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Category: Social Business (Page 14 of 50)

Easier mobile app development tools take over SmartCamp Europe Regionals

December 4, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Our final SmartCamp Regional event for the year was held last week in London. We had 9 startup finalists; that’s the largest SmartCamp Regional we’ve ever had! Eight countries across Europe, including Israel, were represented. It was a truly amazing event!

Watch this short video about the SmartCamp Europe Regional!

The results produced two winners who will be going on to the SmartCamp Global Finals: Kinetise and WakingApp. Congratulations to these two startups for winning what proved to be one of the most competitive SmartCamps ever!

There is a common thread between these two startups. Both are native digital app companies with mobile solutions that allow anyone to create a mobile app, even if they don’t have hardcore programming skills. Drag and drop features are evident in both solutions, making it much easier and faster to deploy the features you want and need into your mobile app.

But why make mobile app development easier for non-developers? According to Piotr Pawlak, CEO of Kinetise, it is “because of the developer shortage. There is simply not enough engineers in the market” to keep up with demand.

Kinetise and WakingApp have tapped into the future of mobile app development, and I couldn’t be more excited to have them compete at our Global Finals! You can follow them on Twitter @Kinetise and @WakingApp.

The People’s Choice Award went to Magick, winner of SmartCamp Nordics. It’s clear to see why they are so popular since their mobile, browser-based financial trading solution makes it so much easier to perform financial trades, especially in the foreign currency exchange trade. Something tells me you’ll be hearing more about Magick, like in financial magazines! You can follow them on Twitter @MAGICKnu.

And I’m so thrilled that Andiamo, one of my favorite startups, received a Special Mention during the event. Andiamo, our SmartCamp London winner, has a solution that uses 3D scanning and printing technology to create orthotics for children in a fraction of the time it took with previous methods… and cheaper, too! They are literally improving the lives of so many children and their families with this innovative solution. Congratulations to Andiamo and continued success! Follow them on Twitter @AndiamoHQ.

Follow my blog post for more on the upcoming SmartCamp Global Finals for 2014!

The 3-D Ultrasound Medical Scanner That Runs On Your Smartphone

December 2, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Imagine that every doctor’s office – perhaps even every pharmacy – had a low cost imaging device running on a smartphone.  The scanner would be able to provide instant, real-time pictures inside damaged limbs and inside other parts of the body, significantly reducing the time taken for diagnosis.

No referrals, no hospital visits and faster treatments.
Several low-cost medical imaging devices driven by smartphones are now arriving. One of the most interesting approaches is from the Butterfly Network which proposes to make a small ultrasound scanner able to run on a variety of smartphones.
One issue with low-cost portable scanners is that family doctors and pharmacists will need training to interpret scan results.  But scanner makers are also likely to offer a real-time on-line interpretation service to assist.  And for a fee.  Compliments of Ray Hammond — a true futrologist!

Great Black Friday Retail Analytics – compliments of IBM!

November 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Our mega Black Friday wrap report is now out and it’s chalked full of data goodness. So grab a cup of coffee, fire up the analystics machine, and start the day off right with our Benchmark.

The headline: Black Friday drove a 9.5% sales increase from last year!

bf-report-image-2014

While Thanksgiving is starting to eat into sales, Black Friday continues to pay dividend for online retailers with a 9.5% sales jump vs. last year according to IBM’s real-time analytics.

Mobile shopping makes its mark on Black Friday as nearly half of online retail traffic came from mobile devices after beating the 50% mobile traffic mark on Thanksgiving. Black Friday mobile sales reached nearly 27.9% of all online sales, an increase of 28.2% last year.

New York City shoppers topped all online shoppers in Black Friday sales, according to the IBM data. New York was followed by Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago.

In the battle of mobile devices, smartphone users were driving the most traffic on Black Friday, but it was tablet users who converted more sales.

Health & Beauty and Home Good online outlets were among the big winners on Black Friday according to IBM data analytics reports. Health & Beauty sales surged 56.9% while Home Goods built a 43.2% increase.

Facebook users coverted orders at nearly four times as many sales than Pinterest on Black Friday. Facebook also drove a higher average order value ($109.94) compared to Pinterest ($100.24)

Summarized — Here’s other Top 8 Factoids:

  1. Mobile drives over 49.6% of all online retail traffic on BlackFriday
  2. Mobile drives more than 1/2 of all online retail traffic for 1st time on Thanksgiving
  3. NYC is the #1 shopping city!  Top cities for online retail sales on BlackFriday: NYC, DC, Atlanta, Los Angelos, Chicago
  4. Smartphones drive clicks but tablets drive cha-chings on #BlackFriday
  5. Retailers get more targeted with the #BlackFriday email promotions sending 11% fewer messages
  6. Apple iOS takes nearly 4x bigger bite of #BlackFriday mobile shopping sales vs. Android
  7. Apple devices drive more than 2x traffic to online retailers than Android  and Apple iOS shoppers spend $121.86 per order vs. $98.07 for Androd – a 24% difference!!
  8. Facebook users convert sales at more than 2x rate of Pinterest on #BlackFriday

The evolution of retail: EyeQ and RosieApp from North America Regionals move on to SmartCamp Global Finals

November 28, 2014 / / 0 Comments

We’re seeing an incredible transformation in retail right now driven by Cloud-Analytics-Mobile-Social (CAMS)! Nowhere was this more evident than at the US Regional SmartCamp Finals recently. The winners chosen by our crack judging team of VCs and startup experts both had something in common: they are transforming the customer experience for retailers and brands.

eyeQ gathers data about in-store customers to help retailers understand how purchase decisions are made at the shelf. How does the customer react to a given product? What role does gender bias play? How much time are they taking to make a purchase decision? eyeQ collects all this information on the Bluemix cloud platform, giving brands better customer insight. (Follow them on Twitter @eyeQinsights)

Likewise, Rosie makes it possible for small and medium-sized brick-and-mortar stores to offer a robust online shopping experience for their customers. They collect data on a shopper’s buying habits and then translate that into an enhanced online shopping experience. Their platform brings together the whole retail supply chain to deliver exceptional customer experience. The mobile-based RosieApp lets customers keep control of when their key groceries run out and order and deliver them automatically! A powerful recommendation engine suggests relevant products. (Follow them on Twitter @RosieApp)

Winning their second People’s Choice Award, BeehiveID’s solution for authenticating online identities clearly has a popular following of supporters and customers. Their solution is a critical service in our increasingly mobile and online lives! (Follow them on Twitter @BeehiveID)

Congrats to all our winners! And we look forward to seeing eyeQ and Rosie at our SmartCamp Global Finals!

Helpful links:
eyeQ -> http://www.eyeqinsights.com/
Rosie -> https://www.rosieapp.com/
BeehiveID -> http://beehiveid.com/

Content transformation and Fire fighting: Two startups make it to Global Finals!

November 26, 2014 / / 0 Comments

What do two startups, one with a solution in content transformation and the other with a solution in fighting forest fires, have in common? They are both heading to the SmartCamp Global Finals! Stelae Technologies and Insight Robotics won our SmartCamp Asia Pacific Regional!

Stelae Technologies, winner of SmartCamp India, has an automated solution that enables an end-to-end workflow for information management. With at least 70% of cost savings over current solutions, theirs is one platform for multiple file types (PDF, Word, ASCII, etc.) and enables rapid turnaround times for converting files into multiple output formats (XML, S1000d, XBRL, etc.).

So, imagine if you had access to a single platform that enabled you to create, manage, and convert multiple file formats. That would be a huge time and money saver!

And I really love what Insight Robotics, winner of SmartCamp China, is doing to prevent forest fires. Just last year in the United States, over 9.3 million acres of forest were lost to fires! Just think of how many acres globally are lost! Thankfully, Insight Robotics has a solution to address this global problem.

Using thermal imaging sensors and advanced artificial intelligence vision technology, Insight Robotics solution allows fire fighters to quickly locate a forest fire, giving them a jump at extinguishing the flames. So precise is their solution that is can spot fires as small as an area of 2m x 1m within 5km radius!

Congratulations to Stelae Technologies and Insight Robotics! I’ll see you both at the SmartCamp Global Finals!

Helpful links:
Stelae Technologies -> http://www.stelae-technologies.com/
Insight Robotics -> http://www.insightrobotics.com/

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