new, larger 13-inch option for $799—both the iPad Air and the iPad pro are available to order online Tuesday and in stores May 15.



Apple&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?.tsrc=fin-srch" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">stock</a>&nbsp;was slightly up—less than a percentage point—following Tuesday’s announcement.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Apple could unveil more of its plans for AI at its upcoming&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/03/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-returns-june-10-2024/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Worldwide Developers Conference</a>&nbsp;on June 10. CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday the company intends to “talk about the future of our platforms and share some exciting details about what’s to come” at the event. Cook has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/28/apple-annual-shareholder-meeting-2024-ai-investments.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">previously said</a>&nbsp;the company is “investing significantly” in AI and would have more announcements on the subject “later this year.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-contra">CONTRA</h2>



Apple’s plans for artificial intelligence could face immediate competition. The Verge reports Microsoft is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/8/24116587/microsoft-macbook-air-surface-arm-qualcomm-snapdragon-x-elite" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">set to host</a>&nbsp;an event in Seattle this month where it plans to unveil its vision for the future of “AI PCs” and could launch new hardware featuring its Arm AI chips.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Sales of Apple’s flagship iPhone have been slumping, down 10% year-over-year in the first three months of 2024, driving a 4% decrease in revenue last quarter. And while Apple is considered the most profitable American public company, its stock has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/05/02/apple-earnings-come-in-hot-as-china-blow-less-painful-than-feared/?sh=5f71ff956903">trending downward</a>&nbsp;of late due to lower iPhone demand in China and concern over Apple’s lack of major plays in the field of artificial intelligence.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



38 trillion. That’s how many operations the new M4 chip’s neural engine can perform per second, Apple claimed on Tuesday.<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesfarrell/"></a>

American multinational technology company Apple store seen

Apple Promises AI Features In New IPad Pro Chips—As AI Tech Race Heats Up

There is a thin line between innovation and abuse. A look at how large language models (LLMs) are making cybercriminals even better at mastering the art of deception.



What you can do with generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Gemini from Google DeepMind is phenomenal. It’s never been easier to translate text, brainstorm ideas or even write or debug code… but have you stopped to consider that because it’s significantly easier for the everyday person to use AI, cybercriminals are also using this type of technology to their advantage?



Here’s the thing – cybercriminals love ChatGPT. There are even clones of the large language model (LLM) on the dark web for hackers like XXXGPT, FraudGPT and WormGPT (which was shut down by its developers because of overwhelming media attention).



According to Check Point Research, there is a massive underground market for premium ChatGPT accounts. “Cybercriminals use ChatGPT clones but the most common LLM they’re using is ChatGPT because it is the easiest. It’s the one that has the API,” says Sergey Shykevich, a threat intelligence group manager at Check Point Research. One of the reasons cybercriminals are after premium ChatGPT accounts is that the service isn’t available in countries like North Korea, China, Iran and Russia. “The cybercriminals have to bypass different restrictions but when you use the API or a premium account, the restrictions are much lower than the free, user interface.”



THE DEEP, DARK WEB



A Kaspersky study looking into how cybercriminals are using AI on the dark web picked up that hackers are using language models to not only develop malicious products but obtain information. With the help of AI phishing, a type of social engineering scam, it’s becoming significantly harder to detect. Emails that were once filled with tell-tale spelling mistakes and grammatical errors are now indistinguishable from legitimate correspondence. 



“Now, all the spam phishing services use ChatGPT to randomize email,” adds Shykevich. “Many of the anti- spam engines are based on this data. If they find a lot of emails that are similar, they will automatically label them as malicious but with AI, you can run a campaign consisting of hundreds of thousands of phishing emails, all randomized by automated tools.”



Vladislav Tushkanov, a lead data scientist at Kaspersky explains that generative AI, like other types of technology, are tools with dual use. “You can do a lot of cool stuff with these tools… but there are also some applications that can be interesting for cybercriminals. The most obvious use is fraud – creating believable voice fake to lure people into sending money,” says Tushkanov. “What our Digital Footprint intelligence found on the dark web are posts saying ‘ChatGPT is my best buddy’ and ‘when I do my work, I always consult ChatGPT – it’s so useful’. This is a real post from a cybercriminal that we saw on a hacker forum.”



Greg van der Gaast is a former hacker, FBI operative and the MD of Sequoia Consulting. His take on cybersecurity is a little bit different. “If you’re not vulnerable to what cybercriminals are trying to exploit using AI, if you have good build processes and architecture, they’re not a threat to you,” he says.



For van der Gaast, one of the main problems with the cybersecurity industry at large is that it is focussed on risk management. 



“If I leave a bag of grain in my front garden, I’m not surprised that 10,000 mice show up three days later. The solution isn’t for me to buy 10,000 mousetraps, it’s to store my grain better and invest in a couple of mousetraps,” he says.



“To keep storing your grain in the same place and keep flinging mousetraps is ridiculous. The only reason there are so many threats is that there are so many organizations with vulnerabilities that they’re not addressing. They’re just risk- managing them instead.”



Looking at AI from a hacker’s perspective, van der Gaast says that the best thing about AI is not having to think. “AI allows [a hacker] to work a lot more efficiently. So, if you’re out doing reconnaissance or trying to break into stuff, AI speeds up the workflow,” he explains. “With AI, a cybercriminal could pace an attack in a way that it goes around detection algorithms.”



This is why van der Gaast believes that instead of playing catch up and never solving the problem at large, AI could be used to think intelligently about where the issue is coming from in the first place. 



“No one is looking at the root causes. Stop looking at the severity and start looking at the reasons behind why you have a vulnerability in the first place,” he recommends.



“Start seeing security issues as quality issues because that’s what a security vulnerability is – it’s a defect in code and configuration, how a system is built. Don’t have the vulnerability and then the threat won’t be a threat to you.”



With the hype surrounding generative AI, it isn’t a surprise that cybercriminals want to get in on the action. Over and above smarter phishing emails and messages, scammers have managed to lure those curious about LLMs with adverts to download enhanced versions that don’t really exist. There are also a number of fake ChatGPT apps which imitate OpenAI’s free features at a fee. Often referred to as fleeceware, these apps overwhelm users with adverts until they cave in and pay for a subscription.



“We are now in a race between the good guys and the bad guys,” says Shykevich. “It’s still too early to call who is on the winning side. We still don’t see the bad guys using AI for really sophisticated malware or something crazy. The defender side is a bit better. We have the advantage and I hope it will remain peaceful.”

Artificial Intelligence Technology Background

The Dark Side of AI And The Art Of Deception

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



“Veneer techs” have gone viral on social media after a self-proclaimed tech confused users by shared his certificate of completion, and a separate TikTok user shared a horror story of her veneers falling out after two days, but dentists warn these techs are performing dental work illegally, and they put patients at risk for serious health issues down the line.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Veneer techs are people who illegally place veneers on patients after completing a two-day training course that typically cost around $2,000 to $3,000, after which these tech receive certificates of completion that do not certify them to perform dental work, Jandra Korb, dental director of healthcare company DentaQuest, told Forbes.



Licensed dentists have National Provider Identifiers they use at licensed dental supply stores, where they’re able to buy products and instruments, but some veneer techs use nail supplies like acrylic for their procedures, while others buy kits off sites like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=veneer+kit&amp;crid=3JTD9OB2MKUU8&amp;sprefix=veneer+kit%2Caps%2C100&amp;ref=nb_sb_noss_1" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Amazon</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.temu.com/search_result.html?search_key=veneer%20teeth%20kit&amp;search_method=user" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Temu</a>—which don’t check NPIs—Ashley Brede Ciapciak, dentist at Brede Ciapciak Dental, told Forbes.



Dentists are the only people who are legally allowed to perform veneer work, so veneer techs are “playing a risky game with patients’ health” since they may lack the proper knowledge on sterilization and dental health that formally trained dentists have, Whitney White, a dentist at Aspen Dental in Nevada, told Forbes.



Ciapciak warned these illegal techs can be criminally charged with practicing medicine without a license, which is a felony in most states, and patients can also sue them for assault and battery if their dental work goes wrong.



A Las Vegas woman who ran an illegal company called the Veneer Experts was&nbsp;<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/woman-accused-working-dentist-las-045141411.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">charged</a>&nbsp;with felony counts of illegal practice of dentistry earlier this year after a patient’s teeth fell out, and the patient filed a complaint with the state.



Patients who seek out veneer techs often do so because they’re cheaper than traditional dentists—who may&nbsp;<a href="https://planofamilydental.com/cost-of-veneers-in-plano.html#:~:text=Porcelain%20Veneers%20FAQ&amp;text=A%20composite%20veneer%20can%20cost,%24900%20to%20%241950%20per%20tooth." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">charge</a>&nbsp;between $800 and $1,950 per tooth—but Ciapciak recommends going to a dental school to get this work done, since they’re “one-third to one-fourth of the cost of a private practice,” but still follow proper procedures with sterile instruments.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-dental-veneers">WHAT ARE DENTAL VENEERS?</h2>



Dental veneers are custom made coverings that fit over the surface of teeth, and are typically used for cosmetic purposes like improving discolored teeth,&nbsp;<a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/23522-dental-veneers" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to the Cleveland Clinic. Though there are several types of veneers, there are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smiledentalcenterct.com/blog/cosmetic-dentistry/types-dental-veneers/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">five</a>&nbsp;common types. Porcelain veneers, or traditional veneers, are the most common form, and require the front of each tooth to be grinded down before the shells are placed on top. Composite veneers are made of tooth-colored composite resin—which is also used for dental bonding—and typically last 10 years. No-prep veneers are less invasive and take less time since the dentist only removes a small portion of enamel from the teeth. Though they can last up to 20 years, they’re thin and don’t cover stains on the teeth. Unlike the other types of veneers, same-day veneers don’t require multiple visits, and are best for hiding small visual imperfections.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.simplysmilesdentist.com/blog/understand-the-different-types-of-dental-veneers/#:~:text=Not%20all%20veneers%20are%20created,of%20composite%20materials%20or%20porcelain." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Palatal veneers</a>&nbsp;are typically made of gold or porcelain, and are applied to the inside of the upper teeth and used to treat wear and tear and prevent further damage.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



An Instagram&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C5POSJjLM5_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">post</a>&nbsp;of a veneer tech posing with his certificate of completion went viral on social media, causing people to question what exactly a veneer tech does. Some dentists like Ben “The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@thebentist/video/7362613284035448106?_r=1&amp;_t=8m36mg93SlX" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Bentist</a>” Winters took to TikTok to persuade people from getting work done by these techs, and to warn their state’s licensing board. Ciapciak has made several TikTok&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@drciapciak/video/7323742878503849262?_r=1&amp;_t=8m35BRktSe6" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">videos</a>&nbsp;about the dangers of veneer techs after a tech—who has since made her account private, making her videos unviewable—went viral on the platform for performing botched work on a client. TikToker Tybabira88—who Forbes has reached out to for comment—claimed in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@tybabira88/video/7350774632833666347?_r=1&amp;_t=8m37CIMifoh" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">video</a>&nbsp;she drove over seven hours and paid $1,500 for an unlicensed veneer tech, who was working in the back of a barber shop, to do her veneers, though they only lasted two days. These techs may be putting people’s lives at risk because they’re typically not trained to check for the health of a patient’s teeth, Korb said. If a tech seals a veneer over a tooth with an infection, “the only place [the infection]has to go is inward,” which can enter the bloodstream and then make its way up to the brain since it&#8217;s so close to the mouth. The infection can be treated with antibiotics if it’s caught soon enough, but tooth infections&nbsp;<a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/dental-and-oral-health/how-long-until-a-tooth-infection-kills-you" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">can lead</a>&nbsp;to death.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“[Veneer techs’] work can lead to severe consequences such as tooth damage, infections and even hospitalization,” White said. “It&#8217;s crucial that people seeking veneers prioritize their own safety by ensuring that they receive treatment from qualified and licensed dental professionals.”<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/"></a>

INDIA – Places To Visit

What To Know About Viral ‘Veneer Techs’—And Why Dentists Warn Against Them

Artificial intelligence is even reshaping the way we grieve. A fascinating look at grieftech chatbots and how some companies are creating vast archives of human experience to provide comfort and connection after a loved one’s passing.



For California-based Justin Harrison, it all began when two major life events coincided. He was in a near-fatal motorbike accident and around the same time, his mother was diagnosed with stage 4 gallbladder cancer. “They didn’t know whether or not I was going to pull through. I was pretty badly hurt. Later, my dad told me a story about him talking to me fresh out of surgery and he said I was talking absolute nonsense. I didn’t make any sense,” says Harrison. “So, he kept asking me the same question over and over again and even though I couldn’t answer it coherently, I started to get really annoyed that he was asking the same question again and again. He said that’s how he knew I was okay.”



Harrison had an aha moment. Throughout his mother’s illness, what he cared about – what he was worried he would miss – was how she would respond to him. “There’s thousands of versions of us and it all depends on who you’re talking to at the time. Everyone experiences a slightly different version of you,” he says And this is how You, Only Virtual (YOV) came to be, Harrison’s AI, grieftech startup where people never have to say goodbye to their loved ones. 



“I created this for my mother, for me to stay connected. I think that eventually this kind of technology is going to redefine how we look at death,” he explains. YOV is a platform where someone can build a ‘Versona’ – a digital representation of someone’s personality using communication datasets. This could include text messages, phone calls, virtual meetings – any voice or text data which is then uploaded and analysed. 



“In the backend, what we’re looking for are patterns and one of the things that I’ve learned in this process is that humans are incredibly predictable,” explains Harrison. “I also learned this from going through five years of messages and conversations and calls with my mom. I knew what I was going to say before I read the next line.”


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Justin-Harrison-of-YOV-with-his-mom-image-supplied-768x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61783" style="width:498px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Justin-Harrison-of-YOV-with-his-mom-image-supplied-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Justin-Harrison-of-YOV-with-his-mom-image-supplied-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Justin-Harrison-of-YOV-with-his-mom-image-supplied-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Justin-Harrison-of-YOV-with-his-mom-image-supplied-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Justin-Harrison-of-YOV-with-his-mom-image-supplied-scaled.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Justin Harrison of YOV with his mom; image supplied</figcaption></figure></div>


YOV uses AI to aggregate the nuances in the conversations to understand what makes it authentic. The end result is similar to a chatbot, but the responses are unique because of the personal data provided.



COMFORT THROUGH CONVERSATIONS



“We probably store the least consequential data,” laughs Harrison. “A Versona doesn’t do much for anybody except the person looking for that experience.” 



Interacting with a Versona is about comfort and connectivity. It’s an incredibly personal experience that Harrison believes will alter how people grieve. 



“I look at grief and death itself as a problem to be solved,” says Harrison. “We spend billions of dollars trying to circumvent everything that kills us. It is absolutely ridiculous to me that all the way up until someone dies, we’re trying to stop that… but then somebody dies and everyone is like, well that’s nature and we just have to get used to it.”



After years of studying psychology, Harrison’s understanding of grief is linked to how people talk about moving on. He says that the real tragedy of death is that you lose a version of yourself – the person you were when you were with them. 



“People will say that when this person died, a part of me also died but it didn’t. It’s still there. It’s sitting alone,” he says. “For me, grief is ultimately yearning because there’s a big component of your personality that can no longer express itself. You were accustomed to engaging in a certain way and I think that if we can provide an outlet where at least that part of you can come out a little bit, it relieves some of the tragedy from loss.”



VIDEOS THAT TALK BACK



Harrison isn’t alone if you look at the number of grieftech startups popping up. From ‘ghostbots’ specifically designed to help with closure to an AI chatbot called Replika that alleviates loneliness by becoming your best friend, the intersection of machines and human interaction is shifting. Even the tech giants are finding ways to monetize grief with Amazon announcing that its virtual assistant, Alexa, will soon be able to read aloud in a deceased loved one’s voice – all the platform requires is a short recording from that person. Another company, StoryFile, based in Los Angeles in the United States, is taking conversational AI a step further by using video.



The idea for StoryFile actually goes back to 2010 when its co-founders, Heather Maio-Smith and Stephen Smith, were creating an exhibit with Holocaust survivors with the University of Southern California’s Shoah Center. Maio- Smith realized that the one-on-one interaction she was having with Rose Schindler (who passed away in February last year) wouldn’t be something Schindler’s grandchildren would experience. Seven years later, they launched StoryFile, a platform that turns video into two-way conversations, and Conversa AI, their conversational video engine.



“We’ve harnessed AI to make the experience as similar as possible to having a conversation with the person,” says Smith, StoryFile’s chairman. “One of the biggest challenges now is the public’s wariness of AI due to stories about generative AI hallucinations and so on — so we are very clear. The conversational videos of your loved ones won’t make up new things to say, the recorded material essentially becomes a unique LLM and when you interact with one of our files in the future it will only pull information from that.”



DIGITAL IMMORTALITY



While there have been ethical concerns around grieftech (such as the fact that there is a lack of consent from the deceased individual and how ‘staying in touch’ could affect mental health going forward), Smith says that people have preserved the legacy of loved ones in different ways since the beginning of history. It started with telling each other stories around the campfire. 



“No one tells people how often to flip through a photo album or listen to that last voice mail they’ve kept on their phone… it’s up to people to decide how to use their conversational videos,” he says. “Some may decide not to access it for months or years after the loved one has passed – but people tell us they have comfort in the fact that it’s there for them, that the stories, the jokes, the expressions in the eyes, are not lost forever.”



For StoryFile’s co-founders, it comes down to the fact that they believe every person’s story is worth preserving. 



“Heather and I don’t just want to harness this conversational video idea for business or grief use but to create a vast archive of human experience. We believe eventually a billion people will have created an AI-driven conversational video that will become an asset to all of humanity, a very human database of experience,” he says. “We didn’t come from Silicon Valley to do this – we’re historians, theologians, documentarians… We are here because we recognize the importance of being good ancestors and helping others do that too.”

StoryFile is a platform that turns video into two-way conversations; image supplied

Not Lost Forever: The Rise Of Grieftech, For Comfort And Connection

It’s an auditory crisis. The perfect mimicry of the human voice by artificial intelligence (AI) used by criminals to access organizations, discredit governments and leaders, steal data and money, and exploit people and companies. A woman was tricked into thinking her daughter had been kidnapped – the terrified voice on the end of the call was an AI fake. An employee in a multinational enterprise was conned into paying cybercriminals $25 million because he believed he was talking to the company’s Chief Financial Officer and Tom Hanks’ voice was cloned to sell dental plans.



If a fraudster can mimic someone’s voice, they can bypass security checks designed to use voice biometrics. They can fool people into believing that they’re talking to a trusted friend and colleague. They can slide past security barriers and connect with people because their fakes are so good, nobody can tell the difference.



“It’s the trust factor,” explains Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity expert at NordVPN. “As humans we have implicit trust anchors – I can read your body language when I see you, I can hear inflections and reactions in your voice on the phone and these anchor trust between us. These were developed by being in school, going to work, seeing people. Now they’re being used by criminals to make connections and successful scams.”



Voice is easy to start with. It can be trained easily and there are plenty of applications online. Anyone can download an AI and clone someone’s voice. The technology capable of converting voice to text, text to voice and then applying it to anything from fake bank calls through to scams designed to phish passwords or con family members is readily available.



“How accurately can you pick up someone’s voice? Are the slight tonal differences not just background noise? What if they’ve told you they’re not feeling well? The last two are the highest contributors, accounting for more than 80% of the threats we are seeing in terms of how voice recognition can be compromised,” says Vukosi Sambo, Executive – Head of Data Insights and AIat AfroCentric. 



“We are also seeing instances where someone records a person’s voice and then uses it to authenticate themselves as that person to gain access to information or systems.” 



Getting hold of a person’s voice isn’t difficult either. Cybercriminals simply turn to the one thing they’ve used to hone their craft for years – social media. As Ryan Mer, CEO of eftsure Africa, points out: “People post videos on social media, they share voice notes on WhatsApp, and in the business space, key people have some form of media, whether it’s an interview on TV, radio or a podcast.”



The technology is capable of generating a legitimate voice profile using only a few seconds of these videos and voice snippets. Then, that voice can be used to get in touch with people in the business, especially the finance team, to swindle them out of sensitive information or get them to perform certain tasks. It’s not always a case of getting someone to transfer millions, it can also be trying to access the system for data that can be sold for millions, or to infiltrate a business to commit long-term fraud from within.



Anyone can go onto the dark web and, for a small fee, ask for a deep fake video saying whatever they want. Nobody is going to ask how this will be used. Nobody will care about the repercussions of its use. It is also very likely the next creator of millionaires and billionaires who have used AI to achieve their financial goals, as nefarious as those may be.



Sambo adds: “It’s important to understand what the organization is entitled to in terms of collecting and storing voice data. If you’re not careful, you could infringe individual rights in light of the AI threat. Can companies that record calls for quality and security purposes really protect themselves from this perspective?”



“Considering how this technology is available to anybody these days for next to nothing, security has to take a multi- layered approach,” says Lance Fanaroff, co-founder of iiDENTIFii. “You need to manage access control based on who has access to what; focus on individual access tools such as two-factor authentication and biometrics; and then invest into technologies designed to identify and mitigate potential threats on a granular, individual, level.”



There is a positive side to the conversation – the technologies designed to tackle the threats are evolving just as rapidly. They’re more resilient and alert, capable of adapting to the potential deep fake risks with agility. However, there is only so much a company can do to protect its people and its systems. As Kabelo Makwane, Managing Executive: Cloud, Hosting &amp; Security at Vodacom Business Africa, concludes: “What has become important now is finding the right balance between leveraging the technology, not locking down systems, and still finding a way of layering security so there remains space for growth and productivity.”

Asian woman using smartphone surrounded by beams of light. Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence

AI Has Stolen Your Voice… And Why It’s An Auditory Crisis

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple ceded the position of the world’s biggest phone maker to rival Samsung in the first quarter of 2024 after global iPhone shipments saw a steep slump, the latest setback for the tech giant since the start of the year.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS52032524" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">latest report</a>&nbsp;by market research firm IDC, Apple’s smartphone shipments fell to 50.1 million units in the first quarter of 2024, down 9.6% year-on-year.



Apple’s sharp slump came despite the overall smartphone market growing 7.8%—driven largely by booming shipments of smartphones made by Chinese firms.



The drop in iPhone shipments means Samsung became the world’s biggest smartphone maker in the first three months of the year, with 60.1 million shipments.



Despite beating out the iPhone maker, Samsung’s smartphone shipments were down around 0.7% year-on-year.



Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi retained its spot as the world’s third-biggest phone maker while its shipments saw a major 33.8% growth.



Another Chinese firm Transsion, which makes low-cost smartphones that are popular in Africa, Latin America and Asia, saw its first-quarter shipments nearly double from 15.4 million in 2023 to 28.5 million this year.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Apple shares were down 1.18% in premarket trading Monday. The company’s stock has had a poor 2024, down nearly 5% since the start of the year.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Apple, which started the year as the world’s most valuable company, has been plagued by bad news since the start of the year. Last month, Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research reported that iPhone sales in China were down 24% year-over-year in the first six weeks of 2024. This is a major blow for the company as China accounts for more than 15% of its revenues. Apple also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/02/27/apple-abandoning-electric-car-quest-and-focusing-on-ai-report-says/?sh=52cdf327ac09">reportedly</a>&nbsp;abandoned a decade-long ambitious and expensive internal effort to build a self-driving car earlier this year. Last month, the Justice Department and multiple U.S. states&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/caileygleeson/2024/03/21/us-sues-apple-in-landmark-iphone-antitrust-case/?sh=7bafd4715ffc">filed a lawsuit</a>&nbsp;against Apple, accusing the company of violating antitrust laws through restrictive policies that hurt competitors and consumers. Apple’s investors have also been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/03/05/apple-stocks-plunge-continues-heres-why-its-at-a-crossroads/?sh=48ae2eeb3477">concerned</a>&nbsp;about the company’s artificial intelligence efforts, especially compared to rivals like Google, Microsoft and Meta. Last month, the Wall Street Journal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/03/18/apple-reportedly-in-talks-with-google-to-integrate-geminis-ai-service-into-the-iphone/?sh=130770907683">reported</a>&nbsp;that Apple held talks with Google to discuss integrating the search giant’s Gemini AI service into the iPhone—a likely sign that Apple’s internal AI efforts are still significantly behind its rivals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/03/05/apple-stocks-plunge-continues-heres-why-its-at-a-crossroads/?sh=22196a9e3477">Apple Stock’s Plunge Continues: Here’s Why It’s At A Crossroads</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/"></a>

iPhone15 On Sale in Chongqing

Apple Is No Longer The World’s Biggest Smartphone Maker By Volume—As Samsung Ships More Handsets In Q1

World Economic Forum 2024: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

OpenAI Made Sam Altman Famous. His Investments Made Him A Billionaire.

Human digital twins are quickly moving beyond manufacturing and into the medical world – advancing cancer care, speeding up drug development, personalizing clinical trials, and much more.



&#8220;You have cancer!” is one of the most terrifying sentences a person will ever hear in his/her lifetime yet it’s something every family is likely to experience. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cancer is now the leading cause of death globally and the number of new cases is expected to rise by about 70% over the next two decades. When you take into account that there is already an oncology workforce crisis across the continent – South Africa, for example, faces a shortage of radiographers, aging equipment and a decrease in clinical oncologists – providing care to an increasing number of cancer patients is a challenge, more so when the disease is unpredictable and a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Technological advancements, however, are starting to shift cancer’s unpredictable advantage by merging physical with digital. One way to do this is by creating a digital replica of a physical system or environment – or a digital twin.



Digital twins are already being used in many industries to simulate complex systems and now they’re being adopted in healthcare with management consulting company, Gartner predicting that by 2025, 25% of healthcare delivery organizations will include formalized digital twin initiatives within their digital transformation.



In healthcare, it comes down to the data. What was once trial- and-error is now about feeding millions of data points into complex algorithms for more precise outcomes. With a digital twin, you can simulate an outcome in the digital world before trying it out in the real world, adding in a number of different conditions to see what works best. Human digital twins also make sense because unlike the digital twins used in the automotive industry where each new car model is identical, people are not. And in cancer care, it’s not easy to predict how effective certain medications will be.



“Digital twins are not moving out of the industrial or robotics sector – they’re scaling from the industrial world into the real world,” explains Marc O’Regan, Dell Technologies’ Chief Technology Officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa.



“It gives organizations the opportunity to rigorously test and fail purposely to see what the implications might be, retest again, look for avenues of success and then go back and say – we haven’t even gone into production but we know what the process is going to look like.” Dell has teamed up with the University of Limerick (UL) in Ireland to develop a digital twin for B-cell lymphoma, the sixth most common type of malignant neoplasia in sub-Saharan Africa.



“We’ve built a digital twin for a person with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We have twinned this particular patient journey through the diagnosis of this cancer and by doing so, we’re able to enrich the data that’s being fed into the twin and for the patient in a positive and impactful way,” says O’Regan.



Dell created an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to produce cancer patient digital twins for better diagnostics. “We will be able to advance our knowledge of how cells go wrong during 



cancer development and find new ways to diagnose and treat cancer patients,” adds Professor Paul Murray, UL’s scientific director of the Digital Pathology Unit at the Digital Cancer Research Centre. “It’s not a simulation, it’s a digital twin event associated with all of the componentry on the server supporting that event,” says O’Regan.



<div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Marc-ORegan-image-supplied-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61506 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Marc-ORegan-image-supplied-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Marc-ORegan-image-supplied-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Marc-ORegan-image-supplied-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Marc-ORegan-image-supplied-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Marc-ORegan-image-supplied-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
“DIGITAL TWINS ARE NOT MOVING OUT OF THE INDUSTRIAL OR ROBOTICS SECTOR – THEY’RE SCALING FROM THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD INTO THE REAL WORLD.”



—Marc O’Regan
</div></div>



Chloé Audigier is a senior research scientist in the field of AI at Siemens Healthineers. She is currently working on a digital twin of the liver to help identify, simulate and test therapy options for liver cancer – something which could potentially be done before treating a patient. “We are building a general anatomical model that would represent the organ shape, volume and structure. To do that, we are using machine learning algorithms that are trained on the large number of images,” explains Audigier.



“When we have one specific patient, we personalize this model using the organ data of the patient. The model simulates patient-specific physiological function.” Once a digital twin of an organ is created, a virtual simulation of the needed treatment (or intervention) is performed. This gives doctors a clearer and more individualized path to patient care. “We are building computational models that are based on physical law and that we evaluate using outcome data,” adds Audigier.



Creating a treatment strategy for a cancer patient requires an accurate diagnosis. The level of data integration possible with digital twins enables doctors to explore more treatment options and increase precision. Cancer requires planning to optimize tumor control and reduce toxicity – it’s about delivering a high dose of radiation to the tumor while sparing the healthy tissue that surrounds it. “If the digital twin allows us to collect more data, it would be such a gain for radiotherapy,” says Dr Christian Weissenberger, one of Germany’s leading cancer experts. “We can collect the data, we can analyze the data, and we can answer these questions with more validity and more precisely.”



Tomáš Helikar, an associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the United States, compares medical treatment today to ‘playing a game of whack-a-mole’. With his award-winning work to build a digital twin of the human immune system, Helikar’s goal is to be able to control the immune system in a safer and more predictable fashion.



Think of it like a human blueprint that’s always up-to- date and accessible – digital twins built on personalized information mean that doctors would no longer have to base therapeutic regimes on population data but rather adapt to an individual patent’s needs. More detailed knowledge of a patent’s clinical data and physiology can only help to refine decision making processes in the future, allowing specialists to select the best treatment – all it takes is a human, digital twin.

new normal Futuristic Technology in medical concept doctor describes patient by using artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twin, 5g, big data, iot, augmented mixed virtual rality, ar, vr

Expert Views: Could A Digital Twin Save Your Life?

Food is the future and these proactive startups are focused on shifting agricultural practices to prepare for what is to come.



Agriculture has always been a core component of Africa’s economic viability. And where it’s estimated that 140 million people in Africa face acute food insecurity, the continent’s ability to produce food efficiently is vital. As many individual countries wrestle with inadequate governments, there has been a spate of proactive startups focused on revolutionizing the food system across Africa.



From a continent- spanning online marketplace changing the way African farmers do business to a technology platform focused on producing cultivated meat alternatives and a company using technology to convert arid desertland into agricultural areas, these are the firms showing the way in foodtech in Africa.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-just-like-the-nile-river-was-pivotal">‘Just like the Nile River was pivotal…’ </h2>



Farming and selling produce can be inefficient and costly for farmers in Africa, despite being one of society’s oldest practices. Nile, a B2B marketplace, wants to change this. By connecting farmers directly with commercial produce buyers, Nile is reshaping produce trading while empowering farmers across southern Africa.



Founded in 2020 in South Africa by Louis de Kock, Eugene Roodt, and Rick Kleinhans, whose collective experience spans Amazon, JP Morgan and Luno, Nile came from the idea that tech can modernize agricultural trade.



&#8220;In 2020, farmers were still distributing their products in the same way my grandfather did in the 1950s, which was surprising given how much has changed since then, both tech and logistics,” De Kock reflects. Seeing these outdated distribution methods encouraged them to explore tech solutions, resulting in an online marketplace.



In a nutshell, Nile facilitates connections between farmers and buyers, minimizing costs and preserving perishable produce. Through Nile&#8217;s online marketplace, farmers list their produce for global buyers, securing instant orders and secure payouts, allowing farmers greater control over pricing. &#8220;By digitizing transactions, we can improve transparency, while reducing transaction fees,&#8221; he adds. The logistics network then ensures efficient routes to buyers, either via direct delivery or consolidated loads through Nile’s cross-dock hubs.



Further to this, their recently- launched inputs marketplace, coupled with financial support for farmers has revolutionized logistics, but perhaps most importantly, it’s helping farmers find the best market for their produce.



&#8220;We want to become central to a farmer&#8217;s everyday existence by providing a comprehensive suite of digital services to enhance transacting and trading, with the data and predictive analytics as the golden thread,” says De Kock.



Nile operates in 12 African countries, and now calls itself “the largest fruit and vegetable online marketplace on the continent”.



Operating in a region with high food insecurity means sustainability is vital here, and Nile’s tech facilitates it. &#8220;Food waste is dramatically reduced compared to traditional markets since all produce is pre-sold to buyers in 40+ towns and cities and thus does not degrade over time on a market floor,” says De Kock.



In addition to this, Nile’s logistics maintains multiple temperature zones for cold chain management while minimizing food miles.



&#8220;Just like the Nile River was pivotal to the development of agricultural production and trade across African countries, we believe our name is symbolic of our mission,&#8221; says De Kock.



As buyer demand continues to grow, so does the market for quality, affordable produce and Nile seems to be changing the game for African farmers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-model-that-not-only-combats-desertification">&#8216;A model that not only combats desertification…’</h2>



Further afield, Sand to Green focuses on agroforestry for arid regions. It converts barren land into fertile agricultural areas using pioneering agroforestry practices and advanced technology.



Founded by Wissal Ben Moussa, Gautier de Carcouët, and Benjamin Rombaut, the company wants to make desert areas agriculturally productive while contributing to CO2 capture and biodiversity enhancement, effectively overhauling these agricultural landscapes.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61482" style="width:606px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sand-to-Green-was-formed-in-response-to-the-challenges-of-food-security-and-environmental-sustainability-in-dry-regions-image-supplied-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Sand to Green was formed in response to the challenges of food security and environmental sustainability in dry regions; image supplied</figcaption></figure></div>


Formed in response to the challenges of food security and environmental sustainability in dry regions, particularly in Morocco and broader Africa, the founders saw the need for eco-friendly agricultural practices in these challenging environments.



Traditional farming methods exacerbate issues like soil degradation and water scarcity, affecting vast areas of agricultural land and, in turn, populations in Africa. Sand to Green&#8217;s model integrates agroforestry with solar-powered desalination, drawing inspiration from ancient oasis ecosystems, a 7,000-year-old agroforestry system.



&#8220;Our vision was to develop a model that not only combats desertification&#8230; but also enhances local food production,&#8221; says co- founder Rombaut. Morocco presented the ideal climate, showcasing the need to balance food security with environmental restoration. &#8220;Our approach addresses water scarcity by using sustainable desalination, tapping into the region&#8217;s abundant solar energy,” he adds. “This model not only meets the immediate need for more food production but also promotes environmental sustainability, offering a blueprint for similar arid regions globally,” adds Moussa.



Sustainability is at the core of this operation. The supply chain focuses on local resources and labor, supporting regional economies and reducing transport-related carbon emissions. In arid regions, their solar-powered desalination technology lowers water usage, while recycled brine from the desalination process is used to cultivate halophyte plants.



Their practices also reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, aligning community well- being with an environmental one. Driven by the belief in locally- adaptable solutions, Sand to Green hopes to influence global agricultural practices.



&#8220;We strive for a future where sustainable agriculture is central to solving global food and environmental challenges,&#8221; Rombaut says. They show how sustainable agriculture can thrive in challenging environments without compromising ecosystem integrity, an idea that will hopefully shift agricultural practices globally. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-replicate-the-conditions-of-an-animal-just-outside-of-the-animal">‘…replicate the conditions of an animal, just outside of the animal’ </h2>



In Cape Town, Newform Foods wants to revolutionize the food industry through cultivated meat production. Promising a more ethical protein alternative using leading bioprocessing technology and proprietary methods, Newform allows food producers to manufacture animal- friendly products. &#8220;We are producing the ability to scale cultivated meat intended for other companies within the food and meat industry,” says Brett Thompson, who co-founded Newform along with Tasneem Karodia.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61483" style="width:600px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newform-CEO-Brett-Thompson-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Newform CEO Brett Thompson</figcaption></figure></div>


While alternative meat isn’t an entirely new concept, Newform is one of the first of its kind in Africa. &#8220;We want to create a technology platform that can be applied to any company around the world,&#8221; says Thompson. Essentially, Newform facilitates sustainable food production through tailored platforms and solutions. “We’re trying to perfectly replicate the conditions of an animal, just outside of the animal,” he explains. This is done using animal cells, and an intricate combination of media development and bioreactors to help the cells grow. Thompson adds that the entire process, from cell to harvest, takes only three to four weeks, a fraction compared to the standard 18 months in conventional farming.



Having successfully experimented with lamb, beef and pork, Newform will soon be exploring poultry and seafood, as part of creating an agnostic platform. “We want to specialize in the platform, not the species,” says Thompson. Ethics aside, Newform’s solution is undeniably more sustainable for various reasons. Reduced land, water and energy use, as well as minimizing food waste, means a much lower impact than in conventional farming practices. 


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="683" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-683x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61485" style="width:485px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Newforms-Greek-pita-with-cultivated-lamb-meatballs-scaled.jpg 1707w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Newform&#8217;s Greek pita with cultivated lamb meatballs</figcaption></figure></div>


“We can produce something that we can use every single part of,” he explains.



This technology could also affect farms and food transportation. “Imagine a future where you have large facilities close to cities that can produce a delicious protein and get it to retailers and consumers in a more localized fashion.”



What does this Newform future look like? &#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a world in which no animal is used within the supply chain of our food,” says Thompson. “We&#8217;ll be part of the way to replace all animals in the food system and make a healthier protein that&#8217;s cost-effective and delicious.”



While originating in South Africa, Newform plans to expand internationally, starting with the United Kingdom.



Encouragingly, Thompson has seen a shift in the industry, with more food companies willing to adopt technology towards sustainability. “The industry is looking to future-proof itself,” he says, and Newform is primed to lead the charge.

Nile co-founders Eugene Roodt and Louis de Kock

CREAM OF THE CROP: The African Firms Showing Why Foodtech Is The Future

A new era in satellite technology offers space-down insight. Here are some fascinating world views.



Who would have thought that over 50 years later, the space race would be back on? And this time, every country with a space program seems to have their eye on the moon’s south pole.



Between the anticipation around NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission, to the Middle East entering the space race with plans to launch an Emirati-built rover this year, it’s easy to forget that SpaceX’s Starlink is expanding in Africa (most recently, offering high-performance connectivity in the West African country of Benin), with Amazon’s Project Kuiper following suit. While the idea of colonizing the moon, Mars and beyond is exciting, there’s another side to space that is changing how we see the planet we currently live on – data.



For Clint Crosier, Director of Aerospace and Satellite Solutions for Amazon Web Services (AWS), it’s as simple as making the world a better place, from space.



“There’s space up… understanding the universe… but a mission that’s growing even faster is space down – using space-related data to look at earth and improve the quality of life here,” explains Crosier.



As someone who spent his entire career flying satellites and launching rockets, Crosier has witnessed the rapid growth of the space industry first-hand. (Before moving to AWS, Crosier helped to create the United States’ (US) Space Force, the fifth branch of the US military.)



The data coming out of space is vast but in order to use it effectively, the sector needs next-gen cloud technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced data analytics, quantum computing and more.



“The space industry doesn’t really understand the cloud but there are many cloud-based technologies to move the mission forward,” says Crosier.



One of the businesses Crosier works closely with is Axiom Space, a private American aerospace company planning to launch the world’s first commercial space station in 2026. There are only two, fully operational space stations: the International Space Station (ISS), operated by NASA and its partner agencies, and China’s Tiangong Space Station. Since 2003, Axiom Space has played an increasingly important role in the ISS program, particularly when it comes to private astronaut missions. 



“One of the things that came up is that on the ISS, astronauts are doing medical experiments because, as it turns out, certain medical experiments are more effective when run in microgravity. Stem cell research and biopharmaceutical research get better effects, which is great… but there’s a problem – bandwidth.”



Crosier explains that when an astronaut runs an experiment, it can take up to 18 hours to download the data from space to earth. The data is processed on servers here in about 20 minutes but then needs to be pushed back up to the ISS. 



“It’s complex and because it takes so long, we’re essentially only getting to one experiment a day,” he says. To tackle this problem, Crosier and his team created Snowcone, an edge computing device certified by NASA that Axiom Space took on their first mission, Ax-



1. “The astronauts are using Snowcone to catalogue and run experimental data which saves anywhere between seven to 10 times the amount of science time by processing the data in space rather than pushing it all down to earth,” he says.



There may only be two space stations but there are thousands of satellites orbiting earth collecting important in- space data. AWS partnered with D-Orbit, a satellite company in Italy that takes hyperspectral imagery, to launch a device similar to a Snowcone to process earth observation data in space.



“When you see a picture from space, it’s electro-optical. A satellite can only hold a certain number of images so once the register is full, to take more pictures you have to process and download each. This takes time and costs money and bandwidth and every time that happens, around 20% of the images are unusable because of cloud cover,” says Crosier.



“It’s a waste of bandwidth to download and process an image only to determine it isn’t useful! So now, we can process that data on orbit on the satellite. This means we’re now throwing images out, increasing the capacity of the satellite and only sending 100% usable images down to earth.”



Processing data in space has decreased bandwidth by 42% with the satellites still meeting 100% of their mission requirements.



“If you can save 42% of your bandwidth budget, you can do so much more with your satellite,” exclaims Crosier. 



There are many applications for in-space data (also called space-based earth observation data) that extend far beyond navigation. IBM, for example, are collaborating with NASA to use geospatial information (such as satellite images) alongside AI models to address climate change.



“Geospatial is about the three Ws – what, when and where. Climate change is a what, when and where use case application. We want to know where the risks are, what risks and when,” explains Hendrik Hamann, IBM Research’s chief scientist for climate and sustainability.



“A lot of the solutions we need come from top down, from observation data. NASA, as a space agency, collects petabytes of satellite data which gives us a unique opportunity to build solutions,” says Hamann. “We can monitor from space where, when and what emissions occur. We can actually track carbon. We can use satellite observations to figure out where carbon is being removed [or] for understanding nature-based carbon sequestration…” Hamann adds that geospatial data is not only powerful, it’s impartial, as it provides the same observation principles. “I think about it as an independent approach. It is really getting us much closer to the truth and it is more scaleable,” says Hamann.



IBM is currently working with the Kenyan government to support the National Tree Growing and Restoration Campaign through a new ‘adopt-a- water-tower’ initiative. The program uses a digital platform that leverages IBM’s geospatial foundation model (developed by NASA) to enable users to track and visualize tree-planting and tree-growing activities in specific water tower areas. With the model, IBM can quantify reforestation, nature-based carbon sequestration and even understand how much biomass is in the trees. “These water towers exist because of vegetation and trees. At the same time, these trees are extremely important for removing carbon. We need to ensure the longevity of these threes so the carbon stays in the vegetation. It also affects water security… and will have a positive impact on sustainable agriculture in Kenya,” adds Hamann.



Where AI models were previously inhibited by a lack of scalability, Hamann explains these new models built with top-down, satellite information are easily replicable. “Although Africa is a gigantic continent, you will be able to rapidly replicate these types of solutions in other parts of Africa. The whole reason we’re building foundation models is because we want to take this to whoever wants it,” he says. Another company using hyperspectral imagery to translate observations into insights is Digital Earth Africa.



“[They’re] using multi-imagery bands from space to look at the African continent. And then we’re running AI machine learning analytics against that imagery to determine soil content from space,” says Crosier. The data is readily available for government as well as international food and agriculture organizations to address crop production and preposition famine relief forces. 



“And we’re doing all of this from space. That’s one of the things that makes space cool – you can see things from space that you just can’t see anywhere else. You could fly a drone or an aircraft up the coast of Africa and get some local coverage but if I really want to zoom out and get an entire picture, I can really only do that from space,” Crosier says. “We are reimagining and re- envisioning space using the cloud.

outer space, infinite one widths, astronomer photographing milky way

Down To Earth: Insights On Africa From Outer Space

Quantum security in Africa may not be as advanced as in other regions, but it is recognized as an important facet of computation in the future.



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“Right now, quantum computing is where classical computing was in the 1960s.”
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Quantum is about to change how computers are used to attack. No, it’s not here right now. It’s probably not going to be here tomorrow. But it’s coming and it’s time to pay attention.



The <a href="https://www.weforum.org/publications/quantum-readiness-toolkit-building-a-quantum-secure-economy/">World Economic Forum</a> is listening. It released a Quantum Readiness Toolkit in 2023 discussing the speed of quantum development, the increase in quantum computers and the cybersecurity threats these introduce. The <a href="https://www.epc.eu/en/publications/A-quantum-cybersecurity-agenda-for-Europe~526b9c">European Policy Centre</a> published its quantum security agenda the same year, putting the quantum conversation firmly in the security spotlight. Quantum has the potential to change everything, including cybersecurity.



“It will change how computers will be used to attack and defend, potentially cracking cryptographic algorithms at speed,” says Martin Potgieter, Co-Founder and Technical Director at Nclose in Cape Town, South Africa. “While quantum computers are largely experimental and impractical, the idea is that when they become mainstream, they will introduce exponentially greater computing power.”



Professor Bruce Watson, Director of the Computational Thinking for AI Group, in the Centre for AI Research (CAIR), in <a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&amp;&amp;p=5a340fced2ef2890JmltdHM9MTcxMDQ2MDgwMCZpZ3VpZD0wZGZiMjgzOC1hMjgxLTZlZTQtMWY2ZC0zYmVhYTM0ZDZmZGMmaW5zaWQ9NTc5OQ&amp;ptn=3&amp;ver=2&amp;hsh=3&amp;fclid=0dfb2838-a281-6ee4-1f6d-3beaa34d6fdc&amp;u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20vYWxpbmsvbGluaz91cmw9aHR0cHMlM2ElMmYlMmZ3d3cuc3VuLmFjLnphJTJmJnNvdXJjZT1zZXJwLWxvY2FsJmg9M2pNJTJmdG5sWGR3SlUxZ3JuVG5FektKTXolMmIzdW8yQzhXJTJiTnIySkE5TEFaTSUzZCZwPWx3X3RwdCZpZz1GMjExNzZDMjBBREQ0QTg0ODI0NzBERTgyQTE4RTMwNyZ5cGlkPVlOODIwMngxODM0MjI0MDk2MDgzOTcwMjgwOQ&amp;ntb=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stellenbosch University</a>, South Africa, adds: “They are complex and expensive to build requiring facilities that have liquid nitrogen or liquid helium cooling with vibration-proof infrastructure that can cost upwards of $100 million just for the lab. Right now, quantum computing is where classical computing was in the 1960s.”



This is globally, not just in Africa. While some of the big names in technology are putting their money in the quantum basket, the technology and its capabilities are on par with the grainy photographs of giant computers and stacks of floppy discs over 70 years ago. The only difference is that countries like the United States (US) and China have the budgets to drive the quantum agenda.



“In Africa, there are several labs working on quantum experimentation but none are building full-blown quantum computers,” continues Watson. “It comes back to the cost point. Even though we have the scientists and the mathematicians and are building up this expertise on the continent we’ll be making use of overseas facilities for the foreseeable future.”



However, this doesn’t change the need to prioritize quantum security on the continent. Just as the first virus – the Creeper – released in 1971 was an unexpected side-effect of innovation back then, so it will be for the quantum computer in the future.



“I don’t see this as a region-specific phenomenon,” says Potgieter. “Should Sothern African Development Community and the African Union put quantum security on their agenda, if they don’t already? While we have a lot of problems in Africa that need attention and there are a lot of variables, it should be discussed at a high level.”



Looking ahead, it is very likely that sectors such as finance and healthcare – both very much in line to benefit from the potential of quantum – will look to implementing protocols and guidelines that will ensure they are protected. According to Jean-Francois Bobier, Partner and Vice President, Deep Tech at Boston Consulting Group, there are no regulations specifically for the banking sector in Africa at the moment. In Morocco, initiatives are driven by leading banking groups such as Attijariwafa Bank at a preliminary stage but central banks are still struggling to impose Transport Layer Security (TLS) with classical cypher algorithms.



“It’s likely Africa will follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines which are based in the US and we expect them to mandate the move to post-quantum cryptography in 2025,” he adds. “We anticipate it will be similar to Y2K, even worse because crypto is everywhere, has never been properly documented, and is sometimes hard-coded in applications and certificates.”



Quantum security in Africa may not be as advanced as in other regions, but it is recognized as an important facet of computation in the future. Steven Cohen, Managing Director of Triple S Solutions, adds: “The continent’s diverse economic and technological landscape means different countries will engage with this issue at different paces and levels of intensity. However, given the global nature of digital security and communication, quantum security is a conversation worth having.”



Over the next five years, quantum is unlikely to leap into mainstream but the groundwork laid in these years will be critical for shaping the quantum future in Africa.



As Watson concludes: “As far as I can tell, we don’t have a single significant post-quantum cryptography effort or quantum security effort for designing new algorithms. There are people across Africa advocating for the need for post-quantum cryptography but the vast majority don’t yet understand that they should be taking action now.”

Children Screen Time Rockets

Africa’s Quantum: Welcome To The 1960s

As language models like ChatGPT and Gemini have ushered in a new age of AI in Silicon Valley, the world’s most powerful tech companies are looking ahead to drug discovery and digital biology.



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As Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang scanned the audience at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference this January in San Francisco, the biggest health tech event of the year, he acknowledged that he was on unusual ground.



“You’re not my normal crowd,” he said to the room of health and biology technologists, during a fireside chat with Recursion, a drug discovery firm that Nvidia pumped $50 million into last year.



The audience may not have been part of his core demographic, but he&#8217;s hoping that will change. Over and over again, Huang has touted digital biology as the “next amazing revolution” in technology. As the AI boom has swept Silicon Valley, Nvidia has built a more than $60 billion a year business and last summer became one of the few companies with a market cap in the trillions. In health and biotech, it sees more opportunities to fuel its growth.



“It&#8217;s been declared we are the next many-billion dollar business for Nvidia,” Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare, told&nbsp;Forbes. She said the company aims to provide chips, cloud infrastructure and other tools to more biotech firms.



Now that large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google DeepMind’s Gemini have mainstreamed generative AI, several of the world’s most powerful tech companies are looking to biotech as the next frontier in artificial intelligence — a frontier where AI isn’t generating funny poems from a prompt, but rather the next life-saving drug.



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“It&#8217;s been declared we are the next many-billion dollar business for Nvidia.”Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of healthcare
</blockquote>



At Nvidia, arguably a backbone of the AI revolution because of its powerful GPU chips, the bulk of investments at the company’s venture capital arm over the past two years have been in drug discovery. At DeepMind, the Google AI lab’s AlphaFold model — a groundbreaking tool for predicting protein structures — has been used by academic researchers over the past year to develop a &#8220;molecular&#8221; syringe to inject medicine directly into cells, and to research crops that are less dependent on pesticides. The interest in biotech is industry-wide: Microsoft, Amazon and even Salesforce have protein design projects as well.



While using AI in drug discovery is not exactly a new trend — DeepMind first unveiled AlphaFold in 2018 — executives at both DeepMind and Nvidia told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;that this is a breakthrough moment, thanks to a confluence of three things: the mass of training data now available, the explosion of computing resources and advancements in AI algorithms. “The three ingredients are here for the very first time,” Powell said. “This was not possible five years ago.”



AI has great potential in the biotech space because of its sheer complexity — just take the problem that AlphaFold targets. Proteins are the basic machinery of your body, managing a wide variety of functions. All of these functions are reliant on the three dimensional shape of a protein. Every protein is made up of a sequence of amino acids, and interactions between those amino acids and the external environment determine how the protein “folds” — which dictates its ultimate shape. Being able to predict the shape of a protein based on its amino acid sequences is of intense interest to biotech companies, which can use those insights to design everything from new drugs to improved crops to biodegradable plastics.



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“It was always this kind of lunatic, fringe thing. Very much out of the mainstream.”David Baker, director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington
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This is where deep learning comes in: training AI models on hundreds of millions of different protein sequences and their underlying structures help those models uncover patterns in biology without necessarily needing to do the expensive computations required by a true molecular dynamics simulation. Fully simulating proteins requires such intense computational resources that institutions have designed and built supercomputers specifically to handle this type of problem, such as the Anton 2 at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.



The boom in drug discovery tech isn’t only coming from the AI tech giants. Since 2021, there have been 281 venture capital deals worldwide in AI drug discovery startups, accounting for $7.7 billion in investment, according to Pitchbook. The biggest spike occurred in 2021 as the pandemic took hold, when 105 deals were made, up from 65 the year before, tapering to 67 deals in 2023. In a&nbsp;<a href="https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/q4-2023-biopharma-report" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report</a>&nbsp;published earlier this month, the analyst firm noted that there’s still a strong level of enthusiasm “for early-stage firms integrating AI into drug discovery and development.” The rise of generative AI has also sparked increased interest, said David Baker, director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington.



“It was always this kind of lunatic, fringe thing. Very much out of the mainstream,” said Baker. Now, he said, “everyone is talking about it.” Since the Institute of Protein Design’s founding in 2012, more than 20 startups have been spun out of the program, said Baker. Ten of them — including Archon Biosciences, which develops nanomaterials for regenerative medicine and cancer, and Lila, creating treatments for fibrotic diseases — have come in recent years, since 2021.



At DeepMind, it wasn&#8217;t until the Covid-19 pandemic hit that researchers truly understood the stakes of their research. They&#8217;d worked for almost 5 years to develop AlphaFold, and as they were retraining the model for its second generation, the entire world began sheltering in place because of a mysterious virus. “That really brought home the importance of the problem,” Pushmeet Kohli, vice president of science for DeepMind, told&nbsp;Forbes.



The result of DeepMind’s retraining was AlphaFold 2, a groundbreaking model that could so accurately predict protein structures that organizers at CASP, a worldwide research contest for protein folding, emailed DeepMind to ask if the company somehow cheated, Kohli recalled, laughing.



The effort has been so promising that cofounder Demis Hassabis spun out a separate company at Alphabet based on AlphaFold’s breakthroughs in 2021. Called Isomorphic Labs, the startup focuses on drug discovery and is helmed by Hassabis himself. Just this year, for example, Isomorphic Labs inked research deals with&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/isomorphiclabs-website-public-artifacts/ISOMORPHIC_LABS_LILLY_07_01_24.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Lilly</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/isomorphiclabs-website-public-artifacts/ISOMORPHIC_LABS_NOVARTIS_07_01_24.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Novartis</a>&nbsp;collectively worth up to nearly $3 billion if all the milestones are met — and that doesn’t count lucrative royalties from potential drug sales that result from these partnerships.



In 2022, Nvidia unveiled BioNeMo, a generative AI platform that helps developers accelerate the training, deployment and scaling of large language models for drug discovery. At&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2024/02/15/nvidia-nventures-ai-investments/?sh=561e51446025">Nventures, the chip maker’s venture capital arm</a>, seven of the unit’s 19 overall deals have been in AI drug discovery startups, including Genesis Therapeutics, Terray and Generate Biomedicines — the largest of any investment category.



“The computer-aided design industry created the first $2 trillion chip company,” Powell said, referring to Nvidia and its stratospheric rise over the past year. “Why wouldn&#8217;t the same computer-aided&nbsp;drug discovery&nbsp;industry build the next trillion dollar drug company?” She added, “Which is why we are investing in the way that we are.”



Several other tech giants have their own protein folding efforts. Last year, Salesforce debuted ProGen, a protein-generating AI model, and Microsoft released EvoDiff, a similar, but open source model. Amazon also released protein folding tools for SageMaker, its AWS machine learning platform. Even ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, appears to be recruiting for science and drug design teams,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2024/01/02/tiktok-bytedance-pharmaceuticals-drug-discovery-science-biology-chemistry-ai-china/?sh=3b8b0b250874">reported</a>&nbsp;in January.



Still, as promising and hyped as AI drug discovery is, there are setbacks. It still takes years to get drugs through clinical trials, and while the FDA so far has okayed clinical trials for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fda.gov/science-research/science-and-research-special-topics/artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-aiml-drug-development" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">over 100 new drug candidates</a>&nbsp;that use AI or machine learning for development, it it will likely be years before any hit the market.



In some cases, the difficulties associated with drug discovery has caused big tech companies to abandon that research. Last August, Facebook parent Meta shuttered its protein folding team. The researchers at the unit later struck out on their own, founding a company called EvolutionaryScale,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/08/25/evolutionaryscale-ai-biotech-startup-meta-researchers-funding/?sh=191e6c7e140c">reported last year</a>. Meta declined to comment on the reason for shutting down the project.



One important bottleneck that tech companies will need to focus on is having enough training data. Newer foundational models like GPT are reliant on reinforcement learning, a method where algorithms can process unlabeled information through trial and error. That makes them even more reliant on high-quality data, Anna Marie Wagner, head of AI for synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks told&nbsp;Forbes. Last summer, her company&nbsp;<a href="https://investors.ginkgobioworks.com/news/news-details/2023/Ginkgo-Bioworks-and-Google-Cloud-Partner-to-Build-Next-Generation-AI-Platform-for-Biological-Engineering-and-Biosecurity/default.aspx" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">entered into</a>&nbsp;a five-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud to pair its AI expertise with Ginkgo’s ability to quickly generate biological data in its automated labs, which can then be immediately put back into the AI model as new training data. This combination, she said, helps to better optimize the discovery process.



Additionally, she said, Ginkgo has the ability to validate model predictions quickly. Counterintuitively, that makes the quirk of AI models sometimes hallucinating — producing wrong or misleading results to a prompt — “a feature, not a bug” because it can lead to interesting discoveries that might have been unimaginable to scientists. “We want the model to come up with the crazy stuff, because that’s where we start seeing order of magnitude improvements.”



Kohli puts the data problem more bluntly: “Garbage in, garbage out.” Still, as the industry works to fix those issues, he has already seen the impact that AI has had on biological research. &#8220;When I go to conferences and see the change in how biologists were doing their work earlier, and how they&#8217;re doing their work today, that&#8217;s an amazing transformation,” he said.

Category: Technology