Welcome to HackerNoon’s interview series. This section is curated by our Editorial team to spotlight bold and disruptive startups across the globe. If you’ve been nominated, and answer these questions Startups-Of-The-Year create a brand profile here. Hey Hackers, Vouched has been nominated in HackerNoon's annual Startup of the Year awards in Seattle, WA. Please vote for us here: Seattle Startups Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Meet Vouched Vouched provides an AI-powered identity verification solution, designed for precision, speed, and scalability. We enable businesses to streamline onboarding, enhance customer experience, unlock growth potential, and cut operational costs, all while adhering to essential know-your-customer/patient (KYC/KYP) requirements. Our proprietary AI technology uniquely combines multiple models and rigorous data checks to identify over 99.58% of known fraud cases - one of the industry's top detection rates. Our end-to-end solution uses distinctive methods for examining ID documents, allowing us to adapt swiftly as new identification forms emerge. We offer same-day implementation, instantly adding value without dependency on third-party technologies. Capable of identifying over 85% of the global population and continually expanding, Vouched is steadfast in its mission to seamlessly verify anyone, anywhere - including hard-to-identify groups like new immigrants - to facilitate access to life's essential services. Vouched is gaining momentum in sectors like financial services and healthcare, where regulatory compliance and security are crucial. Our clients, such as Hims Health and Alloy, benefit from our abilities to expedite decision-making processes. My Role John Baird is the CEO and Co-founder of Vouched, where he directs the development of a revolutionary AI platform that streamlines user identity verification for businesses worldwide. Leveraging cutting-edge computer vision and AI technology, Vouched verifies individual identities, enabling fast and secure customer onboarding. This not only connects businesses to verified users rapidly but also offers a seamless way for businesses to satisfy their identity validation needs. Inspired by his experiences at Blue Nile and a major automotive manufacturer, John now applies his vision and knowledge to enhancing the Vouched platform, continually raising the bar for the identity verification industry. How We're Disrupting/Improving the Identity Verification Industry As fraud schemes increasingly become more sophisticated, so too must the technology requirements to identify, prevent, and stop them. By applying dozens of proprietary AI models and robust data checks simultaneously, Vouched can verify individuals and detect over 99.58% of known fraud cases. This fraud sensitivity detection rate is believed to be one of the highest in the industry. As fraud evolves, the company's AI fraud models learn quickly to combat fraudsters. With its vision to become the single largest identity token provider for any business, Vouched's AI solution enables the company to expand its operations globally with a highly efficient capital model. Standing Out from The Crowd Compared to other IDV vendors, Vouched relies on proprietary AI and consultative expertise to deliver a proven verification solution that helps businesses rapidly grow through customer acquisition while protecting their business and providing long-term cost savings. Vouched is constantly improving its AI that today delivers market-leading results such as a visual identity verification approval accuracy of 99.44%, and when combined with our robust data reviews, an overall approval accuracy of 99.58%. We are helping to build a global trust ecosystem by making it easier for companies and individuals to verify each other's identities. John and his team are also motivated by the potential of Vouched to use AI for the betterment of society, helping people who are underserved by the financial system, such as immigrants and young adults, who have often been labeled as credit invisible. Because the Vouched solution is multidimensional and dynamic, evaluating a person based on criteria unique to their country, language, and use case verifies people worldwide, including hard-to-identify populations. Vouched believes everyone has the right to access banking services, healthcare, and other essential services. Our Predictions/Thoughts on the Identity Verification Industry in 2023 IDV solutions need to continue innovating to meet the current and future requirements of the industry. More than 50% of customers applying for online services such as bank accounts abandon the process due to lengthy wait times, non-intuitive and subpar customer experience, or a high percentage of false negatives that prevent qualified individuals from completing the process. Moreover, the pandemic has driven more than 65% of online banking, resulting in a significant increase in fraud rate attempts in the financial services industry last year. In this context, businesses require a solution that offers proven IDV expertise, flexibility to meet their evolving needs and drive customer growth, and full compliance with their industry's regulations. Vouched is one of the few IDV partners that can fulfill these requirements while also innovating for the future of IDV. What word defines the state of Identity Verification in 2023? Innovation is the single word that best describes the IDV industry for this year. The good news is that the growth of this industry has attracted some of the brightest minds in AI and machine learning, and we are seeing not just iterative improvements, but major leaps forward in terms of product innovation to help businesses build trust with their customers, and confidently transact and engage with them. Why we decided to participate in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards For Vouched, the first half of 2023 has been an incredible time of growth and innovation. We’re adding new features to our IDV solution, expanding our team, and growing our customer footprint in key areas such as healthcare. We value the HackerNoon community’s support for cutting-edge products and are excited to share more details about our business milestones. Final Thoughts Vouched has already established itself as a powerful player in the IDV industry, able to identify over 85% of the global population and rapidly expanding. The company is committed to fulfilling its mission of providing expert identification services to anyone, anywhere, in order to facilitate access to life's most essential services, while championing the idea of using AI for the good of humankind. In a world where identity is crucial, AI-powered IDV technology is able to make a significant impact by providing identity to those who were previously “invisible.” Furthermore, the future of IDV solutions must provide persistent and pervasive identity tokens that are unique and readily accessible to individuals engaging with businesses digitally, whether in Web3, the metaverse, or across the web. This will effectively serve as the identity verification layer for the entirety of the internet. However, for any technology to assume this enormous responsibility, it must be proven, scalable, secure, and built on open technology standards - all of which Vouched has developed to realize its market vision. Vote for us today! Seattle Startups

Startups of the Year 2023: Vouched - The AI-Powered Identity Verification Solution

Introduction Welcome to the OpenAI Playground, a powerful web-based tool designed to help you understand and test the capabilities of the OpenAI API. Whether you're a developer, researcher, or simply curious about the cutting-edge technologies offered by OpenAI, the Playground is your gateway to exploring the possibilities. The OpenAI Playground provides a user-friendly interface for interacting with OpenAI's powerful models, including ChatGPT and DALLE-E. With its intuitive design and easy-to-use features, you can unleash your creativity and experiment with various inputs to generate text, images, and even transcribe audio. Now that you're familiar with the features and resources available in the OpenAI Playground, let's dive into the exciting world of creative generation. Features Settings The Playground allows you to customize various settings to fine-tune your experience. You can easily edit the JSON object settings, including the model, max_tokens, and more. This flexibility empowers you to tailor the behavior of the models to suit your specific needs and preferences. Text Generation With the power of ChatGPT at your fingertips, you can generate human-like text by simply providing a prompt. Whether you're looking to draft an article, create a fictional story, or have a conversation with an AI, Playground's text generation feature has got you covered. Experiment with different prompts, tweak the settings, and marvel at the AI's ability to generate coherent and contextually relevant responses. Image Generation DALLE-E, OpenAI's impressive image generation model, opens up a world of possibilities for visual creativity. By providing a textual description or a prompt, you can generate beautiful and unique images. Explore different concepts, experiment with abstract ideas, or even generate images from poetic descriptions. The OpenAI Playground's image generation feature lets you immerse yourself in the fascinating realm where AI meets art. Speech-to-Text In addition to text and image generation, the OpenAI Playground offers a speech-to-text transcription feature. Upload an audio file, and the AI will transcribe the speech into text, making it easy to analyze, search, and extract insights from audio content. This feature is particularly useful for researchers, journalists, and anyone working with large volumes of audio data. Links To fully experience the OpenAI Playground and start exploring the possibilities, here are some useful links and resources: Repository Visit our GitHub repository at to access the latest code, contribute to the project, and collaborate with other developers. https://github.com/Kypaku/vue-gpt-playground Demo Take the Playground for a spin by visiting our live demo at . http://kypaku.ru/pages/vue-gpt-playground/ API Visit for more information and documentation. https://www.npmjs.com/package/gpt-simple-api-ts Thank You for Reading I extend my heartfelt gratitude to each one of you for taking the time to read through this article. Your interest and engagement are what drive innovation and community growth. Please, do not hesitate to leave your feedback and thoughts in the comments section below. Your insights and suggestions are invaluable, as they not only help me to refine Open AI API Playground but also contribute to the collective knowledge of our community. Once again, thank you, and I eagerly look forward to hearing your perspectives.

OpenAI Playground: ChatGPT (With Streaming), DALLE-E, and Audio Transcribing

fascinates us all especially the product managers. Learnings do come from all sides and seemingly trivial things we ever did, mould them. We all have been both consumers and sellers at different stages of our life. We even continuously sell and buy things, beliefs, and more often ideas to and from people around us, including our parents, children, and friends. ‘Mom-and-Pop’ stores or ‘Kirana’ stores have also been indispensible parts of our daily lives especially while growing up. For me, some of the most practical learnings in product psychology and business actually came from observing people as a customer myself and working as a sales assistant in my mom’s store. Consumer and product psychology During my early teens, I grew up assisting my mother in running a small neighbourhood store, selling beauty and cosmetic products. Even though her goal was not solely to earn profits but also to spend her spare time in a meaningful way, I gathered plenty of learnings about business and consumer psychology. Whenever she was too busy or during festival peaks, our family (of four) used to help her with the customers (hence called mom-and-pop stores akin to kirana stores). While we were constantly observing our customers, we all used little tricks imbibed in the consumer psychology to sustain the business - which we obviously did not study in any textbook then. Doing so, we would test multiple hypothesis in real time regarding the customers’ profile and their needs/wants with the goal to make both the customers (mostly the neighbours) and business happy. I am sharing below some of the key learnings and their parallels in the product management and e-commerce space. Hope you are able to relate and find them useful. 1) Always think about (all) your customers and users Know Your Cutomer - KCKnowing your customers, their geography and general preferences can help you serve them better even before they express their needs/wants. Apart from the target customers, there are various other users who are important throughout the buying experience. Kids often accompany their mothers while they go shopping. You can easily achieve 10-20% additional sales and higher profit margins on products for children if your business is targeted at women. Even if women are out for personal shopping like cosmetics, they tend to make emotional (guilt) purchases for their children at home. Buying gifts for other family members and relatives is also common in the business of personal indulgence. 2) Promotions work best to attract customers to your store Promote AwarenessSale or Promotion sign boards are placed right outside the stores to attract the customers. Though discounts are hard to resist, customers usually don’t decide if they are going to buy a jeans or a t-shirt or a different category but they often decide the stores based on the sales and promotions. The limited time promotions build up brand awareness and an urgency to purchase. Be it a store or an app, even today promotions are absolutely necessary to bring customer traffic. E.g. - all ecom companies regularly run promotions to attract the users to the websites/apps and build awareness about the products they sell. 3) Stores should be delightful spaces where customers would love to spend time Maintain EngagementThere is a key difference between a grocery store and a cosmetics store. The cosmetics and beauty products which need trials and are targeted for a particular segment need a store which looks comfortable and engaging for the segment. Customers should be able to spend minutes to hours in the store without getting mentally and physically exhausted. Due to the nature of the products sold, even the small stores dealing with women often have places to sit or stand comfortably. Sometimes, they also have a play area for the children and are generally more visually appealing. In the digital world, colors like yellow, blue, grey are widely used to reduce eye strain (red is usually avoided except for groceries which are not known for involved purchases etc). Apparel and Cosmetics websites and Apps (target audience - females) are generally a lot more classy than websites selling electronics (target audience - males). Reviews and ratings not only build trust but also engage users before and after the purchase. Amazon, Myntra and Lazada have also been experimenting with virtual games to let users engage more on their websites. 4) Recommend products and keep it personal Give Personalized AttentionCustomers want to quickly find the products they want and as a seller it is in your best interest to help them minimize their discovery time. Narrowing down to what customers want from a big assortment is difficult. Sellers at stores do this in a very simple way. If a customer does not know exactly what s/he wants or desires, they ask the customer directly and understand his/her preferences, occasion and reasons of purchase. They let the customers first decide some attributes such as color. They then let them explore multiple variations or patterns in similar colors. Customers often need personal attention to find the right product for themselves. In general, you should recommend the “popular products” if they are looking for commodity products for regular use and recommend products that are unique, exclusive or tied to luxury if customers want it for a special occassion. Though in e-commerce you often can not ask the customer directly but you should support a good search functionality and avoid recommending a huge list of products. Personalization algorithms on websites aim to identify and show the limited items that are most relevant based on user history, search query, location etc. Never recommend something which is not available in the required size-color. Build filters to help customers narrow down their consideration list. 5) Share the detailed product information Know Your Products - KYPPeople are hungry for knowledge in general. Knowledge also provides enough justification to buy or not buy something. Make sure you have all the information about the items in which the customers are interested. The worst thing that can happen to a customer is an “unaware salesman”. You must have at least the relevant basic information about your products to avoid the customer fallout. Basic attributes about usage, target customer’s profile, age, discounts, USP will definitely be needed. If you are selling to women, always be ready with more information. 6) Presentation matters Build Value PerceptionA shop brimming with a huge selection is more enticing to customers who are looking for a variety in shopping options. However, a better strategy would be to present a few options in an organized and fancy manner as if they are curated for them rather than presenting a large selection in a crude way. As a seller, your handling and presentation of the selected products speak a lot about the perceived value of the products. Customers subconsciously value a delightful presentation experience which they could take back home. For premium products, it is always best to showcase less options to customers sending the vibes of exclusivity. Moreover, even if the cost of products or raw materials are the same, pricing should be differentiated based on presentation or value perceptions. Though store owners would say “All products are equally good” but better looking products are often priced higher to maintain differentiation and normalize demand even if the cost is the same. 7) Customers need validation of their choices for making the final decision Stimulate DesireLet’s say customers have identified a few items that they like. We have to gently nudge them from liking the products to wanting the products. Social validation works best for making purchase decisions quickly. Many of the customers may end up not purchasing at all if they don’t get any validation from the accompanying friends to convert the intention to purchase. A seller usually throws a line “Mam is right” or “this looks beautiful on you” or “this is the best ___ for you” to achieve the social validation from the group. Anchoring is another way store owners use to stimulate desire. They would often put an unlikeable product just fitting the customer’s criteria (but with poor pricing, utility or quality) against an already selected or preferred product to simulate a stronger desire in the latter. 8) For customers, budget ranges may not be flexible but the prices are Spur ActionCustomers choose their price range in the beginning and then agree on a final price for the product/s selected. Perceived value is never absolute but in ranges. Sellers also leave the price negotiations for the end. A small bargaining on the selected product towards the end works more than a small discount conveyed before any items are selected for purchase. Price discovery online is a click away through various websites but most customers are willing to pay small premiums for various aspects like immediate availability, quicker delivery, seller trust, return or quality assurance etc. 9) A lot can change over payment - make them convenient and try luck one last time Close the SaleYou will be surprised to know how many people leave stores if they do not accept cash or a particular credit card or an online transaction. Customers often don’t have the cash or credit card handy or prefer certain payment modes more for various reasons like convenience, rewards etc. They may never come back if you lose them while transacting. Moreover, a salesman would always keep the alternative choices floating around you (at the counter) till the very end of the transaction. Rather than taking it back to the shelf, s/he wants you to add that as an additional item or reserve it as a backup if you change your mind on the preferred one. The synonymous experiences in the e-com world are auto-saving of the cart, option of saving the items to wishlist and presenting check-out recommendations just before the transaction step. Even 1% drop rate daily at the final purchase step (ie transaction) is cumulatively a huge loss for the business. 10) Customer relationship and satisfaction give you long term business Proactively Segregate and Resolve Bad ExperiencesBusinesses spend months and years building and maintaining customer relationships. This is what builds the chain of customers for them. Trial and loyalty rates are way higher for customers gained through word of mouth. A customer telling another person that the store has the best deals works way more than the marketing dollars. It makes sense to go an extra mile every now and then to entertain some loyal customers beyond your work timings or by taking up their phone enquiries. Mom and Pop stores often request unhappy customers to come at a certain non-peak time or have an exclusive space reserved for them where they could patiently discuss and resolve their issues. They don’t want unhappy customers to be arguing in front of the other customers. In digital products, you should always have an exclusive channel to resolve the issues of your unsatisfied customers. Easy returns and replacements have also been largely adopted by e-commerce companies from their local store counterparts. Running any business sustainably is hardwork. My mother self-learned and did this for many years. We should all celebrate and learn from such self-made people who have been 10X product managers and 20X marketers way before we learnt the ways through books and courses. There are plenty of other learnings from distributers, wholesellers which I would share some other time. For now, please support by hitting the like and share buttons.

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Cutting-edge technology and intelligent solutions are taking us towards an unpredictable era. Without a doubt, this whole world is accommodated with technological advancements. Unfortunately, cybercriminals have also leveled up their game in parallel to these up-thriving tech innovations. The Healthcare industry has become the major target of cybercriminals especially after the pandemic of COVID-19. Owing to its troves of valuable data, healthcare sectors have never been as vulnerable to cyberattacks as they are now. Hackers have rapidly evolved their tactics to exploit the fear which is escalating amongst the population. Do you know that healthcare records were exposed in 2020? Also, data breaching costs the healthcare industry approximately $5.6 billion every single year. These figuring are just progressing with every passing day and we are currently witnessing an extraordinary level of vulnerability. Cybercriminals are reframing their phishing attempts on a regular basis to carry out cyberattacks in the best possible manner and to take advantage of this COVID-19 fear. 28,756,445 Let us talk about the most recent incident based on evolving cyberattacks. “Scripps Health’s computer systems faced ransomware attack this weekend, resulting in system disruption and systems continue to plague the san-Diego-based healthcare systems. People are facing ambiguity with upcoming appointments.” About Scripps A non-profit healthcare system, Scripps Health is based in San Diego in California. Scripps' healthcare system includes 5 hospitals as well as 19 outpatient facilities. Also, they annually treat a half-million patients via 2,600 affiliated physicians. Scripps Health also includes medical education and clinical research programs.  This organization has numerous project plans which include the Scripps Prebys Cardiovascular Institute. This institute will serve as a center for the treatment of health diseases. Also, this institute will graduate medical education. Presently, Scripps Mercy Hospital’s San Diego campus is raising funds for the expansion and modernization of its facilities which also includes the emergency department. Some Major Programs and Centers There exist numerous noticeable programs and centers which are associated with Scripps Health. Those programs and centers are as follow: Comprehensive cancer care at Scripps Cancer Center Mericos Eye Institute The Rehabilitation Center at Scripps Encinitas Scripps Center for Organ and Cell Transplantation Scripps Proton Therapy Center (5 suites utilizing pencil-beam precision) On-Lay spinal fusion center of excellence Scripps Blood and Marrow Transplant Center Scripps Polster Breast Care Center Scripps Clinical Research Services Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute Scripps Clinic Center for Weight Management Scripps Minimally Invasive Robotic Surgery Program Leichtag Family Birth Pavilion at Scripps Encinitas Scripps Genomic Medicine and Scripps Translational Science Institute The Heart Center at Scripps La Jolla Scripps Clinic Laser and Cosmetic Dermatology Center Integrative (complementary) medicine at Scripps Center No Sign of Relief In Scripps Ransomware Shutdown According to the statements which were posted on social media, Scripps technical team was working hard by leaps and bounds in order to resolve this IT security incident. Due to this incident, patient records, appointments, and other critical systems were put offline, forcing medical personnel in hospitals to work manually and encourage paper-based work. “After fighting a strong battle to get back access to systems that faced a cyber attack on Saturday, Scripps claimed on the Monday afternoon that they have still not resolved that issue.“ However, Scripps has not confirmed yet that malicious software that was able to possess digital assets hostage under cash demand caused the disruption. Forums all across the internet were filled with Scripps patients which tended to seek more information about what would happen with those appointments which were made before the weekend. Noah Tyler of Carlsbad that, claimed “I was scheduled for the esophageal diagnostic process. I was supposed to receive the appointment’s location this weekend but access to the scheduling system was denied after the cyber attack. I couldn’t even look at the primary information. ” On Sunday, The San Diego County Office of Emergency Services (OES) declared that ambulances were diverted from Scripps facilities to other hospitals in that area as a precautionary measure. An employee with AMR which is the city’s ambulance provider said on Monday that at that certain time, Scripps was only taking trauma transports and foot traffic. The appropriate government organizations and local law enforcement were also notified of this cyberattack. Anne Cutler from the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was asked to share her views regarding the incident. She makes a reference to back to Scripps for her insights. NBC 7 Daniel Libby, CEO, and founder of Cyber Forensic Laboratory that, affirmed “Ransomware attacks are the billion-dollar industry and all the tactics are just like some ransomware attack. Hackers can effortlessly breach a server. I guarantee that no matter which organization is affected by this, the technical team and IT staff is working 24/7 to resolve the issue and get the ransomware or malware out of the network to prevent network disruption” Stay Ahead of Uncertainty Unquestionably, . People usually tend to relate ransoms with people who are kidnapped. Cybercriminals are emerging and up-pacing with new and innovative tactics which are almost impossible to track. Considering the prominent emergence of cyberattacks are ransomware attacks among health sectors all across the globe, infrastructures must take appropriate precautionary measures before the occurrence of such incidents. A very good habit that organizations must acquire to dodge cyberattacks is to keep the backup of important files on a regular basis in some other drive. ransomware is a dangerous reality Other healthcare sectors must learn lessons from this recent cyberattack faced by Scripps. Organizations must integrate themselves with robust solutions, for example, Know Your patient (KYP) to fight a strong battle against fraudulent activities and unauthorized access. Other effective measures such as AI-powered identity verification solutions play a promising role in assuring the legitimacy of patients as well as staff members. Real-time identity verification checks and solutions include KYC/AML compliance, , OCR data extraction, document verification, multi-factor authentication, and more. age checks Hence, organizations especially healthcare sectors must stay one step and must acquire appropriate measures to enhance the security protocols of their infrastructures.

Scripps Health's System Continuously Plagues After The Weekend Cyberattack

How blockchains will reshape the Covid-19 vaccine supply chains and how a startup backed by Bill Gates´GAVI is at the forefront of the multi-billion $ bonanza Supply chains are probably the weakest link in complex business architectures. The "just in time" inventory needs of modern consumption, the rampant consumerism, the extreme globalization and connectivity, made supply chains all too complex, fragile, and more than ever exposed to sudden shocks. Then came Covid-19 which put supply chains under considerable strain and made their weaknesses and lack of resilience all too apparent. But technology in the form of DLTs/Blockchains and IoT devices can save the day. They can dramatically improve supply chain management, make them more efficient and more resilient. Because blockchains/DLTs offer - through decentralization - a secure, transparent, incorruptible, immutable, auditable and efficient way to record digital data, they are the perfect tool for managing supply chains. Coupled with IoT - which sensors can record all sorts of external data such as speed, temperature, humidity, time, exact geo-localization, opening and closing of packaging and the breaking of seals, etc. - the data can be processed and analyzed in real-time to enable an immediate managerial response. The Challenges When looking specifically at the pharma industry, the picture is not rosy. , while companies like Walmart, Apple or Zara have "superb supply chains", pharma industry´s  supply chains are "neither flexible nor cost-effective". According to PWC More specifically, the major challenges that the Covid-19 vaccine distribution will unleash on the pharma industry, can be summarized as follows: (i) the need to use a different supply chain as with other products. Likely much wider and extended, therefore more complex and difficult to manage. Basically the need is to track down everything and everyone from medical components (i.e. suppliers of ingredients) to the final patient receiving the vaccine; (ii) the need to scale up and down deliveries based on epidemic data and demand; (iii) the need to compress delivery time and comply with cold chain constraints; (iv) the need to monitor stock inventories in real time, avoid shortages and manage timely delivery; (v) the need to collect and handle vital epidemiological data (this will be the "KYP", Know Your Patient process) and share it with a multitude of stakeholders such as the authorities, hospitals, family doctors, pharmacies, etc. This is also vital in case vaccines are defective or have side effects which require an immediate suspension of the treatment or a product recall; (vi) the need to incorporate IoT devices to prevent counterfeit and manage cold-chain constraints; (vii) the need to manage increased complexities, such as different producers and diverse types of vaccines which are not compatible with each other. Since vaccine shots will be administered at intervals, one must make sure that people get the second or third shot of the very same vaccine and not of a different one. Mistakes here can cost lives and potential liabilities could be huge. Some of the above issues are clearly not unique to the Covid-19 vaccine, but are made more pressing by its criticalities such as, for instance, counterfeit risks and the cold-chain integrity. While degrees, some types of Covid-19 vaccines will need to be stored at much lower temperatures, between -60° and -90° degrees. That is a totally new challenge for the cold-chain. normally a pharmaceutical cold-chain operates with temperatures reaching -25° Also counterfeit drugs are one of the biggest problems that the industry faces today. The worldwide counterfeit drug market is valued at over US$ 200 billion. Counterfeit drugs are said to be responsible for the death of more than 500,000 people every year. According to WHO estimates, — including pills, vaccines, and diagnostic kits — are fake or substandard. Here you can find a . 10% of all medical products sold WHO study on that topic For the European Pharmaceutical Review, counterfeit or substandard drugs sold in developing countries are at least 30%. For this reason some countries have introduced strict regulations for tracking drugs in the supply chain. In the USA for instance, the was passed which mandates for a unique ID on the drug. Therefore the integration of IoT devices and the blockchain/DLT technologies is now essential. Drug Supply Chain Security Act An Italian company named has developed a unique "printing fingerprinting" technique, , which can be incorporated into a QR code to make it unique and non-counterfeitable. The ViseQR was conceived to protect "Made in Italy" products from counterfeiting, therefore this patented technology is built to be flexible enough to be applied to any type of product and industrial sector. Viditrust called ViseQR Technologies such as the ViseQR, coupled with IoT devices and then incorporated into blockchains/DLTs, are the solutions that Big Pharma badly needs today. How this can be done by Techskill-Brew. is visually well explained in very simple terms in this article The Players A few companies have been merging blockchains/DLTs with IoT and sensor devices in order to build the infrastructure necessary to handle the complex Covid-19 vaccine supply chain constraints. Some have gone a step further and enabled the deployment of the so called , i.e. pieces of code which automatically execute pre-set instructions when pre-set conditions are triggered. smart contracts solutions for the pharma industry are based on SAP`s  corporate permissioned DLT and deploy smart contracts which are triggered whenever the IoT sensor/device registers a pre-set condition such as, for instance, a temperature falling below or raising above a certain threshold or the breaking of the seal which ensures the integrity of the packaging and so on. Modum.io In this case, the smart contract will trigger a pre-set instruction, such as the immediate product recall, or it may signal the recipient that the drug should not be used and be returned to sender because defective.  Another player is , which proposes similar use cases and products but uses the public Ethereum blockchain. Ambrosus The difference is that Ambrosus - being run on the Ethereum blockchain - offers a more dynamic environment for developers and community members to build dApps, extensions and protocol upgrades.  This enables the exploitation of synergies and interoperability with other Ethereum-based protocols and allows the integration and functionality of Ambrosus dApps. The San Francisco based has already onboarded key industry players such as Pfizer, Gilead and Bayer. They have raised tens of millions of US$ and have launched , a consortium which develops the blockchain based supply chain infrastructure for its members running on the , which was built by . Here each member owns and operates a node and the blockchain uses a . Chronicled.com Mediledger Ethereum Parity client Berlin based Parity.io PoA (proof of authority) consensus algorithm Enter WEF, WHO and GAVI´s darling startup company But a more obscure Indian startup , based in Hyderabad and Singapore - which now boasts also a US address in Cupertino - might actually become the unforeseen prime candidate to win the Covid-19 vaccine supply chain management race and benefit from the multi billion bonanza paid by governments worldwide with taxpayer´s money. named Statwig does not tell what type of solutions they are developing nor what type of technologies and blockchain/DLTs they use. Nonetheless, with powerful and well-connected sponsors, backers and partners such as the - the brainchild of the ubiquitous duo - they are certainly well placed to win a big fat contract. Statwig´s website WEF, the WHO and the GAVI Alliance Bill and Melinda Gates The company - defined as a startup in this - was awarded a US$ 100.000 grant from the UNICEF Innovation Fund. In July 2019 the company was shortlisted for GAVI´s Infuse program, " ,” said the CEO Siddharth Chakravarthy. When and how the GAVI, the WEF and the WHO got involved with Statwig is not known. But things for the company seem to have taken a sudden turn for the better this year in 2020. December 2018 article There is a scope to enter into a long-term arrangement with GAVI. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is backing the GAVI programme In May 2020, at the end of the first Covid-19 wave, Statwig´s Facebook page boasted that the company had joined the Chinese family. How much the Chinese accelerator has invested in Statwig is not known, but their web site says, "Statwig is a startup for efficient tracking of vaccine and food supply chain using blockchain and IoT. Its partners include UNICEF and GAVI - (they forgot to mention the all too important WEF, to which " Statwig fits perfectly like "the cherry on top of a cake") - ." Longhash venture accelerator Great-Reset" agenda and are in consideration to handle the tracking and monitoring of the Covid-19 vaccine which is slated for a 2021 release BINGO!! Then, in July 2020, the apotheosis. hints at the startup as the candidate to none other than the hugely complex task of managing the Covid-19 vaccine global supply chains. No indication whatsoever on how they plan to do it, how their "vaccine supply chain management platform" works, what type of technologies or what blockchain/DLT will be used. Thanks god they concede at least that they will be using, "QRcodes [Barcodes/Serial Numbers] printed at unit-levels to track the vaccines from the manufacturer to end-consumer...". A celebratory WEF sponsored article Yeah, that´s revolutionary. That invention dates back to 1994 and we have seen it on every single product and every single market shelf for the last 20 years. But hey who cares, if you are "lucky" enough to be awarded big fat contracts then you can always sub-contract someone else to do the job.  Or why not, you might as well buy from the Italians the above mentioned patent to the unique . At least this is an evolutionary step ahead of Statwig´s good old QRCode. ViseQR For all these reasons one could confidently bet on Statwig.  Bill and Melinda have the "animal spirits" and showed consistent ability to pick winners. Their foundation has been making large grants to the likes of , and as well. The foundation is certainly not new to which then benefit also from grants from affiliate entities like GAVI or the WHO, in a sort of communicating vessels system. Pfizer Moderna CureVac betting large stakes in listed companies . Their unmatched web of interests range from investments in pharma companies to massive grants to authorities such as the WHO and the GAVI Alliance, to large contributions to the WEF and now the sponsoring and financial backing of Statwig via the GAVI Alliance, the WHO and WEF. They have been doing this for almost 20 years Does anyone see a potential conflict of interest? Conclusion No doubt that both Statwig´s CEO and "philanthropists" Bill and Melinda will be very satisfied with the outcome. Sooner or later however uneasy questions will be asked and someone will raise more than eyebrows. . Then they will have to come clean with their web of seemingly conflicting economical and humanitarian interests Is this sheer profiteering in a philanthropic guise? Moreover, when philanthropy becomes a tool to serve vested interest? (c) www.bianconiandrea.com - 2020 ************************************************************* 85d1c86b8cef11eb3546a89f2fe7672532e4f95eaccc0a01da5f792a1625bdb7 #crypto #blockchain  @thinkblocktank @untitled-inc #supplychain #covid-19 #billgates ************************************************************* If you enjoyed this post, please “clap” Xtimes in the bottom left corner so it will be shared with more people. Many Thanks ************************************************************** : The website and the information contained herein is for general guidance only and it does not constitute legal advice. As such, it should not be used as a substitute for consultation with lawyers on specific issues. All information in this paper is provided "as is", with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or warranty of any kind, express or implied. Legal Disclaimer : The website and the information contained herein is not intended to be a source of advice or credit analysis with respect to the material presented, and the information and/or documents contained in this website do not constitute investment advice. Investment Disclaimer (c) www.bianconiandrea.com - 2020 Also published at https://andreabianconi.medium.com/and-the-covid-vaccine-winner-is-the-blockchain-ceb4fdbacca5

And the Covid Vaccine Winner is...the Blockchain

Every once in a while people approach me and ask what it takes to start working remotely, so I figured I could turn my talk into a short post. First of all, remote work isn't a silver bullet! Don't assume that all companies will become 100% remote in the future. Are you experienced enough? For people who are just starting out, working remotely from day 1 might not be the best choice. Some juniors tend to get into rabbit holes, are afraid to ask questions, and need face-to-face guidance and reassurance from their peers/managers. In order to be a good remote worker, you need to be a 100% good communicator and used to this style of work first. Do you need face-to-face communication? Some people prefer talking to writing. Not every meeting is useless, and don't assume that everything is best sorted out in writing. A lot of things can be discussed asynchronously, but nothing beats live team brainstormings, postmortems, or reviews. Also, some people feel at a loss if they don't get to see their colleagues face-to-face every day. Moreover, some people prefer having structured environments and dedicated offices over working from home. They might get distracted by the rest of the Internet, family, pets, you name it ... so they end up being not so productive. Is your home better than an office? My first full-time job was 100% remote. At that time I was a student and I shared a small flat with my cousin. My room was a living room, kitchen, study room, work room, and bedroom at the same time. Basically, I spent most of those 2 years between those 4 walls. I can't even put into words how depressed I was during that time. I couldn't get my mind to relax and just chill. I was tense 99% of the time and even woke up randomly during night. For those of you who don't know me, I usually sleep longer than a bear during winter. The fact that I was going straight from bed to work was just too much for me. It felt as if I were working all the time. If you're living in a studio apartment, same rules apply. After some time, you get the feeling that you're trapped inside your own apartment. Unless you're very strict with your working out regime (I'm not unless my gf starts a 🔥 under my ass), you might consider working from other co-working places just to break that routine. Make sure you have other places you can work from other than your room and that you get out of your apartment on a daily basis. Can you adjust to working in other time-zones? I get up at 6 AM and start working from 7 AM. This works out great for me since I turned into a morning person during the past few years. You'll definitely need to overlap with your team, so ask yourself where is the company located before applying for a remote position. In the past, I had the opportunity to collaborate with an Australian company. That was super difficult since I had to stay awake super late just to jump on a call with that client. I do wanna go to Australia and see kangaroos and koalas, but if I get another chance to work with companies operating in the same time-zone, I'd most likely decline such an offer. Are you a good writer? If you can't express yourself in writing, and just don't have a knack for it, erm, you need to work on that skill. In order to be an effective remote worker you need to be organized, concise, and clear while communicating with the rest of your team. . Here's what the CEO of Basecamp, Jason Fried, has to say about writing skills Our top hiring criteria — in addition to having the skills to do the job — is, are you a great writer? You have to be a great writer to work here, in every single position, because the majority of our communication is written, primarily because a lot of us work remotely but also because writing is quieter. And we like long-form writing where people really think through an idea and present it. Also, some things sound harsher in written. "Hey, you made a mistake..." sounds way worse in writing. Not grasping these nuances between speech and writing is a huge issue when you're a manager in a remote team. As a manager, you need to make sure that you pass positive feedback in public channels so that everyone can celebrate team victories, and discuss issues in private. Do you have all the things you need in your home office? Do you have a good chair, a table that's not your dining table, and a strong internet connection? Yes? Good, carry on! No? Erm, reconsider getting a good chair first! I have double scoliosis and kyphosis just because I worked on a shitty chair for 2 years and didn't know how to keep my posture. Oh, and I'm almost 27, so yeah, I'm pretty young to face these problems, but it is what it is. Take care of yourself first! Can you work remotely and legally at the same time? In order to work remotely, you need to make sure you understand the legal terms of such work. In the United States, people can work remotely from anywhere in the country. In my case, I had to register an agency in order to be able to collaborate with companies outside of Serbia. I used the term "collaborate" on purpose. I'm not an employee, and I can't be one according to the law of my country. This is why I have to do my own accounting, taxes and a shitload of other paperwork. Working with Hashnode is one of the best things that ever happened to me, but there are times I wish I can just forget about paperwork completely. Summary Hope you now understand the challenges of remote work a bit better. I'm 100% into working remotely, but don't want to make it sound like that's the best and the easiest thing in the world. Every style of work has its challenges, and remote brings some unique ones. Originally published on my blog .

To Remote Work or Not to Remote Work? That is the Question 🤔

Pros & Cons: How do you choose which crypto-friendly jurisdiction to start your company in?

Last year, I was a mentee at the Hyperledger Summer Internship program, hosted by Hyperledger and the Linux Foundation. Here, I share with you some of the processes. A trick for applying is to build up some skills and to investigate the topic of the internship beforehand, if possible. Showing enthusiasm, and a sense of mission also helps. After applying, I got to know my mentor, David Huseby. Dave explained what he expected from the now realized blockchain course: . The program was nicely paced, with my course being delivered in four phases. You can check . Enterprise Blockchain Technologies the progress here At the end of the program, Min Yu, a community manager asked us some questions: Q: How did the mentorship program match your expectations? Do you feel you got what you needed out of the program? As a Ph.D. student, it is often difficult to make the bridge between technology and people; between idealization and concretization. This program helped me closing this gap: building a university course for enterprise blockchain technologies allowed me to not only consolidate my knowledge but also to share that knowledge in a focused, self-contained course. Q: Do you feel like you were able to make a genuine impact with the contributions you made during your mentorship? Why or why not? I believe all internships are framed to a higher purpose than what we do for a few months. Seeing the greater picture allows keeping contributions focused, and to grasp the projects’ long-term purpose. Building a community-driven enterprise blockchain university-level course will certainly promote the adoption of Hyperledger technologies by the academic community. Q: Who was your mentor(s) and how was it working with them? What did you learn from them and how did they help you out with your goals and objectives? Dave is an awesome human being, such as the majority of this open-source community. People are welcoming, supportive, and extremely professional. Dave gave me all the tools, space, and trust to work in an autonomous way, always providing support. Q: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during your mentorship? How did you overcome them and what did you learn? This mentorship is a great experience but might be daunting for newcomers. Making your first pull-request might be a daunting experience. Participating and giving your opinion in public might be daunting. Those are certain obstacles, but obstacles that this problem helps to eliminate. With lots of curiosity, creativity (and a bit of courage), aligned with the support from the mentors, entering open-source and solving the proposed problem become not only feasible but fun and rewarding! Q: What skills and tools did you use during your mentorship? How has your proficiency in these increased since you started the program? Which do you think will be the most valuable in your future career? Working with Dave, and other mentees (Badi and Raphael) allowed me to improve my organization and cooperation skills. Those combine quite well with the synergies opportunity that this program delivers: I was working alone only for the first few weeks of the course; after that, I had contributors for the rest of the program. I would recommend this program to people who love technology and who love people: that is what open-source is about. That is what the Linux Foundation is about: a true, engaging, welcoming, loving open-source family. Q: Would you recommend this mentorship program to your friends? Why or why not? This year more projects will be held. I will be volunteering as a mentor: A) Visualization and Analysis of Cross-chain Transactions, with Nuno Jardim Nunes and Sabrina Scuri and B) Cactus-samples — Business Logic Plugins for Hyperledger Cactus, with Rui Santos Cruz and Peter Somogyvari If you are interested in research on blockchain interoperability — and human-centric design (project A) or implementing cross-blockchain use case (project B), please consider applying! Applications open on March 29th. Hope to see you apply!

In First-Person Experience: Why Should You Become a Linux Foundation Intern?

Ours is a government of liberty, no man is above it, no man is below it , we must treat each man on his worth then merits as a man — Theodore Roosevelt Many people don’t understand the so-called innovation of blockchain, which looks like just a PUMP and Dump scam. And I believe that the decentralized no-access environment provided by blockchain is exactly what creates a possibility for human beings to explore the future utopia. In this article, we will use our investment in Social Money track as an example to gradually clarify our judgment on the future direction of the world. Mount Rushmore National Memorial Park, home to a masterpiece of human sculpture that represents the 20th century, is Presidential Hill. The people chose four presidents as symbols of the nation: George Washington, the leader who founded the country, Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln, who freed the black slaves, and one, Theodore Roosevelt. The greatness of President Roosevelt also starts with Rockefeller. Since 1984, when the United States became the world’s largest economy, the economy has continued to grow at a rapid pace. But in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt implemented a series of government-regulated economic measures, the first in a country that advocated free competition, and this time the regulation was directed at the trusts, and Rockefeller was the creator of the Standard Oil Trust. Protest against Rockefeller In 10 years Rockefeller built Standard Oil into a Standard Oil trust across the United States. Through the ultra-high market scale, Standard Oil had enough bargaining price with oil producers, oil transportation railroad companies, and successfully reduced the cost of oil, which on the one hand was the economic prosperity, technological leap forward, known as the Gilded Age in the history of the United States, on the other hand, the wealth gap worsened, giant monopolies, and gangsters prevailed. Under the boiling of public discontent, the reflection and criticism of public opinion also intensified. The trusts were often unscrupulous in their expansion, and Standard Oil’s marketing manager openly intimidated small gas station owners who relied on gas to draw traffic and groceries to make money, If we don’t underwrite Standard’s oil, we’re going to open a grocery store right next to you and sell it at cost (meat, cereal, sugar, coffee, etc.) until we squeeze you out. “The path Rockefeller traveled was strewn with bankrupt people and abandoned factories, and all that lay before him was unquestionable control over the resources of his vast wealth.” So wrote one scholar at the time. The most important reason why the monopoly giants dared to be so blatant was that the government (the regulators) was in their hands. The truth about politics It was during the Progressive Movement that Muckraking was “given” to the journalists who were exposing the dark side of politics. But by the beginning of World War I, all the Muckraking magazines had largely disappeared, and those that remained did not continue their shady campaigns. The reason for this is that the deeper the black secrets were exposed, the more they directly challenged the core interests of the regulators. In the media industry 1.0 era, all the information you see is merely readable and monopolized. Just like the newspapers you see, the news. Just as Murdoch owns enough telecom companies that his daughter is ranked #1 in the “100 Most Powerful Women in Britain” and Queen Elizabeth II is ranked #89. The birth of self-publishing on the Internet successfully impacted the traditional telecom monopoly industry, but this was only because of the increase in productivity and did not revolutionize the production relationship. In China, a company called ByteDance (ByteDance), whose product used an intelligent recommendation algorithm, managed to become the head player in that world. But in the US, an app called Digg has disappeared. Digg's CEO argued in a media interview that because some advanced users have been able to control Digg’s home page (control the recommendation algorithm) without much effort, Digg’s team did not have the technical power to solve this problem. digg team just drove away those advanced users by means, and although it achieved a temporary victory, Digg lost its most loyal users as a result. This is another level of monopoly, the KOLs monopolize the app. so that new original users have no ability to be discovered again. And there are always loopholes in the algorithm, and the cost of swiping votes always comes lower compared to actually voting with money. Image from sDAOHaus Borrowed from DAO Haus’ Medium image The problem with centralized institutions is that the head takes the lion’s share of the revenue and prevents the creation of new heads to compete with them. WEB3.0 and Radical Markets With the release and paving of the 1993 “Declaration of Cryptopunk” and the 1996 “Declaration of Cyberspace Independence”, the radical market as is was used as another solution to resist monopoly and maintain fairness by reducing the monopoly of private assets through the Harburg tax, i.e. your bargaining power is determined by having other competitors in the market, not from your monopoly. The 3.0 era of media industry Therefore, we believe that platforms like Rally are actually the prototype of media industry 3.0. We will analyze why we think so from four perspectives: readers, platform operators, KOLs, and new content producers. Readers: two behavioral motives. 1）Readers’ search for existing quality content By finding the highest value users in a single field and reading their content, if the value of the content is found to be not in line with the coin ranking, it does not bring any additional revenue to the party with the brush volume. 2) Discovery of new content makers By discovering high quality authors and buying their social money, you can enjoy the revenue brought by the public recognition of the authors. Platform operation: fat agreement, thin application Platform tokens: By designing AMM trading pairs of platform coins and SocialToken, it actually makes platform coins have SocialToken as the underlying value pillar, which will become a natural Harburg tax if the project wants to pull up the price. 3) The old KOL The only problem with blockchain is how the head’s revenue is lower than the centralized monopoly revenue. The decentralized media platform does not prevent the head from receiving business orders, as long as it can ensure quality content output while going to receive excellent business promotion actually forms a virtuous circle and does not reduce the user experience. Being discovered is the only thing they have to do - whether they can effectively discover new content authors is the difference between WEB3.0 and 2.0, and readers, too, want to see new content to impress themselves, to break through their information cocoon, so as to buy the authors’ social money in the early days to reap the double benefits of content and wealth. 4) New KOLs In the East, my LPs told me about a very interesting project, Matataki, which is subject to the securities laws of that old continent. They have taken the approach of separating the content from the economic platform, and by directly allowing users to synchronize their creations on the platform in Github (Radicle), and simply using the platform as a protocol layer tool to filter good content producers, they can easily accomplish the whole revolution of the media industry. The old king is dead, the new king should be established. Just like the new economic policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, nephew of Theodore Roosevelt, let the platform, the shapely hand, and the user market, the invisible hand, regulate the whole content ecology together in order to create a vital content nation. is a Principal Researcher at Cyberight Capital, a first-principles driven investment firm that has invested in numerous public chain, DAO projects. Multimyst

Web3 and Much Muckraking: Here's Why Social Money Platforms Are Prototype of Media 3.0

Hacker Noon's annual Noonie awards, hosted on , seeks to find the best minds in the Tech industry today. One such impressive mind is NOONIES.TECH Yassine Rachid from Canada. Yassine is nominated in the and is the Founder and CEO of Pairdesk. Let's learn more about him below! Software Development category 1. Which 2020 Noonie have you been nominated for? Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Python Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Java Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Swift 2. Tell us a bit about yourself. At a young age, my computer scientist father shared his passion for information technology. Like him, I liked the problem-solving parts of this field and I decided to study for a Bachelor's Degree in Software Engineering. After my graduation, I worked as a consultant for a few companies like Expedia and Trilliant Network. As a freelancer, I saw many limitations with the third-party freelancing platforms interacting between me and my clients. I had 2 choices: either be bogged down by the lengthy process of traditional consulting firms to work with my client, or go on a freelancing platform and be severely limited by their lack of features or high commission rates. I chose neither and instead wanted to offer a better solution to empower freelancers and their clients, which led me to launch Pairdesk! 3. Tell us about the things you make / write / manage / build. I mainly lead the technical effort when creating Pairdesk. My experience as an ex-freelancer was really helpful making the platform freelancer-centric and provide a better experience for freelancers, which makes life easier for clients as well! Alongside Pairdesk, I decided to write articles on Hacker Noon to share my experience. And, since this week, I decided to create my own Youtube channel to make programming tutorials. I always loved teaching my friends and peers various things, and I thought I could share this passion with others! 4. What are you most excited about right now? How our generation and the future ones have access to all the information gathered by humanity. The internet has granted us access to global knowledge, and it empowers us in so many ways. 5. What are you worried about right now? I am worried that, despite this connected world, we keep isolating ourselves to our views and stop looking outwards and thinking outside the box. The Internet and our connected world should allow us to challenge our views and constantly evolve, and I'm worried it can just create echo chambers and stall us in improving ourselves. 6. What's the most useful advice you've ever given somebody? “Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause" - Richard Francis Burton 7. How has the pandemic changed your life and/or career? The pandemic has been one of the most difficult challenges in the 21st century, it forced us to adapt ourselves to a "remote" approach when it comes to work and social interactions, and it has impacted me in this way. From a social standpoint, the impact has clearly been challenging and straining. When it comes to Pairdesk, we definitely wanted to push our platform forward in order to provide an alternative to the way people work and find opportunities. We found a massive growth in freelancers and clients alike and we want to make it as easy as possible, in the present and in the future, for people to join the freelancing world and empower themselves. 8. If we gave you $10 million to invest in one thing right now, where would you put it? I firmly believe in investing it and growing it in order to further invest in Pairdesk's mission. 9. What's an opinion you have that most people don't agree with? One of my core beliefs is the fact that we can master any subject or field. With our global access to information, we can easily become experts in anything given enough time and effort. Many people think that I'm being too optimistic when it comes to our potential as human beings in terms of personal growth, and that only long studies can provide us with this kind of knowledge. 10. Which apps can't you live without? Youtube. It's the application I use the most for learning and for entertainment. 11. What are you currently learning? While I am technically comfortable at what we do at Pairdesk, I'm really working on my communication skills in order to better share our mission and our values. Make somebody’s day and nominate them to be recognized in the internet’s most independent and community-driven awards: . NOONIES.TECH Don't forget to in the following awards: vote for Yassine Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Python Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Java Hacker Noon Contributor of the Year - Swift

Stories, News & Mentions about KYP

Kyp’s Stories on HackerNoon