Get your company back in growth model with Business Strategy for Top Executives

Are you looking to get your company back in growth model?

Then BRAND MINDS’ Business Strategy for Top Executives Masterclass is for you.

Get access now, the price goes up on February 1st!

The BRAND MINDS Business Strategy for Top Executives is a full-day premium learning experience

The Business Strategy for Top Executives Masterclass is hosted online on March the 23rd and provides participants with the opportunity to learn the principles of innovative companies.

The masterclass is a full-day premium learning experience delivered by Costas Markides, one of the world’s most renowned experts on strategy & innovation.

As the Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at London Business School for the past thirty years, his expertise is focused on strategic and business model innovation.

By attending this masterclass, participants will

• Explore NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES;
• NETWORK with top executives;
• Develop a CREATIVE BUSINESS STRATEGY;
• Learn to FORESEE BUSINESS TRENDS;
• Generate EFFICIENT BUSINESS MODELS;
• Explore how DISRUPTION CAN DEVELOP their industries;
• Learn to ADAPT in a volatile business ecosystem.

Business Strategy and Innovation are the answer for Successful Top Executives

The pandemic is the most disruptive event in modern history taking an unprecedented toll on the business environment.

It has presented top executives in every industry with new challenges ranging from team management to customer behavior changes, business operations to company culture.

When disruption occurs to such an extent, business executives need to take action.

How can businesses protect themselves against disruption?
By designing a new business strategy and a company culture that encourages innovation.

Why is business strategy important?
Because strategy drives decisions in business. The strategy provides the organization with the most effective path and direction to achieve its goals.

Why is innovation essential for business?
Because innovation helps businesses grow. Organizations that are continually innovating are more likely to achieve competitive advantage.

Set your business for success and attend BRAND MINDS’ Business Strategy for Top Executives Masterclass!

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Innovative computer vision startup Neurolabs has attracted $1.2M in funds

Neurolabs is a tech startup with an innovative approach to computer vision which completed a pre-seed fundraising round of $1.2M in the summer of 2020.

The startup is looking to democratize computer vision.

It was founded in 2018 by a technical team of computer scientists and mathematicians who have known each other for more than 10 years, having studied together at the University of Edinburgh: Patric Fulop (CTO), Paul Pop (CEO) and Remus Pop (COO).

Neurolabs founders

An avid learner, Patrick is currently pursuing a PhD in Machine Learning at The University of Edinburgh. He strives to understand the problems he deals with by putting his inquisitive mind to work.

Paul is a passionate data scientist, looking to use the latest Machine learning algorithms to solve real-world problems.

Remus is interested in Bayesian statistics, deep learning and probabilistic modelling. He is also keen to apply these techniques to real-world problems.

Our technology empowers both small and large customers to implement state-of-the-art Computer Vision applications with minimal incremental resources and costs — no coding required, no tedious data labelling, no image gathering.

Neurolabs Investors

Neurolabs received funds from 8 investors. Here they are:

7Percent Ventures which invests only in billion-dollar opportunities

Leading investment firm focusing on early-stage Id4 ventures

The former head of strategy at Microsoft and a prolific investor Charlie Songhurst

Leading investor Techstart Ventures

Deep-tech, seed-stage venture fund Lunar Ventures

Tech angel investor Hampus Jakobsson

Startup accelerators Data Pitch and Fast Track Malmo.

Neurolabs Computer Vision offers Object Recognition as a Service

Neurolabs technology platform allows users to build custom image recognition algorithms using 3D models.

The algorithms developed by Neurolabs interpret and understand the world visually. Using images from cameras, the startup’s Computer Vision models accurately identify and classify objects of interest, helping computers “understand” what they “see”.

Computer vision is not a new technology, it began in the late 1960s, as the subject of a PhD thesis at MIT. It is a branch of artificial intelligence. The technology helps to automate visual understanding from a sequence of images, videos, PDFs, or text images with the help of AI and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. Learn more about Computer Vision here.

Why is Neurolabs’ approach to Computer vision innovative?

In the traditional Computer Vision approach, you had to take many pictures and manually label them. It was expensive and slow.

What Neurolabs is doing differently is to replace the time and resource-consuming traditional approach with a new approach, one which required minimum resources and costs.

Neurolabs is pioneering the use of synthetically generated data to develop object recognition models in a drastically cheaper and faster way than the traditional approach, pushing the accuracy beyond-human levels.

We deliver Computer Vision-powered Object Recognition to help you automate tasks, boost your business, increase productivity and sales while reducing costs.

The company’s innovative technology leverages 3D models, virtual data generation and deep learning models training.

With Neurolabs’ technology, small and large enterprises can implement state-of-the-art Computer Vision applications with minimal incremental resources and costs.

The Neurolabs Computer Vision platform is universally applicable across industries and scales. The technology allows businesses to automate generic object recognition tasks in industries ranging from hospitality to retail and manufacturing.

Benefits and advantages of Neurolabs’ Object Recognition as a Service:

• No coding
• No image gathering
• No data labelling
• Universally applicable
• Cost-effective
• State-of-the-art accuracy
• Easy to integrate
• Minimal client data
• Automate generic object recognition 20X faster and 100X cheaper

Applications of Neurolabs Computer Vision platform

Grocery retail – autonomous checkout with product recognition

Hospitality – unattended check-out in cafés/bakeries and canteens

Healthcare – utensils inventory, remove human error and prevent foreign object retention post-operation.

Manufacturing – quality control through defect recognition

Robotics – localisation and control

Agriculture – crop grading and sorting

Recycling sorting

Benefits under COVID-19: speed up operations, cut down operational time, reduce time spent in public places, reduce human presence & interaction, ensure a cash-free and safe environment.

Neurolabs is integrated with RPA leader UiPath and blockchain technology rising star Elrond Network.

Neurolabs is a finalist at the annual #UiPathRebootWork and #Automation Awards. Tune in here on the 17th of December to hear CEO Paul Pop explain how RPA developers can leverage the startup’s innovative computer vision platform in a seamless way.

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Ionut Vlad (founder Tokinomo): A founder needs to become better at almost everything

Ionut Vlad is the founder & CEO of Tokinomo, an innovative solution for retail marketing.

Tokinomo is the answer to one of the problems brands have in retail space – which is neither branding nor packaging, it’s visibility. The company developed an in-store shopping engagement which helps retailers increase sales with an average of 200% (scroll down to see the tool in action).

Ionut is intuitive, smart and creative and set out to make his own contribution to a better world. I caught up with him before flying to a retail trade show and asked him a few questions.

Read on to find how he switched direction from employee to tech startup founder, three challenges his team had to overcome to develop his retail solution, his point of view regarding whether or not retail is dead and what skills he believes a successful startup founder should acquire or develop.

[bctt tweet=”Ionut Vlad, founder @Tokinomo: Initially, nobody believed us when we said we could increase their sales by over 200% although we had hard facts to prove it. #worldchanger” username=”brand_minds”]

1. You are a fine arts graduate and have been the art director for a global advertising company. In 2016 you decided to develop Tokinomo, an innovative solution for retail marketing. What made you switch direction from employee to tech startup founder?

During the time I’ve worked in advertising, I realised that FMCG brands needed a better way to engage and communicate with the shoppers in-store. That was the reason I’ve come up with the idea.

In the same time, I guess I was always looking to do something on my own, to create something unique as opposed to being just a well-paid employee forever. I believe I have an entrepreneurial spirit which runs a bit on my male side of the family as well. My father and uncle also had this spirit, and I think it got to me somehow.

2. Name three challenges that your team had to overcome while developing Tokinomo.

Only three? 🙂

First was the founder’s lack of technical background. Especially in electronics. We had to rally a strong team behind us to compensate and make it happen. Creating a dream team is always hard. Michael Jordans are hard to come by.

Second – novelty. Although bringing something new to the market seems like a significant advantage, from another point of view it is harder. Decision-makers are more too often reluctant to embrace new technologies, and they would instead adopt a follower attitude. We needed visionaries and daring individuals willing to challenge the status quo. Initially, nobody believed us when we said we could increase their sales by over 200% although we had hard facts to prove it.

Last, but not least – lack of deep insights from the retail industry. It is a pretty secretive closed caste kind of industry. It took us a while to realise the intricacies of their world, and we still have a lot to learn.

3. Tokinomo is currently available in Morocco, Italy, Switzerland, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. What’s next?

Actually, meanwhile, we are also in Saudi Arabia, Greece, Czech Republic and Ukraine 😀

We will continue to expand our distribution network across the globe, and we sign about 2-3 new distribution contracts per month.

Once we get our footprint in most territories we are interested in, we will be able to implement our solution at a higher scale partnering with the biggest global brands and retailers. Since many of my colleagues think I’m a dictator, I have no choice but acting like one and my plans for conquering the world are very much in place. After that, Mars is next :).

In parallel, we are working on new solutions to solve other relevant problems in the retail scene and add-ons to the current device. We have a few exciting new features coming along this year.

4. Many say retail is dead. What are your thoughts on the subject?

There’s a little joke I read somewhere: Nietzsche said “God is dead” and I don’t know about God, but Nietzsche is certainly dead 🙂

In some form or the other retail is far from dead. Even brick & mortar retail is very much alive, still holding around 90% of the total sales.

Of course, it currently reinvents itself, it becomes more omnichannel, it needs to embrace more new technologies and like in every story and every industry there are winners and losers. So my answer is losers will die, and winners will thrive. The ones who will be quick in adopting new technologies and solutions (especially Tokinomo of course) will do quite well.

5. What skills do you believe a successful startup founder should acquire or further develop?

It’s a difficult one. A founder needs to become better at almost everything. He is forced to change himself. He needs to become a leader, to have patience, wisdom, to be realistic, daring. If I picked one skill, I would say he needs to be courageous. Surprisingly, like the lion in the Wizard of Oz, it’s something that you can develop along the way. At least this is what I feel is right in my case.

Information is Power. Stay Ahead of the Competition with this Innovative Product

The modern tools of communication turned our world into a race for last minute news.

A few decades ago news were measured by the hours, now they are measured by the seconds.

Information is power and getting to it first is important for the business environment. The other aspect of paramount importance is relevancy and how much the news report on reality, not make-belief.

Signal Media is an artificial intelligence media monitoring and reputation management company that transforms the world’s information into accessible, actionable insight.

Signal Media is the platform which cuts through the noise and the clutter, “providing businesses with super-fast access to high-quality, hyper-relevant information to remain on top of their reputation.”

Signal Media delivers “the complete picture, a holistic global view to ensure that the decisions they made reflected reality – not assumptions.”

Signal Media is AI powered business intelligence

Signal offers a complete picture of your world. Powerful artificial intelligence finds the information you need, from places you didn’t even know to look, to make the unknown, known.

Benefits for executives and CEOs using Signal Media

1. Make smarter, faster decisions;
2. Understand the impact of their communications strategy;
3. Winning new business pitches using AI;
4. AI beats information overload and drives better decision-marketing;
5. Personalised real-time awareness into the conversations, market movements and issues affecting their world.

Track your world in real time: stay ahead of the story

How does it work?

• The Signal system is fed all information the moment it is published;
• Using natural language processing, the platform identifies all relevant information: names of the companies mentioned, topics of discussion, numbers, dates etc;
• Stories are gathered together in clusters according to their relevancy;
• All information is tagged and turned into relevant, actionable knowledge.

The client receives:

• AI-powered news and media monitoring – built-in real-time translations;
• Intelligence;
• Analysis.

The news sources that Signal uses are over 2.8m global online, print, television, radio and regulatory sources.

Turning the world’s information into knowledge.

Industries using Signal

• PR and communication;
• Risk management;
• Tax and compliance;
• Financial and legal services.

Features

Real-time – news coverage delivered as soon as it happens.

Limitless – unlimited search and premium content at a fixed price.

Hyper-relevant – the AI cuts the noise giving you the signal.

Simple – do everything through one intuitive platform.

An overall system that is evolving constantly, getting smarter and more intuitive.

Our cutting-edge AI enables businesses to track global news in real-time – from mentions of competitors, to regulatory changes, to their own spokespeople – with certainty, clarity and confidence. Signal gives businesses all the information they want to know, as well as the information they didn’t know they needed, to make better, smarter, faster business decisions. Signal makes the unknown, known.

About Signal Media

• Signal Media was co-founded in 2013 by David Benigson, CEO of Signal and Dr. Miguel Martinez, Head of Research. The company is with early stage venture funding, after raising a total of $26.6M to date;
• According to one of company’s press releases, the number of employees double to 100 people over the last year and revenues increased 4x since its Series A round in September 2016;
• The platform translates in real time the latest news in over 100 languages from 200 markets;
• Signal has over 200 clients including Allen & Overy, Amnesty International, British Airways, E.ON, TalkTalk, Thomas Cook and Whitbread – among many other household names;
• In November 2018, Signal Media won the inaugural Fujitsu AI Pioneer of the Year Award at the 2018 Lloyds Bank National Business Awards; The Fujitsu AI Pioneer Award was introduced in 2018 to acknowledge and reward businesses paving the way in artificial intelligence innovation ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of the technology’s evolution and adoption.

Winning the award means recognition for all of the work we have done since we started back in 2013 to push the boundaries of AI’s capabilities as far as we can.

Miguel Martinez

co-founder of Signal Media

Too Many Bank Cards? This App Solves the Problem!

Is your wallet bursting at the seams with too many bank cards? You have a bank card for each of your bank accounts, right? Do you often get confused and pay with your business card for your groceries? Wouldn’t you like to be hassle free and have just one bank card for all your bank accounts?

Well, you’re in luck!

This solution exists and it’s called Curve.

Curve is a card+ mobile app solution which brings all your finances in one place.

Curve’s Mission

Our mission is to connect together the best apps, accounts and technologies so that users have a single, trusted platform for everything money.

Tom Foster-Carter, co-founder and Shachar Bialick, founder CEO

Benefits of Curve

• Control – a better way to control your money;
• Convenience – one card to rule them all – it lets you use all your current cards through one simple, secure Curve Mastercard;
• Rewards – instant cashback from your favourite retailers;
• You can spend abroad with no exchange fees;
• No bookkeeper needed – you get real-time alerts that tell you how much you’ve spent and in which currency; it shows you how you are spending to help you manage your budget;
• Time travel – if you use the wrong card to pay, you can go back in time and change it;
• Security – Curve is safer than carrying all your cards with you; it doesn’t store your card numbers, your information is encrypted with military-grade security, it doesn’t share your information with retailers;
• Unlimited – it supports unlimited cards from Visa and Mastercard.

Awards and Funding

Curve was named The Leading Payments Start-up at the 2016 Emerging Payments Awards, in recognition of its innovative approach to building a user-friendly platform for everything money.

To date there are +100K downloads of the Curve app. Founded in 2015, Curve raised a total of $13 million. According to cnbc.com, in 2018 the finance app is looking to raise an additional $50 million to become the “Amazon of banking”.

How does Curve work?

1. Download the Curve app from the Apple Store or Google Play store;
2. Order your Curve Mastercard of choice;
3. Load your Mastercard or Visa credit and debit cards to the Curve app;
4. Pay with your Curve Mastercard by selecting the account you wish to use in the app.

How much does Curve cost?

The standard Curve Mastercard is free with no subscription fees. For the premium Curve Mastercard there is a one-time fee of 50 pounds.

Where is Curve available?

Curve is currently available in 15 European countries and the UK.

Later this year, a number of five additional countries will join them: Romania, France, Greece, Portugal and Spain.