technology

Assorted links – September 2018

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Elon Musk agrees to resign as Tesla chairman in settlement with SEC

Folli Follie Says Probe Found Asia Sales Overstated by 90%

The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order

Google Play Just Changed EVERYTHING

Apple acquires Shazam, offering more ways to discover and enjoy music

10 δωρεάν εφαρμογές που κάθε φοιτητής πρέπει να έχει στο κινητό του

A decade after the global financial crisis: What has (and hasn’t) changed?

Alibaba Puts the Brakes on U.S. Cloud Expansion

Best free Android apps of 2018: 100 you must download

Greece was never bailed out – it remains locked in an EU debtor’s prison

THE RISE OF THE COMPUTER-GENERATED CELEBRITY

IMF Damns Greece’s Post-Bailout Growth Plan With Faint Praise

Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

 

Assorted links – March 2018

/ Stathis Kassios / Leave a comment
Hello friends, here’s some of the online articles around IT, business, technology, finance, media, economics, politics, and other interesting stories I have been reading lately. Let’s launch your new web project together. Enjoy!

WhatsApp co-founder who made billions from Facebook now says to delete it

Automated trading platform AlgoTrader raises €1.1 million

Game Theory Scowls at Trump-North Korea Talks

Forget $100,000 bitcoin, says Kenneth Rogoff — try $100 instead

Time is FAST – Capture the MOMENT

Moovit raises another $50M led by Intel for its urban transit app, plans Mobileye collaboration

Trump Embarks on a Gigantic Fiscal Experiment: Debate

Stathis Kassios

Assorted links by Cyber Consultant

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How the World Has Changed From 1917 to 2017 

CHANGE IS NOT A ONCE IN A WHILE THING ANYMORE

Tech, Transport, Tourism, Transformation — What To Know About The Sharing Economy In Africa

H καλύτερη εφαρμογή για τις μετακινήσεις σας

One of the latest international projects I have developed, Sloa Camp. Sloa Camp will bridge students from Asia with universities in Europe and USA.

0 % corporate tax within the EU – Bulgaria. Contact me for an introduction to Innovires Business & Legal Consulting Office.

Future Match 2017. March 20-24 Hanover, Germany. 

 

 

Assorted links by Cyber Consultant

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The Economist: What history might tell us about AI: https://soundcloud.com/theeconomist/babbage-what-history-might-tell-us-about-ai

EVOO Virgilliant @ Hellene.gr: http://hellene.gr/product/virgilliant/

Cloud Office for small business owners in Greece: https://sevdesk.gr/

The End of the Euro?: http://stathiskassios.blogspot.gr/2016/06/the-end-of-euro.html

A plan to revitalize Greece: https://hbr.org/2014/06/a-plan-to-revitalize-greece/

Web Design Studio Beautiful Pixels (use discount code ”BeautifulPixels2016”): http://www.beautifulpixels.gr/

moovit newsletter May 2016: http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c24727311fc31f651cff01770&id=949d7530a7

The story of Noowit: http://stathiskassios.blogspot.gr/2016/05/interview-with-nikolaos-nanas-co.html

ebay launched virtual reality department store in Australia: http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-launches-virtual-reality-department-store-in-australia-2016-5?&platform=bi-androidapp

If Amazon reaches $3 trillion, remembers these 5 Jeff Bezos commandments: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-key-business-lessons-amazons-122837929.html

Apple’s Latest $1 Billion Bet Is on the Future of Cars: http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-1-billion-didi-investment-revs-up-autonomous-car-push-1463154162#

13 ways HBO’s ‘Silicon Valley’ nailed the real tech industry: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-hbos-silicon-valley-gets-real-tech-industry-right-2016-5?&platform=bi-androidapp 

Euro Area to Debate Greece’s 321 Billion-Euro Problem: Chart http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-08/euro-area-to-debate-greece-s-321-billion-euro-problem-chart

YouTube will now let brands automatically buy ads on its hottest viral videos: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-preferred-breakout-videos-2016-5?&platform=bi-androidapp

 

My predictions for 2016. Trends in a globally connected world.

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Dear readers,

Time flies. It’s this time of the year again that I would like to share with you my predictions & trends for 2016.

– The sharing economy platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, etc. are not only disrupting current business models, they are also creating jobs and generating income for unemployed or even low paid people. These platforms establish a new type of professional life away from the norms of current & old labor laws and traditional employment. See this research for referenece: http://mercatus.org/publication/evaluating-growth-1099-workforce

– Internet of Things: we hear & read more and more about the Internet of Things (IoT) and how our lifes will be transformed hopefully for the better. All electronic devices that we use daily will be connected to each other and with the world wide web, collecting and exchanging huge amounts of data that have to make sense and offer practical advantages. The IoT is predicted to have a $13 trillion impact on the global economy. Imagine vehicles, house devices, company offices, factories & work sites, all riding the connectivity wave and creating smarter and more efficient products & services. See this article by McKinsey: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/preparing_it_systems_and_organizations_for_the_internet_of_things

– Social media & education: these global online networks will play a pivotal role in how people present themselves online. The networks people will be creating matter for the information they share thus education will also be networked online. Maybe we get to see more social networks popping up as with over 3 billion users globally using laptops, smartphones, tablets, more networks will be created to serve these people’s needs. Think poor countries for example where a smartphone connected to the internet, will be a great way to be educated, communicate personally & professionally, gain knowledge of the world outside of the local boundaries that sometimes corrupted governments impose.

– Artificial Intelligence: Machines are getting smarter with all the big data we feed them. Will machines help us in the future or take over our lives and destroy millions of jobs in the various industries and sectors of the economy? http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2015/11/features/wired-world-2016-alain-de-botton-artificial-emotional-intelligence

– Intelligence: due to the fast pace of digital connectivity, a vast amount of information and data becomes available to public organizations, research centers, private companies. As we are building the Everest of data, we carefully have to monitor the intelligence spurring from the top of the mountain which will benefit humanity, eliminate the ”noise” (bad data that don’t make sense) and reduce risks that would appear if sensitive data becomes available to the wrong hands. Organizations and companies will have to protect their data through strong cybersecurity measures and proactive implementation of advanced system security & architecture.

– 3D Printers: 3D printing will lead the very essence of technological & manufacturing disruption across all kinds of industries, using new materials to construct or replicate products in pharmaceuticals, bio-industry, industrial design, space exploration, house building, etc.

– Global growth: according to IMF (International Monetary Fund) the global economy is expected to grow in 2016 by 3.6, expecting a calm growth for Europe, the same growth as last year’s for USA and a bit slower for Canada. The riddle of growth will go to China as nobody can actually predict what is happening in this giant economy due to the lack of trust in their statistics. India will continue to grow strong while Japan returned to recession. Recurring global currency wars and the domestic currencies of Latin American countries will create problems in their development.

– Greece’s Debt continues to increase, probably in a non-sustainable way. Much has been discussed in global news & media for ways to make it more sustainable and decrease the burden of imposing more austerity measures. The co-founder of Hellene.gr, Sheridan Tatsuno, has published an article on ways for Greece to develop its economy beyond its debt through tourism, exports, technology outsourcing: http://hellene.gr/news/beyond-greeces-debt-trap/

Balkan countries have started providing important business incentives by setting zero taxes for new companies as a way to invite entrepreneurs from other countries. This is what I call long term strategic thinking and planning. See the example of Albania: http://digjitale.com/2015/11/zero-taxes-for-startups-in-albania/

– Geopolitical risks: Independent of the exciting news coming from technology, the political problems in countries like Syria, the general turbulence in the Middle East, the involvement of different powers with different interests, will remain a threat for the global markets (refer to the EU stock market indexes when Turkey shot down a Russian jet). The world will also be watching the US presidential election campaign because of the different policies the elected leader will follow on terrorism, homeland security and foreign policy matters.

Because of the interconnectedness of the global economy, national problems become international (see the Chinese stock market crash & repercussions), altering capital flows & investors sentiment. The monetary policy of FED & ECB on interest rates will also play an important role for global growth and development.

My personal wishes to you for health, wealth and happiness in 2016!

Stathis Kassios
Hellene.gr Co-founder
Moovit Operations Consultant Greece
Web Consultant & Economist

 

New project: Zorba the entrepreneur

/ Stathis Kassios / 1 Comment

Zorba the entrepreneur is an online community which aims to promote the stories of entrepreneurs from Greece to a global audience. Our mission is to spread the positive side of Greece’s innovative and creative class in order to reverse the negative image spurred by the media due to the crisis. The fields covered will be around business, culture, arts, technology, fashion, design, films, music, dance, photography, startups, social media, nature, various topics with an entrepreneurial touch and scope. Invite your friends interested in #Greece !

I will be collaborating with an international team, Silicon Valley Global Network & Dreamscape Global for this project.

Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zorba.the.entrepreneur/

Follow us on Google plus: https://plus.google.com/110425612391237679640/posts

Interview with the founders of Pandoo TEK Inc.

/ Stathis Kassios / 2 Comments

pandoo

Please introduce yourself to the readers of this blog and update us on your latest endeavors.

We are a couple of entrepreneurs that are committed to innovation. We founded Pandoo TEK Inc. in Vancouver B.C, Canada to develop the next big thing on the web. Pandoo TEKS’ sole purpose is to turn innovative ideas into solutions by developing the technologies to support them. Pandoo TEK achieves that with serious R&D on personalization and orchestration. Our names are: Michael Patellis (CEO) and George Delaportas (CIO).

A few words about us:

– George Delaportas –
I am a young Entrepreneur. I am an IT Architect and a Security Expert. Hacking and Reverse Engineering is part of my everyday life. In the past 2 years I have developed several technologies and innovations for different fields of science. The most denoted is ALPHA Script – http://alpha-script.localhost-ltd.com/
I have also worked in the space industry with ESA, NASA, etc. My view is towards reshaping the web into a highly personalized and adaptable space/place for every single user.

– Michael Patellis –
I am a Serial Entrepreneur. In the past I founded start-ups in Mining exploration, Air Transportation and Technology. Innovation is my basic principle in any business venture. My latest accomplishment is to fill a need in the Greek tourist and transportation industry by creating from scratch the Seaplane Industry in the country. My true passion though, is innovations over the cloud and the web.

What does the team of PANDOO want to achieve?

In a few words, our mission is to make the Internet personal so that users enjoy a very comfortable, easy and fun way of doing things online. To achieve that we introduce today, PANDOO. PANDOO is a total solution that integrates and personalizes web services, apps and games and provides ease of access and use of information on a friendly environment.

Online trends talk about the next big thing in big data, cloud computing, web apps & services, wearable hardware & computers (Google glass). Established IT companies are aggressively focusing on grasping all aspects of what a user/business wants or needs nowadays throughout the world wide web. How will you manage to differentiate with Pandoo in this highly competitive global marketplace?

PANDOO differentiates by its purpose of existence. It encapsulates, integrates, consolidates, orchestrates and personalizes services, apps, games and technologies together by providing a platform that turns individual vertical solutions into a total horizontal solution! In other words it makes things you do online or did offline extremely easy. PANDOO resembles other well known web apps like JoliCloud, oneLogin, iGoogle, myYahoo!, Blaast, etc. but unlike them that provide individual vertical solutions & services online in form of shortcuts, we integrate them into a total horizontal solution, offer them from within PANDOO web desktop and personalize them on our users!

Would you advise a Greek start-up to incorporate in Greece or abroad?

Although we are Greeks and love Greece, we do not feel like the ecosytem in Greece is mature enough to support and help new innovative startups who seek for global exposure. We suggest to our friends to choose countries like U.S.A and Canada.

Please close this interview as you see fit.

We are currently on heavy development, working hard, aiming for the best possible results. We hope that in the next 3 months we will have an early preview to show to the public. PANDOO is a BIG system and so people have to wait and be patient.

Until then, you may subscribe and follow us through our customer development form: http://pandoo.cc/ where you will also be able to follow us in twitter and facebook. Also, we have recently launched a campaign in Indiegogo where we call all of you, the game changers of the web, the users, to help us make this happen ASAP. Please find more info and contribute in this link: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pandoo-user-sensitive-web/

Finally, we’d like to thank you Stathis for this chance to present our project. We wish you the best with your projects as well and let’s hope that the future will be even more fascinating !

Interview with Hanna Asse. The story of a tech entrepreneur from Norway !

/ Stathis Kassios / 1 Comment
Please introduce yourself to the readers of this blog and update us on your latest endeavors.
 I started my company in social media when I was 24. I had then gone from studying entrepreneurship to working at the University in Kristiansand with Entrepreneurship that I thought it was time that I actually started a company myself. Having lived alone since I was 14 you could say that I in some ways always has been an entrepreneur but I hadn´t yet formed a company. I could see the future of communication being social media. And this was at a time where companies would not have anything to do with Facebook or did not believe it would have anything to do with them at all. And of course they just thought I was stupid when I told them that it would be their prime communication tool with users. I started approaching companies with my new formed social media company and sold services that at that time made them stand very much out from the crowd in social media. I also did public speaking to companies and government on the subject. Public speaking pays ridiculously well in Norway that it was what I made a living from working 3 days a week for a couple of years. This made me think that I didn´t do enough and I had always wanted to create the technology myself. So when I year after year was good at hitting the mark on “what´s next in social media” I thought I would try to create what I actually thought was going to be what´s next. And that´s what I have been working on for the last 1,5 years that´s now Wonderloop.me. 
wonderloop-iphone
 You have been an entrepreneur for more than 10 years. Based on your personal experience,  is entrepreneurship something that you learned the hard way by actually doing it or something which has to be officialy studied in universities and business schools?
I think it´s hard to learn because it´s not so much a skill or about being smart as it is about being relentless, stubborn to not give up and combine it with extreme risk sometimes to get results out of it. Sometimes being willing to sacrifice everything for building a product that you think will mean something to many people is what will at least make the product happen and maybe even getting people to know about the product. Personally it´s the part about team work and being a CEO that I probably have learned and value the most of going to University and studying business as well as entrepreneurship. I´m not a natural leader or have a very big wish of being one but here I actually learned a lot from school, at least how to do it in theory that helps someone like me to adapt it since it´s not something that comes natural like I feel being an entrepreneur is. All students should have a class of entrepreneurship only because learning how a company goes from an idea to a business is something everyone should know when they are employed somewhere. You get a different respect for the responsibility of having salaries, expenses and you just all of a sudden understand why the restaurant food is expensive and that it´s just not “but the fish can´t be that expensive”, you then know it´s the rent of the place, the legal fees, salaries, equipment your paying for. The food itself might just be 30% of it ! So for real life as well, one small class of entrepreneurship might just make life a bit more logical as well.  
 
Would you like to talk us about your start-up, Wonderloop? How has your personal meetings and contacts with famous entrepreneurs like the founders of Instagram, Napster, Facebook, Airtime, and many others, have affected your way of thinking, scheduling and implementing business in general? 

I have always been focused on what can be done to meet more people in a persons life that could mean something valuable. We all meet people and some are more life changing to us than others. I want with Wonderloop to create technology where it does not matter where you live in the world. You can meet the people you find interesting. Not only the people you have acces to depending on where you live, work or what social circles you’re in. Taking up a huge lone financially and travelling to Silicon Valley is one of the hardest things I have done. I knew I would not be able to have a salary while I was over there learning how to build the product and I knew it would take months to find team members who would do the coding, if finding them at all. To be there and not have any idea how you are going to pay the money back and that you have taken this huge risk just because you have an idea and a vision to change the world was mentally a big challenge. To be there alone and to be away from my grandmother in Norway who is personally my closest at 87 years old did of course not help! So while I was having awesome interactions with some high profile people and founders I was there on a mission to also have results that I could bring to start the company with. This is of course something they can sense and probably why they liked me. I think being too affected or focused on it will take away the energy where it should be: on building your own company and visions. That said, being with other entrepreneurs who truly understand what it is to sacrifice your normal life and that also has crazy visions and maybe even done it successfully is a big inspiration. I had some moments in Silicon Valley that where aha moments for purpose of life and entrepreneurship that I only fantasized about in my head in Norway and all of a sudden I was in my own fantasy. That´s always a cool moment.

 
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Your personal advice to young Greeks seeking ways to create something new out of the crisis which has been troubling our economy for years, sending highly educated human capital abroad while keeping a dynamic part of our society stagnated due to high unemployment?

It´s hard to give advise as to not having lived in the situation myself, only in some ways the last 1,5 years with not having an income. The stress factor is so big that sometimes at least for me helps to think how short life is as then it´s easier to really focus and pick what´s important. After finding that out I would if possible do shorter trips to where the people are that can make it happen. I would never have been able to do Wonderloop had it not been for me leaving Norway. It´s the richest country in the world in many sense but it didn´t matter. If the right type of resources of people isn´t there then all the money in the world does not matter. As for wishing to work in a start-up or wishing to work in a specific company, I would not care about titles or what I would do in the beginning. Just get in. Once you know the leadership and you have a good relationship with them, then you can always ask to do the work later that you really want to do. Putting up the good energy up front before there might be a reason to have it is very hard but it makes a huge difference in getting to the next step what ever the next step is. Since I´m half Greek by DNA I do think a lot about the situation that Greece is in and I have friends who are effected by the situation in the economy pretty badly. Sometimes I think it´s a lost case to try to change the now, but to just focus on changing the future. There are some extremely good business people in Greece, especially on getting deals done, doing sales as you just are so much more charming and good looking than most average people. Use it !

So, what’s next?

I hope Wonderloop can make a difference in all people´s lives when it comes to the people we meet. I have met some the last years that have changed mine so I know it can happen and to think there can be a technology that can do it for us is maybe a hairy goal but I will do everything I can to at least test it out in the market. That´s what entrepreneurs do, success or failure. But of people I would like to meet it´s actually more Greek people since I´m half Greek by blood I should get more in touch with that side of the world and what better way to do it than thru new friendships? So if there is one user-base I personally would love to see in Wonderloop it´s you guys. I might even do a Greek version before some other languages. Sometimes the founder should be allowed personal preferences in his own product development.

Thank you very much for this interview Hanna !

Links:

http://www.wonderloop.me/

http://hannaaase.com/

Various short interviews conducted by Cyber Consultant

/ Stathis Kassios / Leave a comment

to be continued…