NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

Hello, Are You Ok? AI Can Hear Your Sickness Now

Google is developing an innovative AI technology called Health Acoustic Representations (HeAR) that can detect early signs of illness by analyzing sound signals like coughs, sneezes, and breathing patterns.

How it works

This bioacoustic AI model has been trained on a massive dataset of 300 million audio samples, including 100 million cough recordings, allowing it to identify subtle patterns in health-related sounds.

The technology can operate through smartphone microphones, making it potentially valuable in areas with limited access to advanced medical equipment.

Partnership

• Google is partnering with Salcit Technologies, an Indian AI startup specializing in respiratory healthcare.

• According to Salcit, their app can determine if a person has a disease with 94% accuracy based on a 10-second cough sample. 🤯

• The test costs $2.40.

Why it matters:

Over 80% of tuberculosis (TB) cases and deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Cost-effective technologies for early detection of respiratory conditions like TB are crucial for improving outcomes in developing countries.

Source: Bloomberg

Generative AI Costs Are Dramatically Falling

Something really dramatic and interesting is happening to the cost of using powerful AI models like ChatGPT.

The cost is falling drastically - almost 80% in the last 1.5 years. 🤯 And will likely continue to fall for some time.

Why?   

• Models like Meta's Llama that are open-sourcing their model weights are allowing companies to compete on price because they don't need to incur massive upfront costs of developing and training models.

• New hardware optimized for AI computations from the likes of Groq and Cerebras Systems is making AI processing faster and cheaper.

Why this matters:

Businesses that were hesitant before can now build useful AI applications, as AI is becoming more accessible and affordable for businesses of any size.

In my experience, most business leaders do not understand or realize this trend. 😎 

Highly recommend this post by Andrew Ng, which I summarized above.

ps. Here's what Ng said, which blew me away: "Let's say you build an application to assist a human worker, and it uses 100 tokens per second continuously: At $4/million tokens, you'd be spending only $1.44/hour – which is significantly lower than the minimum wage in the U.S. and many other countries. "

WOMAN IN TECH

Meet Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva

Celebrating this week’s Woman in Tech 🥳: Meet Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva, the graphic design platform valued at $26 billion and used by more than 175 million people globally (including me!).

Melanie majored in communications, psychology, and commerce at The University of Western Australia.

▶ In 2009, she dropped out of university to start a company with Cliff Obrecht—who is now her husband.

Their startup, Fusion Books, which enabled people to easily create professional yearbooks, took off, became Australia’s largest yearbook company and expanded into France and New Zealand.

▶ In 2010, realizing the startup's potential, the pair moved to Silicon Valley to pitch their new startup idea, Canva. They faced more than 100 rejections from investors. 😬

▶ In 2012, they secured funding from notable investors, including former Google executive Cameron Adams, who joined as a co-founder.

▶ In 2013, Canva was officially launched in Australia.

▶ By 2018, it had expanded worldwide and achieved unicorn status.

But it wasn't all easy. From having the courage to drop out in pursuit of her idea to fighting through rejections from investors—today, Canva is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies and is bringing in over $2 billion in revenue. 😎 

Perkins is now one of Australia’s richest CEOs with a net worth of $4.4 billion. 💫 

I'm a huge fan of Perkins and love using Canva! What an entrepreneurial journey!

Fun Finds

Do You Want to Know What Your Pet is Saying?

Turns out, it's not just us humans who use names! Scientists are using AI to study animal sounds, and finding monkeys, elephants, even whales and dolphins have their own special calls for each other.

ps. Here’s a picture of my 4 year old dog Zeus! ♥️ Reply and send me a picture of your pet!

She Loves Tech Competition

I really enjoyed doing a panel on AI and how it can accelerate a startup founder’s journey and mission at the She Loves Tech’s pitch competition.

She Loves Tech is the world’s largest tech incubator for women with a presence in over 75 countries and one of my fave organizations. 💫

Until next time!

Ayesha ♥️

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