The thirty-eighth International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) scheduled for  July 18–24 will see Sber, a gold partner of the event, present the artificial intelligence solutions designed by the bank and its partners. 

All ICML participants have access to Sber’s virtual page where video presentations will  be uploaded in the following tracks: 

LightAutoML is a Python library designed to build ML models automatically. Combining  light weight, ease, and efficiency for different classes of tabular data tasks, LightAutoML  is perfect for advanced Data Science professionals and beginners. 

Creative AI utilizes generative models in creative work. The presentation will be of  interest to everyone who is into neural networks or just wants to get an idea about the  variety of such models and their application domains. 

Digital Peter is a model designed to recognize Peter the Great’s handwritten  manuscripts. It will be of use to the historians who work with the manuscripts from Peter’s  era and can be utilized to recognize any handwritten text should the current model receive  further training. 

In addition, two new Sber projects related to AI in medicine and natural language  processing will be presented at ICML. 

A dynamically developing tech company and ecosystem, Sber is creating a broad range  of DS and AI solutions for social and business objectives. Some of these solutions  become benchmarks for entire industries at both the national and international levels. We  have been building our expertise in these areas for several years and will be glad to  present our newest developments at ICML. Participating in this conference is a wonderful  opportunity to exchange best practices with colleagues from different countries and gain  a deeper understanding of the latest trends in the industry. 

Alexander Vedyakhin 

First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board, Sberbank 

Sber’s virtual stand will also feature vacancies for D-people – experts in machine learning,  data science, programming, and other IT professions. 

ICML is a major conference that greatly influences research on machine learning and  artificial intelligence. It is a globally renowned platform that brings together the world’s  leading experts in the fields of DS/AI. The first ICML was held in 1980. In 2020, 11,000  professionals from 75 countries gathered for ICML. 

Numio, a cryptocurrency payments and identity management startup, has successfully closed a $1.25m seed funding round. HashKey Capital led the round and were joined by LD Capital, Youbi Capital, Caballeros Capital, DVC, ZMT Capital, as well as angel investors including Suji Yan of Mask Network, and Cecilia Li, ex-investment director of OK Group.

The Ethereum blockchain has undergone explosive growth over the past 12 months, cementing its place as the leading network for decentralized finance (DeFi). While Ethereum's growth is positive overall, it has resulted in high fees and slow transaction speeds.

Numio has developed a mobile application that removes these limitations by leveraging Ethereum’s Layer 2. The integration of technologies like zkRollups, from zkSync, means that transactions on Numio’s Layer 2 wallet are instant and ~100 times cheaper than standard Ethereum.

The Numio app was released in December 2020. It allows users to make payments, securely and access online platforms with a more secure form of two-factor authentication than offered by Google Authenticator. The application's zkProof technology also allows users to prove their identity to a third party platform, without the need to send their identity documents. Numio is currently working with partners including PhoenixDAO and BTI Verified to secure their platforms.

New features currently in development are Layer 2 cryptocurrency trading, pooling, staking, eCommerce, and functionality for buying things at a store.

The money raised in this round will be used for continued user acquisition, further development of our DeFi roadmap, and for expanding the Numio team.

"Bringing a scalable and user-friendly Ethereum experience to all is at our core and this funding round allows us to take Numio to the next level”, said Numio Chief Technical Officer, Tim Allard. “Our Layer 2 focused app and extended roadmap is packed with the features and utility that our users demand, and we couldn't be happier to have the support from our investors to help bring our vision to life."

Lead investors, Haskey Capital, commented: "We are delighted to be an early investor in Numio. We were first attracted by their early adoption of zkRollups from zkSync, a Layer 2 solution that we appreciate greatly.

Numio is the first and only native wallet in the zkSync ecosystem. It is easy to log in, integrates Defi and on/off ramp functions and the barrier to using it is very low. Numio is the easiest way for users to access Ethereum’s Layer 2.

We see Numio as a company who are knocking on the door of mass adoption for decentralized applications."

Open banking platform Tink has appointed Rowan Taylor as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). London-based Rowan joins Tink from AWS, where he spent more than five years leading global financial services sales teams. His 26 years’ experience in banking technology also includes roles at Gartner, KPMG and Accenture.

In the newly created role of CRO, Rowan will be responsible for driving integration between all revenue related functions at Tink, including sales, marketing, customer support and pricing.

Rowan Taylor, CRO at Tink, said: “The Swedish technology sector has a strong reputation for producing some of the leading, most cutting edge fintech propositions. I’m looking forward to helping Tink continue its expansion across Europe, building high-performance teams who can serve complex customers, enabling them to develop rich propositions for their end users.

“Open banking is still in its infancy, and has been transforming the financial services industry in bites. But now is the time to turn this change into a wave, by being able to work with the largest organisations at scale – and cementing Tink’s position as the predominant open banking platform in all of our chosen markets.”

Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink, added: “Rowan brings valuable experience of creating and growing high-performing teams, combined with a deep understanding of our customers, and the transformation that’s evolving in financial services across Europe. I’m proud to have someone of Rowan’s calibre joining Tink for the next exciting phase of our journey.”

Helping customers with live tax rates and simple tax reporting, cutting out the admin burden for 1,000s of businesses in a post-Brexit environment.

Sage, the market leader in cloud business management solutions, has launched enhanced functionality that will support customers trading cross border following the introduction of the new EU VAT E-commerce Package.

Sage Accounting, the software company’s flagship cloud accounting solution for small businesses, now features live tax rates and simple reporting tools – helping to significantly cut the administration burden, reduce human error while keeping businesses compliant.

On 1 July, the European Union (EU) changed the way in which VAT is reported and paid, potentially impacting VAT Registered businesses in the UK selling products & services online to consumers and practicing distance selling into the EU.

The recent legislation, designed to make things easier and simpler for online businesses selling to consumers living within the EU, means that businesses now must assess, based on the region with which they are trading, their entire supply chain and ensure that their VAT liability and reporting obligations are in line with the EU One Stop Shop (OSS).

Sage Accounting customers based in the UK, Ireland, France, and Spain can now automatically identify and calculate the correct rate of VAT, depending on where customers are based, whether that’s inside or outside the EU.

Benefiting from Sage’s intuitive automation, customers can take advantage of a guided experience for each regional Tax Scheme or model. The software will automatically surface the correct VAT rate specific to the country the customer is trading with, presenting only tax codes that are relevant for that contact, as opposed to 50+ that could apply to just one invoice. This reduces a lot of the painful administration for businesses and the time spent by accountants correcting errors, while also supporting businesses to be remain compliant.

Product features include:

• A managed experience for each regional Tax Scheme or model, right down to specific trading scenarios, helping customers to easily understand how their transaction will be processed and why. Specifically for the UK, this includes support for the Low Value Consignment scheme and OSS Services.
• Live tax rates - updated in real time and in combination with Sage Accounting’s scenario management solution developed for Brexit, helping to avoid manual data input errors.
• Destination VAT – charging the VAT rate of the end customer they are selling to, helping customers fast-track goods into the EU or cross border (within the EU), avoiding delays in customs, and providing clarity to their customer on what they will be charged at point of purchase.
• New reports and ledger accounts help customers report on Destination VAT and complete their submissions, simplifying the compliance journey and providing easy reconciliation.

“As we move into our 6^th post Brexit month of 2021, the path forward for businesses trading cross border with EU based suppliers and end customers is becoming clearer. Our single focus is to help our customers navigate these changes with solutions and advice that enable them to do better business. E-Commerce gives businesses the ability to reach more customers than traditional retail, and with so many people making their purchases online, it is the fastest-growing retail market – we want our customers to see the opportunities, not the limitations.” Neal Watkins, EVP, Small Segment, Sage.

The automation available in Sage Accounting helps customer to streamline processes without losing accuracy or quality. Giving customers access to the accurate data they need to run their business.

Customers can find all the information associated with EU VAT E-commerce Package in the Sage EU VAT hub here. As well as comprehensive product help, webinars, e-learns, YouTube videos and a suite of other supporting materials to help them get the most from this update:

• Help: https://help.accounting.sage.com/en-gb/start/tax/EU-VAT.html
• Blog: https://www.sage.com/en-gb/blog/eu-ecommerce-vat-changes/
• Product Agnostic Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJHhir3OM4o
• How to: Sage Accounting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4q07aKotk
• Detailed How to Accounting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFrEOEFykqQ
• Sage solutions and advice for e-commerce businesses: https://www.sage.com/en-gb/cp/ecommerce/

Biometric fintech company, Zwipe and ICPS, a leading international card payment processor and card personalization bureau, are partnering to bring Zwipe Pay ONE enabled biometric payment cards to banks across Africa and Asia.

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the use of contactless technology and ultimately the need for consumers and businesses to make higher-value payments using contactless cards. However, the contactless limit increase for payments also posed a higher risk for users without an additional layer of security.

ICPS and Zwipe have partnered to bring biometric payment cards enabled with fingerprint sensors. With a fingerprint sensor embedded in the card, consumers will now benefit from an extra layer of security with no need to enter a PIN code on the POS terminal.

Zwipe will provide the complete Zwipe Pay ONE package comprising Biometric ISO contact plate module, Passive inlay, Fingerprint sensor, OS license and enrolment sleeves. As part of this collaboration, both companies will work closely to promote the disruptive Zwipe Pay ONE enabled biometric payment cards for ICPS’ issuers in Africa and Asia.

“As a provider of innovative payment services in the African continent, we pride ourselves in delivering future proof innovations. Together with Zwipe we will bring a new payment solution that will help financial institutions to differentiate their services, provide safer and much more secure payment solutions and uplift customer loyalty. Zwipe is a well-regarded technology brand in the biometric payment space and we are very happy to join forces with them”, said Khevin Seebah, CEO at ICPS.

ICPS has a portfolio of more than 30 clients based in 22 countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. The company, which is based in Mauritius, provides payment processing and consultancy services for banks, financial institutions, and telecom operators. ICPS hosts more than six million cards, drives over 600 ATMs and 11,000 point of sale terminals, and processes over 10 million transactions on its platform each month.

André Løvestam, CEO of Zwipe said: “We are delighted to collaborate with ICPS and bring the next generation of contactless payment cards to banks in Africa and Asia. ICPS’ strong position among financial institutions across Africa and Asia, and Zwipe’s disruptive technology and deep expertise within biometric payment cards, will create a strategic foundation for a mutually rewarding partnership.”

The fund manager starts an international tender to select a strategic investor for the construction of the assets

Quercus Real Assets Limited (Quercus) has started an international tender managed by Greenhill, the leading independent investment bank focused on providing financial advice globally on significant mergers and acquisitions, who are very active in the energy and infrastructure sector. The process aims at selecting a strategic investor for the construction and operation of the 800 MW Spanish PV portfolio that Quercus has acquired and developed since 2020. The portfolio is currently one of the largest in the European renewables market.

Bidders are likely to be among the major industrial and financial investors in the sectors, who are often the most interested parties in large portfolios, particularly in the Spanish market, one of the most active solar markets in Europe.

Quercus, since  inception, invested in the construction and operation of solar and wind infrastructures, successfully completing  more than €1 billion in gross investments in five European countries in just one decade. Following the first ten year chapter, in 2019 the investment manager stirred its strategy to adjust to the ever-evolving renewables market and undertook investment in the permitting process which would lead to the construction of new renewable energy assets.  This new strategy lead to the decision to dispose of the portfolios, all generating positive performance and in aggregate a return for investors higher than 8% at the date of the sale. This not only demonstrated the ability of the manager to navigate through the challenges of the many regulatory changes in Europe but also confirmed its commitment to deliver a successful result to international investors, who continue to welcome and support the new strategy.

For further information, please visit www.quercusrealassets.com 

Fujitsu Limited and Inria, the French national research institute for digital science and technology, today announced the development of a new AI technology that can identify factors contributing to anomalies in time series data.

Fig. 1 TDA-based technology for identifying the causes detecting anomalies Fig. 2 EEG data of delirium state (blue line) and EEG data judged to be normal generated by this technology (red line)

In recent years, various kinds of time-series data collected in fields including healthcare, social infrastructure, and manufacturing have been leveraged by AI to perform situational judgment and detect anomalies. In the case of time-series data, however, there are a wide range of factors that can contribute to AI decision-making. This means that even experts find it difficult to notice what kind of changes in the data contributed to an anomaly detection making it difficult to take appropriate measures to prevent their occurrence.

Fujitsu and Inria, more specifically the Inria's DATASHAPE Project Team led by Frederic Chazal in France, have now successfully developed a new technology based on Topological Data Analysis (TDA)(1) that can identify the factors contributing to anomaly detections by AI for time series data and visualize the differences in AI decisions during normal and anomalous circumstances.

Fujitsu and Inria anticipate that this will contribute to the analysis of the causes of anomalies in time series data for various phenomena, clarifying the mechanism surrounding the occurrence of anomalies, as well as the discovery of new solutions to these.

This technology will be presented as one of just 3% of total submitted papers as a "Long Talk" presentation at the Thirty-eighth International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), the leading international conference in the field of machine learning, which opens virtually from July 18th, 2021.

Newly Developed Technology

Fujitsu and Inria have developed an AI technology that can determine the cause of anomalies in time-series data, consisting of the following key features.
1) Using an analysis technology developed by Fujitsu that extract features that affect judgement from time-series data and detects anomalies (2), the characteristics that led to the anomalous judgment as well as the unrelated characteristics from the data that was judged to be anomalous by the AI are mapped onto a plane (TDA space).
2) The technology transforms the point data of the characteristic that is the cause closer to the point data group of the characteristic that is not the cause on the plane.
3) The time-series data is deformed based on the conversion of the characteristics of the point data, and the data judged to be normal is generated.
This allows the waveform of normal and anomalous time-series data to be compared and enables the user to visually investigate the cause of the anomaly.

The newly developed technology was applied to test the possibility of detecting symptoms of delirium (3) using actual electroencephalography (EEG) data (4) collected in strict accordance with ethical guidelines. Using the newly developed technology, it was confirmed that the characteristics of the brain wave of the time series data coincided with the "slowing" phenomenon (5) that at times accompanies the state of delirium. These results offer the potential to help medical professionals interpret the data to help determine the cause of these symptoms. This may one day contribute to important medical developments, including the ability to discover possible precursors to diseases that have been difficult to identify with conventional techniques, as well as the discovery of preventive treatments. The technology could also be applied to shed light on the mechanisms of diseases that are not yet well-understood.

Comments from Dr. Gen Shinozaki, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, Stanford University School of Medicine

Due to the nature of the random signals, it has proven difficult to use EEG data quantitatively and accurately to identify certain disorders. In recent years, advances in data processing technologies, such as AI, have made it possible to better understand the characteristic changes in subtle brain waves. These advances are important not only for diagnosing various disorders, but also for understanding the treatment response and the pathophysiological mechanism. The technology developed by Fujitsu and Inria has successfully captured the unique characteristics of brain waves in patients suffering from delirium. In addition to verifying this, we anticipate that further improvement and practical use of this technology will ultimately offer the potential to achieve accurate diagnosis, monitoring of treatment response and the elucidation of pathophysiology for other disorders.

Future Plans

Fujitsu and Inria plan to encourage the use of the jointly developed technology in field work and experiments at companies and research institutes, and proceed with verifying the technology.

(1) Topological Data Analysis (TDA):
A method for analyzing data in which data are arrayed in a cluster of points in space, and geometric data is extracted from the cluster.
(2) an analysis technology developed by Fujitsu that classifies time-series data by features and detects anomalies:
Fujitsu and France's Inria Jointly Develop Technology to Automatically Create Anomaly-Detecting AI Models (Press Release: 2020/3/16)
(3) delirium:
a syndrome, or group of symptoms, caused by a disturbance in the normal functioning of the brain.
(4) actual EEG data:
the newly developed technology was applied to the electroencephalographic data of approximately 600 patients, who consented to participate in research with Dr. Shinozaki, at the University of Iowa. Professor Shinozaki has been an Associate Professor at Stanford University since June 2021.
(5) slowing phenomenon:
a phenomenon that frequently occurs in the EEG data of patients suffering from delirium.