Month: February 2017

7 Inventions To Revolutionise The Lives Of The Visually Impaired

For people who aren’t visually impaired, it’s sometimes difficult to comprehend how much the world is designed for people who aren’t visually impaired.

From traffic lights to coffeemakers that indicate they’re done with lights, even the smallest thing can be frustrating because of designs that are automatically made for people without visual impairments.

Here are seven innovative products for visual impairment to even the score just a little bit:

  1. Braun Bell Concept Mug: Sang-hoon Lee and Yong-bum Lim have made a mug that emits a sound when the liquid reaches water sensors that mark certain places inside the mug: you can now fill up your mug to exactly 3/4ths with no problem. People who can’t see how full the cup is, have to resort to dipping a finger in, this is not only unsanitary, it’s downright dangerous for mugs full of scalding hot liquid.
  1. The Eye Stick: The walking stick that sees for you. This walking stick is equipped with a lens that recognises special hazards like stairs, or traffic lights and then communicates to the user through sonic vibrations. New environments are now less dangerous and unknown for the visually impaired who get hold of this nifty little thing.
  1. The B-Touch Mobile Phone: Designed by the brilliant Zhenwei You, if this smartphone had an IQ, it would be off the charts. Along with braille touch screen tech, this phone incorporates voice activated software as well. This phone will read out loud to you, act as a navigator, and do object recognition, so you don’t have to, and so much more. All it needs now is a laundry setting.
  1. LeChal Shoes: Wear the future with Lechal’s shoes. They connect with apps on your phone or tab to act as navigator. Vibrations on your shoes will tell you how to walk. Move left if you feel a vibe on the left shoe and so on. The latest version doesn’t work with obstructions in your path yet, but they’re working on it, and I for one am eager to explore what they come out with.
  1. Enchroma Lenses: Opening up a whole new world for colourblind people, these spectacles may look like shades, but they can help a lot of colourblind people see more colours than before. Colour blindness happens due to a different balance of absorption in retinal cone cells which will cause ‘spectral overlap.’ Red-green colourblind people are likely to not have full spectral overlap so that they can be helped through this.
  1. Bionic Eye: Visual impairment through retinal pigmentosa can be a terrible thing. However, with Robert Greenberg and the Argus II, there may be a light at the end of that tunnel. This is a two-step process with a device that is implanted in the retinas combined with a pair of glasses which will send signals to the device that will then send electrical impulses. The image is low-resolution, but at least it’s possible. Unfortunately, it is still extremely expensive and unlikely to be accessible to a majority of patients.
  1. Braille E-Book Reader: Electroactive polymers may fulfil the dreams of many readers worldwide. While not a reality yet, and not cost-effective enough to be commercially available, it’s a good thought and one that needs to be pursued.

    Using electromagnetic signals, it is possible to produce refreshable braille patterns or an e-book reader that will make millions of books accessible to visually impaired people in a lightweight and simple form. The design was proposed by Seon-Keun Park, Jin-Sun Park, Sun-Hye Woo, Byung-Min Woo.

Seven things that prove that with technology and will, you really can change the world for the better. This will improve the lives of many people, and give them the tools to change the world as well. It’s a beautiful domino effect.

LSI Keywords:visual impairment, visually impaired, blindness, blind, Accessible to visually impaired people, Products for visual impairment, Visual impairment through retinal pigmentosa, Colorblind people, Braille

References:

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/08/06/no-more-overspills-even-if-you-are-blind/

http://www.concept-phones.com/cool-concepts/btouch-concept-touchscreen-mobile-phone-blind/

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/09/08/blind-stick-with-eyes/

http://enchroma.com/technology/

https://www.nbp.org/downloads/cbi/EAPActuators.pdf

http://www.massdevice.com/restoring-sight-blind-conversation-with-second-sights-robert-greenberg/

https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/245443

http://weburbanist.com/2010/04/05/12-ingenious-gadgets-technologies-for-the-blind/

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Tech Company CEOs with Liberal Arts Degree (Rank Princess – SEO)

Gone are the days when tech companies made rounds to colleges for candidates who majored in science and technology. According to Steve Jobs, liberal arts is the backbone of any technological organisation. He believed that it was technology combined with liberal arts and humanities that became the DNA of Apple.

It is because of the value that liberal arts graduates add to an organisation, that tech companies are now seeking candidates who have the ability to balance multi-disciplinary arts and marry it to the company’s mantra.

Let’s have a look at five CEOs who forayed into tech companies with degrees in liberal arts.

Susan Wojcicki, Youtube CEO

Major: Bachelors in Literature and History, Harvard University

Susan Wojcicki was the first marketing manager at Google who went on to become the chief executive officer of Youtube in 2014. She attributes her success to her parents who motivated her to pick varied subjects as they were both teachers. She said from a very early age she had seen that her parents weren’t after money or fame but cared only about what interested them as teachers.

Jack Ma, Former Ali Baba CEO

Major: Bachelors in English, Hangzhou Normal University (Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute)

Jack Ma struggled a lot to use his much acquired English degree. He was rejected 30 times, but after constant trials, was hired as a teacher at a local college.  Jack Ma founded Alibaba (global wholesale marketplace), with 15 of his friends and later went on to become the CEO. He stepped down as CEO in 2015 to become the chairman and manage stakeholder relationships. He completely values his years of struggle and says that the Chinese education system should become a little unprofessional.

Carly Fiorina, Former Hewlett-Packard CEO

Major: Bachelors in Philosophy and Medieval History, Stanford University

Even after a Stanford degree under her belt, Carly Fiorina struggled on to find a suitable job. After bagging a sales job at AT&T, she quickly landed at HP and later went on to become the CEO from 1999 to 2005. Even though she has gone on record to say that her liberal arts degree didn’t prepare her for the job, it taught her a lot in life. She said it’s because of the liberal arts degree that she could assimilate the essence of the given information.

Stewart Butterfield, CEO Slack

Major:

  • Bachelor’s in Philosophy, Canada University of Victoria
  • Masters in History and Philosophy, Cambridge

Stewart Butterfield is famously known for co-founding Flickr and in 2013 announced the release of Slack i.e. cloud-based software for instant messaging and searching. He said that majoring in liberal arts taught him a lot. He learned how to write clearly and even how to follow an argument till the end, which he finds quite invaluable in discussions and meetings.

Steve Yi, CEO MediaAlpha

Major: Interdisciplinary degree in East Asian Studies, Harvard

Steve Yi is the Chief at the web advertising platform MediaAlpha. He accolades his years at liberal arts and says that his studies taught him a lot about perspective. He believes that when it comes to a dynamic industry like technology, there is not just one right answer, so he gives his studies credit for making him understand the various shades of the right answer.

Final Take

Ultimately, it may be said that it is not important how you get there, but to learn about perspectives and perseverance. As surprising as it may seem, liberal arts is becoming the answer for tech organisations.

LSI KEYWORDS

Famous liberal arts graduates

Liberal arts degrees

Liberal arts degree jobs

Liberal arts bachelor

Tech CEO with liberal arts degree

REFERENCES

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/07/29/liberal-arts-degree-tech/&refURL=https://www.google.co.in/&referrer=https://www.google.co.in/

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-technology-ceos-want-to-hire-liberal-arts-students

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Five Liberal Art Graduates Who Became Tech CEOs (Rank Princess – SEO)

In today’s world of emerging technologies, most of us opt to pursue a technical degree and strive hard to succeed. This notion is surprisingly not true as there are gems born in this world who have changed the face of technology, despite a humanities degree on their CV.If you still believe that a technical degree is a mandate to rule the world of IT, this article will completely change your perception.

Some successful IT giants like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Evan Williams, Michael Dell and others have made it evident that a degree is not a pre-requisite for success.

There are people who did not prefer to learn the rules, but make them. Only these people have left their graduate friends behind and occupied the top notch.As they say, ‘if you are willing to learn, you can do it by any means, and if you are not prepared to learn, you will find excuses’.

When it comes to a techie striving hard to code a software, it is a sales or marketing person who sells it for money.This article will walk you through a list of 5 CEOs who obtained a liberal arts degree but went on to lead many IT companies.

1. Carly Fiorina

Former CEO, Hewlett-Packard

Degree – B.A.(Medieval History and Philosophy)

Alma Mater: Stanford University, 1976

Journey Towards Success

Despite holding a Stanford degree, Fiorina had struggled hard before she could land a job of a secretary, receptionist, and English teacher post graduation.

At the age of 25, she landed a management trainee (sales) job at AT&T and slowly moved into IT through Lucent Technologies.

In July 1999, Fiorina was declared as the first female CEO of Hewlett-Packard Company and also the first woman to lead a Fortune20 Company.

Fiorina also acquired an MBA degree from Smith School of Business, College Park in 1980. She also earned an M.S. in Management at MIT Sloan School of Management in 1989.

2. Susan Wojcicki

CEO, Youtube

Degree – B.A. (History and Literature)

Alma Mater: Harvard University, 1990

Journey towards success

After graduating with honours in 1990, Wojcicki decided to go for PhD in Economics but changed her mind after discovering technology. Later, she decided to go to Silicon Valley and landed a job.

Wojcicki worked in marketing at Intel in California and also as a management consultant at R.B. Webber & Company and Bain & Company before becoming Google’s first marketing manager in 1999.

She became the Senior Vice President in Google and led its advertising and analytic products such as Adsense, Google Analytics, Double Click and Adwords. She also developed Adwords – one of Google’s largest sources of revenue.

She was declared the CEO of Youtube in February 2014.

Wojcicki also earned M.S. in Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1993 and MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1998.

3. John Thomas Chamber

Former CEO, Cisco Systems (currently, Executive Chairman)

Degree – B.A.(Business)

Alma Mater- West Virginia University, 1971

Journey towards success

At the age of 27, Chambers started his career in technology sales at IBM (1976-1983).

In 1983, he went to Wang Laboratories and became the vice president (US operations) in 1987. Wang made a profit of $2 million in 1989 and faced a massive loss of $700 million in 1990.

In the year 1991, Chambers quit Wang and joined Cisco at the age of 42.

In January 1995, he became the CEO of Cisco Systems. Later, Cisco became a multimillion dollar company, making a massive profit from $70 million to $40 billion in 2007.

In November 2006, he took over the responsibility of Chairman of the Board in addition to his role as the CEO.

Chambers also received a law degree from West Virginia University College of Law (1974). He also earned an MBA degree from Kelly School of Business, Indiana University (1975).

4. Stephen J. Luczo

Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO, Seagate Technology

Degree – B.A. (Economics & Psychology)

Alma Mater – Stanford University, 1979

Journey towards success

Steve started his professional career as a staff accountant (audit practice) at Touche Ross & Co. (1979-1980) after gaining a liberal arts degree.

Later, he joined the Port of San Francisco and became the acting chief financial officer in 1981, and later resigned in August 1982.He returned to Stanford to pursue an MBA degree, and after graduating in 1984, he joined Salomon Brothers as an investment banker (1984-1992).

He was appointed as the Senior Managing Director of the Global Technology Group of Bear, Stears & Co. Inc. (February 1992-October 1993).

In October 1993, he joined Seagate Technology as Senior Vice President of Corporate Department and got appointed as the CEO in July 1998.

5. Meg Whitman

Former CEO, Hewlett-Packard Enterprises

Degree – B.A. Economics

Alma Mater – Princeton University, 1977

Journey towards success

She obtained an MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1979.

She started her professional career as a brand manager at Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. Later she moved to Bain & Company where she earned the position of senior vice president.

Whitman also served at the Walt Disney Company (1989), Stride Rite Corporation(1991) and Dreamworks SKG. She joined eBay in March 1998 where she was appointed as the CEO and later moved to Goldman Sachs in October 2011.

In January 2011, she joined Hewlett-Packard’s board of directors and got promoted to CEO on September 22, 2011.

Conclusion

This is just a small list to inspire those who consider a liberal arts degree futile. These CEOs have earned remarkable success through sheer hard work and determination and have changed the face of the world.

Thus a technical degree might help in gaining a super senior position in a company, but it is not a mandate for those who are born to win.

 

Keywords: liberal arts degree

LSI Keywords: CEO, degree, technical degree, MBA degree, technology, job

References:

http://time.com/3964415/ceo-degree-liberal-arts/

http://www.business2community.com/leadership/21-wildly-successful-ceos-with-liberal-arts-degrees-01293809#8IS7f6hd3ZdTf1bO.97

http://www.businessinsider.in/The-25-best-performing-CEOs-in-the-world-according-to-the-Harvard-Business-Review/articleshow/49330199.cms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hewlett-Packard_executive_leadership

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The Aegon iTerm Insurance Plan Is the Plan for You (Rank Princess – SEO)

There’s no saying when your family might need the benefits of life insurance. With everyone scurrying around to buy life insurance and the vast selection pool of life insurance policies to choose from, choosing one out of the hundreds might leave you in a tizzy.

Plus, you might have already heard your relatives complaining about how the cheap looking insurance you bought was now not paying up on a legible claim. The Aegon iTerm Insurance Plan was created keeping these problems and your needs in mind.

What Do These Plans Provide-
The Aegon Life iTerm Insurance plan has many more benefits than you’ll ever find in the standard insurance plan by most other companies. Some of these include-

1. The Aegon Life iTerm Insurance Plan covers you up to an age of 80.

2. With this plan, you can choose how the amount payable should be paid out in a case of an incident- either
a full direct lump sum payment or a scheduled monthly income dividend to be paid over a period of 100
months.

3. You have the choice to boost your life coverage as per your rising life stage necessities.

4. You enjoy an inbuilt terminal illness benefit.

5. The premium rate is lower for women and non-smokers.

6. You can enjoy tax benefits.

Eligibility-
The minimum age to enter this plan is eighteen years, and the highest age is set at 65 years. The highest maturity age is fixed at 80 years which means you’ll stay covered up to that age.

The policy term has a minimum of 5 years and a maximum of 62-80 years. You are assured to receivea minimum sum of Rs 25,00,000. There is no limit on the maximum amount you can receive.

You can choose to pay your premium in a single payment, annually, semiannually or monthly.

You can improve upon your originally bought plan by further purchasing riders. There are five different types of riders available to you, each entailing a different set of benefits for the different requirements you may have.

The Aegon Religare term plan premium increases with age- the lowest being Rs 2140 and the highest at 65 years being Rs 17650.

How Does It Compare-
Most of the Aegon Religare iTerm Plan reviews have found themselves to be on the positive side.

From the information above, it is very clear that the painstakingly low premium of this plan puts it way ahead of its competitors.

The number of discounts and cuts which are available to you based on the category you fall in is what stands out about this plan. This plan is especially good for women as the premiums are lower for them. Also, again, you get premium benefits if you are a non-smoker.

On top of that, unlike other insurance plans, you get to choose how the nominee is to be paid- either in a lump sum or by monthly income. Other plans seldom have this option.

The riders are too good of an upgrade to your insurance plan. On other plans, you are stuck with what you bought whether it fully covers you or not. With the AegoniTerm plan, you can improve upon what you originally bought.

The ease of access features such as online application and the Aegon Religare term plan renewal system are excellent add-ons to a great plan.

The only drawback of this plan is its definition of accident. The plan poorly defines it.

LSI Keywords– Aegon Religare iTerm plan reviews, Aegon Religare term plan renewal, Aegon Religare term plan premium

Reference Links-

https://www.bankbazaar.com/aegon-life-term-plan/i-term-plan.html
http://www.mouthshut.com/product-reviews/AEGON-Life-reviews-925097180

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