Month: April 2022

Posted on

Finbots.AI Raises USD 3 Million from Accel in Series A Round

SINGAPORE, April 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Finbots.AI, an AI-envisioned firm bringing innovation to banks and financial institutions, today announced it has raised USD 3 million in a Series A round from Accel. This investment is from Accel’s Fund VII, and is the first external investment for Finbots.AI. The funds will be used towards accelerating product enhancement, marketing and sales, and customer support besides recruiting of senior talent and team expansion across its offices. India drives all of the global development and support for Finbots.AI, with its corporate headquarters in Singapore and a regional head office in Dubai.

Commenting on the successful Series A fundraise, Sanjay Uppal, Founder and CEO of Finbots.AI, said, “This new funding unlocks the next phase of growth for Finbots.AI. Financial institutions today need pathbreaking solutions to solve their complex challenges brought by legacy platforms. Tapping on AI-enabled solutions can help them transform exponentially. We are thrilled to have Accel as a partner in this journey, further cementing the potential and trust in our solution. Accel’s impressive track record with growth stage companies will be a key support for Finbots.AI. We have an enormous growth potential and I am excited for our journey to transforming financial services.”

Since its inception in 2017, Finbots.AI identified an opportunity to use AI-powered solutions to aid banks and financial institutions to overcome industry challenges. ZScore is a full-scale AI-driven credit scorecard system for lending institutions that spans the entire credit lifecycle. Equipped with an intuitive user interface and robust scorecard development capabilities, ZScore rapidly develops higher accuracy credit scorecards by using advanced Machine Learning algorithms that utilise historical traditional and alternate data to automatically build, validate, and deploy real-time, high-performing risk models.

Mahendran Balachandran, Partner at Accel, shared, “The Finbots.AI team brings decades of collective experience in financial services and technology, and we see great potential and promise in their solution – ZScore – as it strives to remedy and bridge the limitations of legacy credit systems. We, at Accel, are delighted to be a part of Finbot.AI’s growth as they propel forward to enhance financial services by leveraging AI technology to serve the entire community – ranging from the large banks to the small lenders. We see massive potential in this region and FinTech as a vertical.”

Posted on

DREAM11 S’APPUIE SUR LES DONNÉES DE VOLT ACTIVE DATA POUR ENGAGER 130 MILLIONS D’UTILISATEURS DANS L’IPL 2022

La plus grande plateforme de sports de fantaisie au monde a annoncé l’expansion récente de son partenariat avec Volt Active Data sur la lancée d’un succès mesurable.

BEDFORD, Massachusetts, 28 avril 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Volt Active Data, la seule plateforme de données d’entreprise conçue pour répondre aux exigences en temps réel des sociétés de jeux de grande envergure et des sociétés de technologie à fortes transactions actuelles, a annoncé aujourd’hui que Dream11, la plus grande plateforme de sports fictifs du monde, a étendu son contrat avec Volt.

Volt Active Data Logo

Dream11 compte plus de 130 millions d’utilisateurs actifs et est déjà prête à gérer en production plus de 10 millions d’utilisateurs simultanés aux heures de pointe. Dream11 a initialement commencé avec Volt lors de la saison 2018 de l’IPL, et après avoir constaté le succès de la technologie (en partie grâce à la faible latence, au débit élevé et à l’assurance de disponibilité que fournit la plateforme Volt), elle a décidé d’approfondir sa relation avec Volt et d’élargir son utilisation de la plateforme Volt Active Data.

« C’est une situation gagnant-gagnant pour Dream11 et Volt », a déclaré David Flower, PDG de Volt Active Data. « L’expansion représente non seulement une autre validation de la plateforme Volt Active Data en tant que leader de la technologie des données en temps réel, mais elle change également la donne pour Dream11, car cela va essentiellement assurer l’avenir de leur plateforme pour la croissance explosive qu’ils connaissent et continueront de connaître ».

Volt fournit la précision, la fiabilité et les performances exigées par les millions de fans de sport qui cherchent à participer à des concours fantaisistes pendant l’IPL. Que ce soit entre amis ou parmi un million d’autres fans en compétition pour montrer leurs compétences et leurs connaissances du cricket, la faible latence de Volt, même en cas d’énormes pics de trafic (juste après le lancement du jeu), permet à Dream11 d’offrir la meilleure expérience de fantaisie aux fans et de devenir le choix numéro un en Inde pour les sports de fantaisie.

« La saison 2022 de l’IPL promettant d’établir de nouveaux records dans tous les domaines, nous savions que c’était le moment idéal pour intensifier notre relation stratégique avec l’équipe de Volt Active Data », a déclaré Amit Sharma, directeur technique de Dream11. « Chez Dream11, une excellente expérience utilisateur, une approche axée sur les données et une technologie de pointe sont toujours au cœur de nos préoccupations. Le défi du modèle de données auquel nous sommes confrontés pendant l’IPL est très nuancé et Volt est la seule plateforme que nous avons trouvée qui peut nous aider à surmonter ces défis techniques ».

À propos de Volt Active Data

Volt Active Data permet aux applications d’entreprise d’ingérer, de traiter et d’agir sur les données en quelques millisecondes pour exploiter de nouvelles sources de revenus et prévenir les pertes de revenus. Avec des clients de premier plan dans les télécommunications, la finance, les jeux et bien d’autres secteurs verticaux, la plateforme Volt est positionnée de manière unique pour être la technologie de référence de toute entreprise cherchant à tirer pleinement parti de la 5G, de l’IoT et de tout ce qui suivra. En savoir plus sur voltactivedata.com.

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1805076/Volt_Active_Data_Logo.jpg

Posted on

Families of Kidnap Victims Reject Nigerian Bill Punishing Ransom Payments

Relatives of kidnap victims in Nigeria have expressed concerns about a bill passed the Nigerian Senate on Wednesday that would outlaw ransom payments for someone’s release.

Paul Mshelia, the father of a kidnap victim, was alerted by phone of an attack at a forestry college in Kaduna state the morning of March 12, 2021. His caller told him that his son, who is a student at the school, and 38 others had been taken away by armed gangs.

Mshelia says it was a difficult moment for his family.

“The experience we have passed through with my wife is still affecting me psychologically,” he said. “Till today, at 4 a.m. when the day is breaking, I remember the experience. I’ll wake up from sleep and won’t go back to sleep.”

Mshelia’s family and the parents of other kidnapped students say that after weeks of negotiations, they paid about $100,000 to secure the release of their children.

They negotiated despite warnings from Nigerian authorities not to give in to pressure from the kidnappers.

This week, the Nigerian Senate approved an amendment to the country’s terrorism law that would outlaw ransom payments. Anyone who paid ransom could face up to 15 years in prison.

The bill also proposes the death penalty for convicted kidnappers when the abduction leads to loss of life, and life imprisonment in other instances.

Authorities warn that paying ransom was only making kidnappers emboldened and hope the bill will address the spate of kidnappings.

But Mshelia disagrees.

“To me, it’s out of context because I don’t think it’s going to solve any problem,” he said. “Even if you jail somebody today and this kidnapping continues, people will still go out of their way to pay.”

The bill still needs approval from the lower house of parliament and from President Muhammadu Buhari before it becomes law.

Authorities in northern Nigeria are struggling to contain armed gangs who are on a kidnapping spree and have earned huge sums of money through ransom payments.

Human rights lawyer Martin Obono says the government is shifting responsibility by criminalizing ransom payment by citizens.

“This is government actually trying to shift the post. If you’re now saying that you want to criminalize ransom payment, who’s going to criminalize government’s failure to provide or guarantee my own security?” Obono said.

According to a report by Lagos-based risk analysis firm SB Morgen Intelligence, at least $18.3 million in ransom was paid to Nigerian kidnappers between 2011 and 2020.

Source: Voice of America

Posted on

Central African Republic, first in Africa to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender

BANJUI— The Central African Republic (CAR) became the first African country to adopt cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender.

Globally, the country is the second country to do so after El Salvador.

President Faustin Archange Touadera signed a bill into law after it had been approved by Members of Parliament unanimously.

The move means CAR will use bitcoin as legal tender alongside the CFA franc.

An official in the presidency said the move placed the CAR on the map of the world’s boldest and most visionary countries.

The country is a landlocked state in central Africa, it is rated one of the world’s poorest, having suffered devastating conflict in recent years.

It was under French control till independence in 1960.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Posted on

Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Surging in Africa Due to COVID-19 Disruptions

The World Health Organization warns that vaccine-preventable diseases are spreading across the African continent because routine immunizations against killer diseases have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tens of millions of people have missed out on routine immunization services. That not only puts their lives at risk from potentially deadly diseases but creates an environment in which killer diseases can thrive and spread.

Benido Impouma, director for communicable and noncommunicable diseases in the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa, said the pandemic has put a huge strain on health systems. It has impaired routine immunization services in many African countries and forced the suspension of vaccination drives.

Over the past year, he said, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases have increased across the continent.

“For instance, between January and March of this year, around 17,000 cases of measles were recorded. This is a 400 percent increase compared with the same period last year,” Impouma said. “Twenty-four countries in our region confirmed outbreaks of a variant of polio last year, which is four times more than in 2020.”

He noted that outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable diseases, such as yellow fever, also are surging.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF recently issued a report warning of a heightened risk of vaccine-preventable diseases. They attribute it in large part to increasing inequalities in access to vaccines due to pandemic-related disruptions.

They expressed particular concern about a worldwide spike in measles cases, which have increased by 79 percent in the first two months of this year. They noted that most cases were reported in Africa and in eastern Mediterranean regions.

WHO is working to improve immunization coverage and protection for children, Impouma said, adding that WHO and its partners are supporting African countries to carry out catch-up routine vaccination campaigns.

“More than 30 African countries implemented at least one routine catch-up immunization campaign in the second half of last year,” he said. “And this year, countries are showing progress, with measles and yellow fever campaigns starting again. Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan have reinstated measles campaigns, which is good news.”

However, COVID-19 news is not as promising. WHO said that this week new COVID-19 cases and deaths on the continent have increased for the first time after a decline of more than two months for cases and one month for deaths.

The latest recorded figures put the number of cases at 11.6 million, including nearly 253,000 deaths.

Source: Voice of America

Proudly powered by WordPress