Tag: innovation

Webit.Festival Europe 2017 shaped the milestones for all things digital in healthcare

The topic will be continued in 2018 with a separate 2-day event called Webit.Health co-chaired by Plamen Russev, the Chairman of Webit Foundation and Prof. Shafi Ahmed, Co-founder and surgeon of Medical Realities. Make sure to book your tickets now, at the Super earlybird price here. 2017 health Summit saw some of the biggest companies’ representatives in the world sitting together in a panel discussion - Rumyana Trencheva, Managing director SAP SountEast Europe, Mr Omer Saka, Partner at Deloitte, Dr Stamen Popov, General Manager Oncology of Novartis and Milena Stoycheva, CEO of JA Bulgaria, moderated by Dr. Rosen Dimitrov, Public Affairs Manager at Novartis. You have a vast experience in healthcare and innovations and wish to tell us about it - apply for speaking here. Ms Trencheva gave a good start of the discussion assuring that megatrends all over the world are not something selected, they are not happening in selected, VIP, countries - they are spreading. The contemporary consumer is demands more and more from the pharmaceuticals, from the technology companies and it is becoming ever more challenging to make sure consumers’ needs are met.

The change of our perception on what healthcare is

Another megatrend that was clearly stated by Mr Saka is the change of our perception on what healthcare is do we mean a pill, a medical device of some kind or a hospital bed. The key solution is finding a way for these three elements to work together in the modern healthcare system. Furthermore, the matter of how much we, as consumers, pay for healthcare came to forefront. It is expected that in the next 10 years or less patients will be treated and will be provided with solutions that go beyond the pill - and this is for the mass, not only for the selected ones who can afford it. Dr Popov clearly stated that pharmaceutical companies no longer rely on the pill as a method of treatment - they broaden their vision using the digital technologies and these solutions will very soon come to patients who need them. This gives a huge advantage - transparency. Each of us, as human beings, is a data center, based on the choices we make every single day. In fact, transparency in healthcare system is a major block each of the technology companies all over the world are trying to achieve.

With this follows one of the most important Megatrends - prevention as the form of treatment

It is considered that people nowadays take more and more care of themselves - in the form of wellness. We will have a huge number of population taking great measurements to maintain their health; in order to survive, people will take ownership on one’s health, environment and the ecosystem as well as putting efforts into changing the ecosystem. Finally, all these megatrends are impossible to happen without collaboration of technology companies, startups to bring fresh ideas and doctors. There’s no need for an engineer to develop an app by himself when they clearly don’t know specifics, rather, it is the healthcare industry to develop and change the ecosystem. Going out of the pharmaceutical industry, the biggest companies are also working on building connections with physicians and to use these relations to  integrate new type of companies into this world. Webit.Health will continue this kinds of discussions in 26th - 27th June with ever more interesting guests who will show in action and demonstrate the modern healthcare - something that is happening now, not some time in the future. If you have an interesting idea and your company is less than 5 years old  - show it by applying here.  

Webit.Festival - a place for minds to meet. Marius Ghenea, the Investment Director of 3TS Capital gave a keynote at last year’s edition about seizing opportunities and avoiding pitfalls in the fast-growing Central & Eastern Europe risk-capital ecosystem. 3TS Capital has been investing in countries in the CEE region for quite some time and Marius, as a serial entrepreneur and angel investor himself has gained deep insight on the specifics of this market. Though being quite underestimated in the years back in time, CEE is slowly but surely getting its footprint in business, tech and innovations. The region has drawn attention not only with unicorns such as Skype, Avast, Transferwise and AeroMobil but also with the emergence of multiple, active and growing startup ecosystems across and around.

CEE sure has its historical, economical and national challenges to overcome

The diversity of this region consists of countries in the EU, countries yet to join the EU, countries with an “on the way” developed startup ecosystem and ones that have yet to work towards the achievement of it. This calls for quite a turbulent, hard to define business environment with ounces of political, ethical and cultural differences ranging for each country. Despite the tiny late development, things are starting to look more and more promising. The IT sector has been rapidly growing, adding to a growing GDP for some of the countries. In the last years, we have seen business association networks popping up in the region. One of the things happening more often now is that a growing number of these national and regional associations have been connecting with large organizations and business angel associations on a European and worldwide level. Webit.Festival gathers exactly the people, entrepreneurs and investors involved in this ecosystem mixed with players in the worldwide scene to create a colorful mix. Check our website for more details of the 2018 upcoming edition.

“Some technology solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than ‘able-bodied’ folks. The person who has a dis-ability today may have a super-ability tomorrow.”

Stephen Hawking

What are the “assistive technologies”?

check the upcoming 👉 Webit.Festival 2018

  Simply put, this is a technology that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of people with disabilities. To give you a quick glimpse into understanding, the name Stephen Hawking would help. Hawking has experimented with numerous technologies of this kind. He has communicated using a spelling card, indicating letters and forming words with a lift of his eyebrows. Then, with the help of a computer program allowing him to select words and commands using a hand clicker linked to a speech synthesizer, he has obtained a voice. By moving a single muscle on his cheek and selecting characters from a software screen keyboard, he is able to deliver his thoughts. Normally, one would say that such technology is good for people with disabilities. That way they can:

• continue learning or
• be able to maintain a profession.

But what is more important is the chance to communicate so they can be in touch with their surroundings or to be informed about their options, make decisions and express their opinion.

Technology has played an immense role in helping scientists invent different devices in order to help people with disabilities.

There are hearing devices already put in use, eye tracking and brain controlled interfaces that help to communicate with a computer. Developments towards making artificial retinal implant that can restore lost vision, cars for blind people, exoskeletons assisting people with movement difficulties, enhanced learning for people with learning disabilities that measures and stimulates the brain’s activity. And the big top: brain computer interfaces - a direct communication pathway between an enhanced or wired brain and an external device. The use and progress of Artificial Intelligence is a big stake in improving people’s lives but the thing is that these technologies are being constantly developed and people have benefited from this but these same people are not so many at all 60% of the people are afraid of the progress in AI and robotics. How much will they develop? Will the scenarios from almost all Hollywood movies on the theme shift to reality?  We will just have to wait till 2045 and see if Ray Kurzweil’s prediction about the Singularity Point will turn up to be true and whether AI will be developed to such an extent that we’ll be able to merge with it. Watch the full keynote of Maurice Grinberg, Director of HiLab for getting a wider perspective on what AI is here: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYPrwZqE9vo[/embed]      

“If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things - using data they gathered without any help from us - we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best.” Kevin Ashton, digital innovation expert, credited with coining the term “Internet of Things”.

Let’s look at an example

In 2007, a bridge in Minnesota collapsed because of steel plates that were inadequate to handle the bridge’s load, resulting in many people being hurt. It’s one of the most catastrophic in terms of injured people, but many similar incidents are happening everywhere in the world. Despite periodic checkups of the structures, engineers and other staff involved couldn’t predict the exact moment a problem like this would occur.

That’s where IoT can come in handy

When bridges or other massive structures are build or rebuild, instead of a regular one, a smart cement could be used - a cement equipped with sensors to monitor stresses, cracks, and warpage that signals when a problem arises and gets fixed before it causes a catastrophe. If the road on a bridge or any motorway and street is slippery, the same sensors would detect the hazard and communicate the information to the driver’s car. Once the car detects the hazard ahead, it indicates the driver to slow down or the car itself would slow down for him. Sensors on the bridge will connect and communicate with machines in the car, information is then turned into action. And these technologies aren’t limited only to a bridge’s structure. If policy makers and businesses get it right, linking the physical and digital worlds could generate up to $11.1 trillion a year in economic value by 2025. Currently, most of the data gathered by IoT systems and devices is not used. Cloud-based applications are the key to using leveraged data. The Internet of Things doesn’t function without cloud-based applications to interpret and transmit the data coming from all these sensors. The cloud is what enables the apps to work best anywhere and anytime.

The game-changer

MClimate (Melissa Climate) is an IoT company which changes the way people use the appliances they already have. Its cloud system connects the heating and cooling system in one’s home, so an actual insight and control is gained of over 70% of an electricity bill. Their devices learn your preferences and habits - what temperature you are most comfortable with, when you usually get home, how long it takes for your HVAC system to cool down/heat up etc. Melissa climate won a Webit Award in the category Best Connected Consumer Electronics Device at Webit.Festival 2017. You can watch Lyubomir Yanchev’s pitch right here: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d0gXq7cYpk[/embed] Stay up to date with the upcoming festival’s agenda here. If you wish to learn more about the IoT, you can check this article in Forbes magazine.

Money and payments - an intriguing theme ever since way back in time, becoming more and more intriguing with each passing day. What makes it even more appealing is the never ceasing research and emerging tech innovations in the field. Blockchain, Bitcoin, international trade, digital currencies are in the focus and interest of not only corporations as a main actor, but for individuals too. That brings the questions Kristo Kaarmann CEO of TransferWise, was trying to answer at Webit.Festival Sofia 2017. What is the future tech of money? Is it going to be Bitcoin? Ethereum? Or another type of blockchain currency? Are we still going to have banks in 10 years time or we’ll do banking on Google? Who can make a 100% certain statement and predict what and when will replace a financial system which is working, trusted and being accepted by many all around the world? Kaarmann made an emphasis on an article published by The Guardian “Big banks earning huge profits from overseas money transfers”. Banks get their profits from different exchange rates, transfer fees, and fees on other services which are far from the cheapest option to manage one’s money. In recent years there has been a flood of fintech companies offering their solutions to individuals, corporations and banks themselves and at much more reasonable rate. There are very few problems where tech is the only possible solution. Very often the solution lies not just in technology, but in technology and the things around it - governments, legislation, working with different institutions. For example, in fintech, that could be as specific as blockchain patterns and the governments’ enforcements on them through the more global issues such as acceptance of the new models and novelties by people. In order to find the answers of all the questions the financial system has yet to clarify, we’ll just need to wait for it to present and see. You can watch the full keynote of Kristo Kaarmann here: https://youtu.be/CWhI7UgRJLw   If you want to stay up to date with the latest trends in fintech, money & payments, Webit.Festival Sofia 2018 is the place for that. Visit our website and check the different ticket options.   Feel the Webit vibe with some of the best photos from this year’s event!

The act of purchase as we know it is progressively disappearing. Driving forces of it are the usual forces standing behind each global change happening: growing and aging population, higher standard of living, climate changes and scarce resources. Nowadays, we can also add the growing presence of digital in everyday’s life and the ever changing consumer behavior. The VP Digital Transformation of SCA Gael de Talhouet gave quite an insightful keynote at Webit. Festival 2017 in Sofia concerning the change in the customer of tomorrow. How do you sell products in a world where no one buys anything anymore? We’re moving from a world where we click, purchase, pay and collect to a world where we will just need to ask, because robots will know our needs. More and more companies are introducing their subscriptions models, allowing us to get the things we want directly delivered to our homes without the need of going physically to get them from the shop. Amazon has developed the dash buttons which after being connected to your smartphone and pressed, the product you’ve chosen is automatically reordered. You don’t need to order, you just receive. Or speak, as in the case with Amazon Echo. Just ask, tell the device what you need, and it will find it for you. The next step is when you don’t even need to speak. Fridges indicating the products that are missing from it, making lists of what needs to be purchased, washing machines and printers automatically ordering physical goods when supplies are running low. Smart devices noticing when you have a dinner with the friend who loves pizza or if you’re in need of a specific vitamins, asking to make an order for you. Or suggesting you a herbal detox tea after noticing you’ve woken up early and had a week full of meetings. It’s not rocket science, it’s history browsing and predictive analytics And what if these devices can recognise our emotions? Scientists and are relentlessly working on and getting closer to breakthrough in the face of voice assistants. The future of shopping is no shopping. People will not buy anymore because robots will buy. That brings the next question, how do you sell to a robot? Who will the robot buy from and how will it make the choice? Marketing strategies used to be consumer centric, while when this becomes a basis, companies will need to figure out is how to convince a robot to become their client. After digital marketing and e-commerce, welcome to robotic marketing and e-commerce. You can watch the keynote of Gael here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsT8LuHVg8s Webit.Festival 2018 will gather again top speakers, policy makers and enterprise leaders. Stay up to date with our upcoming guests and agenda on our website and learn more about our ticket options. Feel the Webit vibe with some of the best photos from this year’s event! [easingslider id="4954"]

“The main and huge problem in healthcare is data. Big data and big amounts of it. You can’t start creating huge clinical data warehouses anymore. The amount of data is simply exploding.”

In case you’re wondering who Gutenberg is, he is the guy who invented the printing press and thus changed everything back in the times by starting the Printing Revolution. Now healthcare is at the doorstep of a suchlike event. Dr. Clemens Suter-Crazzolara, VP of Product Management for Health & Precision Medicine at SAP gave a keynote at Webit.Festival in Sofia about what are people and companies already doing with the help of technology in order to improve patients’ and doctors’  health experience and the treatment of patients. The main and huge problem in healthcare is data. Big data, and big amounts of it. If we walk in any given hospital, we inevitably notice that lots of the data we provide or data already collected, is taken on notes, sheets or some format of paper. Other industries are moving to digitalization with rocket speed but in healthcare it is not happening and this process is still somehow a struggle. Privacy, security and access to the correct data are all difficulties underlying ahead of healthcare in its process of adapting to digitalization. You can’t start creating huge clinical data warehouses anymore. The amount of data is simply exploding. You have to think of intelligent ways that the data stays in different locations, but for instance, you can send federated queries to those locations and then collect the needed answers. The use of mobile devices increases with each passing day. There are many apps which people use for consulting on their physical health, consulting with a physician online or simply googling their symptoms but the patient engagement is not fully tailored to both the patient and the physician. The need of a common platform that collects the experience and practices from physicians all around the world, as well as helping to collaborate and get information from one another and facilitating their day to day work is at the roots of change in the health system and that’s the thing SAP is trying to create. You can watch the keynote of Dr. Clemens Suter-Crazzolara here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwyLgKvCaBQ Physical and mental health, personal care and wellbeing are an ever growing theme in today’s everyday life. Recognizing it as an integrant area of value and interest, the Health & Wellbeing Summit at Webit.Festival Sofia 2018 will gather again top speakers from the industry, unveiling top tendencies and knowledge from their practice. Have a glance at last year’s Webit with some of our best photos and check our different ticket options here. [easingslider id="4954"]

“No matter if your business is in retail, bio, health or digital, if you want to stay relevant, focus on AI shouldn't be between the lines and done sluggishly but a top priority.” - Hristo Hristov, CEO of Netinfo

Hristo Hristov, CEO of Netinfo and IAB Bulgaria Chairman was one of the speakers at the Innovation Summit at Webit.Festival 2017. The company Netinfo is playing a major role in shaping the digital advertising landscape in the country and as such it has been a prominent spectator and actor in the digital trends and shifts locally and worldwide. Making the statement that mobile first is in the past and not a part of the future, Hristov made a point  by initially giving a little test to the audience at Webit's stage. He asked for a raised hand from everybody who has done a marketing campaign or developed products for mobile. Result was basically 80% of the audience of around 1500 in the hall. Artificial Intelligence on the hunt Mobile now is the standard, the future is in artificial intelligence, calls Hristov from the stage. Most companies now think mobile only, and if they want to stay competitive, grow and acquire new customers on a new level, they need to start thinking AI first if haven’t yet. Having a great mobile app, having a great landing page, doing an incredible marketing campaign are all essentials for a successful business but becoming quite not enough. Not to mention digitalization, communications and tendencies but every tech-related thing is changing and evolving with a hard to grasp tempo.

Beforehand, we were the “hunters” who used to find a niche and go after it, hire the best talents who will build the best products and marketing campaigns. whereas now, we are the ones being hunted. By AI.

Going a little back in time, Hristov recounted the story of a startup company - DeepMind technologies which got acquired by Google in 2014. They develop learning algorithms that use data or raw experience to better themselves and have created an engine which plays a certain game thousands of times better that any human being. In the beginning, the playing engine was losing every single round time after time. Things changed when the AI engine played the game for a hundred time, started getting better and better after each loss and reached a point of playing the best case optimal scenario for winning the game. Some would say that AI has a long way ahead of it until it reaches and affects each business but the development of AI is similar to the one of the game engine.

We see the progress of AI as a linear development but in reality, at some point AI will start growing exponentially, getting better after each downturn until reaching its full potential.

AI systems are determining what results we get from our search, the order of their ranking and appearance, at which moment we will get a specific advertisement. It improves facial recognition and securing systems and privacy. AI systems are developed that spot Alzheimer’s brain changes years before symptoms emerge, writing music and novels.  And it’s not stopping just yet. Stay on the tide: AI against trolls Fake news and internet trolls are not an unfamiliar problem of today's digital space. Writers and news providers have bumped with the negative side of people from all parts of the world having the comfort of a “behind the screen” freedom. In a responсе to that, a tool has been developed which can rank the toxicness of the comments in blogs, news sites and pages on the vast space of Internet. API.com is an open source platform that can be added to content sites, landing pages, forums and whatever type of sites which ranks actual online conversations and determines the percentage of toxicity in them. Afterwards, the process of extracting users marked as top toxic is smoothed and done harmlessly with a minimum damage. No matter if you're business is in retail, bio, health or digital, if you want to stay relevant, focus on AI shouldn't be between the lines and done sluggishly but a top priority. The best developers, data scientists, engineers and logical thinkers are literally being hunted by the biggest players so that they can respond to the fast-changing environment. Not only that, but the level of advancement in this field has piled up a lot of open source tools and frameworks that can be freely used. Interesting enough, the biggest companies with the highest advancement in AI are the ones who are open sourcing these kinds of projects. AI investments have set its all-time highest point. Elon Musk has already launched Neuralink, a company that develops implantable brain-computer interfaces in order to connect brains with computers, the CEOs of eBay, Amazon, Google all say that not having an AI strategy will get companies out of business in ten years. The consumer journey and experience right now is not the greatest and AI is a way to make it better. Despite all the unknowns the artificial intelligence technology comprises, the benefits and chances ahead of it are immense and yet to be explored. More companies are gradually realizing this and working hard in adapting their strategy.   You can watch the full keynote of Hristo Hristov here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQb59NdnI3k]   If you want to keep up with the latest trends in the world of digital economy and technology, then Webit.Festival is the place for you. Visit our website and book 2 in 1 of our Super Earlybird tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2018. Have a peek at Webit.Festival 2017 in Sofia with some of our photos from the event. [easingslider id="4954"]

Internet freedom differs from country to country which together with the constantly changing online landscape makes it quite hard to say whether Internet freedom is an existing phenomenon at the moment. People are social beings, we talk to each other, exchange information and emotion and this is what makes us human. The fast and easy access to information and the social interaction online has opened a door for Internet in our lives. At Webit.Festival Europe the Chief Digital Officer of AnchorFree Inc. Baglan Rhymes talked about the importance of Internet freedom. AnchorFree focuses on this topic because it aims to provide secure and anonymous access to information on the Internet to every single person on the planet. In reality, we take the online information and bring it into our physical world. This has an impact on who we are, our preferences, philosophies and the society we live in. In the world of today, the Internet is becoming less free. Many governments use it to take down content they don’t approve of or to launch cyber attacks against their critics or other governments. Censorship has taken control over free speech. It is important to understand the difference between the methods of suppression and those of censorship. Suppression of free speech doesn’t have to take sophisticated forms of technology. Most often it has a political or a legal aspect and it requires vigilance which governments and the police have. [caption id="attachment_5183" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The Chief Digital Officer of AnchorFree Inc. Baglan Rhymes[/caption] Censorship, on the other hand, takes a lot of technological forms. Such a complex and constantly evolving system as the Internet can be adapted for propaganda and manipulation. Social media in many countries is a very politicized and polarized tool which if used correctly can send a convincing but also a leading message. The media diversity shrinks and this results in many people turning into alternative sources of information. According to Baglan Rhymes:

“Social media has been spectacular in busting censorship and creating a challenge in the social sphere.”

In the United States this role of social media has an impact on economy and trade. The country is most successful when the packaging and the messaging of the goods sold overseas, not the government propaganda or the military force, export the values of freedom and creativity. In reality, some of America’s best products exported abroad are in the form of downloading an application, accessing a website, streaming a movie or listening to music. People don’t have access to the culture and the values of America if their freedom on the Internet is restricted. Important companies as Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook export many of their products via the Internet and this is the only way they can reach consumers. Therefore, Internet freedom should be a priority for the US policy. Research shows that now there are 2.5 billion smartphones and 5 billion feature phones. It is expected that in a couple of years these feature phones will come online. The digital weapons in our hands in the face of social media, blogs and Wiki will make the way people access information and consume it a matter of life and death. The Internet is powerful enough to influence a change in any government regardless of it being democratic or not. It is our responsibility to respect that power and not to take the Internet freedom for granted. As Baglan Rhymes said:

“Make no mistake - if we lose the fight in Internet freedom we have lost the battle in maintaining our humanity and promoting democracy in the world.”

You can watch her full lecture here:   If you want to keep up with the latest trends in the world of digital economy and technology, then Webit.Festival is the right place for you. Visit our website and book 2 in 1 of our Super Earlybird tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2018. Feel the Webit vibe with some of the best photos from this year’s event! [easingslider id="4954"]