Nigeria’s Carbon Launches $10,000 Start-up Fund, UK Google Users to Lose EU Protection, and US AG Want Big Tech to be Liable for User Content

Africa

Carbon launches $100,000 fund for African start-ups

Carbon has launched a $100,000 “Disrupt Fund” to help and support budding tech entrepreneurs in Africa, it has been revealed. Each successful start-up will receive up to $10,000 in funding while giving Carbon a 5% stake in the company. In addition, the start-ups will gain access to Carbon’s API in order to leverage its technology platform in order to expedite the start-up’s access to market. Applications are now open, and companies hoping to gain funding should post revenue based on a viable product and also be operating or looking to operate in Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Uganda. Carbon is a Nigerian fintech that provides credit, investment, and simple payments solutions to clients.

SFAN to organise Quantum Leap Career Fair

Stars From All Nations, SFAN, is organising the 2020 edition of the Quantum Leap Career Fair on careers in AI and Data Science, it has been revealed. The goal of the fair is to bring together the best minds in the industry to teach participants how to launch lucrative careers in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. Companies will also be ready to recruit from the pool of candidates during the fair. The Quantum Leap Career Fair is an annual job fair organised in Accra to help job seekers interact with industry experts while gathering information on career options. Some of the big participants in 2019 include Delta Airline, Brussels Airlines, and Kosmos Energy. SFAN is an education company specialising in personalised coach support to help individuals launch their business careers.

Europe

Nokia to acquire Elenion

Nokia Oyj has disclosed that is acquiring US optical networking tech firm, Elenion Technologies, according to reports on Reuters. Elenion was established in 2014 and builds silicon photonics for high-performance and short-reach optical interfaces. “Ownership of these key assets brings time-to-market and cost advantages to Nokia’s broad portfolio of networking solutions by applying the massive scale and economies of silicon design and manufacturing to the optical supply chain,” Nokia offered in a statement. Neither company has put a price on the acquisition yet.

UK Google users to lose EU data protection

Google is reportedly planning to move accounts of British users from the control of EU regulators to place them under US jurisdiction, it has been revealed. This was made necessary due to Brexit, meaning millions of British users will have less protection than was the case when they were still in the EU. Google, meanwhile, has its European headquarters in Ireland which is still in the EU. Because it is unclear if Britain will adhere to the GDPR, Google has to move user data into a new jurisdiction and Reuters believe this will be the United States. To continue with this, British users would have to give consent for their data to be transferred. Privacy laws in the US are considered by analysts to be less stringent than laws in the EU.

The Americas

AI developed to rewrite outdated sentences on Wikipedia

Researchers at MIT have developed an AI that can rewrite outdated sentences in Wikipedia articles, according to a report on the university’s website. The text-generating tool locates and replaces stated information in the articles while still maintaining style and grammar. This works by entering information in an unstructured manner while the tool scours Wikipedia for the right page to effect the changed. The tool would make it possible to rectify factual inaccuracies in Wikipedia using a fraction of the time human effort would require for such things. The tool was presented in a paper at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Darsh Shah, a PhD student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and one of the lead authors said, “Instead of hundreds of people working on modifying each Wikipedia article, then you’ll only need a few, because the model is helping or doing it automatically. That offers dramatic improvements in efficiency.”

US AG questions need to shield online platforms from liability for user posts

US Attorney General, William Barr, has questioned the intention behind shielding big tech and social media platforms from liability arising from posts by users, it has been reported. “No longer are tech companies the underdog upstarts. They have become titans,” AG Barr noted at a public meeting held to examine the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The section frees online platforms of any liability arising from content posted by social media users because the companies are not the publishers. Lawmakers across the aisle want a change in the section to make big tech responsible for the content published on their platforms.

Asia

Malaysia AI-based virus-profiling tool for visitors

Malaysia’s MYEG Services Bhd has built an AI-based coronavirus risk-profiling system for visitors from China, Reuters has reported. The company said it was handing over the system to the governments of Malaysia and the Philippines. Malaysia has banned all visitors from Chinese provinces already under lockdown since the coronavirus broke out. Despite these efforts, it has received 22 confirmed cases while the Philippines has suffered 3 cases. MYEG Services worked with Beijing-based Phoenix Travel Worldwide to develop a system that uses a person’s historical geolocation and other factor to build a coronavirus risk profile. The system analyses a “vast number of available data points, including visitors’ previous known whereabouts as well as heart rate and blood pressure readings crossed-referenced against public transportation ridership and exposure to locations with incidences of infections,” MYEG said in a statement.

Foxconn to resume output in China

Major Apple supplier, Taiwan’s Foxconn has announced it plans to cautiously resume production at its Chinese plants, according to a Reuters report. The company has however warned that it might not hit its revenue targets as a result of the coronavirus. Foxconn’s production volumes will be helped by factories in Mexico, India, and Vietnam operating at full capacity. Meanwhile, Apple has conceded that it might miss revenue target due to slow growth in the Chinese market. The news caused a slight repression in Foxconn’s shares.