Over centuries the forms of interaction between people in society have changed, and the search for the optimal organization of community management has been conducted. And for a long time, decision-making determining the lives of large communities was the privilege of a small circle of people, while the opinion of the majority of the population, for various reasons, was not taken into account. Zencityuses advanced tools and techniques to engage the public and create effective interaction between the public and public institutions. The innovative, community-driven decision-making solution was recognized by the World Future Awards research group, and Zencity was named a winner in the category of Best AI-powered Community Engagement Platform.
World Future Awards is a global award selecting, recognizing, celebrating, and promoting the best products, software, and services that will transform the global economy and define the landscape of the future. The organization researches inventions across all categories, including technology, beauty, health care, food, home, and entertainment, that are making the world better, smarter or even a bit more fun.
The development of high technology and tools for processing large amounts of data have changed the global information landscape, and the sphere of public opinion and the work of local governments is no exception. Zencity uses cutting-edge advances in data processing to solve the problem of interaction between the public and local governments and make a significant contribution to solving social problems on a global level.
The Zencity team has developed the Zencity 360 platform, which includes a wide range of high-performance tools to help local governments hear from the public and incorporate them into their decision-making. By consolidating large amounts of data, the platform makes sense of it and allows you to highlight key messages for good governance and building public trust.
Zencity 360 enables real-time media monitoring and online discussions to track public reactions to certain events. The platform’s options also include an inclusive digital collaboration center, community surveys, a module for measuring and improving services, and other tools with which authorities can increase public trust and justify it through well-established interaction and informed decision-making.
The challenges faced by the food and catering industry in recent years have challenged leading market players to look for innovative solutions for further successful development. The advanced approach provided by the PreciTasteteam is aimed at changing the industry and helping to address key issues for quick-service restaurants, including improving the customer and employee experience and reducing food waste. The effectiveness of PreciTaste’s products and services has been successfully proven in practice when they have significantly improved the performance of food service establishments of various types. This year, the platform’s success was validated by the World Future Awards research team, which named PreciTaste the winner in the Best AI-driven Foodservice Platform category.
World Future Awards is a global award selecting, recognizing, celebrating, and promoting the best products, software, and services that will transform the global economy and define the landscape of the future. The organization researches inventions across all categories, including technology, beauty, health care, food, home, and entertainment, that are making the world better, smarter or even a bit more fun.
The development of artificial intelligence technology has boosted various fields, and for the food service industry, it has also marked the opening of new horizons. PreciTaste has leveraged cutting-edge technology and best practices from food service leaders to set the standard for the management and pave the way for the future of QSR.
PreciTaste is an innovative food tech company that uses deep-tech computer vision and machine learning to provide real-time recommendations to food service kitchen crews. With its proprietary Vision AI platform and deep learning, it assists crews in three key areas – «What to Cook When,» «What to Prep When,» and «Order Accuracy Assistance.»
The solution uses cameras installed around quick-service restaurants to track customer demand and match it with food inventories in the kitchen. Using a variety of data, the platform makes recommendations to workers on how much food to prepare and which dishes will be in demand. With the help of cameras in the kitchen and touchscreens, PreciTaste also gives clear instructions on how to prepare food.
The PreciTaste team has already deployed more than 1,750 food artificial intelligence systems, each of which, in turn, helps improve the platform. The practice has shown that its use helps eliminate up to 86% of food waste, reduce the average storage time of freshly prepared ingredients by 35%, and consolidate up to 40% of kitchen tasks.
One of the greatest benefits of high-tech has been that it has allowed machines to do things that only humans could do, freeing up resources for more important things. Enthusiasts continue to explore the potential of AI and develop software that, without exaggeration, pushes the boundaries of document processing and takes business to the next level. One of the leaders in this direction is Automation Hero, which has offered a unique solution for comprehensive automation of document-related processes. This year, the outstanding achievements of the Automation Hero team were recognized by the World Future Awards research team, and the company was named the winner in the category of Best AI-driven Document Processing Platform.
World Future Awards is a global award selecting, recognizing, celebrating, and promoting the best products, software, and services that will transform the global economy and define the landscape of the future. The organization researches inventions across all categories, including technology, beauty, health care, food, home, and entertainment, that are making the world better, smarter or even a bit more fun.
With the ever-increasing volume of data, the issue of rapid and high-quality processing, structuring, and analysis becomes crucial. Automation Hero makes a significant contribution to the future by offering technology that opens unprecedented prospects in optimizing company operations, improving customer service, and finding new sources of revenue.
Automation Hero is a comprehensive SaaS platform that uses artificial intelligence to process and automate documents. The creators of the platform have developed an AI engine capable of efficiently performing manual tasks related to viewing, understanding, extracting data, and taking action on documents. Particular emphasis is placed on processing semi-structured and unstructured documents, including handwritten text, photos, PDFs, claims, invoices, etc.
A proprietary optical character recognition engine converts scanned documents into data and uses contextual cues to recognize the most complex handwriting. And Automation Hero, as an end-to-end platform, doesn’t limit itself to individual aspects of document processing but encompasses the entire process. Its ease of use and functionality makes the platform extremely user-friendly and accessible without the need for IT specialists. This allows Automation Hero to successfully fulfill its core mission of democratizing access to AI and automation.
The phrase “metaverse” was first invented and used in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 Sci-fi novel Snow Crash. The word «metaverse» is a combination of the English word «universe» with the Greek word «Meta,» which means «after» or «beyond.» In that novel, characters use virtual reality goggles to move through a three-dimensional cityscape constructed entirely with computer code, while experiencing a full spectrum of immersive sensory experiences.
With a compound annual growth rate of 47.2%, the worldwide metaverse market will increase from USD 61.8 billion in 2022 to USD 426.9 billion in 2027.It is anticipated to grow at the fastest rate in Asia Pacific, with an average annual growth rate of 49.6% over the next five years. While practitioners in the space currently have varying definitions of the metaverse, we agree in general that the metaverse needs to have three ingredients to be considered as a metaverse: It needs to be immersive, social and interactive.
Opportunities for Brands
What then, are the opportunities for brands in the metaverse? Let’s take a deeper look into three opportunities for brands here:
Opportunity #1: Additional sources of revenue
The metaverse can be additional sources of revenue for brands.
There are many ways of creating additional sources of revenue for brands. Brands on the metaverse can sell their intellectual property as NFTs, and build Web3.0 brand equity and collectibles with brand storytelling. Some brands may even sell NFT lands!
With innovative decentralised finance tools, brands can also create character gaming worlds on the open metaverse and monetisze accordingly.
Opportunity #2: Zero physical inventory, higher profits
Especially for the luxury and retail industries, physical inventory planning and management can be a major cost center and when mismanaged, can even cost the company to incur heavy losses.
Through NFTs as a vehicle in the open metaverse however, brands enjoy zero physical inventory that is subject to wear and tear, and depreciation. The marginal cost of producing an additional NFT as a product is almost negligible if we are using generative AI to create the artwork; yet the marginal revenue of the NFT can still be the same as that of the physical product.
This leads to an increased probability of exponential profits.
Opportunity #3: A brand new way of storytelling and enhancing of consumer experience
Brands can also make use of the emerging technologies associated with the metaverse to create better, alternative immersive experiences for their users. Some interesting tools that have the power to positively influence end-user engagement include metahumans, augmented reality, virtual reality and even haptic suits.
The increased deployment of 5G in Southeast Asia is likely to speed up networks to such an extent that marketers will be able to build dynamic digital worlds that can change in real-time. Truly, as marketers, we are only limited by our imaginations!
Increasingly, phygital is becoming a bigger and bigger phenomenon in retail. Utilizing virtual try-ons and AR-enabled commerce makes it simpler for customers and increases their confidence in their buying decisions. The true secret to keeping their interest is to curate and design an unexpected retail experience and make it more enjoyable.
Immersive storytelling enables viewers to move from «observation» to «experience,» allowing customers to figuratively «put themselves in another’s shoes» and feel that they are part of something larger than themselves. It opens up an opportunity for brand storytellers to develop closer relationships with customers. Immersive experiences that create a shared experience can enhance the relationship between the customer and the brand, especially in this age when customers are more interested than ever in learning about the purpose of brands and how those values are aligned with their own.
Level Up: Use your Brand DNA as an Anchor
It is clear that most brands are generally currently experimenting with the metaverse, which gives rise to the popular conception that it could just be a hype and nothing sustainable.
Technological cycles of change are getting shorter and shorter. As marketers, we have to learn how to make better choices with faster and less complete, highly asymmetrical information. This could mean getting used to dynamic states and pivoting along the way, rather than expecting things to go as plan.
Overall, with the huge capital flow going into the space, there is also a high probability that the metaverse will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Therefore, the right question that a brand should be asking could be how to “be okay with” risk while still boldly experimenting in the space.
Have fun, good luck!
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Soh Wan Wei CEO & Founder IKIGUIDE Metaverse Collective
Bio:
Wan Wei is CEO and co-founder of IKIGUIDE Metaverse Collective (IMC). As the top media, education, consulting and co-creation collective, we work to bridge the knowledge & resource gaps in the Asian metaverse industry.
IMC counts NYSE-listed Nutanix, Philips, Hitachi, DBS, Crypto.com and non-profit alliance ChangemakersXchange as some of the key clients and partners in its portfolio. Wan Wei is also a guest-trainer at Singapore Management University Academy and Aventis Graduate School.
Wan Wei is also one of the founding team members of the dWeb Southeast Asian node and the Metaverse for All: Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Movement.
In a rapidly changing world, effective communication largely determines the success of individuals and large businesses. Keeping up with the time and technology, new innovations are appearing in the field of communication methods, which take the interaction between business and consumers, as well as between employees to a new level. The development of conversational channels has provided the opportunity to create a new type of experience, and Yellow.ai has brilliantly seized this opportunity. This pioneering conversational artificial intelligence platform offered the perfect tool for automated on-demand service, which received recognition from the World Future Awards and was named a winner in the category of Best AI-Powered Customer Experience.
World Future Awards is a global award selecting, recognizing, celebrating, and promoting the best products, software, and services that will transform the global economy and define the landscape of the future. The organization researches inventions across all categories, including technology, beauty, health care, food, home, and entertainment, that are making the world better, smarter or even a bit more fun.
Yellow.ai offers an innovative solution that has already shown its great potential to increase the level of interaction between businesses and consumers as well as between employees of companies. The platform is already a leader in more than 50 countries around the world and is changing the digital user experience for the better on a global scale.
Yellow.ai is the world’s leading enterprise-grade conversational AI platform, created in 2016 using the best of human and artificial intelligence. The platform was created to ensure that with the growth of digital users, enterprises have a functional and inclusive tool that provides intuitive and real-time service. In an era of high social engagement, mobility, high competitiveness and speed of decision making, Yellow.ai has become the ideal solution for transforming and scaling the customer experience.
Through the use of Dynamic AI Agents, Yellow.ai delivers human-like interactions, increasing customer satisfaction, and employee engagement. The platform functions via more than 35 voice and text channels, supporting communication in more than 135 languages. This effectively solves real-world problems, including increased customer satisfaction, reduced support agent costs, and higher upsell/cross-sell rates.
Ever since we surrounded ourselves with electronic gadgets and mobile devices, making them a very important and useful part of everyday life, we have become partly dependent on our smartphones and smartwatches. This dependence is especially strong when at the most inopportune moment, our iPhones report that they are running low or when our desktop becomes a place to charge multiple devices with a separate charger for each of them and tangled wires. PITAKA offers an elegant solution to keep your gadgets always charged, adding a spirit of innovation and style to your workplace. Meet MagEZ Slider, this year’s winner of World Future Awards in the category of Best Charger.
About the creators of MagEZ Slider PITAKA’s international team consists of passionate experts from various fields, including designers, engineers, creatives, research and development (R&D), marketing, sales, and customer service. Avoiding the beaten path, they look for and find alternative ways to bring unique and high-quality innovations into people’s lives. Each product is the result of painstaking work and a non-trivial approach to working with materials, and design, which forms a new lifestyle steeped in technology and comfort.
What is MagEZ Slider This multi-device wireless charger is the perfect embodiment of PITAKA’s commitment to an alternative tech lifestyle. MagEZ Slider brings order to your life by providing simultaneous charging for multiple devices and freeing up space and time for important things and activities. As the embodiment of PITAKA’s creative philosophy, the MagEZ Slider becomes a part of your life, showing that even a utilitarian device like a charger can be a stylish and elegant accessory to your workspace.
With its mug-like size (76 x 76 x 111.8mm), the MagEZ Slider gives you the ability to charge up to four devices at once. Its spinning base gives you 360-degree access to all devices that charge from it. The modular design opens up access to maintain the life cycle of your iPhone 13/12 Series, Galaxy S22 Series, AirPods, and Apple Watch.
How It Works The first thing that draws attention is the elegant power pack on the front of the device. This MagSafe 4000 mAh power pack charges when you slide it into a special dock on the base. When the power pack is mounted in the MagEZ Slider, you can snap your iPhone onto it with a magnetic attachment that ensures proper placement and continuous charging of your smartphone. If your phone is not fully charged and you already need to leave, you can slide it out along with the power pack attached to the back, and the phone will continue charging on the go. Once you’ve charged your iPhone, simply detach the power pack from it and slide it back into the dock – it’ll be charging for future use.
To charge AirPods 2, AirPods Pro, or other Qi-compatible wireless headphones, simply attach the magnetic stand on the opposite side of the MagEZ Slider. This will provide wireless charging for the headphones both with and without the special case.
On the side of the dock station, is a USB-C port into which you can insert the Pitaka`s Power Dongle for Apple Watch, which is purchased separately. This MFi-certified wireless charging dongle with a magnetic lid is compatible with all Apple Watch models and allows you to charge your watch simultaneously with your iPhone and AirPods.
The MagEZ Slider dock station itself is mounted on a 360° spinning base with a 20W USB-C PD adapter and cable that provides faster, smarter, and safer power to each of your devices. The spinning mechanism provides easy access to any of your devices on the charge, and in some cases, it can perform a soothing function with its pleasant clock ticking sound.
Package and Pricing MagEZ Slider includes the slider dock, battery back, magnetic earbuds stand, Type C to Type C cable, and PD20W charger. The cost of the kit is $129.00. If you purchase the MagEZ Slider from the manufacturer’s official website, you can save money by purchasing the Power Dongle for Apple Watch together with it.
No matter how high-quality and comfortable shoes you wear, nothing can compare with the unmatched feeling of walking barefoot. However, this does not mean that it is impossible to create footwear that approximates this delightful experience as closely as possible and brings it into everyday life. That’s exactly what Feebeesdo, unique sock sneakers that allow you to enjoy the barefoot experience in any situation and any setting. Their bold and innovative approach has earned them recognition at the highest level: this year, Feebees won the World Future Awards in the Footwear category. But it’s not just about the most comfortable shoes that will change the way you think about footwear. The brand implements a consistent concept of sustainability and environmental consciousness.
Origin of Feebees
The Feebees story began when Chen Guming decided to make her first pair of shoes for his two-year-old daughter on his own. As a loving father and a professional with years of shoe-making experience, he wanted to create the perfect shoes for his baby girl. Understanding that children’s shoes have many specific characteristics, Chen realized that everything that was available on the market was far from perfect. It took almost two years of research, development, trial and error, and communication with other professionals to develop shoes that met his high quality requirements. In 2014, Chen Guming was able to present his two-year-old daughter with a unique pair of snickers socks. That was the beginning of Feebees.
For kids and beyond
For several years, Feebees specialized in the production of exclusively children’s snickers socks. Parents who care about the comfort and health of their children appreciated the development of Chen Guming and his team. Feebees products proved to be ideal for babies who were taking their first steps; the carefully thought-out materials and design ensured the fit of children’s feet, comfort, and safety of walking.
Over time it was decided to develop models for adults. At the moment, Feebees is a brand that produces original, quality, and functional shoes for people of all ages and lifestyles.
Footwear for any occasion
To describe Feebees as simply as possible, they are socks with thickened soles. But behind this simplicity and minimalistic design are years of development and experimentation in search of perfection. The sock sneakers do not need laces – you can just put them on your feet in a few seconds, and you’re good to go.
The Feebees top uses an exclusively developed weaving method with highly elastic nylon yarn. This method ensures that the material adheres to all parts of the foot, taking into account the anatomy, ensuring comfort and breathability of the skin.
Chen Guming knows firsthand the problems of the spine and understands the role of proper foot placement in back health and overall body condition. That’s why it was extremely important for him to make a sole that would give quality support to every Feebees owner. During the development of the sole structure, Chen himself actively wore Feebees and even participated in Ironman competitions in them. This allowed him to embody a one-piece foam sole with balanced rebound and foot support. The sole adapts to the individual shape of the wearer’s foot, making Feebees the perfect shoe for home and outdoor activities.
Sustainability
Along with the concept of the barefoot experience, an important aspect of Feebees is environmental protection. Chen Guming strives to avoid minimizing the carbon dioxide emissions common to conventional shoe manufacturers. Sustainability has become one of the basic concepts in Feebees’ work, and the company has achieved impressive results in this. The carbon footprint of the brand’s footwear production is only 40% of that of normal shoes.
In addition, customers can return old shoes for a fee. In the patented Feebees recycling machine, used shoes go through five crushing steps before they can be used to make new shoes. Compliant with GRS & RCS Recycling Standards and having UK BSI Carbon Emissions Certification, Feebees are one of the most environmentally friendly shoe brands in the world.
Electric cars with autopilot have not yet become commonplace on public roads, but they no longer cause much trepidation. However, when an unconventional, tiny Nuro R2 vehicle hits the road, it will at least attract your attention. And when you see that there is no driver or passengers in this car, but only goods on their way from stores to customers, you may be surprised even more. As soon it becomes obvious to you that this humble car is meant to redefine the AV delivery industry and make the world a slightly more comfortable and safer place, you are likely to take an interest and respect for it and its creators. That interest is further fueled by the fact that this year, Nuro, the car’s developer, was named winner of the World Future Awards in the category of Self-Driving Vehicle That Delivers Products to Buyers.
Nuro R1. First generation
Nuro is an autonomous delivery company founded in 2016 by former Google employees Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, who worked on the Google self-driving car project, now known as Waymo. In 2018, the firm unveiled its prototype robotic delivery vehicle R1. This electric robotic delivery vehicle was designed solely for delivery services, with no driver or passenger seating.
The R1 was equipped with a full set of radar, sonar, and lidar to move fully on the roadway, obeying all traffic rules and not endangering other road users and pedestrians. The R1 had extremely compact dimensions, with its height below the average human height and width of less than a meter. The refusal to carry passengers made the car much cheaper to produce and eliminated a number of complexities in design and operation.
Nuro R2
In 2020, the Nuro team unveiled a new, improved autonomous delivery vehicle, the R2. This generation features a stronger body, a 360-degree vision system that represents the road without any blind spots, a new sensor system, increased interior space without increasing the vehicle’s dimensions, and increased battery capacity to run all day.
Nuro has received permits from the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to test the R2 on public roads as a self-driving car without mirrors or pedals. In doing so, the R2 travels at speeds of no more than 25 miles per hour.
Philosophy
R2 is an effective tool with which the Nuro team fulfills its mission of improving everyday life through robotics. Autonomous vehicle delivery offers a new approach to local commerce, providing faster, more convenient, more economical, and safer delivery of goods from stores directly to customers. It allows users to use conventional cars less, unload roads, and free up their own time to devote to the people and activities they love.
How it works
Nuro has teamed up with popular brands to deliver sought-after products fully autonomously and safely. Its list of partners includes Walmart, FedEx, Chipotle, Domino’s, Kroger, and CVS Pharmacy. Customizable compartments and a large payload allow the R2 to carry a wide range of loads, from pizzas to large grocery bags.
To use R2’s services, users must place a delivery order with one of the listed partners and select «Self-Driving Vehicle.» Once Nuro’s self-driving bot picks up the order and sets off, the user will receive a link to track the vehicle. When the R2 arrives at the address, Nuro will send the user a message with an access code that must be entered in order to receive the order. To avoid confusion and to ensure the safety of goods, different orders are neatly separated from each other inside the vehicle.
Nuro currently provides fully autonomous delivery to customers in Houston, Silicon Valley, and Greater Phoenix.
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