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Tech With Purpose News
In this week’s Tech With Purpose news summary I’ve discovered three interesting projects on water security, using IoT and AI, some powerful AI for Good applications, the electricity cost of cleaning and preparing water, a start up from India looking to help salvage precious materials from scrapped vehicles, a couple of SXSW winners with Tech With Purpose products, a plus a couple of interesting Sustainable Tech cohorts to look out for.
However the article that really stood out for me was one that highlighted a few moving AI for Good projects tackling the global human trafficking crisis.
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30 Sustainable Startups selected – UN SDGs
Startupbootcamp launches Startupbootcamp: Sustainability in second IPO to focus on accelerating 30 sustainability focused startups, aiming to achieve progress towards The UN Sustainable Development Goals Read more here.
Realtime IoT Sensors – AIrQuality, Traffic ..
Lisbon launches sensor network for real-time data focusing on air pollution, noise, traffic and more. The system will leverage an ope data platform to enable analytics and real-time visibiliity of city-wde environment data for the authorities as well as authorised thrid parties. This is part of the €520 million Sharing Cities investment programme. Read more here.
Recycling precious vehicle resources
Vehicles are a treasure trove of precious materials, yet their recycling is somewhat haphazzard in many parts of the world. This Indian start-up aims to help solve some of the major problems, including lack of technology, supply chain and infrastructure. Thank you to Rameshwar Gattani for submitting this news. Read more here.
EV production hit by Chip Shortage
Two opposing articles about electric vehicle production – one about Xiaomi stepping into the EV market, and another about manufactures like Nio halting production due to semiconductor shortages. Read more here.
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SXSW Pitch Winners
Tech Helping Find Jobs
SXSW2021 pitch winner, HonestJobs uses AI to help “people impacted by the criminal justice system find employment fast”. Read more here.
Theme Park XR Taxi Rides
Holoride, another SXSW2021 pitch winner combines XR with driving data to turn every ride in to a “Theme Park” experience. A few thoughts jump to mind with this
- hygiene – how to ensure the headset is cleared each time
- data – what kind of bio and personal data can be combined with journey information
- there is a potentially large advertising and data market for this service Read more here.
Artificial Intelligence
AI rescues Human Trafficking Victims
Examples of how AI is being used to try and help protect and rescue the estimated 40 million victims of human trafficking. Examples include IBM’s partnership with STOP THE TRAFFIK, and a facial recognition tool from Emily Kennedy, Carnegie Mellon University graduate, called Traffic Jam that has a success rate of 88% and has led to the rescue of hundreds of human trafficking victims across the US and Canada.
Check out the article for more powerful AI for Good projects focusing on tackling human trafficking, including Spotlight from Thorn and crowd-sourced applications called TraffickCam which uses images submitted by the public to track down victims by analysing the carpet and furniture of the motels and hotels they might be pictured in.
If there is just one app you check out from this article, check out TraffickCam. Read the full article that covers all these AI for Good applications on Analyst Insight, here.
Microsoft AI and Social Tech Trust Announce 13 Social Impact Startups
In partnership with Social Tech Trust, Microsoft AI for Social Impact programme, announced 13 UK-based startups have been selected to take part in its AI for Social Impact scheme. These startups will develop artificial intelligence healthcare, manufacturing and resource solutions to help with the post-COVID recovery. Read more here.
Human centric AI
Eugenie.ai is selected as company of the month on AnalysticsInsight. Eugenie takes a human-centric approach to AI, finding opportunities to combine human intellect with AI power to derive results greater than the sum of the two. I previously talked about the topic of Humanistic AI in this talk. Read the Eugenie news here.
Water, water, everywhere but not for long?
IOT Improving Water Security
According to the WRI, 6 billion gallons of water are lost per day in teh USA due to leaky pipes, and given the rapidly deepening global water crisis, waste like this needs to be addressed urgently. Vodacom subsidiary, IOT.nxt announced a series of IoT solutions to help improve water infrastructre and reduce this wastage. (mention iotxt, wri, vodacom) Read more here.
8% of the World’s Energy In Water
Did you know that’s producing, pumping, treating and transporting water consumes 8% of the world’s energy? Me neither. This article discusses some of the technologies that could be used to improve efficiency and help protect water supplies. Read more here.
Harvesting Water from the Air
On the surface, this new physical phenomenon sounds like a game changer – harvesting water from the air without having to apply external force. However, it makes me wonder what unintended consequences there will be from drying air at scale? Read more here.
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