What should you consider when applying for a startup grant

If you wish to apply for a startup grant, your revenue generation model is the major factor to consider. It should explain clearly how your setup will earn significantly.

Thereafter, you need to know how much your startup will have to bear in costs until it breaks even, which could be a minimum of one or more years.

Later, you need to state who your competitors are and explain how you intend to take on them by defining your unique selling proposition (USP) to the startup board.

You also need a management team with adequate expertise and experience to convince the grant-giving body that your business can run successfully.

Finally, you need to prepare a well-thought-out business plan that explains clearly and persuasively the plans of your startup.

 Why did Gates open the Windows?

Does Apple Cook well with Tim?

Can Meta leave an indelible Mark?

Why did Musk rate it an X’?

Why did the Sun choose to shine on Java?

Is Google an Alpha company? You Bet!

Why did Larry deliver an Oracle?

Did Deep Blue checkmate IBM’s rivals?

How long will Amazon still flow?

How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are Transforming Sales in the Pharmaceutical Industry

 

Studies have demonstrated that both artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have brought about a sea change in the pharmaceutical industry’s landscape by helping them sell better. They are able to achieve them by making clinical and research trials more efficient, augmenting innovations, aiding in devising new tools for physicians and end-users, besides helping the healthcare industry to make more informed decisions. 

The data in circulation in the pharma industry is humongous. It is gathered by pharma companies and hospitals when they undertake researches, R&D tasks, clinical trials and results of outcomes of wellness through several years. Until the end of the 20th Century, data was, however, analysed manually by healthcare specialists. But it bugged the pharma industry majorly by making data sharing and regulation difficult. 

With drug makers partnering with IT companies, researchers and others, they end up sharing the healthcare data of large chunks of the population. Although there is a lack of authorized regulatory framework the world over to enable the pharma sector to embrace AI, some companies have managed to put in place governance measures for such partnerships, allowing this vertical, as a whole, to benefit. 

Using AI and ML, the pharma industry has been able to increase the rate at which conditions are being diagnosed. The way diagnoses are being carried out has also improved. It is frustrating when the conditions of patients remain undiagnosed for prolonged periods. As the healthcare specialists remain unsuccessful at zeroing in on the right therapies, they wrest with various medical treatments to identify the right cures for problems. The major hurdle here is their helplessness to dig through past records of instances of treating patients with certain symptoms. 

On the other hand, machine learning helps pharma companies in tracking the medical histories of patients depending upon specific yardsticks, like symptoms, treatments, lab results, etc. This information will help in diagnosing conditions quickly and in an improved manner, tracking improvements and suggesting treatments to patients depending on their individual histories. 

Technologies like AI and ML also help healthcare professionals detect diseases before they strike patients based on their medical histories. In such cases, the right treatment can be recommended to them much earlier to prevent the outbreak of those ailments. Pharma companies, meanwhile, can use the same data to launch direct campaigns to advertise their medications and therapies. Alternately, they can build awareness where such conditions may be existing in certain untested people who may be having them. In addition to boosting the sales of the pharmaceutical companies, they also help them in identifying individuals who may be at risk.  

The progress, or the lack of it, of a patient, helps in identifying whether certain medical treatments or effective or not. Such data can be then put to use by medical professionals to foretell the results of treatments in patients.

Machine learning aids healthcare professionals to devise roadmaps for treatments of patients afflicted with severe diseases too as they monitor their responses even when there are slightest changes in drug dosages, improving their experiences in achieving better health outcomes.

As for AI, it can help pharmaceutical companies in recording trends of physicians. It may well include the frequency of a certain treatment’s efficacy in treating patients, assessing medical procedures and detecting the basic needs of patients based on their respective environments. These companies may also use this data to conduct market research extensively on a commercial basis.

Data helps experts in gathering critical patient evidence in real-time so that medical professionals can take action immediately to avert occurrences of serious consequences. Patients have been monitored based on the risks they would have faced with the aid of equipment based on AI (including sensors, ECGs and other useful devices) to capture data and detect possible risks. 

With massive data being accessible to both healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical players across fields of medicine, machine learning can be used to process it to identify the right physicians for patients suffering from different ailments in quick time. When this is achieved, the physicians can share those experiences in writing or through their speeches with their counterparts across the globe, allowing pharma companies to identify the right audiences for specific conditions. 

As telemedicine is evolving at a disproportionate pace in the healthcare field, pharmaceutical companies are collaborating more with tech companies to develop online processes to monitor patients’ conditions, gather various treatment processes, improve regulations and also alert patients on time about their medical appointments. It also helps medical professionals to virtually monitor if their patients are following their advice diligently or not. 

In addition to gathering and storing data, AI and ML will enable sharing of knowledge among healthcare professionals, improving the ability of the pharmaceutical industry to acquire more health-related information. This will, in turn, help them cut costs where required and improve their R&D efforts on discovering new drugs, improving both their top and bottom lines eventually.      

Written for eccenca - a parent company of Aarth Software, where I worked  

Why are smart homes the future & what does it mean to you?

 In today’s world, the Internet of Things (IoT) technology has taken over our everyday lives at home. It enables gadgets to function smartly because they are embedded with sensors, making them capable of connecting and exchanging data with other household devices with a single primary contact - a smartphone, PC/laptop, or tablet. This single device lets you manage lights, fans, ACs, TVs, refrigerators, microwave ovens, and other home appliances.   

Millennials and first-time home buyers are capitalizing on this technology which is catering to their needs and, in turn, propelling them toward a sustainable planet. These smart homes provide energy efficiency savings because the devices they use have Zigbee and Z-wave, popular wireless network protocols that allow them to be switched off when they are not being used. They begin operating again when you give them commands, giving you the benefit of reducing your home electricity bills significantly. In short, you can run all home appliances on your fingers. 

According to researchandmarkets.com, an online global market research firm, the Indian smart homes market will account for the spending of more than US$ 9 billion by 2025. 

With three out of four millennials evincing interest in buying a home in the next three years, they are the key drivers of India’s housing market. Moreover, the spread of Covid-19 has only accelerated the adoption of smart homes as they enable work from home, studying from home, shopping from home, etc.  

Millennials are at the forefront, pushing forward newer concepts, innovation-driven technology, and trends to come to fruition while keeping a progressing viewpoint when it comes to sustainable practices. Choosing smart homes comes with several benefits to the world which is developing rapidly.  

With climate change becoming an alarming issue, the onus is now on the citizens of the planet Earth to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and smart homes do that by decreasing carbon footprints considerably.   

Needless to say, about 33% of all the world’s carbon emissions are due to the energy consumption of household appliances, as stated in a study conducted by Finnish researchers.

The upshot of that study was that home automation could save around 13% of these GHG emissions and, in the bargain, diminish the effects of global warming. 

 Given that the Indian market segment is predicted to grow by 5% in 2022, a smart home will be both attractive as an asset and for settling down. When the real estate market continues to expand, you, as an owner of a smart home, are assured of a decent profit if you decide to sell it.

What is global warming and why should we be worried

 What is global warming and why should we be worried  

According to the United States Geological Society (USGS), “Global warming” “refers to the rise in global temperatures due mainly to the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” 

 

On the other hand, greenhouse gas (GHG) is a gas that enables heat to be trapped by hindering the movement of longwave radiation out of the atmosphere of Earth. What it does is cause the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to increase staggeringly. Because of this, global warming is happening. 

 

Owing to all of this, the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has stated that the world has seen its warmest five years between 2015 and 2021 since 1880! If that happens, the temperatures on most of the Earth’s surface will reach a tipping point – a point of no return for the existence of humans on the planet.  

 

What role do humans play in all of this? To a large extent, human activities cause the concentration of GHGs to swell. In other words, humans are directly responsible for global warming as we burn fossil fuels (coal and oil) at a tremendous rate. Additionally, pollution caused by industries and power-guzzling vehicles is also another major contributor to GHGs, thus, in turn, global warming.  

 

GHG causes temperatures on our planet to be hotter than ever, storms to be more devastating than the ones that wreaked this planet since recorded history, and ceaselessly increasing droughts in the less fortunate parts of Earth.

Skinny-shaming

 Is it unfair to say that skinny-shaming cannot be deeply hurting and demoralizing, causing the self-esteem of its victims to be abased? Who says this form of discrimination can’t affect its targets as much as fat-shaming does? Since documentation for this group of people is very sparse, you cannot measure the magnitude of their predicament. But with people, in today's world, becoming more alive to other discriminatory practices, such as against individuals for their sexual orientation or for just being simply ‘different,’ other forms of ‘subtle’ social exclusion could also be taken note of in the future.

Israel & Iran cyberwar spills over to impact civilian lives

 A cyberwar broke out between Israel and Iran, beginning April 2020. It is now threatening to affect the lives of civilians in these two countries, besides in the US and other nations. Before the situation gets out of hand, let’s see how it can be mitigated and brought under control.

How cyberwars began affecting civilian lives

It all began in April 2020 when an Israeli water pumping station’s systems were compromised as a result of a cyberattack, leading to the breakdown of individual pumps. The source of this attack was traced to Iran. In what was said to be an act of retaliation, weeks after this incident, Israel-based hackers attacked a port in Iran, giving rise to the first-ever state-sponsored cyber war, wired.com quotes Lotem Finkelstein, a director of Check Point, an Israeli cybersecurity company, as saying.

This was the flashpoint for a new trend of cyber warfare where infrastructure was targeted, disrupting the daily lives of millions of people in these two Middle Eastern nations. It intensified further this year when a team of hackers, belonging to Black Shadow, allegedly backed by Iran, made public intimate details of around a million users of the widely used Israeli LGBTQ app, Atraf, according to France24.com. Meanwhile, on October 26, 201, Iran’s 4,300 gas stations were affected due to a reported cyberattack. The Asian nation blamed the US and Israel for this violation.  

Earlier, on July 9 and 10, 2021, cybercriminals reportedly interrupted Iranian train services by posting bogus delay announcements on digital billboards that read “Long delays due to cyber attacks. More information: 64411.” The phone number is said to be of the office of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader.

The hack attacks targeted Iranian infrastructure across the board, taking into consideration the targets. They reportedly were carried out by actors, with the apparent backing of certain nations, as well as by nonaligned and loose cyber attacking units. The intent has, however, been unequivocally the same, causing turmoil and disorder that adversely impacted the ordinary citizens and business houses in this dysfunctional and autocratic Islamic nation.

Hack attacks affect the US and Australia

On the other hand, the United States has also been bearing the brunt of cyberattacks. It warned Iran for attempting to hack the computers of the world’s richest nation’s crucial infrastructure networks, including hospitals and voter registration systems.   

Stating that diplomacy has been better between nations in the Middle East, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, is of the view that different nations are showcasing their capabilities in an attempt to create a new kind of power balance in this region.

But Iranian cybercriminals are said to be involved in nefarious activities in various Western nations. The IT security officials of the US, the UK, and Australia, on November 17, stated that state-backed hackers have upped their activities against healthcare and transport organizations in the US and Australia since March 2021.

What measures should the governments take to protect their cyberspaces?

Before things spiral out of control for all the people who are at the risk of getting affected, it is incumbent that Western countries, like the US and the UK, should act sagaciously and save the world from further misery. They should have in place regulations by engaging with non-state actors and taking forward with all earnest diplomatic proposals with Iran.

The need of the hour for the governments is to equip themselves with strong cybersecurity defense systems so that they can continue to deliver essential services to their citizens round-the-clock seamlessly. These mechanisms will ensure that cybercriminals, wherever they are operating from, are given no iota of a chance to target technology that supports the delivery of such services.

They could begin by deploying penetration testing services, armed with the advanced tools and technologies, that circumvent the security of the corporate networks having state-of-the-art security controls. These should be in line with industry standards and must be able to comply with several regulatory requirements including PCI DSS 11.3. Penetration testing of such types will be then in a position to detect threats, which hold certain IT systems and applications to ransom, that allow hackers to access confidential information.