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Latest stories of our network
Cyborg, cyborg, where art thou? Right here. I'm joined by Kaspersky's Marco Preuß to discuss the future of human augmentation with two people living augmented lives.
What’s the future of human augmentation?
Will the future be focused on human augmentation technologies meant to expand independence for people with disabilities, or as a launchpad to help push biological boundaries? Could it be both? That's what we'll be discussing on today's edition of Tomorrow Unlocked livestream talks, this time in association with Kaspersky NEXT, the event about the latest research and technology realities of tomorrow.
Rainer Bock and Marco Preuß talk to two people living augmented lives that are worlds apart. Tilly Lockey lost her limbs at a young age to an illness no doctor thought she would survive. Now she's one of the most important bionic influencers, leading a better life through AI-assisted arms. We're also joined by Wojtek Paprota, founder of Walletmor. This tech startup installs a legitimate payment solution for its users in the form of a bio-implant. Cashless cyborgs built out of sheer curiosity.
What do Tilly and Wojtek have in common, and where do they think the future of human augmentation lies?
- Tomorrow Unlocked > Hack Your Brain With Brain Augmentation Tech ›
- Tomorrow Unlocked > What is Human Augmentation? ›
- Tomorrow Unlocked > Human augmentation: Best video stories ›
6 signs you'll make it as a tech entrepreneur
Do you have what it takes to lead a tech start-up?
Feeling like you're back to the same-old, job? It's frustrating when your ideas at work go unrecognized, for reasons outside of your control. What if you were making all the decisions? Do you have what it takes to lead your own tech start-up?
Here are six qualities that make a successful tech entrepreneur, coming from those who've broken the mold of what it means to be one.
1. You embrace diversity and don't let your gender hold you back
Christina Morillo - Pexels.com
The tech industry benefits from diversity. But there are still perceived barriers for women, like lack of role models, stereotypes and inflexible working hours. The good news? Change is underway. A new Kaspersky study shows over half of women working in tech feel women are represented in leadership roles, and 7 in 10 feel confident and respected at work.
There's some way to go to having gender-balanced tech teams: only 1 in 10 work in female-majority teams, while 1 in 2 work in male-majority teams. Let's be the change we want to see – don't place limits on what you want to achieve in your career.
2. Uncertainty doesn't faze you
Starting a tech business is riddled with uncertainty. You need to be able to make a plan when the goalposts, and the ground beneath your feet, are moving. And you'll need to be able to adapt to change fast. You'll never have all the answers, but you'll still be able to see ways to move forward. Did you know that Tesla and SpaceX, both flagship companies of Elon Musk, came close to failing? The first electric car created by Tesla, the Roadster, had big production problems and SpaceX had many launch failures before its final effort was a success.
3. You're willing to develop, improve and even throw out your ideas
Tech entrepreneurs don't decide their 'baby' is the right solution and doggedly cling to it. Stories like that of Elizabeth Holmes – inventor of the blood-test biochip that never existed – show just how destructive hanging onto a dud idea can be.
Great tech entrepreneurs want to solve the problem more than they want to be right about how it's best solved. They're more interested in being useful than in being popular.
4. You can be persuasive, but you're more substance than style
When you run a start-up, you need to win people over to your idea, time and again. From securing funding to motivating your team, you need to be tireless in inspiring people to give you their best. And you're not just selling your product, you're selling yourself.
Contrary to popular belief, leaders don't need star quality – experience and skills predict success better than charisma. But you do need to make people believe in what you can do.
The famous author and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said: "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
5. You're happy to do whatever needs doing
Early in the life of your start-up, you'll need to turn your hand to all kinds of tasks that won't feel like what you were born to do. If you're the kind of person who tends to think, 'that's not my job,' or you've developed advanced skills in avoiding tasks you don't like, tech entrepreneurship may not be for you.
Did you know that the search engine and company we know as Google today, has started as a PHD project? At the beginning, the world wide web wasn't that big. As a matter of fact Larry Page, one of the founders of google collected the links on the web by hand. He didn't know exactly what to do with it but it seemed to be a good idea, because no one had ever collected the links before. This seems inconceivable today!
6. You can cope with imperfection, and you're willing to put your ideas to the test
Free Creative Stuff - Pexels.com
Gone are the days when entrepreneurs jealously guarded their ideas up until the moment of a giant, glitzy launch. Perfect is the enemy of good. And in tech, it's usually much easier to get a prototype or beta version out to gauge the response than it is with other kinds of products.
As anyone who's done user research will tell you, the biggest shortcomings of products often aren't what the team thinks they are. Testing with real people isn't a luxury; it saves time and money.
Leading your own start-up almost always means working long hours and testing your skills to their limit. Few succeed, but if you have these six qualities, you have a great chance of being among those who do.
The people fighting online child exploitation, one image at a time
Meet Susie Hargreaves and her team.
Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) hunts down child sexual abuse images online and helps identify children involved so that law enforcement can intervene. While the recent pandemic has triggered greater numbers of child abuse images, CEO Susie Hargreaves and her team are fighting back with a new piece of tech.
Defenders of Digital episode one: Internet Watch Foundation
COVID-19 has fuelled a disturbing increase in child sex abuse material online. Our latest Defenders of Digital series begins by introducing Susie Hargreaves's team at Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and explores their mission to make children safer. It also looks at how the pandemic has moved the goalposts and the new tech making a difference.
Where it all began
Formed in 1996 in response to a fast-growing number of online child abuse cases, IWF's 155 members include tech's biggest names, such as Microsoft and Google. They're united by the common goal to rid the internet of child sexual abuse images and videos.
Online child abuse is a growing issue
The pandemic has made the issue of online child sexual abuse material more acute. During lockdown in the UK alone, IWF says 300,000 people were looking at online child sexual abuse images at any one time. What's worse, the material is always changing.
Self-generated content: A dark twist
IWF has recently seen a worrying rise in self-generated sexual abuse material, chiefly among girls age 11 to 13. The victim is groomed or coerced into photographing or filming themselves, which the sexual predator captures and distributes online. In the past year alone, the proportion of online content they're removing that is self-generated has risen from 33 to 40 percent.
New tech making the difference
There are encouraging developments helping IWF with their work. Microsoft's PhotoDNA analyzes known child exploitation images, finds copies elsewhere on the internet, and reports them for removal. It helped IWF remove 132,700 web pages showing child sexual abuse images in 2019. How does it work?
PhotoDNA scours the web for matching images
First, PhotoDNA creates a unique digital fingerprint of a known child abuse image, called a 'hash.' It compares that fingerprint against other hashes across the internet to find copies. It reports copies it finds to the site's host. It's a fast and ingenious way to shut down child exploitation.
Help stop child sexual exploitation: Report abuse images
Internet users who have stumbled across suspected child abuse images and reported them to IWF have been instrumental in starting a process that's led to many children in abusive situations receiving help. If you see an image or video you think may show child sexual exploitation, report it anonymously to IWF.
- Tomorrow Unlocked > Guardians ›
- Tomorrow Unlocked > Defenders of Digital ›
- Tomorrow Unlocked > Fighting for cell phone privacy against police surveillance ›