The riots in early 2018 erupted as anti-Muslim anger was whipped abreast of social media, forcing the Sri Lankan government to impose a state of emergency and block access to Facebook.

The tech giant commissioned a search into the part it’s going to have played, and investigators said incendiary content on Facebook may have led to violence against Muslims.

“We deplore the misuse of our platform,” Facebook said during a statement to Bloomberg News after the findings were released on Tuesday. “We recognise, and apologise for, the very real human rights impacts that resulted.” a minimum of three people were killed and 20 injured within the 2018 unrest, during which mosques and Muslim businesses were burned, mainly within the central a part of the Sinhalese Buddhist-majority nation.
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The hate speech and rumours spread on Facebook “may have led to ‘offline’ violence”, consistent with Article One, the human rights consultancy hired to conduct the investigation.

Naz, 22, had never ventured faraway from her range in Orangi Town in Karachi, one among the five largest slums of the planet , but was feeling dissatisfied together with her current teaching job.

So she signed up for a tech programme called TechKaro, an initiative by Circle — a social enterprise that aims to enhance women’s economic rights in Pakistan — and is now working full-time for a software company.

Naz said the course was challenging in some ways but she soon found that the ladies on the training were even as good because the men at tech skills like coding, web development and digital marketing, and also at presenting themselves at interviews. “From developing our CVs, to giving us recommendations on dressing for work, to conducting ourselves during an interview and the way to battle some sticky questions. We were groomed for everything,” said Naz.

Women structure about 25 per cent of Pakistan’s labour force, one among rock bottom within the region, consistent with the planet Bank.

It has set a target to extend this to 45pc, calling for more childcare and a crackdown on harassment to encourage more women bent work and boost economic process .

In Pakistan, women represent only 14pc of the IT workforce, consistent with a 2012 study by P@SHA, the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS).
Gap within the market

Sadaffe Abid, chief executive of Circle, found out TechKaro with the assistance of a couple of private foundations in 2018 seeing this gender gap, and took on 50 trainees within the first year, of which 62pc were women and 75 in 2019, including 66pc women.

Abid, who previously worked for a micro-finance institution, said she was delighted that ladies like Naz were proving that ladies could achieve the tech world.

“I am a firm believer that one among the foremost powerful uses of technology is to bring it to young women, especially from under-served communities, to unlock their talents, resourcefulness and creativity,” said Abid.

“People told me I won’t find women, or women will drop call at high numbers, or after completing the course, women won’t find employment because the industry won’t be hospitable hiring this unique diverse group with no degree in computing .

But i might say 50pc of the graduates, a majority of whom are women, have found add software companies,” said Abid, who also brought She Loves Tech to Pakistan, one among the world’s largest women and startup competitions globally.

TechKaro is one among the newest programmes within the country aimed toward helping women crack the traditionally male domain. CodeGirls Pakistan, a Karachi-based camp , trains girls from middle and low-income families in coding and business skills.

In 2017, a six-week camp, SheSkills, taught women everything from web development and digital design to social media marketing.

After attending the TechKaro course, Naz found work earlier this year at an IT company earning double the salary she was getting as an educator but which meant leaving her neighbourhood, using conveyance , and dealing side-by-side with men.

“I had never ventured out on my very own and that i was dead scared the primary time I had to try to to it, but now it’s just fine,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview by telephone from Orangi Town.

“The remainder of Karachi isn’t quite the large bad wolf I’d imagined it to be,” said Naz, who navigated an app-based transit startup to scale back her time period by two hours each day .

“It gave me tons of confidence once I asked my employers if they might have a drag with my wearing the niqab (a veil that fully covers the face) and that they said they were only curious about my work performance.”
Work from home

Naz said women trying to interrupt into new careers in Pakistan could face resistance not just within the workplace but reception .

The youngest of seven, she said she had the complete support of her mother, who doesn’t work, and her younger brother.

“But we had to cover this from my older brother, who is married and lives separately, as he was unhappy even with my working as an educator ,” she said.

She described the course of three-hour sessions held 3 times every week for eight months as gruelling but worthwhile.

She paid Rs500 a month for the course that involved 75 men and ladies and another Rs2,400 on bus fares to attend workshops after mornings of teaching, and sometimes spent three to four hours on homework in the dark .

“I had thought men would be better at this, but once I was within the thick of things, I realised that wasn’t the case. Anyone can learn, if they put their mind thereto ,” she said.

A month since the lockdown was announced thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, Naz is functioning remotely.

“We use Zoom and Google Hangout for meetings and our tasks are placed on Trello,” she said, comfortable with the technology.

With no time period or transport costs, she is enjoying performing from home.

“For those women whose families don’t allow them to exit of their homes, this type of labor would be ideal. All you would like may be a computer and therefore the internet,” she said.

Abid said TechKaro has continued its work during the coronavirus lockdown by going “fully digital” so women can still learn tech skills from home.

“We have received applications from all across Pakistan,” she said. “Our aim is to scale this up to thousands of young women for in their success is Pakistan’s prosperity.”tech

During a recent video-conference, MP Julie Elliott made a plea to the culture secretary for a faster rollout of fibre broadband for her Sunderland constituents. As she was doing so, her own broadband connection failed, something the chairman of the DCMS committee described as “ironic”.

In theory, 95% of premises should be able to access superfast broadband but take-up of services remains low. This might be because people find their current speed sufficient for their needs, do not want to pay or simply haven’t got round to upgrading.

For those wanting to upgrade now, there could be a wait. BT told the BBC is was prioritising new broadband connections for the “vulnerable and those most in need”.

According to Ofcom, 189,000 properties are on speeds of 10Mbps (megabits per second) download and 1Mbps upload or less - for both fixed and wireless.

Adelana Carty, broadband expert at Uswitch.com, thinks it is too low for lockdown. "Some video-calling services say they only require broadband speeds of 1.2Mbps, but at this level the picture quality is likely to be extremely patchy and the audio may cut in and out - especially if there are many people on the call.

"Streaming TV services like Netflix say you need a 3Mbps connection for standard quality, and 5Mbps for HD, but you’re likely to find that the picture is constantly buffering at these speeds.

"Connection issues also arise when multiple devices use the internet simultaneously, so if required, it may be worth setting up a rota, especially when it comes to streaming or gaming online.
Image copyright Sam Kirkpatrick
Image caption On Sam Kirkpatrick’s street internet services are painfully slow

Such a rota may be the only option for Sam Kirkpatrick, who lives in rural Northern Ireland, and who says the idea of sharing the internet with his wife and two teenagers is “simply out of the question”.

"On a good day, my broadband runs at about 2Mbps (not a typo - I genuinely mean two). I’ve seen various fibre rollout plans over the years and my postcode has been included but we’ve not been upgraded yet.

“We have paid for an additional 4G service for a couple of years now, which is much faster when it works but much less reliable and more prone to contention/packet dropping than the fixed line. The quality of it has definitely degraded noticeably since lockdown started.”

Without it the family would “be in trouble”, he said, but it does mean expensive monthly bills.

Mr Kirkpatrick is a software engineering manager, and is now working from home full-time.

“Much of my role is video calls and it struggles a bit at that stage. Often, I’ll have to disable video and rely on audio only to save bandwidth. Or even forget about the calls and try to use messaging instead, which just isn’t the same. Downloading large payloads, which I have to do often, is a challenge.”
Image copyright Oleksandr Pupko
Image caption One superfast broadband user told the BBC he should be getting speeds of up to 100Mbps but often got just 25Mbps according to speed tests

The others in the house have to rely on the 4G.

"This gets us by for schoolwork and my wife’s work. Even then, we’re limited to maybe one person streaming at any one time.

“It’s a regular occurrence in our house to hear shouted: ‘Can everybody stop using the internet for a while, please?’ so someone can download something or watch a video. On occasion, you do just have to give up and try again later or forget about it.”
‘Missing out on the craic’

The BBC was also contacted by a woman, living in a similar part of the world. She wanted to remain anonymous but pointed out that it was not just work and schooling that was affected by poor connectivity.

“Internet accessibility is difficult in rural Northern Ireland at the best of times but in lockdown with increased usage and reliance on the internet, connecting with family and friends is tough and we sometimes have to miss out on the craic because the infrastructure just isn’t there,” she said.

“It’s an additional and unnecessary strain on mental health and wellbeing when we are being asked to distance ourselves for the greater good.”

And it is not just rural locations that are suffering. Even in a city like London, people can experience problems.
Tips for improving speed

• where possible do not use wi-fi - connect devices with an ethernet cable
  configure the router to use different names for the two frequencies, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, and then re-teach devices the credentials for the 5GHz

• check the location of the router - if it is buried on a bookcase, surrounded by books the clutter could block the signal

• microwave ovens interfere with wi-fi signal so don’t cook a microwave lunch while on a Zoom call

• if everyone is trying to access the internet, consider investing in a wi-fi booster that allow the signal to travel further

• mesh network add-ons may improve coverage but usually carry a monthly subscription

• don’t move your office to a quiet part of the house without checking the speeds first, using an online speed checker

• if speed generally is significantly lower than the speed you were promised, phone your provider to argue the case for an upgrade

• download films to phones and tablets, ideally just before bed when not everyone is using the internet

Jack Maddox recently moved into a flat in the technology hub of Shoreditch, east London but says the best connection he could get installed was 15Mbps, on offer from Sky.

“It regularly sits in the seven to 10 range. I couldn’t believe the lack of fibre options after moving into this relatively new flat,” he told the BBC.

“It makes trying to do client video calls or even ones to family and friends infuriating. I often end up moving closer to the window and tethering my phone, which isn’t great either.”

For some though, internet speed is not a problem at all. Jersey already offers full fibre to all homes and now its internet providers have decided to upgrade everyone to 1Gbps (gigabit per second), entirely free of charge “for the duration of the pandemic”.

With a view to supply customers the convenience of ordering products online and provides scalability to offline retailers, Amazon has brought the new programme. It already has partnered with retailers from top metros also as tier-1 and tier-2 cities like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Delhi, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai, Pune, Saharanpur, and Surat among others. The initiative isn’t limited to local grocery shops or electronic stores. In fact, the pilot that the corporate began in over 100 cities across the country including sellers from categories like automotive, books, furniture, home decor, jewellery, kitchen appliances, sports, and toys.

Offline retailers who are becoming on board through the programme have one prime condition that’s to possess a delivery mechanism handy to deliver orders to customers either on an equivalent day or on subsequent day (with pin-code level granularity). this is often something that might ultimately help Amazon reduce the burden of enhancing its delivery fleet.

What India Should Learn From China to Resolve Home Delivery Issues

Additionally, local shopkeepers under the programme will get the power to use the newly launched ‘Amazon Delivery app’ which will help them provide delivery updates to customers and Amazon and track their shipments on a day to day .

The timing of the Local Shops on Amazon programme is certainly interesting because the company — a bit like its arch-rival Flipkart — is struggling to fulfil an outsized number of orders thanks to the lockdown imposed by the govt to scale back the spread of COVID-19 within the country. The arrival of local shops would help resolve such issues within the future.

“We shall take the learnings from months of running this pilot and weeks of its effectiveness during COVID-19 to scale this India-first initiative to incorporate shopkeepers and retailers across India,” wrote Gopal Pillai, VP Seller Services, Amazon India, during a blog post.

Government Stops Sale of Non-Essential Items Through E-Commerce Platforms

Sellers can join the programme by visiting a fanatical page on the Amazon India site. The page says that there won’t be any additional charges to hitch the initiative and therefore the standard fee of selling on the web marketplace are going to be applicable to Amazon Local Shops Sellers also . Moreover, it says that the participants will get access to the ‘Prime Badge’ which will help enhance discovery on the location .

*Groceries Are the New Lending for Apps in Virus-Hit India. Will It Last?

• Amazon Pantry Resumes Delivery of Essential Orders in Select Cities

• Amazon, Flipkart Operations Said to Still Be Disrupted Amid Lockdown

• E-Commerce Still Facing Delivery Challenges Amid Coronavirus Lockdown

Alongside new sellers, shopkeepers who are already working with Amazon under the ‘I Have Space’ programme to act as delivery and pickup points and ‘Amazon Easy’ can join the new move and begin selling online.

Perhaps Artificial Intelligence is a bit overstated. But when it comes to medicine, there is a proven record of how useful artificial intelligence has been in this field.

So can artificial intelligence help with the challenge of discovering the cure for this dangerous disease?

Many companies are in the race to solve this problem.

Accenta, a company based in Oxford, which first tested humans with artificial intelligence, is busy researching 15,000 drugs at the Scripps Research Institute in California.

Helix, a Cambridge company founded by Viagra co-creator Dr. David Brown, has turned the artificial intelligence system to finding medicines for uncommon ailments. Now their goal is to discover Corona’s treatment.

The system is divided into three parts:

• Review all current literature literature

• To study the DNA’s DNA structure and structure

• Evaluate the fit of different medicines

The drug discovery process has traditionally been quite slow.

Dr. Brown told BBC News, ‘I’ve been doing this for 45 years and so far I’ve only been able to bring three medicines to market.’

But artificial intelligence is proving very fast.

“It has taken us several weeks to gather the required data and we have also received new information in the last few days so we have a large amount of data,” says Dr. Brown.

“The algorithm was run on Easter and in the next seven days we will have the results of all three procedures,” he explains.

Helix hopes that in light of this information, he will make a list of possible drugs by May and he is discussing laboratories for his clinical trials.

When it comes to the Corona virus, there are two ways for those seeking treatment with artificial intelligence:

• Looking for a completely new drug but having to wait a few years to approve its safe use
• Rejuvenating existing medicines with a new purpose

But Dr. Brown said there was absolutely no possibility that the cure could be cured with a single drug.

For Helix, this means a detailed analysis of eight million potential pairs and 10.5 billion collections of medicines made possible with over 4,000 approved medicines in the market.

“Artificial intelligence is one of the strongest paths we have to achieve a viable drug,” Professor Ara Tarazi, director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College, told BBC News. But the basic requirement for this is a set of high quality, large and clear data. ’

“To date, much of this information has been sent to individual companies, such as large pharma companies or these have been lost in old laboratories within universities.”

“Now more than ever, there is a need to combine data sources involved in the discovery of these proportional materials, so that researchers of artificial intelligence are using their new machine learning techniques to discover the treatment of Cod-19 as soon as possible.” Can do. ’

Barabasi Laboratory of North Eastern University in the United States, Harvard Medical School, Stanford Network Science Institute and Biotech start-up Shaffer Madison, all looking for a drug that has been re-developed as a treatment for Cod-19. Can go

Amazing discovery

Alf Saleh, chief executive of Shaffer, said it would normally take ‘a year in the paperwork’ to work together.

“But with people who have the ability to make the work logical and have the time, a whole series of zoom calls can be made to speed up the process.”

He says’ the work done in the last three weeks usually takes half a year. Everyone has paid attention to everything else. ’

And the amazing results of their research are starting to emerge. Including:

• The suggestion that the virus may be invading brain cells, causing some people to lose a sense of taste or smell.

• It is predicted that the virus could also attack the reproductive system of both males and females

Shaffer Madison combines artificial intelligence with something they call Network Medicine. It is a method of visualizing a disease through a complex interaction between molecular components.

Saleh says, 'The disease that comes to us is rarely due to a single gene or protein defect. Nature is not so easy. Rather, it is the result of a clash between multiple proteins. ’

Consortium has identified 81 potential drugs that may be helpful, using Network Medicine, artificial intelligence and the fusion of both.

Professor Albert Laszlo Barabasi says, ‘Artificial intelligence can do a lot of good work, not only to improve the order, but also to look for free information that may not go beyond network medicine.’

But artificial intelligence can’t do it alone, it requires all three of these methods.

He adds, ‘Different tools see things from different perspectives, but together they become very powerful.’

Some artificial intelligence companies are already claiming that they have identified some drugs that may be helpful.

Benevolent artificial intelligence has identified ‘baristinib’ as a potential cure for the prevention of a virus affecting lung cells, leading to inflammation of the bones (which causes inflammation in the joints of water in the joints). Is a medicine approved for treatment.

And now controlled trials are being conducted at the US Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Meanwhile, scientists from South Korea and the US have used Deep Learning to highlight their research using commercially available anti-viral drugs such as azinavir (a drug used to treat AIDS). Is.

Other companies are using artificial intelligence for other purposes, such as analyzing scans to reduce the burden on radiologists and helping predict which patients will need more ventilators.

For example, Chinese technology guru Alibaba announced an algorithm that can diagnose people infected with the virus within 20 seconds, with 96% accurate results.

But some experts warn that it is hardly possible that artificial intelligence systems have been trained on advanced disease statistics, and therefore may not be so effective at detecting early signs of the virus. Yes

Professor Darzi said that policy makers globally should try to convince large pharmaceutical companies, academics and research charities to work together using their data sources.

They say, ‘There could be no better chance to share data and discover the secrets of technology to help artificial intelligence in the fight against Cod-19.’