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While software is said to be eating the world, software developers and other technical talent remains in short supply. Not only is this seeing major tech companies compete hard to hire the best engineers, but it has also meant a rise in the use of remote working freelancers or turning to offshore agencies. The problem with either solution, however, is the same: how to ensure outsourced work will be of high quality and that the individuals working on your project will be a good fit with the rest of your team.
Enter YouTeam, a U.K. startup and recent graduate of Y Combinator, which has created what it calls a marketplace for offshore talent. The companyplatform connects individual developers at agencies (and large companies that have spare developer capacity) with companies needing to add to their own development teams through outsourcing. In this way the aim is to bridge the gap between hiring an individual freelancer and the added vetting and accountability using an agency affords.
&Numerous times in our former companies we were let down by our software development partners and suppliers,& YouTeam co-founder and CEO Anton Mishchenko recalls. &For starters, ithard to objectively identify a reliable company because there is no unified industry standard for doing so. Secondly, it is impossible to know whether a company has the right team for the project because they rarely disclose information about their engineers until the contract is signed. Thirdly, the interests of the client and the supplier can often fork in different directions and so there is often limited trust, especially in the beginning of their relationship&.
To mitigate this, the YouTeam marketplace features profiles of individual developers at the agencies it has partnered with on the supply-side. Instead of simply hiring an agency and entering a crapshoot in terms of who will become part of your outsourced team, the idea is to contract with named individuals at the agency, either for a set amount of time or throughout a much longer-term project.
For the agency worker themselves, they arguably get a reliable and potentially more interesting stream of work without the hassle of spending time looking for and pricing the next gig. For the company seeking to outsource development work, they benefit from the vetting a reputable agency provides, and the fact that YouTeam sits in the middle, including taking payment and handling any disputes.
&In many offshore markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America local development agencies are the gateway to the best talent,& says Mishchenko. &But the way the market works is completely wrong. Our bet is simple: it is people that matter much more then companies, and so you should meet the people first. And thatexactly what happens on the YouTeam platform. First you find engineers that you want to work with & and only then you get to meet their agencies. So now employees also have a say over which projects they want to work on&.
Noteworthy is that, until entering YC, Mishchenko and YouTeamother founders Yurij Riphyak (CPO) and Nikita Voloshyn (CTO) had bootstrapped the company to £500,000 in annual run rate revenue without any external investment. They are now on the verge of closing a seed round, if it hasn&t already happened.
Meanwhile, aside from hiring an agency direct, Mishchenko says competitors broadly fall into two camps. Freelancer platforms, which are mostly for short-term projects, and supplier recommendation platforms, which help match you to an agency but are &ineffective when you need to find the right team&.
&Shortage of engineering talent is one of the key problems the tech industry is facing today,& he adds. &We believe such shortage can be avoided when companies know where and how to look. Most of the time this involves learning to navigate other countries& labour markets and finding reliable suppliers which is hard and time-consuming. We are the only solution that help clients throughout the whole journey from learning how to start their remote operations to scaling their development centre&.
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Read more: YouTeam is a marketplace for offshore developer talent
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Google is bringing its Demo Day event to Asia for the first time this September and now the search giant has opened applications for startups wanting to take part.
GoogleDemo Day are akin to a short version of an early-stage startup program. As the name suggests its a Demo Day but without themonths-long program leading up to it. The company instead identifies promising companies, and it works with them ahead of the demo day to give mentoring, coaching and perfect a pitch that is delivered to VCs and others from Googleentrepreneurship network who attend the demo day.
Aside from working closely with Google and earnings Google Cloud credits, Google says its events help get startups connected and raise capital. To that end,it says that startups which have pitched at Demo Days have raised a cumulative $259 million from investors.
Events have been held in North America and Europe, with some participating companies from Asia,but this coming event — which takes place in Shanghai on September 20 — will be the first on Asian soil.
Companies wishing to apply should visit the sign-up sitebefore the deadline ofJuly 1 at 11:59 pm SGT.
The move is a further sign that Google is escalating its presence in Asia, and particularly in China.
In past months, we&ve seen Google agree to a partnership withTencent,invest in China-based startups —biotech-focusedXtalPiandlive-streaming service Cushou— andannounce an AI lab in Beijing. Added to that,Google gained a large tech presence in Taiwanvia the completion of its acquisition of a chunk of HTC, andit opened a presence in Shenzhen, the Chinese city known as ‘the Silicon Valley of hardware.&
Beyond China, Google has made its first direct investments in Asia-based companies by backing Indiaon-demand service Dunzo and Southeast Asian ride-hailing unicorn Go-Jek.
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Read more: Startups can now apply to take part in Google’s first Demo Day event in Asia
Write comment (99 Comments)Itnot enough in this day and age that we have to deal with fake news, we also have to deal with fake prescription drugs, fake luxury goods, and fake Renaissance-era paintings. Sometimes all at once! IBM Verifier is a gadget and platform made (naturally) to instantly verify that something is what it claims to be, by inspecting it at a microscopic level.
Essentially you stick a little thing on your phonecamera, open the app, and put the sensor against what you&re trying to verify, be it a generic antidepressant or an ore sample. By combining microscopy, spectroscopy, and a little bit of AI, the Verifier compares what it sees to a known version of the item and tells you whether they&re the same.
The key component in this process is an &optical element& that sits in front of the camera (it can be anything that takes a decent image) amounting to a specialized hyper-macro lens. It allows the camera to detect features as small as a micron — for comparison, a human hair is usually a few dozen microns wide.
At the micron level there are patterns and optical characteristics that aren&t visible to the human eye, like precisely which wavelengths of light it reflects. The quality of a weave, the number of flaws in a gem, the mixture of metals in an alloy… all stuff you or I would miss, but a machine learning system trained on such examples will pick out instantly.
For instance a counterfeit pill, although orange and smooth and imprinted just like a real one if one were to just look at it, will likely appear totally different at the micro level: textures and structures with a very distinct pattern, or at least distinct from the real thing — not to mention a spectral signature thatprobably way different. Therealso no reason it can&t be used on things like expensive wines or oils, contaminated water, currency, and plenty of other items.
IBM was eager to highlight the AI element, which is trained on the various patterns and differentiates between them, though as far as I can tell ita pretty straightforward classification task. I&m more impressed by the lens they put together that can resolve at a micron level with so little distortion and not exclude or distort the colors too much. It even works on multiple phones — you don&t have to have this or that model.
The first application IBM is announcing for its Verifier is as a part of the diamond trade, which is of course known for fetishizing the stones and their uniqueness, and also establishing elaborate supply trains to ensure product is carefully controlled. The Verifier will be used as an aide for grading stones, not on its own but as a tool for human checkers; ita partnership with the Gemological Institute of America, which will test integrating the tool into its own workflow.
By imaging the stone from several angles, the individual identity of the diamond can be recorded and tracked as well, so that its provenance and trail through the industry can be tracked over the years. Here IBM imagines blockchain will be useful, which is possible but not exactly a given.
It&ll be a while before you can have one of your own, but herehoping this type of tech becomes popular enough that you can check the quality or makeup of something at least without having to visit some lab.
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Read more: IBM’s Verifier inspects (and verifies) diamonds, pills and materials at the micron level
Write comment (95 Comments)Excited to announce that this yearThe Europas Unconference - Awards is shaping up! Our half day Unconference kicks off on 3 July, 2018 at The Brewery in the heart of London&Tech City& area, followed by our startup awards dinner and fantastic party and celebration of European startups!
The event is run in partnership with TechCrunch, the official media partner. Attendees, nominees and winners will get deep discounts to TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin, later this year. The Europas Awards are based on voting by expert judges and the industry itself. But key to the daytime is all the speakers and invited guests. Thereno &off-limits speaker room& at The Europas, so attendees can mingle easily with VIPs and speakers.
What exactly is an Unconference We&re dispensing with the lectures and going straight to the deep-dives, where you&ll get a front row seat with Europeleading investors, founders and thought leaders to discuss and debate the most urgent issues, challenges and opportunities. Up close and personal! And, crucially, a few feet away from handing over a business card. The Unconference is focused into zones including AI, Fintech, Mobility, Startups, Society, and Enterprise and Crypto / Blockchain.
We&ve confirmed 10 new speakers including:
Eileen Burbidge, Passion Capital
Richard Muirhead, Fabric Ventures
Sitar Teli, Connect Ventures
Nancy Fechnay, Blockchain Technologist + Angel
Scott Sage, Crane Venture Partners
Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel
Tina Baker, Jag Shaw Baker
How To Get Your Ticket For FREE
We&d love for you to ask your friends to join us at The Europas & and we&ve got a special way to thank you for sharing.
Your friend will enjoy a 15% discount off the price of their ticket with your code, and you&ll get 15% off the price of YOUR ticket.
Thatright, we will refund you 15% off the cost of your ticket automatically when your friend purchases a Europas ticket.
So you can grab tickets here.
Vote for your Favourite Startups
Public Voting is still humming along. Please remember to vote for your favourite startups!
Awards by category:
Hottest Media/Entertainment Startup
Hottest E-commerce/Retail Startup
Hottest Education Startup
Hottest Startup Accelerator
Hottest Marketing/AdTech Startup
Hottest Games Startup
Hottest Mobile Startup
Hottest FinTech Startup
Hottest Enterprise, SaaS or B2B Startup
Hottest Hardware Startup
Hottest Platform Economy / Marketplace
Hottest Health Startup
Hottest Cyber Security Startup
Hottest Travel Startup
Hottest Internet of Things Startup
Hottest Technology Innovation
Hottest FashionTech Startup
Hottest Tech For Good
Hottest A.I. Startup
Fastest Rising Startup Of The Year
Hottest GreenTech Startup of The Year
Hottest Startup Founders
Hottest CEO of the Year
Best Angel/Seed Investor of the Year
Hottest VC Investor of the Year
Hottest Blockchain/Crypto Startup Founder(s)
Hottest Blockchain Protocol Project
Hottest Blockchain DApp
Hottest Corporate Blockchain Project
Hottest Blockchain Investor
Hottest Blockchain ICO (Europe)
Hottest Financial Crypto Project
Hottest Blockchain for Good Project
Hottest Blockchain Identity Project
Hall Of Fame Award & Awarded to a long-term player in Europe
The Europas Grand Prix Award (to be decided from winners)
The Awards celebrates the most forward thinking and innovative tech - blockchain startups across over some 30+ categories.
Startups can apply for an award or be nominated by anyone, including our judges. It is free to enter or be nominated.
What is The Europas
Instead of thousands and thousands of people, think of a great summer event with 1,000 of the most interesting and useful people in the industry, including key investors and leading entrepreneurs.
• No secret VIP rooms, which means you get to interact with the Speakers
• Key Founders and investors speaking; featured attendees invited to just network
• Expert speeches, discussions, and Q-A directly from the main stage
• Intimate &breakout& sessions with key players on vertical topics
• The opportunity to meet almost everyone in those small groups, super-charging your networking
• Journalists from major tech titles, newspapers and business broadcasters
• A parallel Founders-only track geared towards fund-raising and hyper-networking
• A stunning awards dinner and party which honors both the hottest startups and the leading lights in the European startup scene
• All on one day to maximise your time in London. And itPROBABLY sunny!
Thatjust the beginning. Theremore to come…
Interested in sponsoring the Europas or hosting a table at the awards Or purchasing a table for 10 or 12 guest or a half table for 5 guests Get in touch with: Petra Johansson This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Phone: +44 (0) 20 3239 9325
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Read more: Meet the speakers at The Europas, and get your ticket free (July 3, London)
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