all News of 02/18/20

African Crowdsolving Startup Zindi Scales 10,000 Data Scientists

African crowdsolving startup Zindi scales 10,000 data scientists image Cape Town based startup Zindi has registered 10,000 data-scientists on its platform that uses AI and machine learning to crowdsolve complex problems in Africa. Founded in 2018, the early-stage venture allows companies, NGOs or government ...

China’S Economy Running At Just 40-50% Capacity Amid Coronavirus Lockdown, Data Suggests

The biggest question for the global economy right now is how quickly China can get back to anything like normal operations while it’s battling the coronavirus outbreak that has killed almost 1,900 people and sickened tens of thousands. Government ...

Brickbat: Respect My Authority!

Nedra Miller said she let officials at Florida's River Ridge High School know weeks earlier that her son would not be at school one day because of an appointment with an orthodontist. Her son, William, made the mistake of dropping a friend off at ...

Pakistani Police Officer Assigned To Escort Polio Vaccination Team Killed In Bombing

(PESHAWAR, Pakistan) — A roadside bombing targeted a police vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing a policeman and wounding three others, officials said. The police were assigned to escort health workers during an anti-polio ...

Wuhan Hospital Director Dies Of Coronavirus, State Media Reports

A senior doctor at a hospital in the Chinese city of Wuhan died from the novel coronavirus, the latest fatality among medical workers as they rush to save tens of thousands of patients at the epicenter of the outbreak. Liu Zhiming, the director of ...

Gojek Reportedly Buys 4.3% Stake In Indonesian Taxi Company Blue Bird

Gojek has paid $30 million to take a minority stake in Blue Bird , one of the largest taxi operators in Indonesia, according to Bloomberg , which first reported that the deal was in progress last month. Gojek’s stake in Blue Bird is worth ...

SumUp Launches Mastercard-Powered ‘SumUp Card’ For Business Payments

SumUp , the London-based fintech company that enables small businesses to take card payments via its device and online , is launching its own pre-paid card in partnership with Mastercard. Dubbed “ SumUp Card,” the new offering will ...

Atomico Raises New $820m Fund To Back ‘Mission-Driven’ European Founders At Series A And Beyond

Atomico , the European venture capital firm founded by Skype’s Niklas Zennström, has announced that it has closed its fifth fund — “ Atomico V” — giving it another $820 million to invest in European startups. The ...

Coronavirus Has Reduced China’S Aviation Market To Smaller Than Portugal’S

China’s aviation market, projected to overtake the U.S. this decade and become the world’s biggest, has shrunk to such an extent due to the coronavirus outbreak that it’s fallen from third to 25th, behind Portugal. Airlines have ...

The Australian Government’S Climate Policy Is Hurting Its Currency, Analyst Says

The Australian dollar could find long term relief from cyclical downturns if the country’s government decides to take climate change seriously, according to ABN Amro Bank NV. The Dutch bank expects the country’s focus to turn toward ...

The Gun Guy And Illegal Militia Founder Who Became President: George Washington

Presidents' Day should be a day of reflection on the virtues of the leaders who helped to preserve, protect, and defend our constitutional republic. So let's look at the record of George Washington and the armed citizenry. In early 1775, tensions ...

Voodoo Games Thrives By Upending Conventional Product Design

Will Robbins Contributor Share on Twitter Will Robbins is an early-stage investor at Contrary . Voodoo Games is one of the most interesting startups alive today. In mid-2018, it had 150 ...

Apple Says Coronavirus Outbreak In China Will Hurt Revenue

Apple doesn’t expect to meet its revenue guidance for the March quarter due to work slowdowns and lower demand due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus in China. The company said that the iPhone, which generates the bulk of Apple’s ...

GGV Capital Says Mom-And-Pop Shops Can Boost E-Commerce In Emerging Markets

Despite the rapid growth of e-commerce in India, Southeast Asia and other emerging markets, the vast majority of retail transactions there still happen offline in small stores that also serve as neighborhood hubs. The central role these stores play ...

Facebook Asks For A Moat Of Regulations It Already Meets

Facebook asks for a moat of regulations it already meets image It’s suspiciously convenient that Facebook already fulfills most of the regulatory requirements it’s asking governments to lay on the rest of the tech industry. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in Brussels lobbying the European ...

The Station: Lucid Motors Spy Shot And The Birth Of An AV Startup

The Station: Lucid Motors spy shot and the birth of an AV startup image The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox . Hello again — or perhaps for the first time. This is Kirsten Korosec, senior ...

So Much For Pessimism

After WeWork exploded there was — at least supposedly — a change in sentiment among investors and founders alike. Gone were the days of easy nine-figure rounds, expensive growth, negative unit economics and the rest of the excess that ...

A Nondelegation Challenge To Trump's Travel Bans

A Nondelegation Challenge to Trump's Travel Bans image President Trump's recently announced expanded travel ban policy has most of the same moral, policy, and constitutional flaws as his previous travel bans . Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom holds that there is little, if any prospect of ...

Apple Will Miss Revenue Forecast As Coronavirus Impacts Its Manufacturing, Sales

Today Apple announced that its prior financial forecast, provided during its January earnings cycle , is no longer valid. In a letter to investors today, the technology giant said that it “do[es] not expect to meet the revenue guidance we ...

Rippling Starts Billboard Battle With Gusto

Rippling starts billboard battle with Gusto image Remember when Zenefits imploded, and kicked out CEO Parker Conrad. Well, Conrad launched a new employee onboarding startup called Rippling, and now he’s going after another HR company called Gusto with a new billboard, “Outgrowing ...