Monthly Archives: April 2021

How migrants in the Gulf are fighting discrimination during the pandemic – Open Democracy

Posted: April 11, 2021 at 5:52 am

Like millions before him, Manoj migrated from the southwestern Indian state of Kerala to the Gulf in search of work in 2019. He found a job at a construction company in Bahrain that described itself as a regional leader. The pay, at 240 dinars (577) a month, was far more than he could expect to find at home.

Last February, as cases of COVID-19 soared in Bahrain, the company stopped paying Manoj and two dozen other employees. When they complained, their employer stopped providing food and accommodation, too.

Manoj and his colleagues refused to leave and continued to demand their unpaid wages. Once they realised we will not back off, they offered to give us back our passports and pay for our return to Kerala under the condition that we give up our unpaid wages, he said. They rejected the offer. They cut off our electricity after that.

By then, it was the middle of August, when temperatures can reach as high as 40 in Bahrain. Determined to get what they were owed, the workers continued to occupy their accommodation. Without electricity, they had to spend the hottest parts of the day in air-conditioned shopping malls and rely on a portable stove, provided by a Keralite charity, to cook.

By September, some workers had found new employers and others were repatriated on rescue missions, but despite their efforts they have still not received the thousands of pounds in unpaid salary they are owed.

Manoj is one of hundreds of migrant workers from Kerala who were left stranded and without months worth of pay during the pandemic. In the Gulf alone, over 700 Keralite workers have reported non-payment of wages since the pandemic began, according to the Centre for Indian Migrant Studies. But with millions of migrant workers in the region, the true number is likely much higher.

Wage theft the denial of wages or benefits rightfully owed to an employee could devastate Keralas economy. Just under a half of Keralite households include labour migrants, while remittances from migrant workers account for a quarter of the states gross domestic product.

This is a community which has provided a lot, not only to Kerala in terms of financial and social capital, but also to the destinations as well, becoming entrenched and quite influential in many sectors in the Gulf, said Irudaya Rajan, a leading expert on Keralite migration at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram.

Kerala is unique in India when it comes to international migration. From the 19th century onwards, Keralites migrated to all corners of the British Empire, a trend which continued long after India gained independence in 1947. In the 1970s, an oil boom created a surge in demand for labourers in the Gulf, largely filled by Keralites who were drawn there by a lack of employment opportunities at home and the promise of higher wages. By 2018, almost two million Keralites were working in the Gulf, accounting for every one in four Indian migrants.

Initially, most Keralites in the Gulf were employed in the construction sector and other low-skilled jobs in the service sector. But over the years, they have taken up semi and high-skilled occupations, such as fire and safety engineers, nurses, care workers and business administrators.

Since the pandemic began, close to 900,000 Keralites have been repatriated from around the world, the highest number of any Indian state. Almost 95% returned from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.

Many migrant workers in the Gulf were left without the right to remain in their destination country when their employment contracts were terminated at the start of the pandemic. Under the Kafala (or sponsorship) system in place across many Gulf countries, migrant workers citizenship is dependent on an employment contract with a specific employer and workers are not free to change jobs.

Kafala is like modern slavery, said Khalid Ibrahim, Executive Director at the Gulf Centre for Human Rights.

They hold your passport, so you are not allowed to leave the country, and they pay you as much as they want, mostly not proportional to the size of your work. And you have no right to defend anything, your colleagues or yourself, you have no rights, no access to unions, he added.

Hari had worked for Nasser S. Al Hajri, one of the largest industrial contractors in the Middle East, as a carpenter and painter for thirteen years before his job was terminated without notice in July. He was promised redundancy pay by his manager before the company arranged for his return to India but he is yet to be paid.

They will not rehire me after the pandemic because Im 53 years old. My family is in a financial crisis and I need that money to survive, he said.

As many as 600 workers are allegedly owed wages and redundancy pay from the Saudi construction firm, according to Lawyers Beyond Borders, who have launched legal action on behalf of former employees. Among them, half are from Kerala.

Nasser S. Al Hajri did not respond to a request for comment by openDemocracy.

For workers like Hari, recovering stolen wages is almost impossible. Before he was returned to India, Hari and his colleagues were pushed to sign several legal documents by his employer, which they believe waived their rights.

This makes the possibility of retrieving the money through labour offices in Saudi Arabia minimal. Filing these legal cases in India is not an adequate solution either, said Lawyers Beyond Borders solicitor Subhash Chandran.

Most workers are not aware of how to report their employers for withholding wages, leading to cases being registered late and delayed investigations. And there are complicated issues of legal jurisdiction. Those who have returned to Kerala cannot file legal cases against their employers without a power of attorney in their destination country.

"The existing justice mechanism has largely failed migrant workers in terms of an expedited and just resolution of wage-theft claims even before the pandemic, said William Gois, Regional Coordinator of Migrant Forum in Asia.

This is why we launched the Justice for Wage Theft campaign calling for an urgent justice mechanism, specifically to establish an international claims commission, the compensation fund, and the reform of national justice systems, he added.

For migrant workers like Thomas, who the Indian government rescued after he was left stranded in the Gulf after a construction firm stopped paying his wages, there is little prospect of justice. Thomas spent his life savings on migrating to the region for work.

I dreamt of a better life for my family, especially my children, he said. I need the money that Im owed. How do I look after them right now?

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How migrants in the Gulf are fighting discrimination during the pandemic - Open Democracy

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Denying the Crime Wave, Progressives Are Abandoning the Most Vulnerable | Opinion – Newsweek

Posted: at 5:51 am

Four decades ago, Mahmood Ansari immigrated to the United States from Pakistan, determined to make a good living in this country. Like many immigrants, he put his nose to the grindstone, building a business from the ground up while caring for his family. He started the store City Souvenirs along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, working day and night to grow the business, which has now been in operation for more than 30 years.

In early April, Ansari was working late one night when a 12-year-old boy with a knife and 14-year-old girl decided to rob his store. After some sort of brief altercation, Ansari collapsed. Onlookers as well as police and medical personnel performed CPR on him, but when he was transported to the hospital, he was pronounced dead.

"He was friendly. He was always smiling, everybody loved him," Asif Ansari, one of his surviving sons, told the local press. "We all miss him. We just wish he'd come back."

At a rally held by local merchants calling for greater security along the Boardwalk, Mayor Marty Small Sr. offered words of support. "Senseless violence has no place in our community," he said. "I'm sure that the police are going to bring the perpetrators to justice."

In this case, he was right: Both of the suspects in the case have been arrested. But some of those familiar with the situation on the Boardwalk describe a wave of rising crime and little support from the city.

I spoke to Rizwan Malik, a good friend of Ansari's, who like Ansari immigrated to the United States from Pakistan. Malik was the first Pakistani-American and Asian-American to be elected to Atlantic City's city hall. He served from 2012 to 2016. Today, he's a private citizen who owns several businesses along the Boardwalk. His family has four stores on the Boardwalk. And they, too, have recently been hit by robberies.

"There were four robberies I would say within three weeks right on top of each other in our stores," he told me.

For weeks before Ansari's death, Malik and other merchants had been begging the city for more policing to help secure their businesses. Again and again, they were told that the city simply does not have enough police to meet their demands.

"If they were doing something about it, [Ansari] would maybe be alive by now," Malik told me.

More than anything else, he just wants to feel safe running a business along the Boardwalk. "I'm asking the city, the police department, the city officials to open their eyes and do something about it," he pleaded. "I don't want more people dying."

Over the past year, we've lost so many people like Mahmood Ansari. Perhaps you've heard of the tragic death of Mohammad Anwar, yet another Pakistani immigrant who came to the United States seeking a better life, who met his death at the hands of criminal violence during a carjacking in Washington, D.C.

While federal lawmakers mobilized enormous resourcesincluding thousands of National Guard unitsto protect themselves following the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6th, there has been less attention paid to last year's wider surge of criminal violence in Washington, D.C., where there has been a 350 percent increase in carjackings.

Over the past year, America had one of the largest increases in homicides in its modern history. This could mean as many as 4,000 extra murders over the previous year.

Criminologists are still puzzled as to what exactly caused this huge increase in violence; possible explanations include the onset of the pandemic, reduced legitimacy of the government, or a decline in proactive policing. What we do know is that many other types of crime, like larceny, for example, actually went down, while violent crime like shootings and homicides went up.

In other words, this is not an explosion of victimless crimes; it is an explosion of violence.

New York City, for instance, saw a 97 percent increase in shooting incidents from 2019. And as in every other year, 2020's violent crime wave was not equally distributed. Low-income, minority areas tended to suffer the most; the city's official data shows that around 74 percent of shooting victims were African-American and 22 percent were Latino.

These statistics aren't just numbers on a page; they represent real people whose lives were suddenly and abruptly upended by terrifying acts of violence.

Sadly, there is little evidence that 2020's national violent crime wave is letting up. A New York Times analysis of FBI data found that "a sample of 37 cities with data available for the first three months of this year shows murder up 18 percent relative to the same period last year."

We've been accustomed to living in a country where violent crime was plummeting. Through a combination of factors, ranging from more effective policing to the mass removal of lead, by the early 2000s we had successfully lowered murders to their lowest levels in decades, with murders generally declining year after year.

But it's time to face the facts: This trend is now reversing.

Some cities, like St. Louis, saw their highest homicide rate in 50 years in 2020. In D.C., a Special Victims Unit is tackling an increasing number of children being killed in gunfire.

Yet our current political moment is focused not so much on crime as it is on police abuse. The news media, the universities, the corporate sector, and our governing officials seem to agree that reducing incarceration and reining in over-policing is the most pressing objective, as opposed to addressing the waves of violence saturating American cities.

Of course, police and prison reform are important. There's a reason I reported this story about police racially profiling a county commissioner back in 2015 and worked on the campaign to elect the most progressive prosecutor in Northern Virginia's history.

But too many of our nation's politicians, particularly the Democratic ones, are in danger of endorsing a libertarian view of the world where the only threat to our life and liberties is the state.

Ansari's story demonstrates that the absence of an effective state equipped to protect the lives of its most vulnerable citizens can be just as deadly. The victims of homicide tend to be poor people; they don't have the resources to hire private security and wall themselves off behind gated communities.

There's nothing progressive about leaving these people to fend for themselves. Nobody has the silver bullet to ending this crime wave, but you can't solve a problem you can't even bring yourself to acknowledge.

Zaid Jilani is a journalist who hails from Atlanta, Georgia. He has previously worked as a reporter-blogger for ThinkProgress, United Republic, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Alternet. He is the cohost of the podcast "Extremely Offline."

The views in this article are the author's own.

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Flytipping: what must be done to tackle these crimes Dorothy Fairburn – Yorkshire Post

Posted: at 5:51 am

NewsOpinionColumnistsNEW figures show that incidents of fly-tipping on public land have increased by two per cent in the latest reporting period from April 2019 to March 2020.

Tuesday, 6th April 2021, 11:35 am

While councils in England have dealt with just under one million fly-tipping incidents during this time, these figures account for waste illegally dumped on public land reported to these authorities.

In our region there were more than 90,000 fly-tipping incidents during the reporting period. However, the vast majority of incidents on privately-owned land, which are thought to be significantly more, arent included, so these figures do not reflect the true scale of this type of organised crime, which blights our rural communities.

Not only is fly-tipping dangerous, unsightly and costly to clear up, but it can cause harm to people and animals, pollute watercourses and damages the environment.

The most common size category for fly-tipping incidents in 2019-20 was equivalent to a small van load (34 per cent of total incidents), followed by the equivalent of a car boot or less (28 per cent).

More and more waste crime cases are on an industrial-size scale, particularly when the land is located on the fringes of urban areas. As these incidents show, it is large household items, building materials, hazardous waste and even deadstock being dumped across our countryside because the perpetrators know they can get away with it.

The severity of this continuing scourge on our landscapes prompted the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) to launch a five-point action plan for tackling fly-tipping more robustly by the imposition of tougher penalties, including the seizing of vehicles. Although the maximum fine for anyone caught fly-tipping is 50,000 or 12 months imprisonment, this is seldom enforced by magistrates.

Recognising the lack of council resources, the CLA is also calling for greater investment and time in tracking the culprits, and for a speedier and more effective legal system to deal with offenders. Frequently, it costs more to bring an offender to court than the penalty actually imposed.

Across the region only 20 vehicles were seized, with only Hull and York councils imposing two fines of more than 5,000, and more generally, less than 1,000 fixed penalty notices were issued for littering and fly-tipping. Unless tougher action is taken to combat this kind of rural crime, it will continue to increase.

Fly-tipping is not a victimless crime. Private landowners are fed up of clearing away other peoples rubbish andn early two-thirds of farmers have been a victim.

The CLA is calling on the Government to remove landowner liability to clear up waste on private land and for local councils to allow any private landowner to dispose of fly-tipped rubbish at a waste disposal site free of charge. The estimated average cost to farmers and rural businesses of this anti-social behaviour is around a 1,000 per incident to clear their land.

One CLA member, who is regularly subjected to fly-tipping, is having to pay 50,000 each year for rubbish, such as tyres, fridges, tents, barbecues and building waste, to be cleared. Local authorities need to start sharing the brunt of these costs.

The CLA will support both local councils and the police in achieving the positive outcomes, especially in rural areas which are quite often seen as a soft touch by those fly-tipping their waste.

In tandem with harsher penalties, there should also be initiatives to tackle the attitudes and behaviours that lead to people not taking responsibility for the waste they create.

We urge everyone to dispose of their rubbish responsibly by checking when their local recycling centre is open and taking it there. Home owners have a legal duty to ensure that waste is disposed of legally.

This means that the property owner could face a fine if their waste carrier fly tips their rubbish, so it would be prudent to keep a copy of their Waste Carriers Licence, and details of the vehicles used in transporting waste away from their property.

Fly-tipping can be reported to local councils via a dedicated online https://www.gov.uk/report-flytipping. Waste crime can also be reported in confidence and anonymously to Crimestoppers, by telephoning 0800 555 111.

Dorothy Fairburn is regional director of the CLA.

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Mountain Pointe awarded $2000 by Raytheon for its VEX Robotics team – azpreps365.com

Posted: at 5:51 am

Continuing to expand opportunities for AIA member schools in the field of VEX Robotics, Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a business of Raytheon Technologies (NSYE: RTX), has awarded Mountain Pointe High School in South Phoenix $2,000 to bolster its program and get the group back in the lab for in-person builds.

The award will ensure that Mountain Pointes team is able to acquire additional resources for 2021-22, including purchasing new VEX robotics kits. The school indicated it will also use the funds to host VEX events as well as provide demonstrations at middle school classes to encourage younger students to get involved in robotics.

The pandemic took our team by surprise. In March of 2020, another robotics competition we competed in was canceled, so we were not able to compete in the Arizona regionals, said Ellen Liu, Mountain Pointes VEX Robotics advisor. Then our entire school district went virtual, so we had to transition our team to a virtual platform. We ended up finishing last school year virtually and conducted our lead selection process online.

Since the fall of 2020, our team has been meeting weekly and we made the difficult decision to take a break from VEX robotics this year because our students were unable to meet on campus, thus limiting our ability to build any robots. Our team has struggled without access to a physical robot or tools to work with. But we managed to conduct some activities that could be done online during our offseason and keeping our community updated about our team.

This is the third year Raytheon Missiles & Defense has awarded a VEX robotics grant. Past recipients include Desert Edge High School and Amphitheater High School. The grant is part of the companys broader commitment to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM education in Arizona.

About Raytheon Missiles & Defense

Raytheon Missiles & Defense brings global customers the most advanced end-to-end solutions delivering the advantage of one innovative partner to detect, track, and intercept threats. With a broad portfolio of air and missile defense systems, precision weapons, radars, command and control systems and advanced defense technologies Raytheon Missiles & Defense solutions protect citizens, warfighters and infrastructure in more than fifty countries around the world.

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ANSI/RIA R15.08 Standard Redefines Industrial Mobile Robots What’s New and Why It Matters – Robotics Business Review

Posted: at 5:51 am

The new ANSI/RIA R15.08-1-2020 (R15.08) standard for mobile robots provides updated, and formalized, definitions for AGVs, AMRs and other mobile robotics types. The revised definitions are critical for the proper application of R15.08, and as such it is critical that both users and developers of industrial mobile robots take note.

By Mike Bearman and Matthew Cherewk | April 8, 2021

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Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) are a rapidly growing segment of industrial automation that have lacked universally accepted definitions and their own safety standards. Consensus safety standards must be in place so that industry can be assured that industrial mobile robots are safe. In turn, these same standards assist technology vendors to ensure that the solutions they develop follow universally accepted best practices for safety.

Recently, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Robotic Industries Association (RIA) have released a new safety standard For Industrial Mobile Robots Safety Requirements ANSI/RIA R15.08-1-2020 (R15.08) that delineates safety standards for different types of mobile robotic systems, including AMRs. R15.08 also provides clarity on the definition of an AMR, and differentiation between other mobile robot types, which is critical to the proper application of R15.08.

A Little HistoryTo understand the definitional importance of R15.08, it would be beneficial to review a brief history of the safety standards for AMRs and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). Before R15.08, mobile robots applied ANSIB56.5-2019 (B56.5) as their safety standard across the board.

B56.5 was originally released in 1978 to address safety for AGVs. With its AGV roots, B56.5 initially focused on making sure the AGV stopped if it deviated from the intended path, or encountered an obstacle.

B56.5 is a useful standard that still applies to a broad range of automated vehicles. However, with the advent of AMRs, a grey area emerged. AMRs do not follow a strictly-defined path. They can also navigate around obstacles or reroute to alternative paths instead of stopping for blockages.

Recent updates to ANSI B56.5 have recognized that current robotic systems can dynamically plan their path and do so safely. However, its history as an AGV standard created ambiguity on its applicability to AMRs.Indeed, many AMR vendors chose to forego ANSI B56.5 compliance altogether. This is why we have become familiar with collaborative AMRs or smaller robots that can operate within inches of humans.

AGVs are mobile robots that follow exact guide paths whether a physical or virtual line. AMRs are mobile robots that dynamically generate paths based on the current environment and the most efficient route between the AMRs current location and future destinations.

Classifying Industrial Mobile RobotsIn addition to ambiguity around relevant safety standards, the industry did not fully agree upon the definition of AMR technology. Some AGV suppliers argue what constitutes an AMR is their use of LiDAR, vision, and/or fiducial-based navigation systems, combined with lower infrastructure requirements compared to the older magnet and wire-guided AGVs. On the other hand, many customers refer to smaller, lightweight, deck-load mobile robots (used for order fulfillment applications primarily) as AMRs, while referring to any high-capacity vehicle such as tuggers and forklifts as AGVs regardless of the navigation technology.

Formal AMR DefinitionR15.08 defines an AMR as a platform that dynamically plans and adjusts its path within a structured or semi-structured environment (Figure 1). The standard subsequently offers updated safety standards around these adaptive navigation functions.

Additionally, the standard provides a helpful framework for understanding which safety standard to use for which robot platform. It also clarifies vehicle type based on intelligence and path planning capabilities rather than size, payload capacity, or localization method.

Editors Note: For a downloadable chart on the technical differences between AMRs and AGVs, click here.

Revised DefinitionsR15.08 defines AGS, AMRs and Industrial Robots as follows:

The committee that produced R15.08 included expertise in industrial robotics, AGVs, AMRs, and industrial safety from US-based organizations, including the ANSI and the RIA. US-based users of this technology should ensure that their automation vendors comply with the relevant standards.

Editors Note: Robotics Business Review would like to thank Vecna Robotics for permission to reprint this article (with modifications). The original piece can be found HERE.

About the Authors

Mike Bearman serves as the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at Vecna Robotics. In this role, he is responsible for leading the companys efforts to commercialize logistics and material handling robotic technologies, establish strategic partnerships and work closely with the marketing and sales team to negotiate terms with partners and customers. Bearman is actively involved in a number of organizations working to establish standards and best practices for the robotics industry, including MassRobotics, MHIs Mobile Automation Group, and the Robotic Industries Association. Prior to Vecna Robotics, he held various roles at Vecna Technologies and practiced law as an attorney for four years. Bearman holds a bachelors in International Studies from the University of Washington and a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Matthew Cherewka serves as Director of Business Development and Strategy at Vecna Robotics. He collaborates closely with Vecna Robotics strategic customers and partners and uses his expertise in the practical application of cutting-edge automation to help the worlds leading logistics companies understand, develop, integrate and implement intelligent automation into their operations and business strategies, preparing them for success in the next industrial revolution. Prior to Vecna Robotics, Cherewka worked with a wide range of startups, investors, consulting firms, and even Sci-Fi filmmakers to commercialize new robotic technologies and grow the market, including developing biomimetic robots for Disney; worked closely with Six Sigma black belts to implement automation solutions in struggling manufacturing companies. He is an alumnus of Bucknell University with dual degrees in mechanical engineering & business management and is also an electric fiddle player in several bands around New England.

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AppHarvest acquires agriculture robotics startup Root AI | The Burn-In – The Burn-In

Posted: at 5:51 am

As the worlds population grows, the need for more efficient food production is rising. Of course, there is only so much land that can be used for farming and agriculture. Technology is helping solve that problem by giving farmers ways to increase their crop yields, use less resources, and save money in their operations.

Root AI has been making waves in the agriculture tech sector since it was founded. It offers robots that autonomously tend to crops, performing tasks like watering and harvesting. Now, the startup has been acquired by AppHarvest, an indoor farming company. The duo announced the deal in a press release on Thursday.

Both Root AI and AppHarvest share a similar missionto make agriculture more efficient by using technology. Although the two have gone about things in different ways, that common goal should make the acquisition process rather smooth.

As robotics within the agriculture world have gotten an extra boost thanks to COVID-19, Root AI has been a beneficiary. The startup has raised nearly $10 million in funding to date. Most investors are interested in its Virgo robotic harvesting system. Last August, The Burn-In covered its $7.2 million seed round.

On the other hand, AppHarvest has primarily been focused on using artificial intelligence (AI) to gather actionable data within the agriculture world. In a statement, the companys founder, CEO Jonathan Webb, said, Farming as weve known it is broken because of the increasing number of variables such as extreme weather, droughts, fire, and contamination by animals that make our food system unreliable.

Indoor farming solves for many of those challenges, and the data gathered can exponentially deliver more insights that help us predict and control crop quality and yield, he continues.

Moving forward, its likely that AppHarvest will integrate Root AIs robotics into its business in some way. In the meantime, the company appears to be more interested in the data those robots collect. Working the data in with its regular AI can deliver incredible insights on crop growth and yield.

If AppHarvests acquisition of Root AI says anything, its that the agriculture world is hungrier than ever for new tech. Startups like Root AI find themselves in an incredibly hot market with plenty of room for additional growth.

With that in mind, the high-tech agriculture space is worth keeping an eye on in the coming years. Its likely that more and more companies will attempt to break into the space before it becomes too crowded. For now, it is anyones game.

By acquiring Root AI, AppHarvest gives itself an advantage. Not only will the company be able to offer its customers AI-driven analytics, it can also entice them with harvesting robots that collect crops and data simultaneously.

It will be interesting to see how AppHarvest decides to use the assets of its latest acquisition.

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The Impact of Robotics on Supply Chain 2.0 – SupplyChainBrain

Posted: at 5:50 am

Parts of the last 12 months have felt like a science fiction film. On one hand, a global pandemic is causing record-setting despair: travel is restricted, the economy is in shock, and people everywhere are either at home or managing a cautious return to activity.

On the other hand, a kind of technological revolution is afoot. The pandemic served as a catalyst for rapid technological uptake, pushing our world further into the digital sphere than ever before. Artificial intelligence is influencing all industries; drones can deliver our groceries, and its only a matter of time before aerial robots will transport our friends or family to our doors.

In such an interesting market moment, the average observer is juggling a complex mix of emotions. One might feel equal parts encouraged and apprehensive. Robotics and A.I. are leading our recovery, enabling corporations to work safer and more effectively. But with record job losses across the last four quarters, and the realities of a recession weighing heavily on our shoulders, the question of robotics replacing human labor is one we cant ignore.

Its an especially relevant question in the logistics sector. The pandemic surfaced huge inefficiencies in our previous supply-chain infrastructure. Business owners with single-source suppliers quickly realized their oversights, as restrictions on travel kept them away from their supply. Through an ever-changing landscape of consumer demand, all owners came to understand the problem with inflexible supply-chain practices, and the liabilities that come with having a lack of visibility from one end to the other.

For these reasons and others, robotics are top of mind, as owners and suppliers negotiate the new landscape of post-COVID-19 logistics. Less expensive and more competent than theyve ever been, robots can improve the speed and accuracy of routine operations, while adding efficiency, safety, and visibility across supply-chain practices. Autonomous robots can reduce error rates, check inventory more frequently, optimize sorting times, streamline fulfillment practices, and decrease long-term costs.

Business owners and supply-chain professionals are understanding more and more the power of automation. A report by MHI showed that between 2019 and 2020, the adoption rate for robotics and automation increased more than any other supply-chain technology. But owners and professionals are equally aware of the realities in the job economy. An important question remains: What does automation mean for supply-chain workers?

Path Toward Safer Work

A number of factors need to be considered when it comes to the relation between human workers and autonomous robots. As robotic technology becomes less expensive, and design continues to evolve, its becoming easier to integrate robotics into a supply-chain workflow. Without cost, knowledge, or set-up times being a barrier to entry, robots can work side by side with their human counterparts with little to no supervision.

Rather than replacing human workers, automated robots have so far played an invaluable role in keeping them safe throughout the pandemic. When in-person work came at too high a risk of viral-transmission, the supply-chain sector was no exception. Workers were kept away from shop floors and production plants, and many teams relied on autonomous robots to perform the kinds of tasks that would be hazardous to human safety. Able to work independently and manage repetitive tasks, more supply-chain teams could work remotely, managing larger-scale operations from the safety of at-home workspaces.

This is an important trend that can outlast the pandemic. Aspects of supply, fulfillment and delivery can be high-risk. Robots can perform lower-value, more dangerous tasks so human workers are able to enjoy improved workplace safety. In this sense, robots can improve job satisfaction, reducing risk rates and hazardous tasks in a human workers day. Moreover, the use of robotics frees up human workers to focus on creative thinking, problem solving, and larger-picture management.

Macro-Efficiency: Not a Zero-Sum Game

Finally, integrating autonomous robots into supply-chain practices can enhance overall revenue. By improving order-fulfillment rates and delivery speed and customer satisfaction as a result supply-chain professionals can be better positioned to receive an influx of post-COVID-19 business. Owners everywhere are looking for solutions, and logistics professionals that reply on robotics for better overall margins can offer better answers at lower costs, boosting their business and allowing them to expand their teams.

In fact, as productivity increases, labor almost always receives a significant share of the benefits. Zooming out to consider the larger picture, robotics can drive economic growth, often offering higher-quality production at better margins. Those cut costs are passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices, boosting the purchasing power. More economic activity leads to the creation of new jobs. And while its never quite that linear in real-world applications, this is a pattern thats demonstrated time and time again, complicating the over-simplified narrative that automation is synonymous with job loss.

The logistics sector is undergoing a re-invention, preparing for the future of after-COVID-19 demand. More supply-chain professionals are investing in robotics as a way to keep their employees safe and engaged. Far from the apocalyptic force theyre often made out to be, autonomous robots could be a driver of job recovery and post-pandemic growth.

Progress never goes as planned, and more tests and trials lie ahead. Still, when it comes to establishing a new and improved normal, robotics will no doubt play an important role.

Zain Jaffer is founder and chief executive officer of Zain Ventures.

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Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island partners with Diagnostic Robotics to identify and monitor members with chronic conditions – Healthcare…

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(Photo by kupicoo/Getty Images)

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island has partnered with Diagnostic Robotics to use artificial intelligence to identify and monitor members with certain chronic conditions.

Health risks targeted include congestive heart failure, obesity and behavioral health conditions.

Diagnostic Robotics'predictive analytics model will give the BCBSRI care coordination team risk-identification and population health-management capabilities for proactive and personalized care.

Interventions include a mobile app to keep members engaged and connect them with the right network care provider in the most appropriate, cost-effective setting.

WHY THIS MATTERS

The partnership intends to effectively manage clinical care for Rhode Islanders and avoid unnecessary costs by focusing on targeted interventions, medical adherence and hospitalization prevention.

Diagnostic Robotics' systems integrate seamlessly into major touchpoints along the patient journey, providing high-value decision support while slashing administrative burdens, massively reducing the cost of care and improving patient experiences, BCBSRI said.

THE LARGER TREND

Diagnostic Robotics already has ties with academic institutions and the Rhode Island state government, including a research initiative with the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Innovation and a partnership to provide COVID-19 response technologies to the Rhode Island Department of Health.

The company's team includes leading artificial intelligence researchers from Israel and the United States.Diagnostic Robotics works extensively with healthcare systems in the United States and around the world, including the Mayo Clinic and numerous health systems in Israel.

ON THE RECORD

"This is just the beginning of a very exciting partnership with BCBSRI," said Yonatan Amir, CEO of Diagnostic Robotics. "BCBSRI recognizes the need for a new generation of capabilities to enable proactive and personalized care.

"We are proud to be part of their mission to equip Rhode Islanders with cutting-edge artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to keep members healthier while staying smart about spending."

"Behavioral health issues and chronic diseases can take an enormous toll on our members and their families, but timely interventions and evidence-based clinical guidance can help them connect with the right resources at the right time," said Dr. Matt Collins, executive vice president and chief medical officer.

"By applying the latest in machine learning, BCBSRI can better support population health."

Twitter: @SusanJMorseEmail the writer: susan.morse@himssmedia.com

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Sarcos Robotics to List in SPAC Deal at $1.3 Billion Value – Bloomberg

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The Sarcos Robotics Guardian XO exoskeleton demonstrated at CES 2020 in Las Vegas.

Photographer: Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg

Photographer: Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg

Sarcos Robotics is planning to go public through a reverse merger with blank-check company Rotor Acquisition Corp.

The Salt Lake City-based robot maker and the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, will have a combined valuation of $1.3 billion including debt, the company said in a statement on Tuesday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. The deal includes a potential earnout of an additional $281 million based on the performance of the stock after the merger.

To help fund the transaction, the companies have raised about $220 million in a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, from investors including BlackRock Inc., Millennium Management, Palantir Technologies Inc., Caterpillar Venture Capital Inc. and Schlumberger, as well as from their own executives.

Sarcos develops robotic systems for non-repetitive tasks that are designed to increase productivity among industrial and military workers. Its wearable devices help people move heavy objects with mechanical limbs and support, reducing workplace injuries and allowing employees less capable of strenuous labor to carry out tasks such as lifting airport baggage and manufacturing components without assistance.

Led by Chief Executive Officer Ben Wolff, Sarcos will receive as much as $496 million in proceeds from the SPAC transaction, the company said in the statement. Wolff was a co-founder of Clearwire Corp., which was acquired by Sprint Corp. in 2013.

The company will lease its exoskeleton, wearable device starting at $100,000 a year, similar to the total cost of hiring a worker for $25 an hour in the U.S., Wolff said in an interview.

Our value proposition is, he said, to deliver the productivity of three, four or five workers, depending on the use cases, industry and the job etc.

Initial versions of the devices cost Hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, Wolff said. He projects that cost will shrink to $65,000 once Sarcos achieves full-scale production in five years. Currently, the companys only product in the market is an inspection and surveillance robot, which Wolff said will account for a small portion of its revenue once bigger and more expensive, products are commercialized.

Rotor raised $276 million in its initial public offering in January. Its CEO is former Credit Suisse First Boston President Brian Finn, while its chairman is Stefan Selig, a former Bank of America Corp. executive and a U.S. Commerce Department official during the Obama administration.

When the combined companys stock price reaches $15 and $20, there are 1 million shares, representing $280 million, that are structured in an earnout, Selig said.

We did that so everybody is incentivized and aligned to do what we are hoping and expecting to happen here, which is to create significant long-term value, he said.

(Update with interviews with Sarcos and Rotor executives.)

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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Sarcos Robotics to List in SPAC Deal at $1.3 Billion Value - Bloomberg

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How David Vlez Built The Worlds Most Valuable Digital Bank And Became A Billionaire – Forbes

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By Jeff Kauflin, Maria Abreu and Antoine Gara

In the summer of 2012, David Vlez moved to SoPaulo with a newly minted Stanford MBA and a plum job as a Sequoia Capital partner. Douglas Leone, the head of Sequoia, had recruited the then-30-year-old Colombian to stake the venture capital powerhouses claim in Brazila youthful, resource-rich country of 200 million that had grown 4% a year for a decade to become the worlds seventh-largest economy. But on October 1, Leone called Vlez with bad news: After considering the uninspired pitches from Brazilian entrepreneurs and hearing that top-ranked University of So Paulo had produced just 42 computer science graduates the prior year, he was pulling the plug. Sequoias Brazilian adventure was over.

It was the day before my birthday and it was a bit of a shock, Vlez admits. Still, he had always wanted to launch his own startup and saw opportunity in the very dearth of Brazilian innovators that had turned his VC compatriots off. You want to position yourself on the side of the market where theres scarcity, Vlez explains. In the U.S., theres an oversupply of good entrepreneurs. Somebody with my experience and background is a commodity. In Latin America, there was significant scarcity.

Before long, he had a target: Brazils big andto hear Brazilians tell itbulletproof banks. Yet as Vlez saw it, the banks, with their notoriously high fees, poor service and seeming obliviousness to new technology, were sitting ducks. And they were. Less than a decade after its founding, Vlezs So Paulobased Nubank has 35 million customers and is valued at $25 billion. Vlez, who is Nubanks CEO, retains a 23% stake that Forbes values at $5.2 billion. Whats happening in Brazil is nothing short of a real revolution. And its waking up the incumbent banks, who have had the going really easy for a long time, says Nigel Morris, the cofounder of Capital One and a Nubank investor.

David is going to build a $100 billionplus financial powerhouse in Latin America, predicts TCV partner Woody Marshall, another one of the investors who have poured a total of $1.2 billion into Nubank. Among the billionaire-backed firms betting on Vlez: Yuri Milners DST Global, Peter Thiels Founders Fund, Chase Colemans Tiger Globaland yes, Leone and Sequoia.

Equally impressive, Vlez built his fintech juggernaut while previously booming Brazil suffered through recession, corruption scandals and Covid-19. And he did so despite warnings from Brazilians that the banking establishment would block himor worse. Theyre going to kill you, Vlez says one friend told him. Theyre going to kidnap your kids.

Growing up, Vlez saw how entrepreneurs persevere through adversity. Born in Colombia in 1981 into a family of small-businessfolk (his fathers 11 siblings are mostly entrepreneurs), he watched as his hometown of Medelln was ravaged by drug wars. He remembers leaving a shopping center with his family minutes before it was bombed. After an uncle was kidnapped and rescued, the then-9-year-old Vlez, his parents and his two sisters (both now also entrepreneurs) moved to Costa Rica. There, Vlezs dad, who had co-owned a small button factory with two brothers in Colombia, built a new one.

Vlez attended a local German-language prep school, graduating as valedictorian and winning admission to Stanford, where he majored in engineering and yearned to join Silicon Valleys startup frenzy. But while Google had been birthed in Stanfords dorms, as an undergraduate Vlez couldnt come up with his own big idea. So he played it safe after graduation, taking an investment banking job at Morgan Stanley. Two years later, he joined private equity firm General Atlantic to build up its investments in Latin America. In 2010 he returned to Stanford for his MBA and, he hoped, to develop the concept for his own startup and the killer instincts to execute it. But while still a student, he was recruited by Leone to develop Sequoias Latin American business. When that opportunity evaporated, Vlez retreated to his parents Costa Rican home to plot his assault.

Rebel Leader: If banks are Darth Vader, credit cards are the Death Star, says Cristina Junqueria, Nubanks cofounder. Theyre the horrible weapon the banks used.

Vlez is an unlikely assassin. Hes an even-keeled manager who, before the pandemic, began meetings with a minute for meditation. In his spare time, he reads fiction. His favorite novel is Gabriel Garca Mrquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude. But hes also a fan of Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged, and he learned in his VC and Stanford days that an entrepreneur can hit it big by using technology to take out fat, complacent incumbents. Whats the biggest industry in Brazil? Banking. And whats the most profitable? Banking, he says.

Back then, five banksIta, Bradesco, Santander, Banco do Brasil and Caixacontrolled 80% of the Brazilian market, earning massive profits by lending at high interest rates and charging exorbitant fees while providing lousy customer service. Brazilian banks suck. It has always been like this and will always be like this, Vlez says one Brazilian friend told him.

But in the early 2010s Vlez saw broadband internet and smartphones spread quickly across the enormous country. You had these gigantic opportunities [to disrupt] industries like banking that no one was really looking at because nobody thought it was possible. He adds: Nubank could never have been started by a local. . . . It required a Silicon Valley investor who has seen this story of the tiny ant going against the elephant and succeeding. A Latin American investor sees that and says, No way, the elephant is going to crush you.

Vlez spent months chatting up Brazilian bank insiders and studying digital bank upstarts like Capital One in the U.S. and ING Direct in Europe. He began to chart his course. Nubank would start with credit cards and then expand to other services, using technology to undercut the big banks fees and beat them on convenience. He returned to Sequoias Menlo Park, California, offices, securing $1 million from his mentor Leone and his former VC partners. Argentine venture firm Kaszek pitched in another $1 million.

Sequoia partner Roelof Botha told Vlez that he needed a cofounder with banking experience. Through an acquaintance, Vlez met and recruited Cristina Junqueira, a 30-year-old Brazilian engineer with an MBA from Northwesterns Kellogg, who had just quit her job running Itas largest credit card division. To build Nubanks technology, he recruited as the third cofounder an American he knew from his Sequoia days, Edward Wible, a 30-year-old Princeton computer science graduate.

Brazilian banks, with their notoriously high fees, poor service and seeming obliviousness to how technology was quickly changing consumers expectations, were sitting ducks.

The trio set up shop in a rented So Paulo house, with Wible living upstairs. In August 2014, they raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia, with Nigel Morris buying in through his specialty fintech VC firm, QED. To close the deal, Vlez took papers to the hospital for Junqueiras signaturewhile she was in labor with her first child.

The next month, Nubank rolled out its first product: a credit card. Nubank couldnt start with bank accounts because it faced a high hurdle to getting a bank chartera Brazilian constitutional provision barring foreign bank ownership. But it didnt need a banking license to offer credit cards. Plus, Brazilian credit cards had sky-high interest rates, then running 200% to 400% a year, meaning customers would either have to pay off their cards in full each month or pay Nubank a small fortune. While Vlez aimed to make money primarily from interchange feesthe 5% of credit card sales merchants kick back to issuers and the bankshe wasnt going to be shy about penalizing late payers with interest and fees.

Rather than burn scarce cash on marketing, Nubank used the velvet rope strategy common in Silicon Valleyat the start you had to be invited by a friend to apply for its credit card. Faux exclusivity aside, the appeal for Brazilians was obvious: Nubank charged no annual fee and handled applications entirely through its app. Those who qualified were notified within minutes, and the eye-catching purple credit cards arrived as soon as two days later. Plus, everythingfrom credit-line increase requests to bill paying and fraud reportscould be done through the app.

By contrast, almost all Brazilian banks charged annual fees for even basic credit cards$20 the lowest. And that was just the start; the banks also charged monthly fees for everything from fraud protection to text-message alerts. In 2019, fees made up nearly 40% of Brazilian banks revenue, compared with 15% to 20% for banks in Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Chile, according to a JPMorgan analysis. The big banks are still resisting, but Nubank is putting those fat fees under tremendous pressure.

Brazil is the country of the future and always will be, the old saw goes. That captures both the boom-and-bust nature of its resource-based economy and a sense that its vast potential has repeatedly been squandered. The fact that everybody sees the macroeconomic picture and 99% of people get scared means its an opportunity for us to play the contrarian, Vlez says. We think that over a period of ten or 20 or 30 years, Brazil will find its way.

At the end of 2014, Brazil slipped into a deep recession. Yet just 12 months later, more than a million people had applied for a spot on the Nubank cards waiting list. To protect itself from losses, Nubank approved only 20% of applicants and gave some ultralow spending limits of $14, raising that only if payments were timely. And Nubank continuously tested new ways to use data to gauge riskfor example, considering not only an applicants own credit history, but the payment record of the referring customer.

Trifecta: Nubank was able to be in the right place at the right time with the right strategy, says cofounder and CTO Edward Wible. All banks are becoming software companies.

In 2016, Nubank hit 1 million accepted credit card customersalmost entirely through word of mouth and referralsand Vlez was ready to step on the gas. That December, he closed an $80 million funding round led by Yuri Milners VC firm. To put the sheer size of that in context, by PitchBooks count, the rest of Brazilian startups combined raised just $340 million in venture capital that year. Vlez used his portion of the stash to hire hundreds of tech workers, opening an office in Germany to get access to additional talent.

Finally, in May 2017, after a presidential decree gave it an exemption from foreign ownership rules, Nubank received a Brazilian banking license. Now it could offer its checking and savings accountsall digital, naturally. While established banks were then charging as much as $10 a month per accountwith extra fees for ATM withdrawals and other basic servicesNubanks accounts were free, save for a passed-along $1.20 charge to use other banks ATMs. Within five months, 1.5 million of Nubanks 4 million credit card customers had signed up.

Nubank was growing fastit booked $523 million in revenue, with a $78 million loss, in 2019when the pandemic hit. Then it started growing faster. Like other fintechs serving consumers, it benefited mightily from lockdowns and fear, as even older Brazilians took to banking via mobile phones and the web. In 2020, Nubanks revenue nearly doubled, to $963 million, while losses narrowed to $44 million.

Not surprisingly, copycat digital banks are cropping up in Brazil, and the old-line banks are investing more heavily in technology. Some are even launching their own digital-only services. In response, Vlez is piling on new features. Last year, Nubank acquired a pioneering digital investing platform and rolled out a life insurance product, selling 100,000 policies in the first two months.

Such diversification is a holy grail for digital banks, but few have done it so successfully. Nubank is the exception that proves the rule, says QEDs Morris. Customer satisfaction remains strong. In a recent JPMorgan survey, Nubanks net promoter score (a measure of satisfaction) was 86, compared with 53 for Ita and 43 for Bradesco. With Nubank, they show you what you can do, you press a button and it works, says Bruno Alves, a 28-year-old customer from Salvador, a city in northeastern Brazil.

Nubank required a Silicon Valley investor who has seen this story of the tiny ant going against the elephant and succeeding. A Latin American investor sees that and says, No way, the elephant is going to crush you.

Nubank expanded to Argentina and Mexico in 2019, and into Vlezs native Colombia last year. While most meetings are conducted in English to accommodate its international staff, Vlez has no plans to compete north of the border.

Vlez met his wife, Mariel Reyes Milk, in 2013 at a gathering for international business types in a So Paulo bar. They are a global-village power couple: She has an American mother and Peruvian father and has lived in Uruguay, the U.S. and the Philippines while working for the World Bank. Their three young children hold Brazilian citizenship; Vlez himself is a citizen of both Colombia and Costa Rica. My wife and I usually say that we have no nation, no roots, he joked to a Brazilian magazine in 2019. We have lived in so many places and are considered gringos in all of them.

So while Vlez doesnt plan to set up shop in the United States, hes considering taking Nubank public there, mostly as a marketing event. But hes in no rush. Were in the first second of the first minute of the first half of the soccer game, the congenial assassin says. You always have to use a soccer analogy in Latin America.

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