Louis J.

Venture Studios: Where Ideas & Startups Look For Teams. Part - 7 Link to Part - 6: https://lnkd.in/d96ka3Cq Let us look at a few Venture Studios in Europe: 1) ZINC, London: Zinc invests & builds companies focusing on Environmental issues & Health. Some notable companies include Clyde Hydrogen Systems, Willow, Iterum, Joey, Kuma Health, & others. Zinc is managed & led by Paul Kirby(Co-Founder & CEO), Ella Goldner (Levy)(Co-Founder), & others. 2) Alacrité France, Lille, France: Alacrite builds & scales innovative startups solving complex problems. Some noteworthy startups include Whispeak, VizioSense, Matami, Customs Bridge, & others. Alacrite is managed & led by Lionel Hovsepian(Chairman of the Board of Directors), David Descheemaeker(Delegate General Director for Operations), Emmanuel HÉBRARD(Deputy General Director), Alix HOCHEDEZ(Participation Manager), & others. 3) Mamazen Startup Studio, Italy: Mamazen builds innovative startups focusing on solving problems faced by SMEs. Mamazen is managed & led by Farhad Alessandro Mohammadi(CEO), Alessandro Mina(Investor Relations), Alice Ravizza(Board Member), & others. 4) Sparkling Partners, Lille, France: Sparkling Partners creates & builds innovative startups either independently or with large corporations. Some notable companies include Kaertech, NEWCARD, SmartPixels, V-Cult, & others. #Startup #VentureStudio  

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Eben Upton went last year to New York to feel of listing Raspberry Pi in the US as a public company and had a 70:30 conviction towards New York vs. listing it in London. He came back with the opposite resolution of a 70:30 ratio in favour to listing it in London. This week the company listed on the London Stock Exchange after 16 years building one of the most inspiring ed-tech companies to help both kids and adult engage with technology and learn how to build and explore in a better way. Going public is a big move for a startup and you see the journey they had until they made the decision. The decision where to list has so many parameters and like Eben mentions in the interview there are advantages for a particular class of companies to list in New York, and advantages to another class of companies to list in London. Another important point that he makes that if you are engaging in conversations with smart investors in the US they will come and find you and invest even if you are listed in another place. This is another great signal for growth momentum in the UK after Wayve (Alex Kendall) secured a $1b investments from investors like SoftBank Investment Advisers and NVIDIA). I am sure we have more to come here in the ecosystem to prove that companies can start here but also grow and exit here as well. Sherry Coutu CBE Liz Upton Gordon Hollingworth James Adams Richard BoultCarol Copland Mike BuffhamPhilip ColliganJulia HoggettMichal Freeman-Shor Claire Dorrian #uk #startups #investments #publiclisting #IPO #exit #venturecapital #innovation #founders #investors #success #business

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🚨BREAKING: noyb.eu urges Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland & Spain to act against Meta's AI practices. THIS IS BIG. Here's what you need to know: ➡️ According to noyb's official release: "Over the past few days, Meta has informed millions of Europeans that its privacy policy is changing once again. Only on closer inspection of the links in the notification did it become clear that the company plans to use years of personal posts, private images or online tracking data for an undefined 'AI technology' that can ingest personal data from any source and share any information with undefined 'third parties.' Instead of asking users for their consent (opt-in), Meta argues that it has a legitimate interest that overrides the fundamental right to data protection and privacy of European users. (...) noyb has now filed complaints in 11 European countries, asking the authorities to launch an urgency procedure to stop this change immediately before it comes into force on 26 June 2024." ➡️ This is related to many of the topics I've been discussing in recent months, including tech companies' privacy policy changes to train AI and their non-compliance with data protection principles, data subject rights, lawfulness of processing, and more. ➡️ It's also related to my latest posts on the lack of a firm position from the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) on the interpretation of the GDPR in the context of AI training. ➡️ In terms of legal technique, in its complaints, noyb has requested the "urgency procedure" specified in Article 66 of the GDPR. The urgency is due to the fact that Meta's processing for undisclosed "artificial intelligence technology" is set to take effect on 26 June 2024. ➡️ noyb's complaints list violations of Articles 5(1) and (2), 6(1), 9(1), 12(1) and (2), 13(1) and (2), 17(1)(c), 18(1)(d), 19, 21(1) and 25 GDPR. ➡️ noyb says it plans to file complaints in the remaining EU Member States in the coming days. As always, noyb / Max Schrems acting fast! ➡️ This is a very important development at the intersection of AI and privacy. I'm looking forward to hearing what the 11 Data Protection Authorities will say. ➡️ Find all relevant links below, including noyb's informative file "Overview of Meta’s falsehoods and 'spin'." ➡️ To stay up to date with the latest developments in AI policy, regulation, and lawsuits, subscribe to my newsletter (link below). #AI #AItraining #AIcompliance #dataprotection #privacy #noyb #meta

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I have spent half of my life thinking about governance, political and economic systems, and sociology. I've often played mental chess in my head dissecting the pro's and con's of various types of governance - comparing the political theory on paper to different sorts of execution in practice, and looking at how these systems support the masses as well as the individuals. It's 2024 and we haven't figured out voting, asset management, education, finance, healthcare, global diplomacy, or even freedom of information. We've been perverted by generations of oligarchal tyrants and totalitarianistic monopolies - while being led to think that our only options are Communism, Socialism, Democracy or Fascism. I took the time, after many years of picking apart political systems, to build an outline of how we could have a system that has all the benefits of communism (yes, there are benefits - on paper), with the complete freedom of anarchy.. all of the benefits of capitalism, with the protections against oligarchies and extreme socialist republics. While it looks good on paper, it would take a complete mind-shift of the masses in order to incorporate something like this, and would first take us being honest with ourselves, and being willing to admit that we fucked up. An addict cannot recover unless he first admits that he has a problem, and we have all become addicted to convenience, and short term dopamine hits.. and we are surely going to pay for it if we don't make some changes. Without any further delay, here is an outlined proposal of what a new type of governing system could look like for the people of the world: Libertocracy. The governments and corporations of the world today only have authority because we grant them that authority. You cannot build a house ontop of a broken foundation. One must be willing to build a new system to make the old one obsolete. It's time for a change. #government #theory #politicaltheory #politicalscience #systemdesign #politics #globalthreat #tyranny #totalitarianism #communism #socialism #fascism #democracy #capitalism #marxism #libertocracy #freedom https://lnkd.in/eCspHbPP

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Google just released a paper about an AI system (GameNGen) that can simulate the video game DOOM. It's pretty mind-blowing. I'm still thinking about what it means. Two things come up right away.      1) It's pretty astounding, but it's important to keep in mind that this AI is trained on DOOM. Lots of DOOM. What does this mean? It means that it's not designing new games, but simulating an already designed game to which it has had a massive amount of exposure to. You have to design and make the game first. (Ok, as a game designer am I being a bit defensive? 😂)      2) It is not designing a new game, but it can infinitely (in theory) extend a known game. Or anything really. If this concept is extrapolated out, it's clear that some amazing things are coming in the future.      Check it out below! Paper here: https://lnkd.in/gqsCsdQM Github here: https://lnkd.in/gKxvGmHT

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Here's a post from the past, I posted this 4 years ago. BTW Maryam is now at Oxford studying French and Arabic, Danyal is 17-year-old with 4 years full-time coding (i.e. programming) experience, and neither has run away from home (yet)!!! Anyway, I hope you benefit from it... ----------------------------------------- Just over 3 years ago, Danyal became the youngest person in the 30-year history of the Physics GCSE (UK 16+ exams) to have achieved an A*. He was 10. His sister, Maryam, also managed an A*. She was 12. So, neither had studied any physics 5 months before their exams, a two-year course, and they cleared the A* boundary by ~20%. WAIT! WHAT!?! This is how they did it... I got 3 past papers, grouped questions by topic - so 5 mechanics questions, 4 electricity ones, etc… I then told them to do the mechanics questions. They thought I was mad. I told them to figure it out from their textbook or YouTube. Them struggling was crucial - it's the best way to learn - and if they couldn't do it after trying, I’d explain. Progress was very very slow. The alternative, being spoon-fed like at schools, doesn't stick and later on in life that's not how you learn. Anyway, they then went on to the next topic's questions, and once they'd done all the topics they did complete past papers. Erm, that's it. And both went on to get A's in their Physics A-levels (2 year course for 18 year olds), still aged 10 and 12, which they taught themselves in 5 months. With schools shut down, why not encourage your kids to learn one of the most empowering life skills of all? The ability to self-teach.

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You have to love it when you can get a negative review that essentially says "Vendor made a change that makes their work less exploitable" when the software remains under an OSI approved license. People don't inherently understand open source companies. We didn't make KumoMTA open source because we're a bunch of anti-capitalist hippies, we did it because we considered it to be the best option for our customers. To keep that decision in place, our customers need to support us, otherwise the next option becomes either closing up shop or moving to a model that doesn't make supporting our efforts optional. Fortunately for us we work in a very niche space where our customers recognize the value we bring them and the importance of us continuing to do so, and steadily growing numbers of them are becoming sponsors and ensuring the continuous future of KumoMTA. Because of this unique combination of factors we haven't had to look at open core models or source available licenses to succeed.

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A healthy, well-stocked pipeline is the Holy Grail or is it 😉?  What happens when that pipeline becomes overstuffed to the point of chaos?  Imagine someone at an all-you-can-eat buffet, greedily piling their plate high. At first, the abundance feels exhilarating, but soon, they're too full to move, grappling with indigestion. That's your sales team dealing with an overstuffed pipeline. With every rep swamped by a mountain of active deals, chaos inevitably creeps in. They lose track of each opportunity's stage, miss crucial follow-ups, and soon enough, prospects feel neglected, slipping through the cracks like sand. Critical follow-up tasks become spinning plates, crashing down one by one. Overwhelmed reps start cutting corners. They rush demos, gloss over qualification steps, and miss signals that could make or break a deal. Coaching a team in this state is like trying to conduct an orchestra where every musician plays a different tune.      Restoring order to the chaos? 1. Ruthlessly qualify opportunities. Adopt a sales methodology to qualify.  2. Write a sales playbook for the company. Get every seller to follow it.  3. Nurture deals based on priority. What other ideas have you got to manage mid-funnel chaos? 

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Are We Really Prepared for the AI Revolution ⁉ With AI advancing at lightspeed, it's becoming increasingly clear that our legal frameworks need help keeping up. This post explores the critical gaps between technological innovation and legal oversight within the EU, focusing on how these challenges play out in real time. Discovering that my health data 🔺 had been uploaded to a centralized e-health platform—without my consent ❌ —intended to be a pilot for broader European healthcare digitization raises serious questions about the EU's commitment to GDPR principles. How can we trust a system enrolling individuals without informing them? And what does this say about the broader state of digital sovereignty and data laws in the EU? These are just some systemic issues I discuss in the post. - I touch upon the GAIA-X project, its current state and the difference between the EU and the US in supporting innovation by using Palantir as a counter-example. Marc Reinhardt, Bert Hubert - Talking about the GDPR is an occasion to rethink what public services are and must be. Reflecting on the use of AI, the future of the European Digital Wallet, and Citizen Empowerment Marisa Ponti, EDPO (European Data Protection Office) As explained in a pertinent piece by Hannah Ruschemeier: "[…]As in many other areas, however, data protection law is subject to an enforcement deficit [..]" (you can find the link to the article in the resource section at the end of the post).

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The amount of BS being sold online these days is ridiculous. AI was supposed to change things, not make them worse. What people need to understand is that knowing how to code doesn’t make you smart. In fact, quite often, these people hide behind a veneer of complexity so that you don’t question their work. Want to build this product? Six months, 100k+. Why? It’s a big project! It’s so complex! We have to use a DB, and a cache, and a AWS, and a this and that… All these fancy technical words to make it sound so complex and difficult. The sad part is the client is probably thinking, “Wow, what a great job we’ve done. We spent so much money on our new AI product, it’s surely going to be a hit!” Six months later, the landscape has completely shifted. Suddenly, six months turns into 8, turns into 12, turns into 16. The solution is NOT to build a complex system. The solution is to SOLVE the damn problem. Stop buying complexity. Want to understand how to integrate AI the right way? DM me. This is what I do with Mariam R. at Avicenna. Link to the website in the comments. #ai

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The Atlantic cites one of my Similarweb blogs in the second paragraph of this report https://lnkd.in/erJ-_WHp

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You can technically run AI directly in your browser, without needing an whole server/gpu, browsers are extremely powerful these days. I got an AI model working right inside chrome, it downloads the binaries from huggingface and utilises web gpu to process the image https://tiiny.tools (use at your own risk, heavily under progress)

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For the last year I've been writing that small open source companies and innovators will not be able to bear the liability of release of open source software into the EU with the Cyber Resilience Act coming into play. The AI Act has a similar impact for AI and openness. No...I wasn't wrong It's just even worse than I thought and the big companies are the first to say no to these overly prescriptive laws that show absolutely no understanding of how digital actually works. Apparently the EU wants to build a tech sector to challenge Silicon Valley. These new laws are massive inhibitors to innovation and certainly won't enable that.

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Cryptography and Collective Power I'm having a chat with the mighty Phillip Rogaway in the next week or two, so it's great to see this paper being published, and based on his work: https://lnkd.in/ehaKdauZ

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💡Case study in corporate BS ❓When does a corporation decide *not* to release their products into one of the largest markets in the world? 🤔We can safely assume, that the real reason behind Meta’s decision *not* to release their multimodal models in the EU is *the exact opposite* to what they are claiming. 🇪🇺EU regulatory environment in regards to AI is one of the most transparent ones, especially now, after the long-awaited and publicly discussed AI act was published and will be applied starting August 2nd. ⚠️And Meta (as everybody else) needs to comply with AI Act’s copyright and privacy provisions, but most likely can’t. 🧵Remember last year how we got Threads 6 months later than everybody else? It was for the similar reason(s) - at least a basic protection of *our privacy* was one of them. 🤷‍♂️That’s why a corporation decides *not* to release their products into one of the largest markets in the world. 🤝Let’s *not* fall into the corporate BS PR trap here, shall we?

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Breaking: Gartner predicts that 30% of GenAI projects will be abandonned after PoC stage by 2025. Also Breaking: Isn't this the point of Proofs of Concept? If your PoCs aren't cheap enough that you're happy to abandon the ones that don't work for the rockstar ideas - your product team isn't helping you iterate as quickly as it could. Prototyping is the new AI-enabled superpower for product teams. If you want to learn more about leveraging it, come join my free Masterclass on Tuesday, 'The Path to AI Product Manager'. We'll dive into the key skills PMs need in 2024 and beyond - including quickly vetting and prototyping ideas! (link in bio...) #generativeAI #aiforbusiness #aiforeveryone https://lnkd.in/gR4Nr5qQ

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I want to run a bit of a crazy experiment... (even by my standards 👀) With just under a week left of the no-code competition I'm running with OPENFORMAT and BuildShip, I want to help 5 people go from NEVER having built an app or product before, to having something genuinely innovative that they can submit for our competition. If you've had an idea on your mind for a while, want to learn a new (and VERY valuable) skill or you're just a bit mad like me, I think you'll this very intersting. I don't plan on having much of a life this week so you can have a lot of 1-1 access to me for brainstorming, building and to give you a roadmap for getting started. I reckon with 10-20 hours time invested before Sunday we could get to something pretty damn cool. I know it's late notice, and I know it's a bit wild, but I'll ask the question anyway.... Anyone in? 👀 If you're on the fence, you can check out some more information about the competition below (the prizes might just sway you) 👇 https://lnkd.in/ebkAbiR7

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