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Meet the Canadian Researcher Helping Solidify Edmonton as a Global Hub for Artificial Intelligence – Skift

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

Edmonton, Canada has become a leading global hub in technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Alona Fyshe, a professor at the University of Alberta and a researcher in the artificial intelligence field, shares what makes the city a world-class destination for tech innovation and events that bring the industry together.

Destination Canada

When Alona Fyshe was growing up in Edmonton the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta and attending the University of Alberta, she never expected the city would turn into an epicenter of artificial intelligence work. However, that is exactly what it has become.

In 2018, after some time away, Fyshe was lured back to Edmonton for a job as a professor at her alma mater, and shes thrilled to have settled in such a vibrant city thats home to a thriving and collaborative network of artificial intelligence and machine learning researchers.

Its a remarkable place to be. We have young up-and-coming researchers, but we also have established researchers who are leaders in the field, Fyshe said. Everyones interested in each others ideas, and there are many opportunities for smart people to connect with each other.

Fyshe is now an assistant professor in the Department of Computing Science and Department of Psychology, and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand how the human brain processes language.

As Fyshe explained, Computer models of language are exciting, and theyre becoming more and more accurate. Im interested in using those computer models to understand how we comprehend language, but also how this can help further improve those models.

Fyshe is not alone in her enthusiasm for the technology and Edmontons unique position as a leader in artificial intelligence research. Edmonton is gaining a worldwide reputation as a hub for businesses, and organizations from across the globe are flocking to the city to learn, collaborate, and advance their work in the field.

An organization at the core of the regions artificial intelligence innovation is the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), one of Canadas preeminent centers of artificial intelligence. Amii plays a prominent role in building connections between researchers of different stripes in the tech community and, in doing so, developing a thriving artificial intelligence ecosystem in the province.

Amii also represents Edmonton as a member of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the worlds first national strategy committed to building local and regional AI ecosystems, supporting talent and training in the field, fostering collaboration, and understanding the societal implications of the technology.

The region is also home to the Alberta Artificial Intelligence Association (AlbertataAI), a non-profit organization aimed at cultivating the Alberta AI ecosystem and collaborating with like-minded communities. The group organized the first annual Alberta AI conference in March 2019, which attracted 350 participants, including AI experts, IT professionals, university professors, computer science graduate students, and enthusiasts from various industries across the artificial intelligence field.

When Fyshe isnt engaging in the ground-breaking research that drew her back to Edmonton, she is deeply engaged in teaching at The University of Alberta or, as she puts it, training the next generation of scholars to do machine learning in the real world.

Located at the edge of Edmontons North Saskatchewan River valley, The University of Alberta is one of the top five AI research institutions globally, with a world-renowned robotics lab and brain imaging center that are helping push the field in new directions.

The use of artificial intelligence in language processing has progressed rapidly over the last decade, and the University of Albertas expertise in this area has played a pivotal role in this. The university continues to provide exciting opportunities to advance this innovation, further contributing to Edmontons position as a leader in artificial intelligence.

In addition, The Kule Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) at the University of Alberta is the official host of the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE), a leader in the field of digital ethics, and publisher of the International Review of Information Ethics. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron committed to creating an international study group on artificial intelligence in 2018, the institute set out to organize its first annual AI, Ethics and Society Conference in 2019 an interdisciplinary gathering which explored the history, ethics, policy, business, and science of AI.

Also at the university, the AI4Society Reverse EXPO 2022 brings together the University of Alberta AI research community and representatives from industry, government, and civil society to learn about what students are doing to advance AI-related research and applications, as well as explore collaboration options.

Describing the universitys community, Fyshe said, There really is an excellent set of people who are working and learning here. The work of introducing new learners, both students and members of the larger community, to artificial intelligence and machine learning is a collaborative and inspiring effort. Theres an exciting network of researchers fueling the energy in Edmonton.

Edmontons energy and expertise is attracting events and organizations from around the world, tapping into the citys ecosystem of innovation.

There is ample opportunity to learn from and collaborate with Edmontons AI experts like Fyshe. Conference attendees can engage in meaningful tours of state-of-the art facilities, hear from outstanding keynote speakers, and connect with leading institutions in artificial intelligence and its these collaborations that are driving innovation to help shape the future of this increasingly important industry.

Are you an event decision maker in the artificial intelligence sector? Click here to learn how you can tap into Canadas innovative technology ecosystem to bring your event or conference to the next level.

For more information about Destination Canadas work within priority economic sectors and how they can benefit business events, visit Destination Canada Business Events.

This content was created collaboratively by Destination Canada Business Events and Skifts branded content studio, SkiftX.

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Meet the Canadian Researcher Helping Solidify Edmonton as a Global Hub for Artificial Intelligence - Skift

The ROI of Emotional Intelligence Technology | eWEEK – eWeek

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a world where remote work, virtual communications, and on-demand service offerings are here to stay. For some, it hasnt been all positive. People have become increasingly stressed, isolated, and emotionally drained.

With this growing complexity in peoples emotional well-being, what can organizations do to increase their awareness of peoples mental states? Could technology in the form of AI actually help in some way?

Certainly the terms machine learningand emotional intelligence are not synonymous. The term machine learning often describes automating monotonous work that is otherwise tedious and emotionally unrewarding for humans to do. The term emotional intelligence refers to someones ability to recognize and manage their own emotions and the emotions of others. People with strong emotional intelligence (or EQ) typically demonstrate a high degree of personal accountability and empathy.

These traits are highly desirable, not only in interpersonal communication but also in business interactions. Accountability and empathy form the foundation of consumer trust, and the more trust consumers have in a brand, the more likely they are to want to do business with that brand.

What does this have to do with artificial intelligence? Lets take a look.

Also see: Top AI Software

Could a machine AI actually help people to increase their emotional intelligence skills?

Even people with a high EQ interacting in a face-to-face environment have significant limitations when it comes to reading the emotional states of others. Most of us can only pay attention to a highly limited amount at a time, and we often miss or misinterpret emotional cues that other people are sending out. Our ability to read the room only worsens when we move to digital channels.

But machines dont have this limitation. With todays advanced computer vision, automated speech recognition (ASR), and natural language processing (NLP), the emerging technology of emotion AI software can monitor everyone at the same time and integrate multiple sources of information, ranging from nonverbal gestures and facial expressions to spoken words and tonal inflections.

Businesses looking to better understand and connect with their customers can use emotion AI to get a comprehensive look at how people are reacting to what they see and hear, whether during a meeting or a sales presentation, and collect deeper insights into what motivates people to action.

Emotion AI technology has a variety of uses across the enterprise. Some of the most exciting, and most practical, emotion AI applications are in customer service.

Customers today are starved for empathy, and companies that have taken notice are investing in the deployment of emotion AI within their CX (customer experience) platforms to create a more emotionally positive experience. Contact centers in particular have benefited from this technology, reporting higher results in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement.

However, customer service isnt the only department that benefits from the rise of emotion AI. Sales and even Marketing departments are successfully leveraging emotional intelligence to optimize remote engagements.

For example, sellers armed with AI tools can tailor their sales presentations based on real-time customer EQ data. If customers seem distracted or uninterested, the emotionally-aware seller can change course to re-engage them, increasing their likelihood to close.

Another equally important, if somewhat overlooked, benefit of emotion AI is in employee engagement. While much attention has been paid to the consumer side of AI investment, there is considerable ROI on the employee side as well.

Research shows that empowering employees with better tools and technology fuels higher satisfaction and retention rates. For customer service, an industry with notoriously high attrition, the benefit of emotion AI is twofold: Businesses can better engage customers in an increasingly digital world while simultaneously minimizing the rising cost of turnover. Emotion AI, clearly, will see greater adoption by businesses of many types.

Also see: Tech Predictions for 2022: Cloud, Data, Cybersecurity, AI and More

About the Author:

Patrick Ehlen, VP of artificial intelligence, Uniphore

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The ROI of Emotional Intelligence Technology | eWEEK - eWeek

Ambitions to become GitHub for machine learning? Hugging Face adds Decision Transformer to its library – Analytics India Magazine

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

Hugging Face is one of the most promising companies in the world. It has set to achieve a unique feat to become the GitHub for machine learning. Over the last few years, the company has open-sourced a number of libraries and tools, especially in the NLP space. Now, the company has integrated Decision Transformer, an offline reinforcement learning method, into the transformers library and the Hugging Face Hub.

Decision transformers were first introduced by Chen L. and his team in the paper Decision Transformer: Reinforcement Learning via Sequence Modelling. This paper introduced this framework that abstracts reinforcement learning as a sequence modelling problem. Unlike previous approaches, Decision Transformers output the optimal actions by leveraging a causally masked Transformer. A Decision Transformer can generate future actions that achieve desired return by conditioning an autoregressive model on desired reward, past states, and actions. The authors concluded that despite the simple design of this transformer, it matches, even exceeds, the performance of the state-of-art model and free offline reinforcement learning baselines on Atari, OpenAI Gym, and Key-to-Door tasks.

Decision Transformer architecture

The idea of using a sequence modelling algorithm is that instead of training a policy using reinforcement methods that would suggest action to maximise the return, Decision Transformers generate future actions based on a set of desired parameters. It is a shift in the reinforcement learning paradigm since the user is using a generative trajectory modelling to replace conventional reinforcement learning algorithms. The important steps involved in this are feeding the last K timesteps in the Decision Transformer with three inputs (return-to-go, state, action); embedding the tokens with a linear layer (if the state is a vector) or CNN encoder if it is a frame; processing the inputs by GPT-2 model that predicts future actions through autoregressive modelling.

Reinforcement learning is a framework to build decision making agents that learn optimal behaviour by interacting with the environment via trial and error method. The ultimate goal of an agent is to maximise the cumulative reward called return. One can say that reinforcement learning is based on the reward hypothesis and all the goals are the maximisation of the expected cumulative reward. Most reinforcement learning techniques are geared in the online learning setting, where the agents interact with the environment and gather information using current policy and exploration schemes to find higher-reward areas. The drawback with this method is that the agent has to be trained directly in the real world or have a simulator. In case a simulator is not available, one would be required to build it, which is a very complex process. Simulators may even have flaws that can be exploited by agents to gain a competitive advantage.

Credit: Hugging Face

This problem is present in the case of offline reinforcement learning. In this case, the agent only uses the data collected from other agents or human demonstrations without interacting with the environment. Offline reinforcement learning learns skills only from previously collected datasets without active environment interaction and provides a way to utilise previously collected datasets from sources like human demonstrations, prior experiments, and domain-specific solutions.

Hugging Faces startup journey has been nothing short of being phenomenal. The company, which started as a chatbot, has gained massive attention from the industry in a very short period; big companies like Apple, Monzo, and Bing use their libraries in production. Hugging Faces transformer library is backed by PyTorch and TensorFlow, and it offers thousands of pretrained models for tasks like text classification, summarisation, and information retrieval.

In September last year, the company released Datasets, a community library for contemporary NLP, which contains 650 unique datasets and more than 250 contributors. With Datasets, the company aims at standardising end-user interface, versioning, and documentation. This sits well with the companys larger vision of democratising AI, which would extend the benefits of emerging technologies to smaller technologies, which is otherwise concentrated in a few powerful hands.

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Ambitions to become GitHub for machine learning? Hugging Face adds Decision Transformer to its library - Analytics India Magazine

University’s SnT to build the first testbed for quantum communication infrastructure in Luxembourg – EurekAlert

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

image:Prof. Dr. Symeon CHATZINOTAS view more

Credit: University of Luxembourg

The University of Luxembourg's Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), in collaboration with the Department of Media, Connectivity and Digital Policy (SMC) of the Ministry of State, today announces the development of the Luxembourg Quantum Communication Infrastructure Laboratory (LUQCIA). The 5-year project is funded by the European Unions Recovery and Resilience Facility in the context of the NextGenerationEU initiative, and will aim to build a national testbed in 2023 to enable advanced and applied research in quantum key distribution and quantum internet a vital stage in the next generation of computing and internet usage.

Luxembourg wants to remain the state-of-the-art communication hub it has become over the last decade. That is why we have taken it upon ourselves, through SnTs scientific leadership, to lay the groundwork for tomorrows quantum communication infrastructure, stated Prime Minister and Minister for Communication and Media, Xavier Bettel.

The Minister of Finance, Yuriko Backes, commented: I would like to pay particular tribute to the pioneering role of SnT, in collaboration with the SMC, in the development of quantum communication technologies. It is one of the national Recovery and Resilience Plans key measures for the digital transition. The EU funds will actively support Luxembourg to improve the security of public sector communications as part of a wider European project.

The LUQCIA infrastructure will give University of Luxembourg researchers unique tools to optimise cybersecurity for the upcoming quantum communication technology, stated the rector of the University of Luxembourg, Stphane Pallage.

Future-proofing secure communication

Most of the data we exchange over the internet is secured through keys that encrypt and decrypt information. As computers are made with increasingly greater computing power, the time it takes for a hacker to be able to break this encryption becomes shorter and shorter. However, an emerging field of cybersecurity called quantum key distribution (QKD) aims to better secure our data even against quantum computers an upcoming generation of extremely powerful computers that, when launched on a wide scale, could leave our information wide open to attackers.

LUQCIA aims to develop and implement an ultra-secure communication infrastructure based on quantum technology. The aim is to connect at least two geographical sites within the LUQCIA research infrastructure. LUQCIA will rely primarily on a terrestrial network and will integrate the space segment through follow-up activities.

Developing a robust quantum communication infrastructure leveraging both terrestrial and satellite optical links will guarantee the security of our data in our communications network well into our future. It will also help to realise the future of a quantum internet by interconnecting high-performance quantum computers, said Principal Investigator of the project, Prof. Symeon Chatzinotas.

Once up and running in 2023, the LUQCIA lab will be open to national and international stakeholders for joint research activities in the framework of SnTs Partnership Programme.

About SnT

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg conducts internationally competitive research in information and communication technology. In addition to long-term, high-risk research,SnTengages in demand-driven collaborative projects with industry and the public sector through its PartnershipProgramme. The resulting concepts present a genuine, long-lasting competitive advantage for companies in Luxembourg and beyond.www.snt.uni.lu

About the University of Luxembourg

The University of Luxembourg is an international research university with a distinctly multilingual and interdisciplinary character. The University was founded in 2003 and counts nearly 7,000 students and over 2,000 employees from around the world. The Universitys faculties and interdisciplinary centres focus on research in the areas of Computer Science and ICT Security, Materials Science, European and International Law, Finance and Financial Innovation, Education, Contemporary and Digital History. In addition, the University focuses on cross-disciplinary research in the areas of Data Modelling and Simulation as well as Health and System Biomedicine. The University of Luxembourg offers 17 Bachelors, 46 Masters Degrees and custom-made training programmes for Ph.D. candidates in 4 doctoral schools. Times Higher Education ranks the University of Luxembourg #3 worldwide for its international outlook, #25 in the Young University Ranking 2022 and among the top 250-300 universities worldwide. http://www.uni.lu

About the Recovery and Resilience Facility

As part of a wide-ranging response, the aim of the Recovery and Resilience Facility is to mitigate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic and make European economies and societies more sustainable, resilient and better prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the green and digital transitions. The RRF helps the EU achieve its target of climate neutrality by 2050 and sets Europe on a path of digital transition, creating jobs and spurring growth in the process. Luxembourgs recovery and resilience plan contains 20 measures (8 reforms and 12 investments) which will help the country become more sustainable, resilient and better prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the green and digital transitions. Those measures will be financed by93millionin grants.61%of the plan will supportclimate objectivesand32%will foster thedigital transition.

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University's SnT to build the first testbed for quantum communication infrastructure in Luxembourg - EurekAlert

Chinese and Russian Cyber Attacks on the Electric Grid and How Kronos Will Build to Make the Grid Secure – GlobeNewswire

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

NEW YORK, April 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Russia, angered by U.S. sanctions and support for the Ukraine, might launch a cyberattack against America's energy supply according to recent FBI intelligence. China, another significant rival, might also eventually attempt hamstringing America's power grid with cyber sabotage. While these threats will probably persist for years, Kronos Fusion's powerful quantum computing and machine learning systems could help harden this vital sector against foreign electronic attacks.

The first threatening sign came in February when hackers likely from Russia's state-aligned "Strontium" group infiltrated the computers of twenty-one liquified natural gas producers in Ukraine, including Chevron and Kinder Morgan. According to cybersecurity firm Resecurity Inc., as reported by Bloomberg, around 100 computers were compromised immediately before Russia launched military operations in the Ukraine. Some outlets such as Technocracy News described the hacking as a "warning shot" to America.

Following these events, the FBI reported "abnormal scanning" of five big U.S. energy companies in mid-March. Originating at IP addresses in Russia, these scans look like Russian cyber warfare agents probing for weaknesses in America's power supply. While some private cybersecurity experts disagree about the FBI's conclusions, Russia's Ukraine energy grid hacks and the shutdowns at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility potentially caused by Mossad viruses and cyberattacks show the general risk is real.

Kronos' upcoming Fusion Energy Commercialization Center could decisively boost America's energy security, reducing risks of a successful cyberattack on this critical sector. Simultaneous analysis of multiple streams of complex data through quantum computing and deep machine learning are critical to enabling Kronos' algorithms to develop practically uncrackable cybersecurity for the US energy grid.

The advanced machine learning will likely be able to respond to attacks in real-time. Developing countermeasures and workarounds with near-instantaneous testing simulations could theoretically enable creation of an adaptable cybersecurity system that changes itself constantly to immunize itself against newly emergent threats.

The Fusion Commercialization Centers planned by Kronos will house computer systems that use neural networks capable of learning from mistakes and running simulations on multiple lines of data to find, test, and refine optimum solutions. The usefulness of these methods in developing better cybersecurity and continually improving it based on real-world feedback are obvious.

Practical fusion energy itself is another layer of security for America against these foreign cyber intrusions. Even in the extremely unlikely event a Russian or Chinese cyberattack succeeded, there would be no risk of nuclear contamination or meltdown if the United States' power is provided by fusion reactors.

Kronos is strongly committed both to developing its Commercialization Centers featuring its futuristic computing technology, and a practical fusion reactor design, ensuring that America emerges as the dominant world energy producer. Ensuring the security of these systems is yet another critical piece of the fusion puzzle Kronos means to solve using cooperation between private industry, the government, and American academic institutions.

More information:

http://www.KronosFusionEnergy.com

PR Contact - Erin Pendleton - pr@kronosfusionenergy.com

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Chinese and Russian Cyber Attacks on the Electric Grid and How Kronos Will Build to Make the Grid Secure - GlobeNewswire

With Prototype for Success, UChicago Prepares Students Under-Represented in STEM to be the Tech Leaders of the Future – Polsky Center for…

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

Published on Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Antonio Castano perked up at the first discussion question posed to the inaugural cohort of Prototype for Success, a new program designed to prepare University of Chicago undergraduates for careers as leaders in emerging tech.

Will electric vehicles take over the car market in the next 10 years? Matt Hebron, program director for careers in engineering in the Universitys Office of Career Advancement, asked the three dozen freshmen gathered for the program kickoff in late January.

The students, seated at tables in Chicago Booths Harper Center, conferred in small groups, then Castano took the mic to explain why he thinks not.

Even though in some urban areas we have seen that superchargers can be viable with the grids they have built up, in terms of the shipping industry throughout the U.S. interstate system it is going to be pretty difficult to set up infrastructure over thousands of miles in the next 10 years that can support mass EV commercialization, said Castano, a 19-year-old freshman from Long Island who plans to study molecular engineering.

Castano, who in his youth has thought a lot about renewable energy solutions, exudes the kind of ambition the University hopes to nourish with Prototype for Success, a three-year program that gives early and continued support to promising students aspiring to entrepreneurial or leadership positions in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

The competitive program is open to all incoming freshmen, and highly encourages applications from Black, Hispanic, and female students, who are under-represented in high-growth, highly remunerated STEM fields. Of the 36 students in the inaugural cohort selected from more than 120 applicants more than half are women and three-quarters are either Black, Hispanic, or Odyssey Scholars receiving need-based scholarships.

UChicago freshman Corrie Barnes offers her perspective at the kickoff event for Prototype for Success.

It is critical that we advance the STEM workforce, and that we do so in an inclusive manner so that we can capture the brightest minds and diverse perspectives to drive breakthrough innovations, said Juan de Pablo, executive vice president for science, innovation, national laboratories, and global initiatives at the University of Chicago, the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME), and senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.

By offering early and continued support to promising students, we hope to create a pipeline of diverse STEM talent that will be exceptionally well prepared for future leadership roles, whether as entrepreneurs or with established organizations, he said.

Developing a STEM workforce representative of the nations talent pool is important for maintaining the U.S.s global competitiveness in science and engineering, the National Science Foundation has said. There are particularly large gains to be made at higher-skill levels and in certain fields.

Among the STEM workforce with a bachelors degree, only 7% are Black and 8% are Hispanic, while the U.S. population is 12% Black and 19% Hispanic, according to the National Science Foundations State of the U.S. Science and Engineering. Women make up about 44% of the STEM workforce with a bachelors degree, but just 26% of computer and mathematical scientists and 16% of engineers.

Prototype for Success leverages UChicagos world-class strengths in scientific research and entrepreneurial education to prepare students, including individuals from groups under-represented in STEM, to compete for top roles. The extracurricular program offers specialized workshops, internship experiences, and a peer group that serves as a support system and built-in network upon graduation.

UChicago freshman Antonio Castano

Castano said he was eager to be part of the program as soon as he received the email inviting him to apply shortly after his acceptance into UChicago. Entrepreneurial since grade school, Castano said he is excited to learn business strategies, engage with peers who challenge his thinking, and apply his curious mind to developing practicable innovations.

It is easy to say we need to do something, Castano said. This makes it more accessible.

Prototype for Success is a partnership between Career Advancement, the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME), and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. It draws on the resources of the Chicago Booth School of Business, ranked the nations top business school.

Chicago Booth offers tremendous intellectual depth in entrepreneurship, and students in Prototype for Success will benefit from the collective expertise developed by our faculty over decades of research, said Dan Sachs, executive director of education and programs at the Polsky Center.

The program was conceived by de Pablo and Jim Nondorf, vice president for enrollment and student advancement and dean of college admissions and financial aid, in close partnership with Paul Nealey, theBrady W. Dougan Professor of Molecular Engineering at PME and vice dean for education and outreach.

It is critically important that we educate diverse leaders for an increasingly technological society, Nealey said. Engineering, business and entrepreneurship are an incredibly powerful partnership that together can create real impact. The Prototype for Success Program works to develop strong interdisciplinary thinkers that enter the workforce ready to make a difference.

Rheaply CEO Garry Cooper talks with students at the start of the Prototype for Success kickoff

Students in the first cohort were selected based in part on demonstrated interest in emerging technologies. Some spent high school leading robotics teams or conducting research on solar energy. Approximately two thirds indicated plans to study molecular engineering at UChicago. The other third plans to major in a variety of STEM disciplines.

Our Prototype for Success students are an exceptional group of young scholars, said Meredith Daw, associate vice president and executive director of UChicagos Office of Career Advancement. As we reviewed their applications, they impressed us with their entrepreneurial potential, interdisciplinary thinking, persuasive communication skills, and passion for emerging technology.

Our goal is to give them the training, experience, and expert advice they need to turn their ideas into scientific discoveries, commercial ventures, and social impact, she continued. Were excited to help our students prepare for careers of the future with our partners at the Polsky Center and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

The program begins in the winter quarter of students freshman year with seminars on intellectual property and other entrepreneurship fundamentals. It progresses through the second and third years with experiential opportunities, R and CAD workshops, professional development programming, and a capstone project.

Garry Cooper

During the summers after their freshman and sophomore years, students are offered funded internship experiences with employers working at the intersection of science and entrepreneurship. The program also invites STEM entrepreneurs and other speakers from under-represented backgrounds to share their success stories.

It is all about creating a rich and immersive way for students to learn practical entrepreneurial skills who dont see heroes who look like them in the field, Sachs said.

The keynote speaker at the kickoff event was Garry Cooper, cofounder and CEO of Rheaply, a resource-sharing platform that helps companies limit waste and reuse at scale. Cooper described his journey from neuroscience postdoc to founder and urged students to build something you would use. He also provided his email address and encouraged students to reach out with their ideas, promising to respond within 24 hours and make connections to funders he knows.

The students in the first cohort came to Prototype for Success with varied interests.

Freshman Corrie Barnes, 18, wants to research how quantum technology can be used to address climate change.

Emmett Reid

Barnes, who graduated from Whitney Young High School in Chicago, became interested in quantum thanks to a quantum computing class she took at UChicago last summer, and connected that with work she was doing with the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate justice initiative. The Prototype program presents an opportunity to learn how to set up a business if that ends up being her path to finding better energy resources, she said.

Emmett Reid, 19, is interested in research and development to find an engineering solution to disease, including through immunology and genetics. Reid, of Springfield, Mo., is curious about what it would take to start his own company, and said applying to Prototype for Success was a no-brainer.

I really like problem solving and want to do something meaningful and impactful, Reid said. Im interested in everything the program offers.

Article by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, associate director of media relations and external communications at the Polsky Center. A longtime journalist, Alexia most recently was a business reporter with the Chicago Tribune. Reach Alexia via email or on Twitter @alexiaer.

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With Prototype for Success, UChicago Prepares Students Under-Represented in STEM to be the Tech Leaders of the Future - Polsky Center for...

Carbon reduction in cloud – S&P Global

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

Introduction

We are entering an era in which cloud computing is no longer a separate IT category itisIT. The use of the cloud in all its forms is growing exponentially, and investment in cloud infrastructure by big hyperscale cloud providers data centers, servers, storage and data transit to meet demand is running at over $70 billion per year. As a result, there is a lot of interest in, on the one hand, just how much energy hyperscalers consume, and, on the other hand, the carbon reduction potential of the cloud. So, what is going on, and what is the data based on?

Energy conservation (saving) relies on better efficiencies, so the most effective strategies will focus on squeezing out as much of these efficiencies as possible, getting the energy requirement as low as possible and then looking at how to decarbonize that. Simply moving to using green energy is not going to deliver the desired or the best carbon reduction. The best place to go from a carbon reduction perspective is the cloud. This is the case despite a significant amount of overprovisioning in some regions and underprovisioning in others because the hyperscalers do not have sufficient visibility around demand to be able to build less than 30% extra capacity into their data center servers and storage to avoid capacity constraint. Not all workloads can go to the cloud, so for those organizations the next best thing may be a multi-tenant facility whose power utilization effectiveness, or PUE, score will be lower than could be achieved on premises. Multi-tenant providers will have better access to green energy. Only after that does an enterprise data center make sense perhaps for proximity or multicity requirements.

Isn't the carbon reduction potential of the cloud an oxymoron?

Using the results from its 2020-21 surveys, 451 Research's data center team built a data model that looks at how much energy is used by typical IT equipment and how much energy is used by typical data centers. With this, it compared enterprise setups with cloud setups to see if they are similar or different in their energy use. The model determined that cloud servers are much more efficient in general than enterprise servers, partly because they are newer and there is more new equipment in the server farm of a typical cloud supplier. But that is only part of the story: Cloud servers are also much more highly utilized, which makes them more efficient. The team found the savings amounted to as much as a 60% efficiency improvement. The implication is that by just switching servers moving to the cloud enterprises can save up to 60% of their energy usage.

Next, our team looked at the data center building itself and found that typical cloud facilities are also much more efficient. Although they are seen as consuming a lot of electricity, they are typically much more efficient than enterprise data centers that are not fully utilized, especially those with older equipment. Ignoring the change in hardware mentioned above, simply moving to the cloud provider's data center delivers an additional 10% to 15% boost in energy efficiency.

Overall, 451 Research data finds that if they move their IT to the cloud, enterprises can save up to 85% of energy usage, resulting in a smaller carbon footprint. In some cases, even more of a reduction can be seen if the cloud facilities deploy completely renewable carbon-free energy. Here, organizations can improve just by moving to the cloud.

By contrast, when an organization houses its own IT stack, it must account for all of its energy use and, therefore, waste. By moving to the cloud, it is further abstracting its applications from the devices themselves from an accounting perspective, anyway and therefore the organization is only responsible for the emissions associated with the energy it consumes. It is like pay per use but in terms of emissions. This really only works in the cloud, as in a leased data center it is a bit harder for an organization to absolve itself of the responsibility of added waste. This can be debated, but it is way less cut and dry with the cloud.

Thus, there are essentially three levers that determine the level of saving: Equipment is more efficient, mostly because of enhanced efficiency of processors, over and above the now diminishing impact of Moore's Law; equipment is better utilized, which is one of the biggest determinants of overall operating cost, according to 451 Research's Cloud Price Index; and access to a green energy grid brings additional benefits. This presents a strong underlying message in terms of cloud migration.

Regional differences

The IT savings found are fairly consistent geographically 60% up to 68%, depending on the country. The U.S., for example, is at the higher end. The typical U.S. enterprise virtualizes servers much more and tends to have greater utilization of servers compared with Asia-Pacific and EU enterprises.

On the data center side, the U.S. has the most efficient data centers among the enterprises surveyed, followed by Europe and the Asia-Pacific; that is partly due to climatic differences, as a hotter climate means greater energy use for cooling. The key differences, however, come back to the access to essentially carbon-free power, and here Europe has far greater access to green power than the U.S. or the Asia-Pacific.

What about PUE?

Energy transformations taking place in most organizations are focused on PUE. The industry and enterprises have focused so much on that data center efficiency metric partly because it is relatively easy to at least envision, and there are actions that can be taken that make immediate and obvious enhancements. The servers, however, are what is important, though it is much harder for enterprises to virtualize their servers and ensure each server is being deployed at a high level of efficiency. This is where the cloud suppliers are the answer.

It is also an organizational issue. Facility managers whose responsibility is the building itself will fixate on PUE. To them, it is the network administrators who are dealing with the servers. And so, from their perspective, the whole utilization story is not their job. The opposite is also the case, where IT sees access to green energy as the facility's problem. Looking on the data center floor and then outside the data center walls, that has always been somebody else's responsibility. The same has been the case for multi-tenant data center providers, but they are realizing that incentivizing customers to actually have utilization rates helps drive down the PUE of the facility and increases overall efficiency.

Other factors

Additional factors now include consumer demand for sustainable and carbon-free IT services as part of their supply chains. There are now software packages, such as Ledger8760, that can show customers the greenness of the energy they consume on an hour-by-hour basis something that was not available 12 months ago. In addition, cloud providers are starting to expose their end users to the relative greenness of each workload.

Enterprises will increasingly face investor and regulatory requirements for sustainability. The largest cloud suppliers and even some of the biggest enterprises are also coming under pressure from Greenpeace and other organizations.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.

451 Research is part of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

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Carbon reduction in cloud - S&P Global

Cloud Types: Everything You Need to Know in 2022 – Nerdbot

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

The Rise of Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage

Cloud computing is like a delivery service on the internet. When you access files, databases, networks, or other resources online, the cloud delivers it to you. For example, when you search for an image in Google, it will return a number of photos in just a few seconds. This is because the photos delivered to you are stored in a cloud.

Another example is when you watch on Netflix. Reportedly, there are more than 221 million Netflix subscribers as of the last quarter of 2021. However, these subscribers do not have to download the entire movie to watch it. What Netflix does is that it loads the movie directly from the cloud and plays it on your device. Super convenient, right?

Cloud computing acts as a fast and reliable library that delivers whatever resources you want from the internet. The best part is, you will get the results in an instant and there is no need for downloads. Gone were the days when our devices storage was a big issue. We can now enjoy resources without having to sacrifice our devices storage and speed!

On a larger scale, cloud computing can be a collection of data centers and networks. It can also be a file backup resource for huge companies. As we all know, the cloud is disaster-proof. With the rise of social media, cloud computing grew with it as well. Especially its cloud storage model.

You can notice how we post photos and videos online, but did you ever wonder how it stayed there? Where does Facebook or Instagram store our files after uploading? Where do they store our credentials and personal information after we save it on our accounts? The answer? Its all stored in the cloud! These large companies might even have entire buildings solely for cloud storage! Amazing, isnt it?

Cloud storage helped us access any digital data uploaded for public use. It acts as our virtual hard drive without the risk of device malfunction. However versatile it may be, clouds are not created fair and equal. There are different types of cloud storage for the users different needs.

As the name suggests, a private cloud is owned by a private entity or company. These types of clouds act like internal storage and can only be accessed from the inside. It is also maintained and protected by the entity and its own firewalls.

Private clouds are the best option for companies that want full control of the data they are handling. However, the cost of maintenance can be hard to manage when using a private cloud for storage.

Public clouds can be accessed by anyone with permission. It only allows a few administrative controls and can be accessed by just using the internet. Typically, a public cloud is hosted by a different service provider that offers cloud servers. Hence, it does not need any maintenance from the user.

Google Drive is one popular example of a public cloud. You can share a file with anyone as long as they have your permission to do so. Public clouds are affordable, convenient, secure, and most importantly, reliable. They can also be upgraded to larger cloud storage if ever you run out of space.

Hybrid Clouds allow the users to have a mix of both a private and public cloud in one. A hybrid cloud provides you with the security of a private cloud but with the customization of public clouds. This gives the user more control over their data.

A community cloud storage is a kind of private cloud. However, it only provides cloud storage for specific types of businesses or communities. This type of cloud storage follows the specific rules, guidelines, and requirements of the said community.

Proxy servers act as a link or middleman between the user and the internet. It allows the users to browse the internet more freely and securely. Proxies mask your IP address which minimizes your traces and hides your exact location. Ust like clouds, proxies have different types too. For starters, there are free proxies for web scraping, data gathering, or web crawling. But what difference can it make for cloud computing?

The internet alone is not the safest place to store valuable data. It is prone to breaches and hackers. Thankfully, cloud storage providers encrypted their clouds with multiple firewalls and safety nets to avoid chaos. However, as developers add more security to clouds, hackers also put extra effort to break the firewall down. It would surely not hurt to have extra protection, right?

Proxies are also helpful in gathering data online and web scraping. As the proxy servers mask your identity online, they also hide you from hackers, phishers, and breachers. This makes your cloud credentials, passwords, and important data safe.

Proxy servers can enhance the experience of the user. Physical devices have their limitations. They are prone to hardware malfunction and physical damage. By using clouds, this will not be the case. As the clouds store data on the internet, all the processes will also be online. It can go to many different routes and perform a lot of different processes just for a user to get the information that they want.

However, by using proxy servers, the traffic does not need to go through as many routes. This makes it easier for the user to get to the information and reduces latency. Proxies also provide a smoother flow of internet traffic between servers.

Because of cloud service providers, you can access your data and files online. This is also the case for proxy servers. There are proxy server providers which you can use to mask your identity as you access your data.

This means that compatibility will not be an issue, saving you quite a lot. On the other hand, hardware and maintenance will not cost you a dime. These service providers have it already covered for you.

There are a lot of reasons why you should use cloud storage. It is easy to maintain, affordable, secure, and accessible to all. Cloud storage has different types that cater to different needs.

Of course, that goes with proxy servers too. Using a proxy along with it is a great move for additional cybersecurity. But there are different types of it too. Make sure to choose the one that best suits you!

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Cloud Types: Everything You Need to Know in 2022 - Nerdbot

4 Best Web Hosting Services & Providers Of 2022 – Blog – The Island Now

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

When looking for the best web hosting provider for your online presence or business, there are thousands of options to explore on the internet. You can choose from VPS hosting to shared hosting and cloud hosting. The range is limitless. The vast web hosting providers in the web-hosting space make it easy to create and manage their online presence. However, not all these platforms are created equally. The hosting platform you choose is critical to the success of your website. The last thing you want is your business website to be down when you need it the most. Reputable web hosting platforms would ensure your website is always online, helping you avoid unnecessary downtimes. Not having to worry about your websites technical aspect is a blessing, and that is what every potential website owner should aim at. However, with the vast number of web hosting platforms, it can be challenging to separate the wheat from the chaff, especially for newbies. There are many good web hosting providers, however, the top option may sometimes be relative. Your best pick that suits your business boils down to the key features you need. Nevertheless, there are general features to keep your eyes on when browsing for the best web hosting This article will review four of the best web hosting platforms on the market today. We used several criteria to evaluate our options before presenting them to you. This guide includes providers you cannot go wrong with when looking for the best web hosting services to build or host. Also, they are excellent for managing any type of website. Read on to see our expert recommendations. The Best Web Hosting Services For Small & Large Businesses: 1. Bluehost Overall Best Web Hosting Provider 2. GreenGeeks Most Popular Eco-Friendly Web Hosting 3. Nexcess Hosting Platform For Growth and Scalability 4. Hostinger Affordable Web Hosting With Outstanding Uptime #1. Bluehost Overall Best Web Hosting Provider Bluehost is undoubtedly one of the best web hosting platforms on the market. If you are looking for a web hosting service that can help you elevate your online business, count on Bluehost. At the writing of this article, Bluehost has more than two million websites across the globe. Bluehost is very easy to use. It has a straightforward platform suitable for both beginners and professionals. You do not need to be tech-savvy to host your website with this platform. They listed and organized all their services, making it easy to choose what you want. When it comes to features, Bluehost has loads of them. From managed hosting and WooCommerce to WordPress hosting, this platform has it all regarding website hosting. They also stand out in pricing, offering top-quality services for affordable rates. They have a plan for individuals, businesses, organizations, and more. In addition to helping you host your website, this platform has a website builder. Hence, you can build and host your website on Bluehost. They stand out in the industry in many ways. You cannot go wrong when choosing them for your website services. HighlightsEssential Features: Bluehost offers a wide range of features, starting with its cheapest plan. The most affordable plan comes with several great features: website builder domain name. Plus, it includes a one-click install for Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal. The basic plan offers 50 GB storage and unmetered bandwidth, excellent for starters. All their tiers come with free SSL and email accounts. Furthermore, this company offers traditional shared hosting. Also, it provides managed, VPS, and dedicated WordPress hosting. High-End Performance: Bluehost boasts of impressive performance. Since its emergence in 2017, it has been delivering remarkable site performance. The average uptime of this hosting platform is 99.97 percent, the highest in the industry. The average loading time of Bluehost is 324 ms, excellent even for high-traffic websites. Friendly Pricing: Bluehost also stands out from most of its rivals due to its pocket-friendly prices. It offers many affordable plans to accommodate online businesses of all sizes. All the plans of this company come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. 24/7 Customer Support: In addition to having a simple and easy-to-navigate website, Bluehost provides excellent, 24/7 customer support. You can also reach the support team via different channels like email, phone, ticketing system, and live chat. The support team has a vast knowledge of the entire system. Thus, it is willing to help you whenever you consult them. Advanced Security: We also love this platform because of the high-end security it provides. It offers top-notch security for all types of websites, including WordPress sites. All their plans come with a free SSL certificate, an important security feature for all websites. Dozens of Templates: Bluehost has thousands of templates for creating your own WordPress website on the platform. Bluehosts Great Deals: Basic Plan: Bluehosts Basic Plan costs $2.95 per month when you pay annually. This plan is for only one website. It comes with 50 GB SSD storage, 24/7 customer support, and custom themes. Plus, you get AI-driven templates, drag-and-drop functionality, WordPress integration, and free CDN and SSL certificates. Plus Plan: The Plus Plan costs $5.45 per month when you pay yearly. This plan comes with all Basic plan features, including unlimited websites, free Office 365 (30 days), and unlimited SSD storage. Choice Plus Plan: The Choice Plus plan is $5.45 per month for 12 months, but it auto-renews at $18.99. The additional features of this plan include free automated backup for one year and a free domain for one year. Pro Plan: This plan costs $13.95 per month when paid annually, with additional features like optimized CPU resources and free dedicated IP. Pros

Crypto-hackers have to play ‘capture-the-flag in the cloud’ to exploit victims’ servers – PC Gamer

April 7, 2022 | Author: admin

Illegal cryptocurrency mining outfits that hack servers for profit are having to fight each other for limited resources within the hijacked cloud space. So, on top of getting ahead of the hacked system's security, there's a silent battle ensuing behind the scenes between potential profiteers.

And while it may sound like great fun to watch cryptominers pathetically scuffling over server scraps, this is a fierce contest, one that encourages a certain level of innovation from the involved parties. Their in-fighting only makes them stronger, faster, more agile.

The use of malware to turn profit in the cryptocurrency space has been on the rise in recent years, with security reports in 2018 seeing a 4,000% rise (opens in new tab), and it's only been getting more prevalent over the years. After all, why use your own resources when you can hack into someone else's?

As Trend Micro reports (opens in new tab), more and more of these illicit cryptocurrency mining outfits are turning to cloud-based servers to maximise profit on wider, more powerful hardware arrays, but it's not always as simple as shouting "I'm in," and watching the zeros roll in.

Trend Micro's recent research paper (opens in new tab) (PDF warning)goes into more detail, but the crux (outlined in a blog post (opens in new tab)) is this: "The battle to take and retain control over a victims servers is a major driving force for the evolution of these groups' tools and techniques, prompting them to constantly improve their ability to remove competitors from compromised systems and, at the same time, resist their own removal."

The competing groups will utilise kill scripts to knock out rivals, 'obfuscate' code to make it harder to understand, and increase persistence mechanisms such as continual password updates to keep the competition at bay. All the while, batting off backlash from the hacked system's security protocols.

It seems illegal cryptocurrency miners have forgotten the fifth rule of fight club: One fight at a time, fellas.

With the competition being so hot, groups are continually churning out "new exploits that enable them to attack systems that their competitors cannot and, at the same time, they constantly improve both their ability to resist being deleted by competitors."

The report cites a rivalry between Kinsing and 8220, two groups who target WebLogic vulnerabilities, who are constantly found pushing back against one another within the infected system, "sometimes even several times a day."

Trend Micro is calling it "a sort of capture-the-flag in the cloud."

This kind of hacking commotion is only going to become more rampant as we move into a more cloud-based future. And this almost parodic dance illegal cryptocurrency miners have found themselves inhaving to act as both attacker and defenderwill only serve to improve their tactics.

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Crypto-hackers have to play 'capture-the-flag in the cloud' to exploit victims' servers - PC Gamer

Cloud Hosting

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Chinese and Russian Cyber Attacks on the Electric Grid and How Kronos Will Build to Make the Grid Secure – GlobeNewswire

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Carbon reduction in cloud – S&P Global

Cloud Types: Everything You Need to Know in 2022 – Nerdbot

4 Best Web Hosting Services & Providers Of 2022 – Blog – The Island Now

Crypto-hackers have to play ‘capture-the-flag in the cloud’ to exploit victims’ servers – PC Gamer

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