3 great European Entrepreneurs improving lives with mobile, 3D printing and retail in the cloud!
SmartCamp season is in full swing in Europe this month, and I've got some great news I want to share with you!
Let's start in Warsaw, Poland!
Have you ever considered how convenient it would be to create a mobile app in under 24 hours? Kinetise has, and that's why they won the IBM SmartCamp Warsaw event!
Kinetise is a SaaS solution for rapid and easy creation of mobile applications for small business, a great fit for IBM MobileFirst!
Even the most complex and advanced applications can be built with Kinetise because their development engine supports a wide variety of functionality, including design freedom, 2-way communication with external servers, user authentication, and integration with various popular APIs. Follow them @Kinetise.
Next up is Berlin!
Tiramizoo won the SmartCamp Berlin event with their same-day delivery cloud solution!
Tiramizoo provides a same day delivery solution for local e-tailers and retailers, and it combines online- and offline-shopping while supporting every multi-channel concept.
With their Cloud-based solution, Tiramizoo is setting a new standard with the guarantee of a reliable, affordable and timely delivery from retail to the local customer. As a result, sales increase due to a better conversion rate and higher customer loyalty. It integrates the online shopping with offline retail stores product availability to a real Smarter Commerce experience. The solution also considers optimal delivery routes and different vehicles, from e-bikes to trucks to reduce CO2 emission and traffic, which helps in building a smarter, and cleaner, planet! Follow them @tiramizoo.
And now on to London!
Andiamo won the SmartCamp London event with their ground-breaking 3D scanning and printing orthotics service for disabled children. SalesGossip took the People's Choice award.
Andiamo's goal is to provide high quality orthotics and reduce waiting times. Think about the positive impact that can have on the patients and their families! And talk about smarter healthcare! Their solution can dramatically improve healthcare services, reduces costs for heathcare providers and touches the lives of disabled children globally. Follow them at @AndiamoHQ.
What an impressive bunch of startups from across Europe! Congratulations to all our winners! I can't wait to see what happens at the SmartCamp Europe regional final!
Helpful links:
Kinetise: https://www.kinetise.com/
Tiramizoo: https://www.tiramizoo.com/en
Andiamo: https://twitter.com/AndiamoHQ
SalesGossip: http://www.salesgossip.co.uk/
Bluemix Girls' Night Out! Encourage and Empower Us Geeks!
Women in the workforce today face a number of challenges and pressures that make their experience unique. For women working in IT, that includes being outnumbered almost 3 to 1. And yet, the IT industry and computer related roles offer many of the benefits and flexibility that women seek.
According to recent statistics, women hold 51% of positions in the workforce today, but only about 26% of positions in IT. Since 1985 the number of women receiving degrees in computer science has fallen from 37% to 18%.
As a woman, this is particularly frustrating, as the IT industry and IBM have provided me with a number of opportunities for success and development that are not available elsewhere. And there are so many other women who have been able to achieve success as well.
And with the advances in cloud, mobile and social, many of the barriers to create our own opportunities are being removed. Women are playing pivotal roles in startups as leaders, developers and decision makers.
With this in mind, IBM has developed our Bluemix Girls' Night Out events. These events offer women opportunities for career mentoring and include a focus on enabling them on best practices for cloud-based development using PaaS such as IBM's Bluemix platform.
Girls' Night Out is meant to give women of all levels of experience and knowledge a place to come together to support each other, and help spur creativity and community. We are looking to partner with other local organizations to help host and execute them.
And in NYC, we are hosting a Bluemix Girls' Night Out partnering with Digital.NYC to bring this program to their members on October 22, at our facilities at 590 Madison Avenue.
Our goal is to help foster the next generation of women developers, leaders and entrepreneurs, Because our industry needs the talent and ideas to spur the next generation of technology to advance and change our business and lives.
And we have already seen the impact that these types of events can have. When you bring a group of talented women together, and empower them with support and knowledge the impact is almost immediate. And it only strengthens the communities, businesses and teams which they are a part of.
If you are interested in hosting, partnering or participating in one of these events, please let us know. We look forward to meeting the next generation of leaders, innovators and developers.
The Watson Ecosystem Expansion on Bluemix and in multi Industries!
We (IBM) announced 7 new Watson API services available on BlueMix, enabling developers to use a wide variety of Watson capabilities. The first wave of Watson-powered apps is debuting in industries such as travel, retail, healthcare, and more. One example is a new company launched by Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity and Kayak.com, aimed at reinventing the travel experience with Watson.
Transforming Travel
WayBlazer (Austin, TX), a new company led by travel visionary and entrepreneur Terry Jones -- founder of Travelocity and founding chairman of Kayak.com, is looking to redefine the travel experience. Researching travel alternatives can be a near impossible chore. Even for travelers that know their destination and dates, the sheer breadth of options and overwhelming amount of data requires visiting 20 or more website to research, compare, and book a leisure holiday. Powered by the cognitive intellect of Watson, WayBlazer knows, engages, advises, and learns about a consumer with each interaction, using a visual and natural language interface to make sure optimal travel choices are made. The Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB) is using a version of the new WayBlazer app. With the app, the organization hopes to improve convention bookings, increase hotel bookings and provide additional revenue streams from Ecosystem Partner and affiliate marketing opportunities. Watch WayBlazer "Unbox" their app here.
Transforming Retail
Red Ant (London, UK) is helping retailers, including Three, a UK-based mobile company, ensure sales associates exceed customers' expectations with its Sell Smart app built using Watson's cognitive computing technology. The mobile app is a retail sales trainer that lets employees easily identify individual customers’ buying preferences by analyzing demographics, purchase history and wish lists, as well as product information, local pricing, customer reviews and tech specs. It uses voice or text input to enable a simple question-and-answer interface against the wealth of information available within a retail business, including product information, copybooks, manuals, customer reviews, and more. Red Ant is a Watson Mobile Developer Challenge winner.
Reflexis (Dedham, MA) is working with Watson to enable retailers, Quick Serve Restaurants, hospitality, and other companies to uncover hidden demand triggers and provide the best possible customer experience. The company’s Watson interconnect module for the Reflexis StorePulse real-time execution application enables companies to drive best-practice actions in response to local events, social media buzz, news, weather, and other influences that affect customer demand. . Watch Reflexis "Unbox" their app here.
Sellpoints (Emeryville, CA), an e-commerce technology provider, is unveiling its Watson powered app called Natural Selection, which uses natural language to put the right products in front of the right shoppers at the exact moment they’re ready to buy. For example, when a shopper searches for a product using natural language, such as “My second grader needs help learning science basics,” the cognitive app returns product results sorted by relevance, which subsequently increases conversion rates for the retailer.
Transforming Non-Profit
Findability Sciences (Waltham, MA) is bringing a Watson app to the non-profit sector to enable funders and donors to ask questions using natural language and receive answers instantaneously. This enables funders to make smarter investing decisions and better work to maximize existing investments to deliver the most impact. Watch Findability Sciences "Unbox" their app here.
Transforming Veterinary Care
LifeLearn (Guelph, Canada) is changing the way veterinarians practice medicine by empowering them with the new LifeLearn Sofie™ mobile app, which helps doctors research different treatment options for animals. LifeLearn's beta client Animal Medical Center in New York is just one of the leading industry partners using LifeLearn Sofie™ to help improve patient outcomes. The Sofie app, built from scratch with Watson, crowdsources the expertise from the entire profession by analyzing data from text books, knowledge from doctors and teaching hospitals, and uses natural language Q&A to provide veterinarians immediate possibilities that equate to third and fourth professional opinions. Watch LifeLearn "Unbox" their app here.
Transforming Healthcare
GenieMD (Pleasanton, CA) is using Watson's cognitive intellect and data analysis to understand an individual's personal health profile and asks Watson questions for the user so they don't have to in times of concern. For example, the GenieMD mobile app analyzes a persons profile and sends push notifications to the user with information on how to manage their diabetes or how to prevent hypertension. GenieMD is a Watson Mobile Developer Challenge winner.
Welltok (Denver, CO) is calling upon Watson’s unique ability to process massive volumes of health data and content within seconds. Building on Welltok’s health optimization platform, CaféWell Concierge dialogues with consumers and provides dynamic, personalized guidance to optimize their health. Watch Welltok "Unbox" their app here.
@Point of Care (Livingston, NJ), a service provider for the health care industry, is using Watson to help physicians support patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The physician-facing mobile app is helping the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America enable MS patients to better track and manage their symptoms easily from any device and will be rolled out across @Point of Care’s 15 other therapeutic areas.
Transforming Information IT
SparkCognition (Dallas, TX), the first cognitive security analytics company, has created a Cognitive Security Insights (CSI) app with Watson to process data to deliver advanced cyber threat defense. Unlike existing security solutions, the Watson powered CSI app thinks like a security expert and can help stop threats for an enterprise. Client ExamSoft, and early adopter, is currently using CSI to reduce the costs associated with false positives, incorporate automated learning systems in the organization that retain critical knowledge, and enable intelligent detection and remediation that can keep up with a rapidly growing number of threats.
CHIPS Technology Group (Syosset, NY), an IT help desk provider for small-to-mid-sized businesses, is using Watson to help their engineers revolutionize the way IT support service is delivered. Watson enables CHIPS engineers to quickly source and provide clients like IT Solutions, Inc. with a high level of customer service, whether working with a mainstream or proprietary app. By rapidly processing an extensive collection of disparate resources, including articles, white papers and manuals, Watson delivers the right tech support response to end users on the first try.
This announcement reinforces IBM's strategy to fuel an ecosystem of innovators that are helping make cognitive computing the new standard of computing.
Helping Developers Create a New Class of Cognitive Apps
We also extended the reach of cognitive computing by introducing new cognitive services that will be available on IBM Bluemix, As you know, Bluemix runs on SoftLayer, IBM's global cloud infrastructure. Now with little to no barrier to entry to cognitive tools, Bluemix users can access an evolving set of APIs and content to build apps, powered by Watson, that help accelerate, enhance, and scale human expertise for confident decision making.
The new services available through Bluemix include:
- User Modeling: Uses linguistic analytics to extract a set of personality and social traits from the way a person communicates. The service can analyze any public communication the user makes available such as their text messages, tweets, posts, email, and more. Users of the service can understand, connect, and communicate with people on a more personally tailored level by analyzing personality and social traits.
- Machine Translation: Converts text input in one language into a destination language for the end user. Translation is available among English, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and French.
- Language Identification: detects the language in which text is written. This helps inform next steps such as translation, voice to text, or direct analysis. Today, the service can identify 15 languages.
- Concept Expansion: Analyses text and interprets its meaning based on usage in other similar contexts. For example, it could interpret “The Big Apple” as meaning “New York City.” It can be used to create a dictionary of related words and concepts so that euphemisms, colloquialisms, or otherwise unclear phrases can be better understood and analyzed.
- Message Resonance: Analyzes draft content and scores how well it is likely to be received by a specific target audience. Today, analysis can be done against people active in cloud computing or big data discussions but future versions will let users provide their own community data.
- Relationship Extraction: Parses sentences into their various components and detects relationships between the components. The service maps the relationships between the components so that users or analytics engines can more easily understand the meaning of individual sentences and documents.
- Question & Answer: Interprets and answers user questions directly based on primary data sources that have been selected and gathered into a body of data or “corpus.” The service returns candidate responses with associated confidence levels and links to supporting evidence. The current data corpora on Bluemix focus on the Travel and Healthcare industries.
- Visualization Rendering: Takes input data and graphically renders it as an interactive visualization that can range from a common business chart to more advanced layouts. The visualizations can be easily modified to match user needs, visual styling, and types of data being analyzed.
9 Spokes and Tapit win at SmartCamp Down Under with Cloud and Analytics!
A huge congratulations to 9 Spokes and Tapit for being named the winner and people's choice winner, respectively, of the SmartCamp Sydney competition!
9 Spokes was the judges' choice with its integrated software dashboard. They select apps through a rigorous accreditation program and then make them available to the user through a dashboard environment. No more sifting through thousands of apps trying to find the best match for your industry. They've already located them for you, and made it easy to access!
Also, they use the power of the cloud! You can access 9 Spokes and all your apps from any Internet connected device. Everything is at your finger tips!
Tapit's solution deploys, manages and analyses contactless technology, such as Near Field Communications tags, Beacons and QR codes. Using powerful Tapit visualization reporting, clients can easily make sense of how people are interacting with their Tapit-enabled infrastructure in real-time. Their solution provides an easy to use platform that instantly tells you how and where people are engaging with your content, as well as channel format and device.
With Tapit, it's easy to see how people are interacting with your Tapit-enabled infrastructure in real-time.
Great job to our winners and good show to the Sydney team!
IBM Navigator on Cloud: Try it for 30 days to Manage your content
Did you know that 2.5 billion gigabytes of data are created every day? And, that as much as 80 percent of that data is comprised of unstructured content such as contracts, claims forms, and permit applications.
The explosion of content, and more importantly new forms of it including tweets and posts to social media, has increased the need to use any type of information from nearly any source.
IBM Navigator on Cloud, available on the IBM Cloud marketplace and built on SoftLayer’s Cloud platform, is a SaaS offering that can help all businesses gain value from a huge amount of content. You can even interface to IBM Navigator on Cloud via open APIs. In addition to being a secure, scalable and reliable platform, IBM Navigator on Cloud is also easy to use and delivered through a modern user experience.
IBM Navigator on Cloud has put IBM as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management for its completeness of vision and ability to execute. Also, the leading analyst firm IDC, for the 8th consecutive year, ranked IBM number one in worldwide market share for content management. It's a great tool to use and manage your content and files!
To learn more about IBM Navigator on Cloud, check out the video below! You can also try IBM Navigator on Cloud for a 30-day trial period.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrSgbNtsoH8&w=560&h=315]
IBM Hackfest - India's biggest Virtual Hackathon - Code with Bluemix. Powered by Softlayer
The IBM Cloud team has successfully launched the IBM Hackfest, India's Biggest Virtual Hackthon. www.hackfestindia.com - It starts from 11th August. Code with Bluemix. Powered by Softlayer.