Vishal Sikka, the previous CEO of Infosys (although for a short time), is making headlines again. His new business, Vianai Systems, was just launched. SoftBank has invested $140 million in him. They are developing a human-centered Artificial Intelligence platform, which is a system that learns and collaborates from non-machine inputs.
This approach, according to Vishal, has added value to a number of organizations across the globe.
Surprisingly, when Vishal was fired from Infosys, the company’s fundamental philosophy was that ITeS companies would need to automate to grow ahead. “We have to embrace AI, and with that increased productivity, we have to outrun the downward spiral,” he stated in a 2016 interview with The Economic Times. Vishal and Masayoshi Son have welcomed that future. One person’s garbage is another person’s gold.
Big Oil is finally catching up with the rest of the world!
Travel photos, puppies, sunsets, and the good life abound on Instagram. Big oil corporations are a new, not-so-young child on the block vying for social media attention. Shell has influencers who are talking about them on Instagram. Phillips 66, another Fortune 500 oil firm, has been doing it since at least 2018.
Cherrie Lynn Almonte, a lifestyle influencer with 192,000 Instagram followers, has a page filled with photos of Shell petrol stations. Oddly, Almonte promoted road trips in October 2020 while warning fans about California’s worst fire season. Shell has previously engaged in several initiatives with a variety of influencers, all of which may be discovered using the hashtag “#ShellPartner.” Some are overt, obnoxious advertisements, while others are aspirational.
Shell isn’t the only one who thinks this way. Phillips 66, headquartered in Houston, has also launched numerous ads using Instagram influencers. “The oil business has been crucial to the development and refinement of propaganda tactics for 100 years,” says Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard University scholar. Prepare to see more gassy images of benevolence and the good life on your Instagram feed. Will you, on the other hand, believe it?
Thailand is preparing to open its doors to tourists!
If you are entirely vaccinated, not from a high-risk nation, Thailand welcomes you and wishes to spend a lengthy holiday. On July 1, it intends to open the island of Phuket. The Phuket Sandbox plan, as it’s known, seeks to eliminate the need for quarantine.
While European nations such as France and Spain have allowed vaccinated travelers to visit without being quarantined, Asia’s delayed vaccine rollout has proven to be a significant barrier for travel-dependent countries such as Thailand. It only had 6,556 international visitors in December of the previous year, down 99.8% from December.
Vaccinated visitors must remain in Phuket for 14 days before traveling to other parts under the scheme. Thanks to its high vaccination rate, only six new cases have been recorded in the last week on the island. While just a few hundred tourists are anticipated in July, a continuous increase in visits would indicate confidence ahead of the peak tourist season and provide an example for other tourism hotspot countries to follow.