We are a startup studio with a unique pathway for launching successful companies

Launch Factory is a startup studio based in San Diego, California with a unique pathway for launching successful companies. We bring together talented founders, elite advisors, seed capital, vetted market opportunities, and an accelerator program to give entrepreneurs the unfair advantage to launch great startups. Our mission is to deliver new levels of startup success for our founders and investors.

Launch Factory

HackerNoon, the independent technology publishing platform, is pleased to announce the nominees for its annual “Startups of the Year” award, featuring the most promising and innovative companies in the San Diego startup ecosystem. San Diego, CA - May 24, 2023 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqIW54yMsNc&embedable=true The list, compiled by the HackerNoon team, showcases that are making significant contributions to the San Diego economy and driving innovation in their respective industries. 133 startups The nominated for Startups of the Year 2023 include: Startups in San Diego GoFormz Lively Root Platform Science Kahoona Tag-N-Trac Launch Factory comma Zoox Streamlined Robin Healthcare KÉXY ChargeNet Stations Replay RobustPhysics Sensorydata Skillmasters.io Truepic Blueboard 6Storage XRA Lawmatics Brain Doctible Classy.org Helix GoShare Sportidia The Good Face Project Cloudbeds ClickUp You can nominate your company as the . startup of the year in San Diego here “We are thrilled to recognize the top startups in San Diego and celebrate their achievements,” said . “Starting and sustaining a company is difficult. We’re honored to showcase their work and impact.” David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO is a community-driven voting platform that recognizes startups that are changing technology and the world for the better. Starting May 8th, 2023, the internet can nominate and vote for the best ventures in their city. The voting period will remain open until December 31, 2023, and winners will be announced in January 2024 after a comprehensive evaluation by the HackerNoon team. Startups of the Year 2023 In its , a total of 44,427 startups were nominated in 16 different regions, and the community cast 234,344 votes during a 6-month long campaign in favor of budding companies that were growing and trending across every major city in the world. The received perks from sponsors and a free from HackerNoon. previous iteration 1,382 winners tech company news page As a proponent of the open data movement, HackerNoon releases the unique social data gathered from Startups of the Year on GitHub as “ ” for valuable insights. /where-startups-trend Apart from validation from the world's greenest tech publication, all nominees relevant to their domain, region, and funding. They will also receive an and a free version of their very own on HackerNoon. get free interviews amazing discount package designed for their startup Tech Company News Page These pages include business overviews (such as head count, founding year, bio, social links, and domain ranking) coupled with dynamic updates every time the company is mentioned in HackerNoon stories or relevant headlines around the web. People can , and vote once per day per award for who they think should be Startup of the Year all the way up to December 31st. nominate their favorite startups until June 8th In addition to the award itself, winners receive exclusive interviews, an exclusive NFT from HackerNoon, and a .Tech Domain for life. For more information about the “Startups of the Year 2023” list and the nominated companies, please visit our . FAQ page About HackerNoon HackerNoon is a technology publication that aims to empower developers, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts to share their knowledge and expertise with a global audience. With millions of monthly readers, over 500,000 followers on social media, and over 250,000 newsletter subscribers, HackerNoon provides a platform for startups and innovators to showcase their work and connect with a vibrant community of like-minded individuals. Did you know that companies that actively engage in blogging experience a whopping 67% increase in leads? Take advantage of HackerNoon's ' ' to kickstart your own company's blogging journey. Startups Package Startups Of The Year 2023 is sponsored by . .Tech Domains You can nominate your company as the . startup of the year in San Diego here

Startups of The Year 2023: 130+ Startups Nominated in San Diego

While attending college, I worked part-time at a local recording studio to maintain my serious interest in the music industry. Since you’re reading this article in a publication unrelated to the music industry, it is easy to conclude that I parted ways with music since that time (well, aside from the creation of what I feel are some pretty impressive Spotify playlists). Some of my friends still work and thrive in the music industry, and it’s impressive to hear how things have changed over the years, especially on the recording side of the spectrum. The industry has continued to innovate, mostly because product manufacturers listened to feedback provided by those who depend on such tooling to create their art. This is no different than working in the tech industry today. Getting and listening to user feedback is critical to successful tech products. However, while Web2 has embraced user feedback both in concept and in tooling, Web3 still lags behind. One example of this discrepancy centers around the concept of using a to improve — an area where it’s challenging and uncommon for team members to obtain quality feedback. The concept has yet to gain traction, both in best practices and in tools available. And the poor user experience is evidence. constant feedback loop Web3 DevOps I wondered if there was a better way to bridge this communication gap. Web3 DevOps Use Cases The concept of DevOps is relatively new in software development and is a solid example of the industry listening to the pain points faced by software engineers. So it should be no surprise that has already started to gain momentum. Just like with Web3 projects, Web3 teams need to bridge the gap between traditional software engineering and operations. Web3 DevOps And it’s important. Successful Web3 DevOps can provide benefits such as: Introduce a faster development experience. Meet compliance regulations (auditable and secure practices). Scale in tandem with Web3 adoption. DevOps Needs Continuous User Feedback Under the old model, PMs managed, developers coded, testers tested, and ops deployed. But this was slow and caused the famous “it works on my machine!” But with modern DevOps, team members are now a unified team, with everyone working closely together and responsible for the project as a whole. This means exposing everyone to end-user requests is a good thing. All team members should know right away, and all the time, what’s happening in production. With this continuous feedback loop, it’s easier for everyone, as a team, to understand the project and the customers’ needs. And the feedback should be continuous! Where Feedback Forms Provide Value Exposing the team to user feedback might seem like information overload. But in reality, user feedback provides value for the entire team: Software Engineers to determine what features will be added next. Become part of the prioritization effort See . Often developers can become stuck in their way of thinking. how their point of view compares with users , not just the code Increases ownership of the project Ops Engineers Better understand nonfunctional requirements , which can often differ from results measured through standard observatory practices. Understand performance from a user’s perspective Gain insight into to work on next. the most important features Testers Takes testers out of their silo and . involves them with the actual users Helps testers , not as a series of tests. see the project as a whole by gaining a deeper understanding of users. Helps testers conduct better UAT Product Owners / Project Managers into the natural development cycle flow Builds team sharing Implement Web3 Feedback Forms with Form xChange and MetaMask So we know we need feedback. But how do we get this in the world of Web3? We could go with the traditional centralized solutions (google forms, etc) — but in the spirit of Web3, we really need a . why decentralized and open solution That’s where the open source tool comes in. It gives you the ability to easily . And it’s pretty easy to implement and use. The solution connects to a wallet (which users most likely already have) and allows application users to vote anonymously using one or more forms — with each form allowing for multiple questions. Form xChange create and use feedback forms on Web3 MetaMask The cool part is that the entire feedback process employs its own factory contract written in , without requiring you to create or maintain your own smart contract. Solidity Below is a summary of the Form xChange lifecycle: After installation, the creator will author a new form and deploy the form using the factory contract. After deployment, participants simply populate the form anonymously and submit their results. After submission, the results are available to both the creator as well as the participants. Getting Started with Form xChange At a high level, the following steps are required to start using Form xChange. Note that we’ll deploy Form xChange using on Goerli for this example (the Ethereum L2 Linea test network) to avoid spending any real funds while exploring the feedback forms. Truffle Linea Here are the steps to getting started with Form xChange: Install into your browser. MetaMask Acquire test ETH (LineaETH) from a faucet like . Infura’s faucet Establish a Linea RPC endpoint using . Infura Install node and npm as found . here Clone the repository. Form xChange Deploy the feedback form. Deploy the Next frontend factory. Launch the form using localhost:3000 in your browser where MetaMask is installed. It’s pretty easy. You can find a detailed example walking through the setup in full details at the . MetaMask site After following the above steps, the Form xChange home screen will display in your browser: Next, use the Connect Wallet button to connect your MetaMask wallet. Once connected, use the localhost:3000/create-form URL to create a new feedback form: Now you are ready to create feedback forms. User Feedback Made Simple with MetaMask and more Sitting in a recording studio now versus what I recall from the 1990s maintains very few similarities from 40 years ago. The industry realized there was a better way to do things—by listening to their customers—and provided the necessary innovation. That’s no different than what we have seen with the creation and evolution of DevOps as software engineers. The use of feedback forms can provide faster innovation, which I noted around a simple Web3 DevOps use case and ConsenSys Form xChange. My readers may recall that I have been focused on the following mission statement, which I feel can apply to any IT professional: “Focus your time on delivering features/functionality that extends the value of your intellectual property. Leverage frameworks, products, and services for everything else.” - J. Vester The allow me to adhere to my personal mission statement by not forcing me to create my own feedback form process as part of my Web3 development lifecycle. In doing so, I am able to simply leverage the Form xChange tool to create quick feedback forms that are easy to manage, implement, and deploy. creators at Form xChange If you are focused on Web3 and find value in getting feedback from your customers, I highly recommend giving the Form xChange tool a try. After all, it comes at no cost to you… other than a small amount of your time. Have a really great day! Also published . here

How to Optimize Your Web3 DevOps with User Feedback Forms

ব্যবহারকারীর প্রতিক্রিয়া ফর্মগুলির সাথে কীভাবে আপনার Web3 DevOps অপ্টিমাইজ করবেন৷

So optimieren Sie Ihr Web3 DevOps mit Benutzer-Feedback-Formularen

Cómo optimizar sus DevOps Web3 con formularios de comentarios de los usuarios

Comment optimiser votre DevOps Web3 avec les formulaires de commentaires des utilisateurs

उपयोगकर्ता फ़ीडबैक फ़ॉर्म के साथ अपने Web3 DevOps को कैसे अनुकूलित करें

ユーザー フィードバック フォームを使用して Web3 DevOps を最適化する方法

사용자 피드백 양식을 사용하여 Web3 DevOps를 최적화하는 방법

Como otimizar seu Web3 DevOps com formulários de feedback do usuário

Как оптимизировать DevOps в Web3 с помощью форм обратной связи с пользователями

Kullanıcı Geri Bildirim Formlarıyla Web3 DevOps'unuzu Nasıl Optimize Edebilirsiniz?

Cách tối ưu hóa DevOps Web3 của bạn với biểu mẫu phản hồi của người dùng

如何使用用户反馈表优化您的 Web3 DevOps

Italian Investment bank Mediobanca and the United Kingdom’s (UK) Founders Factory joined forces to a new venture studio and an accelerator program in late July. Starting with €12 million, the partnering companies intend to invest in 35 fintech businesses over the next five years. launch financial technology Founders Factory is known for building and funding startups, having established a relationship with UK financial services operator, Aviva, while supporting nearly 50 fintech ventures, including Acre, Qumata, and ClearGlass. The newly formed venture studio also plans to build, finance, and launch new fintech ventures that utilize advanced technologies, such as blockchain and (AI). Artificial Intelligence Mediobanca’s Group Chief Operating Officer Marco Pozzi said, “The systematic collaboration with some of the most interesting startups in the international market will allow us, on the one hand, to contribute to the growth of an extremely high-potential market such as fintech, and, on the other, to transform existing systems by developing distinctive and highly innovative solutions.” Meanwhile, Henry Lane Fox, CEO of Founders Factory commented, “Combining our venture-building capabilities and fintech experience with Mediobanca’s heritage, financial prowess, and global ambition creates a powerful platform to back fintech founders.” Europe’s Fintech Scene Lately, European fintech companies have been attracting investment in the millions. In fact, CNBC and market research firm Statista published a of the world’s top 200 fintech companies on 2 August 2023, which includes European firms like Adyen, Ecolytiq, BancaAideXa, Bondora, Bricksave, Conda, Crowdium and more, in the top five positions under defined categories. report But it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. A published in October 2022 found that the deteriorating macroeconomic environment had hit European fintechs hard, “with valuations declining and access to financing becoming more difficult.” McKinsey report But the report also suggested that many European countries have flourishing fintech ecosystems, specifically in the UK and Sweden. This article was originally published by on . Akriti Seth 150sec

Italy's Mediobanca Teams up with UK's Founders Factory to Bolster Fintech Startups

In this post, we will look at creating an Azure data factory with a pipeline that loads Office 365 event data incrementally based on change data capture (CDC) information in the source of Change Data Feed(CDF) of a Delta lake table to an AWS S3 bucket. What we’ll cover: Create an ADF Pipeline that loads Calendar events from Offfice365 to a Blob container. Run a Databricks Notebook with the activity in the ADF pipeline, transform extracted Calendar event and merge to a Delta lake table. Load Change Data Feed on the Delta lake table to an AWS S3 bucket. The following diagram shows the architecture of the above steps: Prerequisites To build the pipeline, there are a few prerequisites that need to be met: Setup an Azure account. Register an AD application with Microsoft Graph permission. . Configure Microsoft Graph data connect consent request approver group t. Create an Azure Storage Accoun Create an AWS S3 bucket. Before going any further, we will need to create an Azure Storage account and grant the Azure AD application we registered the proper access to the container of the storage account. Check out the step-by-step Azure for Authorizing access to blobs using Azure Active Directory. guide 1. Create an Azure Data Factory Pipeline In this step, we will create an ADF Pipeline that loads Office365 Calendar Views data to an Azure Blob container. I will assume you already have an Azure Subscription and Resource Group setup. To create an Azure data factory, run the following command: az datafactory create --resource- --factory-name ADFDemo group RESOURCE_GROUP 1.1 Create linked services and datasets To connect to Office 365, we need to use the following command to create a linked service for Office 365 connection: az datafactory linked - service create - - resource - group RESOURCE_GROUP - - factory - name ADFDemo - - linked - service - name Offic365LinkedService - - properties @offic365LinkedService . json Replace APP_CLIENT_ID , TENANT_ID and APP_CLIENT_SECRET with corresponding values from your Active Directory tenant and App. Next, create a Calendar dataset named calendarDataset to reference the Calendar view data from Office 365. az datafactory dataset create - - resource - group RESOURCE_GROUP - - dataset - name calendarDataset - - factory - name ADFDemo - - properties @calendarDataset . json Now, let’s create another Linked Services for Blob Storage Account to store calendar data extracted from Office 365. az datafactory linked - service create - - resource - group RESOURCE_GROUP - - factory - name ADFDemo - - linked - service - name AzureStorageLinkedService - - properties @azureStorageLinkedService . json ECRET Replace YOUR_CONTAINER , APP_CLIENT_S , TENANT_ID and APP_CLIENT_SECRET with corresponding values from your Active Directory tenant, App, and storage account. Next, create a binary dataset named . outputDataset az datafactory dataset create - - resource - group RESOURCE_GROUP - - dataset - name outputDataset - - factory - name ADFDemo - - properties @outputDataset . json Note that @dataset.outputPath in the folderPath section is a global variable that we will set in the next step. 1.2 Create an ADF pipeline In this section, we will use the Azure CLI command to create a simple ADF pipeline with three activities: to set a global variable . SetVariableActivity outputPath named to load data from Office 365 to Azure blob storage. CopyActivity ExtractCalendarView to throw an error when the pipeline fails. FailActivity Enter the following commands to create ADF Pipeline with activities: az datafactory pipeline create --resource-group RESOURCE_GROUP --factory-name ADFDemo --name DemoPipeline  --pipeline @demoPipeline.json Once the pipeline is created, Navigate to the Azure portal and launch the Azure Data Factory studio. We can view the pipeline activities we have created from the pipeline designer. 2. Create Notebook in Azure Databricks In this section, we will create a notebook in Azure Databricks. You can refer to this to create a notebook in the Azure Databricks workspace. tutorial Before starting the notebook, we have to set up a connection from Azure Databricks to Azure Storage Account using a SAS key. Check out this for creating a Databricks secret scope. tutorial We are going to perform the following steps in the notebook: Mount a Blob storage container. Transform calendar view data. Create an SCD Type 1 delta table with Change Data Feed enabled. Merge input data frame to the delta table. Configure AWS S3 connection, and load change feed data to s3 bucket. The notebook would look similar to this: Now we have our notebook created, Let’s move back to step 1.1 to create linked services for Azure Databricks connection. az datafactory linked - service create - - resource - group RESOURCE_GROUP - - factory - name ADFDemo - - linked - service - name databricksLinkedService - - properties @databricksLinkedService . json Next, delete the pipeline that we created in step 1.2, recreate it to execute the Databricks notebook against the Databricks jobs cluster. Delete the existing pipeline we have created: az datafactory pipeline delete - - factory - name - - name ADFDemo - - resource - group RESOURCE_GROUP then recreate the pipeline using the following command: az datafactory pipeline create - - resource - group RESOURCE_GROUP - - factory - name ADFDemo - - name DemoPipeline - - pipeline @demoPipeline . json Now we should have our pipeline that looks like the following diagram. Let’s publish entities (linked services and pipeline) to the Azure Data Factory service using ADF studio. and trigger the pipeline. We can log on to the Azure Databricks workspace, go to Clusters and see the Job status as . pending execution, running, or terminated After the pipeline run is completed, log on to the AWS S3 console, we should see the CSV file in the following format is loaded to the destination s3 bucket. Conclusion In this article, I introduced the approach to load data incrementally from Office365 to an AWS S3 bucket using ADF and Azure Databricks. I hope you found this article useful. You can find the ARM template and notebook in my . GitHub repository

Building an ETL Pipeline to Load Data Incrementally from Office365 to S3 using ADF and Databricks

Harvard dropout starts a company and raises 20 million dollars. I bet you heard this story so many times and you might feel intimidated by them. But what makes students from Ivy League universities so spectacular? The Social Network I turned 20 years old when The Social Network (movie) released. The film focuses on how Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started in college. Jessie Eisenberg played 's character quite well. So much so, that his story was an inspiration to kids that felt "different". I happened to be one of those kids. Facebook Zuckerberg I remember how impressed I was by Mark and his colleagues. Who wouldn’t be impressed by a bunch of guys that started a billion-dollar company in their dorm rooms? Especially when at the time, I had about $100 in savings with a negative increment outlook. I needed to fill up the tank of a car that was worth around $500. All in all, I felt like I had made poor life decisions because I wasn't anywhere near starting my own business. I then decided to take a closer look at my friends and fellow computer science students. About 60% of them had either dropped out or failed in their very first year. “Did they go on to start their own billion-dollar startups?” I wondered. I found one guy - he had started a marketing agency for bakeries. Don’t get me wrong, he was very successful compared to me and other students. He had even managed to grow his business to 5 employees before I graduated and lost track. I haven’t seen him in the news recently, so I guess he’s not a billionaire yet, despite being successful in his own right. Startups vs Old-Money I went down a rabbit hole trying to find other startup billionaires to inspire me. I hoped that I could learn from them and apply their principles to my own life. I dug deep into the European startup ecosystem without much luck. The only examples I found, at the time, were the Samwer brothers. They had started a company called Rocket Internet. It analyzed early-stage startups in the US and built copies of them in the DACH market. DACH comprises countries in Europe with a German-speaking majority (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). The Samwer brothers had built an excellent startup factory that was able to launch functional products within 90 days. They were very impressive but there was one problem. Marc and Alexander Samwer hold MBAs from Harvard. As such, they didn’t fit my startup-billionaire profile. In fact, instances of European startup billionaires were almost non-existent. Even startup millionaires were rare. Most times, the richest people were part of families that had generational wealth. Most of the time, they were inventors that had made a fortune from their patented ideas. Some others enjoyed frequent government contracts. For instance, have you heard about a company called Dr. Oetker? August Oetker founded the company in 1891. They make Pizzas, baking ingredients, and other perishables. Yet, they made their fortune because August invented and patented baking powder. Unfortunately, there isn’t much wealth that originates from high-tech startups in Europe. It seems like every successful software company is getting acquired by large investors. European states have a lot of good agencies investing in startups but they haven’t been able to match the levels of success seen in the US, or even Israel. This makes me believe that there must be something about the students in Ivy League colleges in the US. Something that makes them very special. Silicon Valley Today, 13 years later, I am a software engineer with 10+ years of experience. I have worked for a diverse range of companies in 5 countries. Some of which were startups, SMEs, and enterprises. A year ago, I became a hiring manager for a cryptocurrency startup based in Palo Alto, CA. Our company is fully remote, with team members all over the world. The best thing this job gave me is an opportunity to work with people from all backgrounds and learn about them. I have conducted interviews with software engineers from Fortune 500 and FAANG companies. We were hiring various candidates, from interns to experienced contributors. The hiring spree happened in the first half of 2022. This coincided with a crypto bull market and the "great resignation". Our company was trying to fill positions in almost every department, from accountants to software engineers. We didn't have an employer brand in the Bay area at the time, so we decided to hire interns. We had internship candidates from Ivy League and lower-tier colleges alike. The Ivy League candidates usually rejected our offers. They preferred to take internships at Amazon, Google, or any other FAANG company. From a learning perspective, they would’ve learned more at our company. We are a small team that is building an entire decentralized finance application. The internship would’ve given them an opportunity to try their hands at different things. More so, from a resume standpoint, an internship at Microsoft would handicap their careers. In a structure like that, there isn't any room chance for interns to make changes to the live system or jump between roles. But what about interns from lower-tier universities? Were they worse than those from Harvard or MIT? No, not at all. American vs European Universities There is one main misconception about universities. The main purpose of universities isn't to teach but to help scientific research. Period. Offering education is how they make money. And it applies to both private and public institutions. Most university rankings aren't based on the salaries of their graduates. Instead, they focus on the number of scientific papers and patents produced by them. Since all universities want to focus on science, they need to enroll Ph.D. students to do so. Those students want to join the most prominent universities since they open doors to the world of science. Unfortunately, it is hard to profit from science alone. Also, Ph.D. students do not contribute a lot with tuition fees. So, universities look to businesses and states for "gigs". Research and student tuition are the major ways they source funds. Even Harvard relies on the federal government for 70% of its research funding. Now, let's shift our focus to the public education system in Europe. On the mainland of Europe (excluding the UK), public education is, more or less, free. In these states, taxpayers bear the cost of education in exchange for services. For instance, to provide free education and healthcare, the government needs to educate doctors and nurses. Also, skilled workers contribute more to the GDP. The GDP is then invested to increase the country's HDI index. Meaning that even people with elementary education enjoy the benefits of a qualified workforce. The government pays universities for every enrolled student, even if they drop out. Otherwise, the university would receive incentives to let everybody get a diploma. This allows them to maintain high standards. Why Are Top Tier Universities Better? Students in top universities don't necessarily get a better education than those in lower-tier schools. It's not because of a lack of opportunity but rather limited time. Even though all universities have similar time frames for education. Around 3 years for a bachelor's degree and 2-2.5 years for a master's. Let’s take a closer look at this. In most degree programs, subjects are typically covered within a single semester, with weekly lessons lasting 3-4 hours. It isn’t enough time to gain broad insights on the subject. Only Ph.D. students are able to take true advantage of the extra quality in tier-A universities. They have the most time to focus on studying and have access to the best professors. Going to the best universities is not a waste for regular people. These schools have the best teachers, set high standards, and expect a lot. They have to work hard and earn good grades. They learn to collaborate, and develop discipline and work ethic (but not always). These are desirable traits in adult life. Also, the best universities attract students from wealthy families. It means students build a meaningful network that can skyrocket their careers. If you graduated from a university known for its fun parties, it may be challenging for you to compete with someone who graduated from Harvard. It's likely that you didn't have to deal with politics or complicated social interactions. Meaning you will learn those things in the first few years of your career. Does it mean you’re a lost cause? Not at all. If you are talented you can still outwork Harvard alumnus but it won't be easy. You will need to work harder than they do and exceed the expectations. Always! Whatever you do in life you need to develop discipline and take responsibility. The best opportunities are never the easiest ones so if you are getting involved in something you really need to own it. You can outdo even those that seem “predisposed to success” but it takes personal sacrifices. Join me Thank you for reading. I am a software engineer with 10 years of experience, living my best life as a digital nomad. This newsletter is a response to a younger me who felt lost and needed to find a career path on his own. if you want to get more tips and ideas on growing your career as a software engineer and becoming a digital nomad. Subscribe This article was . initially published on my weekly newsletter If you have appetite for more I just published new article on How Influencers And Books Make Us Dumb

Why Harvard Alumni Are Better Than You

As a runner up in HackerNoon's prestigious Startups of the Year 2023 competition, and its CEO have been garnering significant attention in the tech world. Here’s the interview with Mr. Miro to discuss Wallet Factory's meteoric rise as a leading provider of digital wallet solutions, the key factors behind the company's impressive growth, and his vision for the future of the payments industry. Fresh off the heels of this major achievement, the CEO opened up about the company's foundational principles, his personal leadership style that has driven their product innovation and market success, and why he believes Wallet Factory has cemented itself as a startup to watch in the ever-evolving fintech ecosystem. Wallet Factory Mikhail Miro https://hackernoon.com/startups/europe/europe-warsaw-poland Tell us how your startup is changing the world. Wallet Factory is a one-stop embedded finance solutions provider for ambitious, forward-thinking businesses across developing markets in Africa, MENA, and LatAm. The company helps capitalize on innovative FinTech opportunities like digital wallets, personalized loyalty rewards, B2B payment services, financial marketplace, and open banking. Our mission is to facilitate the transition from a "Cash Heavy" to a "Cash Lite" society, aiming to include unbanked citizens into the financial system through our clients. We offer a unique 3-in-1 digital wallet platform that enables banks to serve the unbanked and underbanked segments, fostering financial inclusion and accessibility for those who have not yet had access to traditional banking services. What sets you apart from the competition? We have succeeded in developing all-purpose digital wallets that go bundled with personalized loyalty rewards. Our innovative Wallet and Rewards platforms not only provide digital financial services but also instill long-lasting customer loyalty to engage and retain earlier and newly acquired audiences. Through personalized rewards and secure and user-friendly interfaces, we strive to make payment services easily accessible and attractive, even for non-tech-savvy and picky end customers. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? They are the most fantastic people I’ve ever worked with! Wallet Factory's team is comprised of dedicated professionals with a shared passion for enabling financial inclusion through digital financial services. The team's collective expertise and experience in the financial industry, coupled with their commitment to creating innovative FinTech solutions, uniquely position Wallet Factory to address the challenge of fostering financial accessibility and inclusion for unbanked and underbanked populations. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? Personally, I would likely be working in a leading position in the international banking field, continuing to contribute to the financial industry and helping people access digital financial services. Speaking of Wallet Factory, if it wasn't focused on its current mission, the company would likely be engaged in developing and providing other innovative FinTech solutions to address various challenges in the financial industry, with a continued emphasis on fostering financial inclusion and accessibility for underserved populations. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? As of today, our executives and analysts measure success by the number of end customers using our digital wallet and loyalty rewards platforms, as well as the growth of our clients' revenue streams. Our core metrics include user engagement, customer retention, and the expansion of our services in emerging markets. What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2024? In 2024, we aim to further expand our presence in emerging markets and help more banks and non-banking financial institutions serve the unbanked and underbanked segments. We also plan to enhance our digital wallet and loyalty rewards platforms with new features and integrations to better meet the needs of our clients and their customers. Which trend(s) are you most excited about in 2024? Share your reasons. We are excited about the continued growth and adoption of digital wallets and mobile payment services, as well as the potential for increased collaboration between banks and FinTech companies to drive financial inclusion and accessibility. 2023 had been another crazy year, especially in tech, with layoffs and the Generative AI takeover! Which trend are you most concerned about? Be as brief or as detailed as you like. We are most concerned about the potential for increased competition in the digital wallet and FinTech space, which could lead to a saturated market and challenges in differentiating our offerings from those of other companies. One of the most promising trends I’d like to mention is the adoption of AI, as you have deftly put it in your question. I’m definite about the fact that this trend will likely bring more personalized solutions to end customers in 2024, driving greater user experiences and brand loyalty. Share your biggest success so far and/or your biggest failure so far. Our biggest success so far has been the launch of over 25 revenue-generating eWallet and customer loyalty projects in 12 countries across 5 continents, with over 4.5M end customers worldwide. One of the biggest challenges our team has ever experienced was the difficulty in penetrating certain markets due to ongoing regulatory challenges and the need for more localized solutions. Fortunately, we’ve learned a lot from that lesson and now can easily tailor our digital wallet and loyalty rewards platforms to the business specifics of any industry or region. We would love your feedback on HackerNoon as a tech publication! How has your experience been with us? Our experience with HackerNoon has been more than positive, as we have been able to share our insights and expertise on digital wallets and FinTech trends with a wide audience of tech enthusiasts and businesses. Sure thing, Wallet Factory will be looking forward to taking part in any further tech competitions of this kind! Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us? My piece of advice for businesses and tech enthusiasts is to stay informed in today’s ever-changing world while keeping tabs on the latest trends and developments in the digital wallet and FinTech space. Much like we care about our clients’ success, businesses should think first about bettering their customers’ experiences with the brand. It can help you be prepared to adapt and innovate efficient solutions across your business operations in order to stay ahead of the competition and satisfy your customers. Startups of The Year is HackerNoon’s Flagship community-driven event celebrating startups that survived and thrived in 2023. 30,000 startups across 4200+ cities and six continents participated this year to be crowned the best startup in their city. See our global winners announcement . here Companies that blog more get 67% more leads - Jumpstart your company’s blogging journey by purchasing our . Business Blogging Package The 2023 Startups Of The Year is sponsored by: . . The winners will get a free .Tech Domain, a HackerNoon NFT, and a Tech Company News Page. TECH Domains

Meet Wallet Factory, Runner-up of the Startups of the Year in Warsaw, Poland

How did the experience of using mobile robots in Amazon's, Ocado and other's warehouses spur the evolution of transportation systems for autonomous smart, scalable factories? Speculation was rampant that Amazon was replacing people with robots. But 10 years on, the facts tell a different story. They have more than 520,000 robotic drive units and have added over a million jobs, worldwide. They have more than a dozen other types of robotic systems in facilities around the world, including sort centers and air hubs. Mobile robots have become an increasingly popular solution for automated warehouses and distribution centers. These robots have the ability to navigate warehouse environments, allowing them to perform tasks such as picking and transporting items, restocking shelves, and more. We all saw videos of hundreds of identical robots operating inside the facilities of OCADO, Amazone, etc. They are very efficient and successful, which stimulates R&D to launch new models, etc. The possible area of applications in traditional assembly factories for mobile robots is natively narrow and very heterogeneous. On the one side, due to the wide range of conditions: indoor/outdoor, vast variety of mass and sizes, unpacking, loading, etc. On the other hand, the majority of the logistic is performed by conveyer belt. This makes mobile solutions sophisticated and expensive, making them even less attractive to the factories - a vicious circle. As a result, mobile robots, very prospective technology with great theoretical potential, have become niche products. Eventually, we have many small brands with high prices, different APIs, software, requirements to the infrastructure, etc., on the market - "zoo". The technology has no incentives for development and no ability to implement. Between these two extreme cases, traditional factory and warehouse, there are some key differences: In a warehouse, all objects are very typified, with a little controlled variation: packaging, weight, size, etc. Environment for movement is very restricted - it is a matrix, in fact There are just a few simple types of logistic operations in a warehouse. Due to this, mobile robots have become the main transportation system in the warehouse case. Understanding the essence of fundamental causes of the success of warehouse mobile robots and the problems of ones for assembling factories has helped us, the Robofacturing Mobile robotics team at Arrival UK, develop an effective transportation system for our autonomous smart, scalable factory. What if we study the success of mobile robots in a warehouse transport system and use successful solutions for a transportation system in an autonomous factory? Autonomous scalable smart factory To get rid of the complexity and rigidity of traditional production, we developed a modular, software-friendly architecture and a new type of factory that should: be product agnostic have a low entry threshold - affordable for small and medium business be not product-defined, but joint types and materials defined (as “3D printer”) have substantially shorter time-to-market be easily scalable and fast, cheap updatable achieve higher utilisation and efficiency by design AI-driven modular and scalable as Data Center or Data Cloud How did we do it? Step-by-step story STEP 1. Change the architecture. Smart Cells The key block of this factory is Smart Cell with fixed, agnostic, off-the-shelf equipment Chipset, Cell Operation System and API for Plug-and-Play “Applications”- like a blade server in a Data Center. We moved everything related to the uniqueness of assembled products to grippers/jigs/fixtures that move in/out of a Smart Cell and between them. Then packed every Tool, Gripper, Fixture, etc., as an Application with a Plug-and-Play interface and plugged in all needed Applications to every Smart Cell - to complete our “blade servers”: STEP 2. Scaling Smart Cells and AMR Smart Cells are unified software-driven cells that can do various typical atomic operations using flexible Artificial Intelligent Applications (AI App). To create a factory, we scale it up (multiple Smart Cells) into Grid, depending on products that we need to assemble (a load for “Data Center”) with many-to-many on the input/output between cells. To complete our “Data Center”, we need to add a data bus, in our case, a transportation system for parts - autonomous mobile robots (AMR): As you can see, by superseding a physical conveyor with a virtual one, which can be rebuilt in real-time, and typifying cells and operations, we made our factory environment closer to warehousing, thus simplifying it for mobile robots. On the other side, now, our robots must be capable of acting synchronized and independently, working at pretty high speed (to keep a cycle-time of the factory), moving without predefined trajectories and being able to dodge different types of obstacles, including people. STEP 3. Factory OS and Digital factory create For orchestrating our AMRs, we developed that manages and controls all resources (smart cells, AMRs, etc.) and consists of components such as the Autonomous execution engine - real-time, multi-agent, AI-based system; specialized and high-loaded Data platform; active Scheduler, APL studio - IDE to create all factory rules used by the autonomous engine, etc. Factory OS - an asset of data sets and software tools (Digital twin, Application Hub, Playbook, etc.) that provide processes of designing, executing and changing all objects of the autonomous factory. This asset can build itself digitally and run the implementation/rollout of itself. Digital factory create So, we have simplified the factory's architecture but increased the requirement for our AMRs - intelligence and autonomy. In addition, we are still required to work with different ranges of masses and sizes. To solve these problems, we had to develop our eco-system of mobile robots. STEP 4. RoboHive RoboHive is a flexible, modular, reconfigurable, and cost-effective ecosystem of autonomous mobile robots designed to perform various manufacturing and logistics operations inside and outside autonomous scalable smart factories. The hive is made of plug & play active and passive modules similar to “Lego'' bricks; all components inside the robots are modules (e.g. sensors, actuators and payloads can be easily interchanged); robots themselves are collaborative modules that can be combined to create “cluster” systems, which can perform complex tasks in coordination. RoboHive is a highly versatile ecosystem of mobile robots, adaptable to a range of use cases and product configurations. The robots are primarily designed inside factories for indoor logistics (lightweight/fast and heavyweight/ultrasafe). Other uses included automated (quality/site) inspection and service operations of assembled products (e.g. vehicle automated charging, vehicle batteries replacement, etc.). Besides the mobile robots (i.e. HiveBots), the team developed robot motors, robot motor controllers, robot electronics and sensors, and a range of software systems for robot control, sensing and perception, simulation, and autonomous navigation. RoboHive components: - any AMR part of RoboHive (e.g. WeMo) HiveBots - onboard & ground AMR control systems Core Software - сontrollers, motors, actuators, charging system AMR Elements - platform-agnostic AMR vision-based navigation system & spatial AI RoboSLAM - single/multi-robot simulators, diagnostic tools, physics simulators, fleet/traffic simulators Simulators & Visualisation Systems - multi-modal state estimators, high-frequency motor controllers, 3D motion planning & control systems Motor/Motion Controllers : power charging systems, network systems, safety systems, development and diagnostics tools, CI/CD Infrastructure STEP 5. WeMo - Wheeled Mobility WeMo is a modular autonomous mobile robot primarily designed to cover all the logistics use cases of the smart factory. This is a crucial block of the transportation system - a “working horse”. Exteroceptive sensors: sensing the environment around the robot. Interoceptive sensors: sensing the internal conditions of the robot. The software stack includes onboard software but also ground, development and testing software, including simulators. Omnidirectional wheels Max payload: 2,000 kg. Max speed: 1 m/s (safe speed 0.5 m/s for humans). Positioning accuracy during the cruise: 100 mm. Precise positioning: <5 mm. Key features of this technology: Horizontal Modularity combined with Vertical Modularity: the robots connect to each other to create larger platforms (horizontal); the robots can carry active/passive payloads alone or in cluster (vertical). AMR is designed for adding Active modules on top of it (robotic arm, forklift module, mobile charging system, etc.) Data and safety comms combined over the safe wireless connection: a truly unique solution in the market. That allows AMR to be added and removed dynamically in the network in a safe way. STEP 6. Cluster mode To address the problem of carrying payloads of different sizes and weights, conventional mobile robot fleets have to be made of robots of different sizes and even different types, considering that most of them are designed and produced focusing on one specific area of tasks because companies can't afford a wider range of models and don't have sufficient demand from traditional factories, for the reasons mentioned at the beginning of the article. This leads to a large footprint on the factory floor, issues and costs related to servicing several types of robots (including personnel training), poor sustainability and technology reuse, increased time and cost of integration, higher maintenance cost and poor power efficiency. WeMos are designed to act together without a physical connection to create larger transport platforms of different sizes (i.e. Cluster Mode) adapting to the dynamic needs of the factory (e.g. one robot to transfer payloads up to 2 tons of small/medium size, multiple robots synchronized and connected by software together to transfer payloads heavier than 2 tons or large in size.) We developed special software and controllers to create "swarms" of AMRs of different sizes in real-time. Cluster mode saves up to $7,65mln straightforward savings for a fleet of 150 mobile robots (typical size for a factory with throughput 10k jobs per year ) Open tasks We launched our first autonomous scalable smart factory with 100+ AMRs fleet, in preproduction mode, in Sep 2022, in Bicester, the UK. The fleet has successfully completed all basic tests and validations and supported the production process at 80% of the target speed (cycle time), including Cluster mode. However, some critical tasks must be resolved to achieve a fully autonomous capability, better accuracy and higher cost efficiency: - Enabling deploying the factory in warehouses without an ultra-flat floor. Even floor - Next-gen software navigation system for HiveBots. It can save $350k per factory. Robo SLAM - Increases safety and reliability of the infrastructure. Allows significantly boosted the amount of data traffic, which will enhance AMR's capability of making sophisticated maneuvers and will give us the ability to use AMRs for comprehensive factory robotic operations: quality inspections, EOL, measurements, etc. Support 5G Summary As you can see, by changing and loosening towards to each other, the main constraints - decreasing the complexity of the factory environment by using the "Data Center" concept and increasing the capabilities of mobile robots by creating an advanced modular eco-system we created an efficient transportation system that can be as flexible almost as a data bus: It doesn't rely on infrastructure and is fully autonomous Our AMRs are going to be free to navigate autonomously without path predefinition. This will enable rapid reconfiguration of the whole factory production flow and rapid switch of production of different products in the same site without impacting the layout cells because the AMRs will take care of the logistics changes autonomously. AMRs can travel to different places to deliver parts and, if necessary, be re-routed due to blockages etc. So we can produce products with different numbers and sequences of operations in one factory simultaneously. It can autonomously adjust to a dynamically changing load, sizes, weights, etc.

Implementation of Mobile Robots for an Autonomous Scalable Smart Factory

If you ever wanted to know how it feels like to be a senior software engineer, and experience… The joy of coming up with experiments, and testing them to solve problems The craftsmanship of building either building hyper-efficent systems, or The pride in building large hyper scale systems. All within either a fixed constraint or the lack of it Factory building games allow you to experience all of them in a highly compressed timeframe of hours instead of days. All without the common frustration and pains that comes with programming. (Weird obscure library bugs, lack of documentation, Company politics or bureaucracy in processes, budget ... ) Don’t take my word for it, let reddit comments of one of the games in the genre speak for itself What is a Factory Building Games? Factory Building Games, or FBG for short, are at their core about: Constructing and expanding a large base of multiple building blocks… Connected together to build products using an ever-growing continuous supply of materials… To continuously feed a very intensive "resource sink" (the games goal)… Which runs automatically without the player interaction for long periods of time One of the key differences between FBG and typical resource management games is the endless continuous nature of the main production lines, due to the usually infinite scaling nature of the "resource sink". Allowing everything to run "infinitely" without player interaction. Said "resource sink" may differ from game to game, but it's typically some combination of the following: Researching new tech, some of which are endlessly repeatable Sustaining a colony of citizens that grows in both size and resource requirements A definitive end game goal, with enormous requirements (launch a rocket, build a Dyson sphere, etc) While this may sound simple enough another common feature is how as the game progresses. It would require more advance products and buildings that requires other products built by the factory system itself. Which constantly scales up complex combination requirements. At late game, it is not uncommon for products that are needed for the game goals, to require a process that involves over a dozen parts, and hundreds of steps. Resulting into a complicated large scale processes, running continuously; Which mirrors some real life factories, hence the FBG title. This gradual ramp up in complexity encourages constantly scaling up both consumption and production. All while constantly refactoring or updating the factory layout for optimisation, as new "methods of production" is unlocked. How it makes you a better programmer - by making you practise everything else but code! To understands the similarities between software development as a programmer and playing an FBG we start by looking at a typical workflow for a programmer, where each task spans weeks to months. Now contrast to the typical gameplay experience of a FBG. Notice the huge similarities, and how it compresses all the programmers day to day activities down to hours. While nearly removing all the unpleasant and potentially frustrating bits! Despite ironically removing code (one of the most critical things a programmer does). It rapidly speeds up the loop of planning, testing and iterating at a much faster pace than the real world. This allow a player to practise systems thinking, which is critical to programmers. It does so, by forcing the player, to split the problem in game into smaller tasks, while using their existing tools and knowledge to solve them. Before forcing them to do the inverse, in putting together large complex systems, using the same "blueprint" of what they built previously. This process of making smaller changes, and integrating such changes to the larger system, is part of the day to day of software engineering (including all its failures and iterations). Additionally, due to its nature of being a "game" - and the lack of "real life consequences". Most of the negative emotions that come with failure are minimised. This encourages the player to learn quickly through experimentation and failure. All while avoiding overwhelming the gamer, due to the limited nature of the toolbox in the game. Allowing the player to gain satisfaction, from the mastery of said tools Hence, despite the exclusion of code. It teaches the gamer/programmer, very essential skills in software development. As it’s worth repeating that … Coding is often only only half the battle for a programmer. There is a flip side though - which should come with a warning label. This game genre can be very addictive, due to how well refined the positive feedback loop is. "It's the one video game (Factorio) that everyone at Shopify can expense”~ Tobi Lutke, CEO of Shopify Sounds good, how can I get started? You can find the full list of FBG games at the following awesome list: https://github.com/PicoCreator/awesome-list-factory-building-games However, because the full list can be overwhelming, here are some quick highlights … : which is a pure FBG in space, with really nice 3D visuals. Also building a Dyson sphere around the sun, is a cool mega project in itself Dyson Sphere Program : which uses FPS/Fortnite like controls, not recommended if you are not used to such a control scheme - supports multiplayer. Satisfactory : which is the most popular in this genre - is only recommended for more experienced gamers. In my opinion it's not beginner friendly. However it supports really large scale multiplayer gameplay (50+ players), making it popular with larger teams. Factorio : is one of the notable FBG that includes simple programming blocks, for its "automation bots". Adding the code element back into FBG. It does loose however the iconic conveyer belt (to force you to use the bots), while sadly simplifying many things (can be too easy, targets a younger audience) Autonauts If you find yourself struggling with a particular game, try to takes things slow instead of rushing it. Part of the fun is to overcome these challenges. Also, Some FBG may include other game mechanics like endless combat/war. this can drastically change the style of the game, as such when possible I would recommend "peaceful mode" for new players. To focus on the FBG gameplay. I did not like the games you recommended, does that make me a bad programmer? No There are many good programmers who don’t like games. There are many other reasons why one may find joy in programming that is not found in these games. Most notably: Personal satisfaction from providing positive impact to users Personal satisfaction from solving coding tasks Similarly there are many other valid reasons why you may dislike a certain part of the game which makes it a dealbreaker. Or even just video games in general. So while there is some truth, that if you enjoy FBG, you probably will enjoy programming (and vice-visa). It is worth reminding that correlation is not causation. So you be you. There are other hobbies in life, which is both fun, and sharpens your skills. However, for programmers, who do enjoy playing such games. Good for you, as this is one of the few games which can help both practise your skills, and have fun outside your work-hours. Separately, For non-programmers who is aspiring to be a programmer, completing an FBG, will help you get a better idea of the ideal workflow of a programmer. This in itself, is a huge benefit, if you are outside the tech industry, and want to explore if such work is suitable for you. Originally published at: https://substack.tech-talk-cto.com/p/introducing-factory-building-games

LAUNCH FACTORY

launchfactory.com

11-50 employees

Since 2018

LAUNCH FACTORY

EVERGREEN INDEX #

Representing this company? Click here to claim and customize this page!

Launch Factory WIKI

Apply to get your Tech Company News Page live on HackerNoon.com today!

LAUNCH FACTORY

launchfactory.com

11-50 employees

Since 2018

LAUNCH FACTORY

EVERGREEN INDEX #

STORIES ABOUT LAUNCH FACTORY

Representing this company? Click here to claim and customize this page!

Launch Factory WIKI

Apply to get your Tech Company News Page live on HackerNoon.com today!