Business, Management, Marketing, Money, Tax, Law, People

Project Guacamaya uses daily satellite images, Amazon-specific AI models in battle against deforestation

The Amazon rainforest is the world’s most complex biological environment, with millions of species of plants, birds and wildlife calling the vast area home, many of which have yet to be studied by scientists. From 2022 to 2023, the Amazon lost approximately 3 million hectares to deforestation, an average of 10,000 acres per day, according to the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project. Ten percent of the Amazon is within…

  • Post category:Microsoft
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Why Polio Is Making a Comeback

This commentary was adapted from episode 142 of the Health & Veritas podcast. Polio is back in the news, again. Over two years ago, we talked about a serious polio threat in the New York area, when one person developed paralytic poliomyelitis and wastewater detected the virus in several adjoining and nearby counties. Less than 1% of all infections result in paralytic polio; when we see wastewater evidence of polio,…

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Keeping companies safer by matching them with the right cybersecurity providers

On this page: Opportunity | Solution | Impact $0.5Tannual global cybersecurity damage by 20250+enterprise customers across sectors0%savings in cybersecurity spending The Opportunity A new way to source cybersecurity Cyberattacks are on track to cause $10.5 trillion a year in damage by 2025. In their efforts to fight back, business leaders face complex choices. Their own security environments likely use technology sourced from multiple vendors and when they look to the…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
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Survey Says: Tech Spending Is Up, But AI Rollouts Slower Than Expected

As we head into 2025 budgeting season, the question on everyone’s minds is this: will the new year bring a return to robust tech budgets? Our latest State of Enterprise Tech Spending report provides a sneak peek. As in previous quarters, we polled 100 CXOs who collectively represent over $35B in annual technology spending; our goal was, as always, to gauge the budget planning and overall sentiment of large enterprise…

  • Post category:Battery Ventures
  • Reading time:3 mins read
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Sitting on Two Chairs: The Problem with the Antitrust Regulation of Artificial Intelligence. The AI ​​Race in World Politics

The desire to win the AI ​​race on the global stage as well as lobbying by tech investors and developers will push legislators to create conditions favourable to the development of innovation, while maintaining control over the big players. Antitrust legislation on AI in both the US and other countries should be monitored, as it will affect the global balance of power in the tech race, writes Anna Sytnik. The…

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Estate Planning for Business Owners with cross border assets

Estate planning is an essential process for business owners, particularly those with complex financial structures involving assets in multiple jurisdictions. Business owners domiciled in Northern Ireland but holding personal and business assets in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland face unique challenges in navigating the legal, tax, and succession frameworks of two distinct legal systems. Crafting an effective estate plan in such cases requires careful consideration of cross-border…

  • Post category:Arthur Cox LLP
  • Reading time:6 mins read
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Michigan’s Supreme Court Clarifies Its Mothering Justice Opinion and Sets State’s Minimum Wage Increases and Tip Credit Phaseout

Quick Hits The Michigan Supreme Court issued an order mandating specific wage increases and gradually eliminating the tip credit by 2030. The new wage and tip credit adjustments take effect on February 21, 2025. The Michigan Legislature has introduced a bill that, if enacted, will scale back the scheduled wage increases while preserving the tip credit. In its September 18, 2024, order in Mothering Justice v. Attorney General, the Michigan…

  • Post category:Ogletree Deakins
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Tecnológico de Monterrey university pioneers ambitious AI-powered learning ecosystem

David Balleza, a third-year computer systems engineering student at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, has never been a fan of knocking on professors’ doors each time he hits a snag in his studies. His reluctance comes with a caveat: It’s hard to get the right help with the often-abstract concepts of his field. All that changed once TECgpt entered his life. “It’s a game changer,” he says. “It’s like having a…

  • Post category:Microsoft
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Delivering a soft landing: a historical perspective of monetary policy cycles

25 September 2024By Ema Ivanova[1], Thomas McGregor, Stefano Nardelli[2] and Annukka RistiniemiThe views expressed in each blog entry are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the European Central Bank and the Eurosystem.The job of central banks is to help the economy navigate shocks and steer inflation back to target. This ECB Blog post asks what we can learn from past monetary policy cycles about…

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New Government in France: Macron’s (Un)Successful Combination

The appointment of a prime minister hasprovided short-term relief for the French political system, but will not lead it out of the impasse in which it has found itself at the behest of President Emmanuel Macron, believes Alexey Chikhachev, senior lecturer at the Department of European Studies, Faculty of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University.In early September, after two months of behind-the-scenes negotiations with all political factions, the Elysee Palace…

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Can Saudi Arabia affordits ambitions?

Some visibility began to emerge in 2021, when the Kingdom added a key planning tool to Vision 2030: the National Investment Strategy (NIS). This gave an indication of the investments that would be needed to deliver on the plan’s ambitions and of the stakeholders involved in financing them: Vision 2030 calls for a total investment of USD3 trillion between 2019 and 2030 (around three times the country’s 2023 GDP). First stop:…

  • Post category:Credit Agricole
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Palestinian education ‘under attack’, leaving a generation close to losing hope, study warns

The ongoing war in Gaza will set children and young people’s education back by up to five years and risks creating a lost generation of permanently traumatised Palestinian youth, a new study warns.The report, by a team of academics working in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is the first to comprehensively quantify the war’s toll on learning since…

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Artificial Intelligence Disclosures Are Key to Customer Trust

Topics Responsible AI The Responsible AI initiative looks at how organizations define and approach responsible AI practices, policies, and standards. Drawing on global executive surveys and smaller, curated expert panels, the program gathers perspectives from diverse sectors and geographies with the aim of delivering actionable insights on this nascent yet important focus area for leaders across industry. In collaboration with More in this series For the third year in a…

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Microsoft expands its Global Engineering Development Center’s footprint to the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi

The Development Center will support world-class engineering talent in developing cutting-edge solutions that drive innovation and deliver lasting global impact Editor’s note – Sept. 24, 2024 – This release has been updated to indicate this is one of the first engineering centers to be launched in the Arab world. ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Sept. 24, 2024 — Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced it is expanding its Global Engineering…

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Why Small Businesses Deserve More Credit

It’s Wall Street doctrine that small firms struggle to raise capital at reasonable rates and are often rejected for credit lines and loans because banks think their risk profile is too high.“If you really want to drive investment, targeting those firms that look like they have financial slack could lead to substantial growth.” But new research suggests that small businesses are far more fiscally conservative than banks realize. In fact,…

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How Can We Boost the Power of Renewables while Reducing Electrical Demands?

As climate change accelerates and wreaks more and more havoc across the globe, a crucial question is how we can increase the share of power produced by renewables while simultaneously reducing demands on the electrical grid. Policymakers have an important role to play in this transition, but businesses arguably have a bigger one.  In 2022, the U.S. produced 4.24 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity, which resulted in $488 billion in…

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Lockheed Martin’s Stacy Kubicek on using multidomain tech in defense

The defense industry has long endeavored to equip forces with enhanced communication by connecting technologies across land, sea, air, and space. This goal might seem easily attainable in today’s smartphone-enabled world, but aging hardware, fragmented install bases, and inconsistent standards across devices and networks may weaken secure communications. As adversaries continue to deploy electronic warfare capabilities, defense forces could benefit by eliminating system frailties and creating a strong multidomain operating…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:6 mins read
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CEOs Are More Optimistic about the Economy Than the Rest of Us, and They’re Probably Right

At our Yale CEO Caucus last week, we surveyed approximately 60 top CEOs in attendance on a broad range of economic issues. While our anonymous straw poll was informal and unscientific, the results suggest that CEOs are increasingly and broadly optimistic about the economy—in fact, much more bullish than just about any other group in the nation. The CEOs we surveyed are surprised by the strength of their views, as…

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New Portability Right Applies to Employers with Employees in Québec

Quick Hits Effective September 22, 2024, Law 25 provides employees and consumers in Québec in both the public and private sectors with the right to data portability. The purpose of this new right is to allow individuals to access their data and transfer it to another legally authorized organization of their choice. Private businesses have thirty days to respond to requests, and private-sector entities have twenty days, with a possible…

  • Post category:Ogletree Deakins
  • Reading time:7 mins read
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Discrimination Claims: philosophical beliefs in the spotlight

Can a belief in English Nationalism be a protected belief? This issue was tested in the Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment in Thomas v. Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Background Under the Equality Act 2010, it is unlawful to treat someone less favourably due to their religion or philosophical belief. In this case, Mr Thomas had been engaged through an employment agency to delivery consultancy services to an NHS…

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Driving the future: How connectivity will shape the truck industry

Momentum around connected and data-enabled services in commercial vehicles is accelerating. Data-enabled services are critical for new opportunities in charging energy solutions, connected insurance, the automotive aftermarket, advanced financing solutions, and transport as a service [TaaS]. Their potential to solve complex problems for OEMs, automakers, and fleet managers is too enticing to ignore. And those possibilities could yield serious value creation. According to McKinsey research, data-enabled services could represent a…

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  • Reading time:12 mins read
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Artificial Intelligence as a Driver for Indonesia’s Technological Transformation

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies occupies a special place in Indonesia’s national policy, which is aimed at fully digitalising all sectors of the economy. Joko Widodo, when he was the President of Indonesia, said that any country “that controls AI can potentially rule the world.” With this statement, he elevated the role of AI in Indonesia’s digital transformation and launched a series of initiatives aimed at laying the…

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The big shift: Moving commercial vehicle OEMs to centralized E/E and Software

In an era marked by rapid technological advancements, the commercial vehicle industry stands on the cusp of a transformative evolution. The decentralized electrical/electronic (E/E) architectures that have long been the backbone of vehicle operations are now being redefined, and so is the software running on them. To master this evolution in E/E architecture and unlock customer value, commercial vehicle OEMs and their suppliers can take a software-centric approach to transforming…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:17 mins read
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When Moving Sideways Makes Sense

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Slower promotions and a weaker job market have led to a lot of folks feeling stuck in a rut. The solution might be moving to a new role within your company — which can help you grow, stay engaged, and increase cross-functional connection.…

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Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative – Sept. 2024 update

In November 2023, we introduced the Secure Future Initiative (SFI) to advance cybersecurity protection for Microsoft, our customers, and the industry. In May 2024, we expanded the initiative to focus on six key security pillars, incorporating industry feedback and our own insights. Since the initiative began, we’ve dedicated the equivalent of 34,000 full-time engineers to SFI—making it the largest cybersecurity engineering effort in history. And now, we’re sharing key updates and…

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Do Nudges Help Americans Save for Retirement? Not as Much as We Thought.

As a young finance scholar, one of the first topics Professor James Choi tackled was how automatic enrollment in retirement plans affects Americans’ saving. Two decades ago, putting employees into a 401(k) by default, rather than requiring them to proactively opt in, was a novel idea. Choi and his collaborators found that this small nudge yielded significant effects: at one company they studied, automatic enrollment increased 401(k) participation rates by…

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A road map for revving up the Asian electric two-wheeler market

Electric two-wheelers, with their affordability, ease of access, and environmental benefits, are leading the charge to vehicle electrification around the world. Electric two-wheeler markets in Asia are loaded with potential. Annual sales in the Indian electric two-wheeler market, the second-largest globally, are expected to increase from one million micromobility units in 2023 to seven to nine million units in 2030. Southeast Asian (SEA) countries are expected to have combined sales…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:12 mins read
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Protect Your Brand: Trade mark infringement

Stephen Baker and Oliver Williams of our Dispute Resolution team explain how to protect your brand from trade mark infringement. Businesses with established brands are often targets for trade mark infringement. On the internet it is easy for infringers to try and pass themselves off as established brands. If another business is using your brand name or logo or a knock-off to hijack your customer base, you may have legal…

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California Legislature Sends ‘Driver’s License Discrimination’ Bill to Governor

Quick Hits If Governor Newsom signs SB 1100, FEHA will prohibit employers from requiring job applicants to have a driver’s license, with limited exceptions. California already makes it a violation for an employer or other entity to discriminate against individuals with driver’s licenses issued to undocumented workers. SB 1100 would amend FEHA by adding Section 129454.8 to the California Government Code to prohibit an employer from including in “a job…

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Coping With Disruption

The past two decades, have seen many industries shaken to the core by a series of digital disruptions. This started with the advent of the internet, followed by the rise of social media, smartphones and now the shockwave of generative AI (GenAI). Industries such as media, advertising, mobility, tourism and telecommunications look fundamentally different today than even just five years ago. While management pulls out all the stops to stay…

  • Post category:INSEAD Knowledge
  • Reading time:9 mins read
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Energy inefficiency and inability to downsize pose even bigger threat to low-income pensioners than loss of Winter Fuel Payments, study suggests

The study, published in Energy Research & Social Science, was completed shortly before the Winter Fuel Payment vote was taken, by researchers from the University of Cambridge and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).The researchers raise particular concerns about the impact of the policy on pensioners with annual incomes of between £11,300–£15,000 for single pensioners and £17,300–£22,000 for couples. Drawing on data from the English Housing Survey, which sampled nearly…

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Governments can learn from Silicon Valley as they tackle AI and data science

A new study from the Oxford Internet Institute (part of the University of Oxford) and the London School of Economics examines how governments have gradually adopted Silicon Valley’s way of working. This shift offers valuable lessons as the new UK Labour government looks to embrace AI and data science in public services. However, the study also highlights ongoing challenges, such as outdated IT systems, reliance on conservative tech providers, and…

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How batteries will drive the zero-emission truck transition

Road freight vehicles account for a significant share of global CO2 emissions. Hence, minimizing their carbon footprint is a vital step toward achieving global climate targets. Over the past decade, governments, fleet operators, and truck OEMs have realized this need for action and have gone to significant lengths to make this positive change happen. Today, the only effective way to reduce these emissions is by switching from combustion engines powered…

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  • Reading time:28 mins read
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A Long awaited Australian privacy reform comes to fruition

The Australian Government has today published a draft Bill outlining the next steps in Australia’s Privacy Act Review process. The changes to be implemented by the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 include the introduction of: A statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, which has previously been referred to as filling an “increasingly conspicuous gap” in Australian law regarding the rights and remedies available to individuals following a…

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When the money runs out: K–12 schools brace for stimulus-free budgets

As the end of ESSER funding approaches in September 2024, K–12 district leaders are reflecting on which investments were effective to help shape their priorities in the post-ESSER years ahead. In this third and final article in our series on K–12 district funding, we follow the flow of funds to attempt to answer three key questions: Did K–12 districts spend the stimulus effectively and meet their priorities? How can district…

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How talent can power the ‘telco to techco’ transformation

Telcos worldwide want to evolve from traditional connectivity providers into customer-centric, platform-oriented innovators akin to today’s top tech players. Industry leaders and experts view this shift toward broader services and partner ecosystems as the most promising path to reignited and sustainable growth after many years of declining performance (especially in the European market). As the CEO of one global telco recently noted, “We finally have a shared industry mantra: from…

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Links between air pollution and mental health

In a paper published by the British Journal of Psychiatry Open, researchers led by psychiatrist Professor Kam Bhui at the University of Oxford, say that while poor air quality is a risk factor for mental illness, progress in understanding the causes and impact has been too slow. With the climate change crisis affecting air pollution, the researchers urge a team approach, encouraging researchers across different disciplines, both regionally and globally,…

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Underwriting collaboration in the insurance industry

Company Details Industry: Insurance Company size: 13,500+ employees Project Scope: Data Governance team Services provided: Operating Model Consulting, Agile Transformation Coaching, Agile Delivery The situation A leading multinational insurance company, the foremost provider of general insurance in Australia and New Zealand, embarked on an agile transformation journey within its data department. This department, comprising 190 employees, aimed to enhance data governance and implement a robust data strategy that would foster…

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Crises, Stakeholders and Merger Success

Shifting influences Perhaps more importantly, our analysis found that the strength of these stakeholder influences is actually dynamic and can be negatively impacted by external economic crises.  For a start, an economic slowdown or recession reduces the bargaining power of the labour force. This is because a tough economic environment can lead to more extreme outcomes. When faced with the risk of their company being liquidated, it is understandable that…

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The pension basics you need to know if you’re dreaming of retiring abroad

Retiring abroad is a dream for many people nearing the milestone. Whether you’re picturing a sunnier climate or want to move closer to family, there are some implications you might need to consider when managing your pension. According to a report in Moneyweek, more than three-quarters of pension savers would like the opportunity to leave the UK behind when they retire. Perhaps unsurprisingly, seeking better weather was driving 46% of…

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