Categories
AI Tech

Do you believe that AI will eventually replace humans altogether?

Written by : Shweta (SOHAM) R on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Let’s try to understand the term first:

💡What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is a new and exciting field that is quickly gaining popularity. It is a method of making a computer, a computer-controlled robot, or a software think intelligently like the human mind. AI is accomplished by studying the patterns of the human brain and by analyzing the cognitive process. 

It can be considered a tool to assist us to rise above our circumstances.

Before getting threatened and believing in speculations take a moment and register this, AI is a replica we have created to make our lives better.

It is made of code not cells!

Having said that, we must strive for creative sense because it’s just the beginning, we have only touched the surface of what Artificial Intelligence can accomplish. Our thinking capabilities and problem solving abilities are endless.

💡The four A.I. types are:

🧩Reactive Machines

🧩Limited Memory

🧩Theory of Mind(Exits only in theory)

🧩Self Aware(Exits only in theory)

We are currently well past the first type and actively perfecting the second. At the moment, the third and fourth types exist only in theory. 

Most of the recent or past developments are data driven. I am looking forward to the theory of mind and self care developments because their AI will have to deal with thoughts and emotions.

How on earth a machine is going to handle that?? 

According to Forbes AI is expected to see an annual growth rate of 37.3% from 2023 to 2030. AI continues to revolutionize various industries, with an expected annual growth rate of 37.3% between 2023 and 2030, as reported by Grand View Research. This rapid growth emphasizes the increasing impact of AI technologies in the coming years.

A quarter of companies are adopting AI because of labor shortages as labor shortages become a pressing concern, 25% of companies are turning to AI adoption to address this issue, according to an IBM report. AI helps businesses optimize operations and compensate for the lack of human resources.

Software engineers and data engineers are being recruited for AI support

As AI becomes more integrated into businesses, there is a growing demand for AI support roles. In 2022, 39% of businesses reported hiring software engineers, and 35% hired data engineers for AI-related positions, according to a McKinsey report.

97% of business owners believe ChatGPT will help their business

According to Forbes Advisor, a staggering 97% of business owners believe that ChatGPT will benefit their businesses. One in three businesses plan to use ChatGPT to create website content, while 44% aim to generate content in multiple languages. More than half believe AI will improve written content. 

Over half of respondents, 54%, believe that AI can improve written content, suggesting that AI-driven solutions such as ChatGPT have the potential to enhance text quality, creativity and efficiency in various content creation contexts.

💡What can we do to adapt the process?

In the emergence of AI technology, we may need to accept and reassess ourselves. We will need to be equipped skills-wise and knowledge-wise on how to handle and prosper in a world that is continuously changing and improving as days move on.

Conclusively, I will say it is important to get the hang of AI but again try to acquire a balance while you are turning into a robot with AI advancements to keep your natural stupidity alive to be creative. YES, AI is the present, but will it be the future?!

That’s a question mark for me, I believe quantum computing will take over.

Most asked questions

What are the pros and cons of AI?

 Can AI take over the world?

 

Most searched queries

Generative AI 

Machine learning

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Web 3.0 Tech Law Tech

Pixels to Possibilities: Unravelling India’s Gaming Odyssey

Written by : Ankita Sambyal on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership

Who isn’t fond of video games? From teens to adults, isn’t it? Some play video games as a source of living or to relieve stress. 

The genesis of video games dates back to their early development when a human being used to interact with a massive video device and an analog remote to give commands to the machine to move a pixelated character. 

The earliest recorded U.S. video game patent dates back to 1948, known as the ‘Cathode-ray tube Amusement Device.’ Some of the earliest video game examples include the Nimrod Computer, a massive machine weighing over a ton, as well as Oxo (1952), Tennis for Two (1958), and Spacewar (1961). 

However, these early video games were not available for public purchase due to their immense size and high costs.

The evolution in video game technology has witnessed the progression from classic games like Mario to multiplayer gaming and now to the concept of metaverse gaming.

 Ralph Baer, the Father of Video Games, played a significant role in advancing the Gaming Industry.

In 1967, he invented the prototype called the ‘T.V. Game Unit #1,’ followed by other inventions like the ‘Brown Box Light Gun’ and the ‘Pump Unit’ in 1967-68. In 1972, Baer introduced the Video Game Console named “Odyssey.” 

The Global gaming industry experienced substantial growth, with a valuation of USD 231.34 billion in 2022 and a projected value of USD 353.35 billion over the next five years. 

The year 2023 shows promising developments, including the introduction of generative AI support that simplifies gaming development and increased investments in the metaverse.

In contrast, the Indian gaming industry was valued at USD 2.8 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 5.0 billion by 2025.

Considering the exponential growth of the gaming industry, it becomes crucial to establish and enforce regulations to protect the interests of players. 

These regulations should focus on promoting fair play, ensuring player safety, safeguarding minors, protecting intellectual property rights, and preserving the confidentiality of data and sensitive personal information of gamers.

 Additionally, such regulations should consider the financial interests of both the gaming industry and the players.

“Most Parliamentarians don’t have a clue as regards the challenges or the opportunities the games industry faces” – David Puttnam

A videogame can be classified on the basis of mode: – 

    1. Online Games

    1. Offline Games. 

Further, Online and Offline Games can further be classified on the basis of interaction: – 

    1. Game of Skill

    1. Game of Chance.

    1. A Mixture of Game of Skill and Chance.

On 6th April 2023, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India proposed Amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which gives a comprehensive framework for Online Gaming Ecosystem, however, these amendments still fail to address the vital connotations of the Gaming Industry. 

Although, the endeavour has been made through implementing these Amendments to define and explain the terms like “Online Game” (Sec. 2(qa)), “Online Gaming Intermediary”(Sec. 2(qb)), and “Online Real Money Game” (Sec. 2(qd)), however, the definitions and explanations are not comprehensive enough, and there is still a significant gap in the interpretation of these terminologies to fit in the practicality of today’s gaming that we are witnessing in and around.

In 2020, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in partnering with Ernst & Young (EY), released a report stating that USD 817 million has been garnered by the Indian Online Gaming Industry, which involved real-money transactions which depicts that 71% of Indian players are involved with ‘Online Real Money Gaming’. 

Therefore, Regulators need to take a nuanced approach while defining online games and should consider different examples and illustrations to help clarify the distinction between games of skill and games of chance.

    • In situations where monetary transactions are involved in an online game (skill-based or chance-based), it is crucial to adopt a risk-based approach and enforce mandatory KYC verifications for the players utilizing that platform. Additionally, the platform should implement restrictions on financial transactions based on spending limits to ensure responsible and controlled monetary involvement.

    • The legislative amendment should provide clear and detailed explanation of fraudulent activities, that occur in the virtual realm, including services that hijack gaming accounts, theft of virtual identities, fraudulent manipulation of in-game items, cheating and hacking through the use of bots, deceptive game modification, Phony Game Currency Sellers, etc.

    • The legislative amendment should provide detailed and clear distinction of gaming intermediaries and their roles involved in the virtual realm such as online gaming platforms, game developers, publishers, marketplaces etc. along with their roles and responsibilities such as hosting game servers, game distributors, facilitating communication among players, offering customer support etc.

    • The gaming platforms must be legally obligated to provide clear and explicit information on their websites regarding the nature of the game mode in which the player is engaging, distinguishing it is primarily based on skill, chance or a combination of both. By doing so, they will ensure transparency, promote user awareness, and facilitate a fair gameplay environment in compliance with legal requirements.

“The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audio-visual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the metaverse.” – Neal Stephenson

As we have transitioned from traditional gaming to more immersive and interactive experiences facilitated by VR Headsets, we may also witness the emergence of evolved forms of criminal activities in this virtual space. 

Some Countries like Hong Kong are policing the Metaverse to design ‘user safety’ and to educate the public about the potential dangers associated with Web 3.0 and the Metaverse. 

In conclusion, it is imperative for India, which is having a base of 421 million of online gamers and is likely to reach over 442 million by the end of 2023, needs to take a thorough revamp of its gaming regulations to encompass games such as Blockchain-based gaming, Metaverse Gaming. 

By proactively, embracing and regulating these advancements, can help protect consumers, prevent problems of gambling, and ensure a fair and level playing field for all participants that can help India to position itself as a leader in effectively overseeing the Gaming Industry. 

This strategic approach will ensure that India remains competitive and doesn’t lag behind in effectively policing the dynamic and evolving gaming landscape. 

Most asked questions

What is the current size of the gaming industry?

What are the job opportunities in the gaming industry?

Most searched queries

Fastest growing gaming company

Mobile gamers in India

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Categories
HR Tech

How the “DIGITAL AND TECH JOURNEY” has enabled you to work better in the last 5 years or brought about challenges.

Written by : Ritesh Mathur on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

In a world where we are connected not just via tools and platforms but by data sets that overlap and interlock within systems, the HR technology space saw a renewed focus in the last 5 years. 

The pandemic drew leadership attention towards investing and upgrading their tech stack within HR and made HR leaders more aware and sensitive to using technology to manage remote teams. 

In the midst of all this, we still maintained the human connection backed by technology. Economic conditions took hiring from an all-time high to stagnant growth but the need for disrupting technology used by HR teams globally has never been more prominent. 

From hiring to talent management, layoffs to upskilling the needs of the business in this modern era are putting more pressure on HR leadership to solution and scale in tandem with the fast paced ever changing business landscape. 

While building Skanjo.com we too realized how our tech stack has to be in line with the current times to enable companies and candidates to hire in a seamless, efficient and cost effective manner. 

We introduced “Audio Job Descriptions” as a feature because we realized that millennials are more adept to consuming short format content. This helped us build a more intimate humane connection between companies and candidates even before they apply, thus a better candidate experience.

The challenge before the HR community is to think out of the box. Our need to solve problems quickly cannot compromise on creativity and make us integrate existing platforms without thinking through the experience users get. 

With technology now no longer a catch phrase, how are HR leaders going to help develop tools and processes for the next decade? 

Leaders within HR, more than ever, need to question every aspect of tools, systems, processes at their disposal and become change makers that turned the tide in making HR technology for the future.

With companies innovating to make business solutions better, HR will also need to make the overall people experience better.

Most searched question 

What are the 4 main areas of digital transformation?

What are the 3 R’s of digital transformation?

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Categories
HR Tech

Lead the Leaders – Digitizing the 4Cs approach 

Written by : Sriparna Sen on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

In today’s world, start-ups have become as common as daily bread. And I firmly believe this is the beauty of our times. Every start-up comes with new dreams, goals and journeys that are waiting to be charted out. The founders start with a vision and then slowly and steadily people join hands and the voyage goes on. 

For each of these voyages, several storms are encountered and surpassed. It takes the whole crew along with their varied areas of expertise and varied personalities to help the ship sail through troubled waters. And every single member of the organization learns through the journey. This is the best example of “on-the-job” learning that can be provided in today’s times. 

Just like a human pyramid, the organization keeps building up through the years. If the foundation is robust and the channels of communication are strong, then every layer in the pyramid is cohesively aligned towards the goal. 

Some start-ups achieve this by maintaining a flat hierarchy so that it’s easier to communicate and some start-ups achieve this by maintaining a strict growth path for their leaders. 

But, the underlying principles are the same to achieve organizational success for these growth-phase start-ups. 

They need to focus on an emerging set of middle managers. It is immensely critical. I call this the “Lead the Leaders” approach.

Like everything in our world today, technology can play an important role in implementing this approach efficiently in your organization during the fast-paced growth phases. If we can digitize the onboarding and learning of early stage managers, it’ll help in minimising losses and maximising productivity. 

In my experience, the 4Cs of Manager Development need to be incorporated into the culture of growth-phase start-ups.

  1. Co-create the learning vision and strategySenior leaders, along with HR (and Learning experts), need to stitch a learning strategy for all managers in the organization. The learning strategy has to be customized for the industry and the company. Tools like Appreciative Inquiry can be useful. 

  1. Coaching programs – Ownership and empowerment comes with self-confidence. Every manager needs to act as a coach. For that they need to learn what are good coaching skills. Companies need to create in-house coaches and sponsorship programs for future leaders. There is a quote in the book – A Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt – “Coaching is no longer a speciality; you cannot be a good manager without being a good coach.”

  1. Competency driven career paths – Several start-ups see team and organizational efficiencies in their early days which “seem” to diminish as the company grows. Most of this is due to the lack of capturing the competencies which created the original winning streak. Creating the right competency matrix and then implementing it for every job role is a key factor in developing future leaders. 

  1. Communication and creating a culture of trust – Finally, the one ring to rule them all! The leaders, HR and the systems in the organization – all need to come together to communicate regularly and consistently the learning vision and the competency based approach to the managers

The great thing about the market today is that there are several Learning Management Systems (LMS) built and sold which cater to all categories of companies. But this is also the bane of it – how do you choose the right one? 

The simple answer is – always keep your end objective very clearly written when you research the market for the right technology for your setup. And trust me when I say, most of these tools are built for being customized for your company as long as your requirements are crisp and clear.

Any LMS that you deploy for your employees should be able to implement the 4Cs that you stitched for your unique environment. You need to ensure that the system is built with and drives your approach if you hope to see any success in developing your talent.

Here are some of the tips that work well, in my experience: 

  • Define the objectives 
  • Check and review the learning strategy 
  • List your expectations from the system 
  • State all the people and culture constraints 
  • Ensure ability to easily evaluate learning outcomes and generate reports 
  • Do a thorough market research 
  • Compare and get product demos for all your stakeholders 
  • Review and confirm the post launch support 

Companies will thrive only when digitisation and humanisation are used in a collaborative way to understand human behaviour. If you can support your new and emerging people managers to lead their teams well, then your business will not just survive, but thrive in this VUCA world.

Sriparna Sen is General manager HR | People and Culture @ Great Learning

Most searched question

What are the 4 C’s of effective leadership?

What is digitalization leadership?

Most searched queries

Leadership Summary

Leadership as a process

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Categories
Food Tech

Food Security in Singapore Through Innovation with Innovate 360

Written by Science Centre Singapore on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)
Illustrated by Eric Lua

Founder John Cheng gives us a peek at Innovate 360’s development

90% of the food we eat in Singapore is imported. In order to have better food security, the Singapore Food Agency aims to achieve their “30 by 30” goal which is to produce 30% of our nutritional needs locally and sustainably by 2030. 

Currently, many start-ups in the food tech industry, such as the ones under Innovate 360, are using new and innovative ideas to achieve this goal. 

Food tech is an emerging industry that uses technology to find innovative solutions for food related needs. Through their inventive spirit, consumers can enjoy products that are not only healthier but are also good for the environment. 

In Singapore, food tech start-ups are one of the ways we can enjoy locally produced food!

Innovative 360 is a food accelerator that helps food tech start-ups to successfully grow by providing them with necessary skills, facilities, and fund-raising to help scale their business. 

Additionally, these start-ups are exposed to Innovate 360’s vast network and experience. 

ISawTheScience was privileged to have a peek at the development of Innovate 360 and its start-ups from its founder, John Cheng. He is also the director of Cheng Yew Heng, a sugar manufacturing company in Singapore, and a key driver in Singapore’s food innovation ecosystem. 

What was it like for you as a kid growing up exploring the sugar factory?

When I was growing up, trying to explore the sugar factory was like a wonderland. Basically, it was fascinating visiting different processes and understanding how we manufacture (sugar).

I never really knew much of the processes until I got into the business when I was much older. Before that, it was really just very interesting to see and smell. When you come to our factory, you can actually smell the sugar.

Did your experience growing up in the factory influence how you see the food tech industry?

When I was growing up, I kind of watched how a lot of our processes were done very manually. Some of the things that I wanted to do when I went into the business was to try to modernise this business and that was through automation. 

While automating, I met a lot of people in the industry who knew more than me. So, I tested with them and that kind of influenced how I went into the tech side, which, really, is all about collaborating with people. 

You know, business is about people at the end of the day, but it’s also tapping on the scientific knowledge of the experts in the industry to be able to help my business.

With that knowledge at our accelerator, Innovate 360, we have all the expertise to collaborate and help start-ups. 

What sparked your interest to start Innovate 360?

So, I started Innovate 360 in 2018 for the company to pay it forward, but also to find new products that we could sell through our distribution. So initially, it was really to find ways to help ourselves. At the same time, we wanted to look at innovation and create an impact through start-ups and that was one of the ways we see fit. That is how innovate 360 started.

Why do you think food tech start-ups are important to Singapore’s future development?

Food tech start-ups are important to Singapore’s food system and to Singapore’s future. They not only bring a very disruptive kind of business model, but also help to create new businesses or create some sort of new and bigger impact to what we are trying to achieve, which is a higher opportunity for more people in Singapore trying to create 30% of the nutritional needs by 2030.

In the future, do you see these new food products being used in local hawker centres?

For a lot of start-ups, when they create a new product, it tends to be limited in quantity. Because of that, they normally only focus on the premium market and because of that, people always have the conception that it’s expensive, but sustainability doesn’t need to be just for the rich. 

Sustainability should be for everybody. I hope that our start-up products will be for the mass market eventually. Once the scale is reached, then we are able to lower costs as well. 

I hope the start-ups quickly find themselves in the market. It takes a lot of consumer awareness, knowledge and demand that will help them to drive future demands and then production and that will lower their cost. 

To answer your question, I guess it will eventually be at hawker centres. So maybe, the next time you have char kway teow, then it will be char kway teow with plant-based egg or even cell-based cockles.

With your experience in both business and innovation, what is your message to aspiring entrepreneurs in Singapore who are eager to start their own food-tech start-up? 

My advice to aspiring start-ups is — always try it, go for it but know your consumers, know who you are selling to, know what you are trying to do at the end of the day and with that, improve Singapore’s food system and you would be able to be successful start-ups.

I really hope that aspiring start-ups think about getting into food entrepreneurship. They would think about their customer, what problems they can actually solve, and then, from there, they will have a very supportive ecosystem here. Chances are that they will be very successful as well. 

And I think it is about today’s goal — it is really about collaborating with others. If you don’t have some knowledge on how, it’s always good to work with someone who has.

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Science Centre Singapore

Categories
Climate Tech Wellness/Beauty Tech

The Green Age of cosmetics

Written by Science Centre Singapore on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)
Illustrations by Lim Daphne

As consumers we have a responsibility to the climate while shopping for personal care items.

The infographic below can be used as a guide to look for what ingredient is climate friendly as we buy our cosmetics.

Text Description automatically generated with low confidence

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Science Centre Singapore

Categories
Ad Tech

Recycled advertising impressions and eco-friendly campaigns

Written by : Anas Ech-chaoui on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)
Illustrations by Lim Daphne

The idea was born from an inventory recycling idea by Thomas OBJOIS and Julien GALIM.

The two co-founders and entrepreneurs used their previous experience, and they have established this unique technology for digital marketers..

During the rise of programmatic in digital, they realised the downside of the complexity of this technology and established a company for recovering lost ad calls and turn them into valuable/monetizable impressions.

The extent of this phenomenon is still little known, as are the various causes of this consequent advertising mess.

This 100% French-origin company has been combating advertising waste and reducing the carbon footprint of digital campaigns through its pipes.
Ampoule et engrenage contour

Sustainable and profitable solution for publishers

Based on our team’s experience at Lagardère Group, we have seen that more than forty technical problems were preventing the distribution of millions of advertising impressions.

We call them “ghost impressions”.

How this works in a nutshell:

After our script is integrated into the publisher’s code base and we start to analyse the site’s inventory pages and advertising placements, we are able to map the loss and suggest the worth of the “ghost impressions”. After the full launch of the solution, we can identify and recycle the lost impressions in real time. It is important to mention that we respect all Core Web Vitals without impacting the quality of the user experience or the page behaviours such as loading time.

Being in the market for years, we see that the recyclable impressions represent on average 20% of a website’s total display inventory.

In 2022, our technology recovered and monetised more than 19 billion ad impressions.

Where do ghost impressions come from ?

ADVERTISING RELATED ISSUES

    • Connection problems during API calls of solutions (SSPs/Ad Servers/bidswitch…). 

    • Glitches in cross-origin requests to REST APIs or calls to solution servers. No ad response.

SITE RELATED ISSUES

    • Failed or misconfigured lazyload ad logic that does not allow the execution of the slot 

    • Issues in the ad slot CSS that prevent the ad from being displayed

VISITOR RELATED ISSUES

    • Loss of connection to the user’s device caused by micro-cuts 

    • Website or web tools are not adapted to certain browsers

How does our solution work for a publisher?

BCOVERY is a comprehensive technology and it operates by inspecting/scanning the content and HTML structure of the publisher sites.

When a ghost impression occurs due to any technical reasons, our proprietary algorithm analyses the ad call  and makes the impression available to the publisher/advertisers for monetisation.

We are is present in 5 countries and continuously growing.

It supports more than 400 publishers worldwide (France, Germany, Japan, UK, USA)

Milestone 2022 : 

We as a company decided to do more for our environment and help digital marketers in maximising their potentials, therefore and to create the first eco-responsible French Marketplace.

This Marketplace brings together all the publishers’ recycled inventories allowing us to provide incremental, trusted and high-performing impressions to the demand side.

Advertisers – How do we reduce the carbon impact of media campaigns?

Agencies and advertisers are increasingly aware of the carbon impact of their campaigns and realise that not all of the supplies emit the same amount of carbon.

We also see that agencies and advertisers are increasingly favouring low-carbon impact inventories, and we want to help them achieve this…

Echoing the above, BCOVERY convinced and determined about the need to measure and reduce the carbon emissions of advertising impressions and keep a more sustainable overall nature of digital campaigns.

As a matter of fact, using our network, an advertiser considerably reduces the carbon footprint of its media activity. Here are the three drivers:

    1.  Recycled and low-carbon impressions

    1.  Reduced creative weight while ensuring effective communication

    1.  A direct and secure delivery channel (vs. a complex programmatic chain)

Une image contenant texte Description générée automatiquement

What is next?

Our next mission is to create similar marketplaces in other countries and help the digital industry to be more sustainable than before.

The three pillars of our ambition: 

SENSITIZE 

on the importance of the delivery channel in its CSR advertising strategy.

POSITIONING 

advertising recycling as a solution to buyers’ need for great performance and energy savings.

REPLACE 

energy-consuming advertising strategies with investing in recycled, responsible and qualitative inventories.

Finally, one of our achievements:

Our recycled campaigns

ALDI Digital Campaign

    • 80M recycled impressions

    • 60% carbon saving

    • High performance clicks and viewability

In line with its anti-waste strategy and its desire to reduce the carbon footprint of its advertising campaigns, ALDI has partnered with BCOVERY in 2022 and because of our success we renewed our partnership –  as one of the major partners of ALDI for 2023.

If your answer is YES to the following:

You are a publisher and want to know the amount of your recyclable inventory?

You are an advertiser and want to reduce your carbon emissions?

Contact us directly by mail at hello@bcovery.com

Most searched question 

Are recycled products eco-friendly?

What are 5 benefits of recycling?

Most searched queries

Eco friendly campaign ideas

Best green marketing campaigns

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Categories
Art Tech AI Tech

Computers can now create art! But is it the same as human creations? 

Written by Science Centre Singapore on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

For those of us mere mortals, aka not art inclined, we may think of art as the sole bastion of talented creative masters. These individuals epitomise the very best of human creativity

On the fundamental level, art is really not just limited to the masters, everyone of us can indulge in a spot of artistic creativity.

We’ve been using art as an intrinsic way of expressing ourselves; our emotions, and our knowledge to other people.

If we think of art in this way, it can be seen as a form of communication that is unique to us humans. However, recent events have shown that Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has begun to intrude into the art scene. 

An example would be the painting, Edmond de Belamy that was sold for $432,500 – nearly 45 times its highest estimate. This begs us to question if A.I. has begun to eat into this realm that once belonged only to humans.

The present

Currently, A.I. hasn’t had too much influence over the art industry. With people still producing paintings and music albums, we can still believe that art is something that’s made by humans.

However, like the example above, we’re already starting to see signs of A.I. creating paintings. ‘Edmond de Belamy’ is an A.I.-generated painting by a Paris-based collective called Obvious.

Hugo Caselles-Dupré, a member of Obvious, said that “We found that portraits provided the best way to illustrate our point, which is that algorithms are able to emulate creativity”.

Just like Edmond de Belamy, A.I. is also taking its baby steps into the music industry. One example of this is a program called ‘OpenAI’. 

As Jon Porter from TheVerge says, “OpenAI’s MuseNet is a new online tool that uses A.I. to generate songs with as many as 10 different instruments”. 

Not only that, but it can create music in as many as 15 different styles, imitating classical composers like Mozart, contemporary artists like Lady Gaga, or genres like bluegrass or even video game music”. Soon enough, there’s likely to be A.I.-generated songs and art forms.

Now, the question here is – 

If artificial intelligence were to be able to emulate creativity, would that be beneficial or disadvantageous to us? 

Would artists still be able to create inspiring artworks? Would musicians still be able to create soothing pieces? 

Or would all these be taken away from us, and be dominated by A.I.?

We’re already over-reliant on technology in many parts of our lives, and that reliance on technology might rub off with the art scene, and lead us into losing the ability to differentiate human-created art and A.I.-created art.

We might also be wholly dependent on technology in the future to be creative. This might sound a bit far stretched, but it is definitely something that could happen.

AI and Machine Learning

With these questions in mind, we have to plan out the risks that we might take by letting A.I. into the art and music industries.

It might be like letting babies into a playground, or it might be like letting a pack of wolves into a herd of sheep. 

As of right now, A.I. definitely isn’t able to create art with the same quality as humans. 

They’re only able to create art from taking the data provided to them and piecing them together, making them seem unique, but in fact they are still replicated from human creativity.

This is because “art” is a complex thing. It’s not simple for A.I to just learn how to make art out of nowhere. Ken Weiner, a blogger on Scientific American, says that

“Even though the Cloudpainter machine (an artificially intelligent painting robot) has evolved over time to become a highly intelligent system capable of making creative decisions of its own accord, the final piece of work could only be described as a collaboration between human and machine”.

What this means is that with our current set of technologies, the artwork of any A.I still involves a human touch. But what about the future?

There is something called ‘machine learning’, and it is an application of artificial intelligence that provides the system with an ability to take in data and learn and improve from its past experiences and uses.

This is extremely important since machine learning could allow A.I. to create distinctive forms of art and music that may not even closely resemble the input data, opening the concepts of originality and creativity to A.I.-generated art and music.

The future

In the future, with the development of machine learning and A.I., the question is: Is this handmade, or is this made by A.I.?

A.I.-generated images already lurk around in our daily lives, and we might not even notice it until we look more closely. 

A.I.-generated faces, where they take 2 different photos and merge them together; or Snapchat filters, where they locate different spots on your face, such as your nose or your eyes, and put a mask on it, are both examples of A.I.-generated images and videos that have become part of our daily lives.

Sooner or later, A.I., along with the help of machine learning, will be able to adapt to our current world and will eventually create everything for us.

Art would be made by taking previous paintings in order to make a new one, while music would be made by taking previous songs of a specific genre and re-produce beats, patterns, and rhythms all on its own.

A.I. might even emulate human creativity and produce never-before-seen pieces of art.

It feels like we are on the verge of an A.I. revolution in the art and music scene. Just like how jobs were changed, for better or worse during the industrial revolution, A.I. may change the way we view and appreciate music. 

New, different art and music styles could be produced, styles of the past like Mozart’s music could be recreated, resurrected, revamped.

The question here is, in what way will A.I. change the art and music world, and how would we, being creatures able to emulate creativity and the people who gave life to these machines in the first place, deal with it?

Illustrations by Toh Bee Suan

Sources cited:

“Why Is Art so Important to Mankind?” Artistartist-strange-work.com/why-is-art-so-important-to-mankind/.

“Is Artificial Intelligence Set to Become Art’s Next Medium?: Christie’s.” The First Piece of AI-Generated Art to Come to Auction | Christie’s, Christies, 12 Dec. 2018, www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx.

Porter, Jon. “OpenAI’s MuseNet Generates AI Music at the Push of a Button.” The Verge, The Verge, 26 Apr. 2019, www.theverge.com/2019/4/26/18517803/openai-musenet-artificial-intelligence-ai-music-generation-lady-gaga-harry-potter-mozart.

Weiner, Ken. “Can AI Create True Art?” Scientific American Blog Network, Scientific American, 12 Nov. 2018, blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/can-ai-create-true-art/.

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AI Tech

ChatGPT and Generative AI’s – A Digilah view

Written by Vidya Dhareshwar on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Chatgpt, Bard AI and all the generative AI seems to be the current flavour. There is an insurmountable buzz around and about it . 

Everyone has an opinion on its impact and the ways that it can change, how we and our future generations engage with and use tech in our daily lives.

Whilst there have been many concerns on its impact on search engines, students, jobs and livelihoods, the fact remains that this evolution has happened and is here to stay.

ChatGPT alone has been the fastest growing consumer internet app ever with over 100 million users two months after launch. This itself shows the vast potential of generative AI.

 Just as life evolves, so does technology and yet this revolutionary technology doesn’t take away from human intelligence instead it is trained to learn what humans mean when they ask a question. 

Many users are awed at its ability to provide human-quality responses, inspiring the feeling that it may eventually have the power to disrupt how humans interact with computers and change how information is retrieved.

In the context of Digilah, where we like to provide a digital platform for every tech enthusiast to learn and contribute their tech journey and thought leadership, we view chatGPT, Bard AI and all other generative AI’s as an enabler and an opportunity for many of our start up and tech founders to share their learnings.

Let’s talk about the tech startup market in South East Asia alone. As per a Forbes article, The digital and tech industries of this region have enjoyed an enormous boom over the last few years. 

According to Jungle Ventures, Southeast Asia’s technology startups had a combined valuation of $340 billion in 2020, and they anticipate this will triple by 2025.

This is a diverse but very strong prospective market with a focus in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

This market is quite complicated. Many entrepreneurs are hindered by concerns over a difference in mentality and a lack of understanding of how to do business there. We @ Digilah look at this as a huge opportunity.

There is a need to get all of the learnings and journeys of these startups and founders so that this rich knowledge repertoire is available to all. 

Many of them would like to share their journeys and provide their insights but sometimes are busy learning and navigating the markets and business challenges and for some it might also mean a constraint in terms of resources and skills to share their journeys be it content creation or communication skills or just time.

We present the combined power of Human Experience with the generative AI’s in the form of articles published by us at Digilah. Our submission is to use the vast reach of the generative AI tools to start the journey.

What this tech will do is provide for a framework, a skeleton, a structure of an article , a startup founders journey as a start point. This can then be brought to life by adding the content  and context of experience, leadership, success, failures and insights by the tech founders.

These articles are extremely valuable and become a  rich database of insight and knowledge for all knowledge seekers today and for the future.

In short, in our view, ChatGPT, Bard AI AND Human Experience is the opportunity to build the knowledge here at Digilah, all at the click of a key.

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Climate Tech

Eye on Science: Tech-ing Solar Power Generation To The Next Level

Written by Science Centre Singapore on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Reference image of Singapore’s largest solar farm

With the effects of climate change worsening by the day, scientists around the world are venturing into the world of renewables in search of a better alternative for producing clean energy.

Many countries are turning toward the use of solar energy as it is one of the cleanest and most sustainable forms of alternative energy.

For instance, Singapore has built one of the largest floating solar farms in the world to reduce its reliance on natural gas for the production of electricity. 

That being so, researchers have now extended their study of generating solar power not only from the Earth but also in space!

Reference image of a Solar Power Station in Space

The concept of capturing solar power from space and then transferring it to Earth was first introduced in the 1920s by a scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

 Now, scientists are bringing this concept to reality by developing a new form of cutting-edge technology known as the space-based solar power station (SSP). An SSP works the same way as it does on Earth, except that it floats in space. 

The solar power station collects energy from the sun using large sheets of metal known as solar panels. Each solar panel is made up of combining multiple photovoltaic cells, also known as solar cells.

Solar cells are the key component in a solar panel that helps to create an electric current when it comes into contact with sunlight. For energy to be utilised on Earth in the form of electricity, solar panels in space have to transmit the collected solar energy back to earth through radio waves.

Why Build A Solar Power Station in Space?

Today, solar power plants can be found in many countries like India, China and the US. Each solar plant consists of millions of solar panels which can help generate electricity for as many as 200,000 homes.

 However, solar plants on Earth can only function during the day to produce energy, when there is sunlight. Their ability to effectively capture sunlight also depends on environmental factors like weather, cloud cover, air pollutants and dust. 

Unlike on Earth, solar panels in space can be directly exposed to more powerful sunlight at all times of the day. It is estimated that solar panels in space can generate up to 2,000 gigawatts of power constantly. 

This is nearly 40 times more energy than a solar panel would generate on Earth. With such potential, space-based solar stations can undoubtedly help offset the rate of carbon emissions produced through the burning of non-renewables like fossil fuels. 

Challenges to Building A Solar Power Station in Space

Although deemed more functional and effective, there are some challenges to successfully build and maintain a space-based solar power station.

Currently, one of the most significant issues is about finding a safe and suitable way to send the energy generated in space back to Earth for consumption. 

The main concern is that some of the energy will be lost during the travel, leaving only a small amount of solar energy that may reach Earth in the end.

Reference image of a football stadium

There are other challenges to building a solar power station in space, given that a single solar plant may be as huge as 1,400 football stadiums. 

To build something of this size, a large number of heavy solar panels will need to be taken into space using rockets. 

This will require countless rocket launches from Earth, which is expensive and harmful to the environment. On top of this, solar panels in space can be damaged by space debris or any floating objects. 

They may also degrade faster from being continuously exposed to extremely powerful radiation from the sun. 

Future of Solar Power Stations in Space

Despite the challenges, countries like China, the UK, the US, and Japan are already making huge strides in improving current technology and experimenting with building small solar power stations in space. 

For instance, the UK is planning to undertake a huge project to build a solar power station in space as part of the government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, to achieve net zero energy consumption by 2050.

 Similarly, researchers from Japan and the US are working on developing high-efficiency solar cells that can help with the safe conversion and transmission of solar energy from space to Earth. 

With more developments, this groundbreaking invention of building solar power stations in space can revolutionise the future of renewables while helping to curb the effects of climate change on our planet. 

Reference Links Used: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-now-home-to-one-of-the-worlds-largest-floating-solar-farms

https://singularityhub.com/2022/03/18/a-solar-power-station-in-space-heres-how-it-would-work-and-its-potential-benefits/

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AI Tech

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨?

Written by : Marcus Parade on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐠𝐨?

There will be a time sooner than we think, when you will not recognize the difference of a human being and a human robot said an expert of robotics already 10 years ago.

We are still in our early days of AI and robotics and already now, amazing advances have been made in a very short time.

In concern of AI, all kinds of industries are or will be affected, where huge amounts of data are accessible to be processed.

𝐀𝐈 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧 many cases better efficiency, insights and incredible time savings and therefore also support an increased competitive advantage. 

AI is one of the most exciting and rapidly advancing technologies of our time.

𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 trying to figure out the legal and ethical implications of a content world increasingly turned on by AI, is the progress of this technology advancing “day by day”.

𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐥𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 do now for us 🙂💡. We’ve all heard of Alexa, Google and Siri Assistants – these are all examples of AI in the form of virtual assistants

But AI is also being used in a far more wide range of industries – from healthcare to finance to retail and much much more.

For example, AI-powered diagnostic tools are being used to help doctors identify diseases like cancer more quickly and accurately. In finance, AI is being used to detect and prevent fraud.

And in retail, AI is being used to personalize shopping experiences and make precise recommendations to customers.

AI is also being used in many other industries such as transportation, manufacturing, law, astronomy, agriculture, energy – basically 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐭 and again – the AI is getting better day by day …

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 🌎? 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 where I find things get really interesting. Some experts predict that AI will eventually be able to do just about anything a human can do and I personally think even far far beyond in many fields.

For example, AI can be used to perform complex surgeries and improve our mobility and here I do not only mean self-driving cars, but also the overall complexity of traffic and logistics and more.

AI is also expected to play a key role in fields such as natural language processing, image recognition, climate prediction and the bit scary part – military weapons and operations.

What I particularly like is that AI might even find out more about the languages of our whales singing 🐳🎵🐋 as well as other animals 🦅. This will teach us a lot about language structures, communication, emotions of animals and even ourselves.

𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 change the way we consume information, and how we interact with our world 🌏. As AI becomes more advanced, it’s expected that it will be able to “understand ” natural existing and ancient languages, and carry on conversations with humans that are indistinguishable from conversations with other humans.

𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 AI as an additional mega tool that helps our lives to make our challenges easier. 

A bit questionable I personally find though, that there are many start-ups now, tapping markets for people, that want to hold conversations with their beloved ones that have passed away 💛.

Whereas it is often a big challenge to cope with a lost life, I think it is also important to strive forward towards our future. But everyone should decide for themselves and I think experiences will solve many questions.

AMAZING 𝐀𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 process and understand images and videos, and make predictions, decisions and summaries based on all kinds of data. 

What has been recently released for example is the AI used for texting called chat.openAI.com (COAI). The provided data for this platform here is the complete internet that is open and not secured.

𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 Google on “red 🚨 alert”, as their business strategy is nowadays being questioned as them not being up to date enough in comparison to the progresses of AI.

Whereas the search engine of Google relies on their algorithms to search for the most relevant results, will AI be able to provide more and more precise SUMMARIES of different sources combined of what you are searching for.

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞 results, so far the results of the AI and COAI are amazing, but when I read some of the AI texts, you will be able to detect some limits at the stage of today. So far the texts of COAI sound quite emotionless and yet quite perfect in many cases.

As an example, job applicants have been invited for job interviews by letting AI write ✍📜 them their resume as well as the attached letter. In the end, we humans have to decide, if we want to use the AI proposals, adjust it or leave it out. 

And such as in the example with the job interview, no AI can play your individual role, your character and your true emotions while talking in real life face to face.

𝐀𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 ask the AI for jokes on COAI for example, I found them 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐫 a bit middle range. I asked for example 3 times, to tell me jokes about AI:

“Why was the AI sad 😪? Because it had no emotions.”

“Why did the robot 🤖 go on a diet? Because it wanted to reduce its “byte” size!”

“Why was the AI cold ⛄❄? Because it left its algorithms open!”

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞 some examples, where the AI so far is still hitting its limits. It is also possible that these jokes existed already in the internet and that the jokes were not independently combined.

But as mentioned, AI gets better day by day. The AI will even be able to adapt to your personal writing and speaking style and you will be able to “outsource” many kinds of texting AND research.

In my opinion, ANY industry that is involved with any kind of texting or large data research – even companies such as creating advertising spots and many many more, will be affected “massively” by the progress of AI. The innovative ideas however I will stay in our power 🤜 – if we choose to.

𝐀𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 need less employees, as any kind of texting can be done much faster. And the AI even at this stage can deliver very good outputs in order for people 🎭 to have a much faster start with the usage of COAI.

In my opinion, “luckily” so far, the human evaluation and creativity is more than absolutely needed, but let’s talk again in let’s say 10 years again – the dice 🎲 might roll on improved adapted ground …

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐰𝐬 🌈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 sunshine 🌞 – some people are worried that as AI becomes more advanced, it could lead as mentioned to widespread job losses and even the rise of a robot 🤖 “rebellion”.

There is also a concern that AI could be used to create autonomous weapons, and to gather data on individuals without their knowledge or consent.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 Elon Musk, but I find his quote about AI very interesting, that AI could be the biggest threat for human kind. 

Logically I think however, it should “easily” be possible to create secure gateways for AI not be able to become independent and to totally restrict opportunistic behaviour in favour of AI so far.

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐨?? I personally believe that most technological advances will be tried out if it is more or less promising for a competitive advantage.

It’s also integrated in our genes for our survival instinct to strive for technological advances. As AI provides competitive advantages and an easier life, this is and will be part of our evolutionary processes of technology surrounding us. 

It will accompany us now and for our common & united future. As the scientist Darwin already stated “Survival of the fittest”.

𝐄𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 standards will need to be set, as the AI is extracting and combining data from all kinds of previous inputs that is found in our internet. For example the first upload bans for AI artwork have started. 

I can follow these measures and as of now, I think AI inclusion should a t least be identified, but this could also be wishful thinking…

𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫all, AI has the potential to make our lives better in countless ways. 

AI can helps us be more efficient and productive, it can help us make better decisions, and it can help us to understand and interact with the world in innovative, inspirational and faster ways.

And who knows, maybe in the future we’ll all have robot butlers to do our chores and make us 007-🍸 Martinis or whatever … 😁

𝐒𝐨, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 – we – 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐭 – 𝐚 brief overview of what AI can do now and what our future might hold. 

It’s an exciting time to be alive and to see how far AI has come, and it is going to be even more exciting to see what our future will reveal.

The possibilities are quite endless and I am most curious to see how AI will shape our world in the coming years ahead to our common advantage.

𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲’𝐬 𝐀𝐈 𝐢𝐬 still narrow and often yet not so very intelligent, but it soon will be, as the tech is getting better day by day – like the harnessing of electricity – that has changed the very fabric of our human life. 

Some scientists proclaimed that in 2029, AI will be “smarter” than us humans – others say quite a bit later…

𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐮𝐬 hopefully only go as far, as where we humans still remain the ultimate decision making power without opportunistic behaviour. AND having unifying sustainable goals supported by AI, to save our lovely planet with humans living on it 🌍

💛🌹🌞

𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 much you like or found my article somewhat inspiring – 𝐈𝐅 – perhaps you might like to comment or place a 👍 or so? 🌞

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Digi Tech HR Tech

The hidden life-changing (and money-making) power of Change Management

Written by : Lata Hamilton on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

It’s no secret that digital transformation is the hottest thing since sliced bread, and everyone wants a piece of this money-making pie.

Whether it’s going to make your company money or save your company money, the future is new technologies that turn old, manual processes into faster, simpler, automated magic.

But what happens when your digital transformation dream goes up in smoke, and you’re left holding the ashes? You’ve spent bucketloads on innovation and development but for some reason your amazing platform, system or app hasn’t hit the mark, isn’t being used properly by your staff, customers or clients, has run over deadline, and left you feeling you’ve wasted not just money, but also time, effort, energy and hope.

You wouldn’t be alone. 

A massive number of digital projects fail. A 2020 Forbes article found that the number of technology projects which experience serious issues in things like cost, schedule, and goals can be up to 60%! I’ve seen it myself on major digital transformation projects that I’ve worked on with some of Australia’s biggest companies.

But there is a silver lining. The same Forbes article found that the secret to reducing technology project failure rate is often: people.

How?

Through the power of Change Management – which can not only transform your transformation, but also your results.

My simple definition of Change Management is: “moving people from one way of doing something to a new way of doing something, through communications, training, and business readiness, to realise the benefits of the change.”

People are the users of any digital technology – they are the ones that unlock its potential. The sad truth is that people are hard-wired to hate change. 

Even when a new technology could save time, effort and expense, most people will still resist it. 

Change Management encourages inviting people in to co-create and co-design what the change will mean for them, give them, and bring them. It builds trust instead of fear, empowers your people to own their future, and helps them get ready for a new way of doing things.

Here are some practical Change Management-inspired approaches you can use to help launch your digital technology more successfully with staff, customers and clients:

  • Co-design the features and processes of the new system with actual end users so it’s fit-for-purpose, user-friendly, and loved before launch.
  • Get your teams ready for the new way of doing things by clearly explaining to them how their processes and tools will be different and what they need to do to prepare.
  • Build a microsite and provide regular project updates, news, training tools, and resources – as well as a countdown to launch and a forum to ask questions!
  • Do live demos of the technology all the way through development – seeing is believing!
  • Give people the chance to get hands-on with the system before it’s launched – even if there’s still bugs, it will help build confidence in the solution.
  • Create an exciting launch event – bring it to life with a quiz, competition, or lucky draw that requires people to try out the new system, with super cool prizes on offer.

Bringing people on the journey not only changes your experience of leading a digital project, but improves the likelihood of success.

The Forbes article also suggests building soft skills, supporting leadership, and offering better training experiences – which are all things a great Change Management expert can provide.

If you want to learn more about the power of Change Management, download my free “Change Hackathon Planning Workbook” here which steps through how to crowdsource and co-create future ways of working during transformation and change.

Name and title:

Lata Hamilton – Change Leadership and Confidence expert

Bio:

Lata Hamilton is a pocket rocket burst of energy with a big heart… and big hair! She helps women carve their own paths for change in their career, leadership and life. Lata is a Change Leadership and Confidence expert, the creator of the “Leading Successful Change” program, and the Founder & CEO of Passion Pioneers.

Websites:

www.latahamilton.com 

www.passionpioneers.com.au 

Most searched question

What are the 5 key elements of change management? 

What are the 3 C’s of change management?

Most searched queries

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HR Tech

Use the right PLATFORMS

Written by : Lori Figueiredo on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

As a leader you are likely to leave all the decisions on where learning occurs to others.  However there are many reasons why you should be interested in how to create safe spaces where you and your people are learning.

As demonstrated in the earlier example (PROCESS article), if you yourself are an active learner your people will mirror your daily habits. 

If you take the time to become aware of the options and you consciously become an active learner developing yourself aligned to the shared PURPOSE with a clear PROCESS – this in itself is a powerful force aligning your teams to your strategic ambitions.  

Let’s explore how you can think about which platforms could be used.  Going back to first principles – we can learn and therefore create safe spaces on the web, in a workshop or in the workplace.

You as a role model – As a learner, you yourself should be leading the way and being an early adopter curious to explore new learning technologies that enable digital learning

Are you trying out Chat GPT as an example and what enterprise learning technology platforms are you using?  Do you demonstrate that you are learning in the workplace which is called action learning? Are you participating in workshop sessions which enable social learning

What investments do you approve – I have had leaders approve a very expensive learning technology because it had spaceships – which by the way were completely irrelevant to the behaviours, mindset and culture they needed to achieve better results.

If you are consciously leveraging learning technology to upskill yourself, you will be fully equipped to influence the requirements, selection and adoption of platforms that enable digital, social and action learning.

Return on investment – Are you aware if your organization is investing in the right platforms or spaces that best suit the target audience and the nature of the impact required?

Are you purely signing off on budgets that may be totally ineffective, while your entire organization continues on the same track, not making any changes at a behavioural, mindset and skill level?

On the other hand your teams are using their valuable time addressing recurring problems or losing customers from poor service or paying fines for ethical misconduct due to the way the organization works and learns together?

All this is happening because the why, how and where your people are working and learning together is ineffectual.

For example many organizations still spend lots of money on online content with low adoption rates and yet every year these online subscription licenses are automatically renewed.

We are not pro- or anti- digital learning (or eLearning as it was called) or classroom training.  

It is the conscious decision to combine the 3 ways we learn naturally (through Education, Experience and Exposure) with the 3 places where we learn.

So here is a way they think about this and nudge yourself, your leaders and teams to leverage the available PLATFORMS most effectively. 

For each micro-learning experience every team can:

*LEARN on the WEB – use digital learning to identify, curate and consume relevant content just-in-time 

*APPLY the learning in the WORKPLACE – use action learning while working on tasks or jobs to be done

*REVIEW it in WORKSHOPS – use social learning to reflect, assess and adjust your behaviours and results

In fact, this is often referred to as the 4th – which is E for environment. Much research and your own evidence will confirm that creating safe spaces for learning on the web, workplace and workshops is a critical ingredient to drive the critical behaviours and results of any community or ecosystem of people navigating change.

We use a digital-action-social learning cycle using the web-workplace-workshops for each unit of learning from a simple to a very complex learning strategy.

Using this as part of the 5P framework anyone is able to create a highly scalable and sustainable learning, enablement and change strategy with strategic impact. 

Collectively leaders can reach millions of people with deep and meaningful impact on their behaviours and results which in turn leads to people and organizational transformation, success and growth.

Furthermore you are creating psychological safety in your organization which is a fundamental role as a leader. Aligning the PLATFORMS to the PURPOSE and PROCESS, ensure you are leveraging all the possible spaces and embedding continuous learning, adapting and improving as a daily habit into your operating rhythm.

 

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ineffective . . . while your entire organization continues on the same track,
not making any changes at a behavioural, mindset and skill level.any 

Categories
Mar Tech Logistic & Travel Tech

Revive Customer Experience (CX) in the Hospitality Industry

Written by : Krutant Iyer on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

The travel restrictions in many countries have eased. Hotels and group tours are filling up. The travel and hospitality industry were the worst-hit sectors during the pandemic.

The challenges of going through the lockdown. No more dining out, partying with friends, or even setting out on a staycation with family.

We have come a long way. Even though most countries around the world have lifted travel restrictions, people are still apprehensive about booking a flight ticket, pre-paying for a hotel booking, or even dining at their favourite restaurant. But that doesn’t mean people are not keen to go out again.  

The pandemic has changed the hiring landscape in nearly every industry, including hospitality. Now that the worst of the pandemic is over, the industry needs to thrive with the highest focus on customer experience (CX). 

Leaders from the hospitality industry are well aware that compassionate customer service is the key to creating an excellent guest experience and winning their trust and loyalty.

Silent Pitfalls of Customer Experience 

  1. A New Generation of Well-Informed Customers

The post-pandemic traveller is savvier than before and has higher expectations from businesses.

The new-age customer is smart enough to not make a booking online before searching all avenues for the best price available, and if by chance the price on the official website is higher than the one offered by an online travel agency, then that business is likely to see a dent in their revenue. 

From searching and booking the experience to sharing stories about the experience, customers expect businesses to go over and beyond in fulfilling their expectations for ‘something different and hip’ to be considered a full-course 5-star service. 

  1. Bad Experiences Shared by Customers

One bad experience is all it takes for customers to take to social media and vent about their negative experiences.

It is also true that customers are not so driven when it comes to sharing positive experiences and need to be goaded with enticing add-ons or coupons to share one. 

Customers expect instant gratification and to accommodate customers’ on-the-fly requests, businesses need to have holistic visibility of their entire journey to craft top-notch experiences.  

  1. Data Collection and Personalisation

Most hospitality businesses have marked their presence on various digital channels to actively engage with their customers and offer personalised services. However, this is not the case.

Their efforts are hindered by the lack of availability to collect data from various distributed systems and use this data to fulfil customer expectations

When customer data is distributed across multiple systems that have no way of integrating into one, centralised destination, it leaves the customer-facing teams grasping at straws to fulfil customer expectations.

  1. Disconnected with Customer Service Touchpoints

Multi-channel communication hailed the pre-pandemic era. 

However, the landscape has seen unprecedented changes. Most businesses are out of touch with how they handle customer enquiries across individual touchpoints. 

To deliver great customer experiences, the hospitality industry needs to first provide its employees with the resources they need to thrive in any situation. 

An increased focus on CX opportunities as we head into 2023 and beyond will be crucial to boosting team productivity, performance, and engagement. 

Let’s take a look at some important pillars of how the hospitality industry can reboot customer experience with an omnichannel transformation.

Roadmap to Experiential Transformation

  1. Deliver Proactive Customer Service

Having an online presence is just half the battle. The other half is taking a more proactive, consultative approach for online visitors. Rather than depending on conversion rate optimisation (CRO) techniques, have a smart greeting function to welcome visitors. 

While some visitors prefer to browse alone to find the best deals, others will appreciate you asking questions to better understand what they are looking for, and their requirements. 

The most pleasant moment is when the visitor is greeted in the native language. When the customer-facing agent speaks the customers’ language, this shows the efforts the business is willing to make to satisfy their needs. 

A visitor clicks on the live chat link below the smart greeting, for example. From the enquiry window, your sales agent knows the visitor browsed a cosy resort. 

When it comes to the hospitality industry, the customer experience begins right from the moment of discovery and the first interaction. Businesses need to proactively engage with visitors to convert them into paying customers.

  1. Connect Customers with the Right Experiences

Bridge the gap between telecom and digital experiences, by unifying all touchpoints on a single platform.

Businesses can create frictionless and contextual experiences by effortlessly switching between social media channels, emails, SMS, video, and phone to adapt responses. 

Post-pandemic customers are looking for live human support on their preferred channel of communication. Go further and provide them with real-time, humanised experiences at every touchpoint backed by customer intent and sentiment data from a unified dashboard.

Some visitors are hesitant to move forward, in this instance for the cosy resort booking because of some safety measures of the theme park.

It takes a split second for them to leave a chat and never return if their needs are not addressed optimally. 

The ability to share files within the chat widget ensures that the chain of conversation does not get broken, and empowers the agent to keep the interaction contextual. 

To ensure the visitor can make an informed purchase decision, your sales agent even turns the chat into a video call and offers a virtual tour of the resort. 

Conversational AI capabilities can turn the live chat into a live video tour to seamlessly assist customers through the booking process. This will expedite the decision-making.

  1. Humanise Customer Relationships in a Digital World

The hospitality industry needs to transform its customer experience to emulate real-world, personalised services. 

This can be achieved by using smart capabilities such as sticky routing. Sticky routing empowers businesses to direct returning customers to the same customer support agents who attended to their previous enquiries.

Let’s say the customer who booked the resort returns to your website again after a few weeks. This time, the customer enquiries about the availability of corporate booking packages for the company’s annual event. The customer is then directed to the same agent who attended to the previous enquiries. 

Intelligent routing and binding rules act as tunnels to ensure customers receive personalised service and help in establishing efficient workflows. 

  1. Adherence and Compliance with Data Security

Keeping data secure, private, and safe from breaches takes precedence when businesses decide to digitalise their traditional processes.

Currently, many businesses are limited by the strict regulations implemented by the governing bodies on outbound telecom communication services, which impedes their ability to effectively use calls and text messaging services.

Customers’ details are a wealth to a business.

They are highly confidential. Empowering the business with a robust cloud-based unified communication solution is highly essential. 

To connect customers with businesses securely and offering data retention capabilities following the government regulatory requirements is critical.

Key trends driving the hospitality industry

If you are wondering about the forces that are driving the hospitality industry after coming out of the pandemic, these numbers would make you sit up: 

  • 97% of millennials share their travel experience on social media 
  • Approximately 90% of customers are willing to share their behavioural data if it can lead to them being offered an affordable brand experience  
  • 80% of customers feel more emotionally connected to a business when customer service solves their problem
  • Sales in the leisure tourism market are projected to grow at 19.5% CAGR 
  • 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a superior customer experience 
  • Customers who are loyal to a business spend 67% more than new customers

Look forward and understand your customers better

To deliver on ambitious aspirations, the hospitality industry needs a deep understanding of its customers. The needs and expectations are constantly shifting. 

With the right omnichannel CX solution, businesses can offer secure and personalised experiences to their guests while eliminating loopholes from disjointed touchpoints. 

Businesses are paving the path to a brighter future by making efforts to enhance their relationships by proactively engaging with their customers on channels of their choosing.

Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.

Most searched questions

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Most searched queries

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Categories
HR Tech

Adopt a clear PROCESS

Written by : Lori Figueiredo on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)

Every day, as a leader you are “designing learning experiences” – for yourself and your teams.  It’s likely unconscious and it should become conscious as it is a core aspect of being human and achieving breakthroughs – since every day, life is our classroom. 

Most importantly the way you work AND LEARN with your ecosystem of stakeholders influences the way they operate in the way you engage with them. In addition, you are role modelling your behaviours or habits as a learner. 

Every moment of the day you demonstrate how you respond to change – whether you are adaptive and constantly learning, reflecting and improving or whether you are stuck, inflexible and not adaptive at all. Take note, active learning is a future skill identified as critical by the World Economic Forum.

As we know what got you here, won’t get you there which was made famous by the book of the same name by Marshall Goldsmith. 

Yet when uncovering the status quo and the future path ahead, in many leading organisations, leaders expect organizational change and behaviour change as well as different results from their teams. 

Yet they themselves are still behaving and measuring KPIs which directly block the innovation, agility and adaptability required to create the changes expected.  

On the other hand we have worked with legendary leaders who are at every level – strategic, tactical and even at a personal level – are leading the way as active and agile learners.  

When a CEO managing a

billion-dollar organization was consuming new content, applying the new content immediately and then constantly sharing his own formal and informal insights gained daily – everyone in the organization followed his example.

In this organization, you could feel the alignment, you could feel SYZYGY and breakthroughs in performance happened daily! He, furthermore, was well prepared to be involved in the organizational enablers that support agile teams, as he himself was agile.  

He guided the selection of the learntech platforms we explored to enable digital learning. He himself was involved in social and action learning with his peers and subordinates as a daily and conscious habit.  Because of this “operating or engagement model” his people were fully aligned with his strategic priorities and the shared purpose was clearly evident – as depicted in the visual.
Diagram

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Therefore, for leaders and teams to work AND LEARN together in a way that is agile, the leaders of any organization, community or ecosystem need to adopt a clear process.  

What we mean by that is – as a daily habit – to consciously combine the 3 ways we learn naturally towards achieving the pre-defined change or clear PURPOSE

  • Learn key content = Education = LEARN IT!
  • Learn by doing = Experience = APPLY IT!
  • Learn with/from others = Exposure = REVIEW IT!

Let’s use a BIG example, let’s explore the end-to-end professional development journey as a private banker from new hire to being a leader OR a small example, constantly improving how the frontline ensures customers feel welcomed as they enter the store, bank, restaurant or hotel.

For both examples when we are highly effective, we would naturally break up a huge, or tiny, body of knowledge into small independent and discrete units.  This natural phenomenon has been labelled microlearning.  

For both examples high performing individuals and teams would pre-define the PURPOSE to ensure IMPACT.  

As anyone navigating change and their own learning journey, for every microlearning unit, using our PURPOSE, we would have defined what each Learner or group of Learners needs to ACHIEVE (results), DO (behaviours) and LEARN (knowledge, skills and attitudes). 

Whether you are the head of learning or the head of Private Banking enabling thousands of private bankers or a private bank navigating your own development, creating this role clarity is critical.

Now the PROCESS for the consumer of the learning, we go in the opposite direction. We first LEARN the critical knowledge, skills and attitudes through Education. 

Then we immediately APPLY the learning by doing which involves learning through Experience. In addition we REVIEW what we are learning when we exchange, discuss, get coaching, get inputs from others and this has been labelled “Exposure” as part of the highly researched and documented 3Es.

Diagram

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Therefore, to create a clear PROCESS, we start by breaking down the learning into bite-size chunks with every microlearning unit being made up of LEARN-APPLY-REVIEW.  

Let’s think of these units each as an engaging and meaningful learning experience. Thereafter these series of experiences are strung together into learning journeys.  

Finally at an organizational level, many such learning journeys roll up to define the organizational learning strategy. Note that typical organizational strategies when deployed range from including fully end-to-end structured journeys to more dynamic journeys where agile practices are adopted as daily habits.

This visual shows an example of a mobile learning app where the PURPOSE and PROCESS where embedding in to design and navigation of the end-to-end learning journey to enable the required behaviours and results.

From an organisational perspective, we recommend starting with the big picture using the 5P framework to set the overarching learning strategy. Then prototyping specific learning journeys to test and improve the strategy. Over time the specific way of working and learning together for a positive impact is embedded in the culture of the organization.

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