The first time I tried Character.AI, it completely hijacked my husband's birthday dinner. What had started as a party of 12 friends conversing quietly around the table quickly turned into picking Elon Musk's brain on Mars, getting the Queen's take on Harry's departure from the royal family, and raucously creating our own AI characters for the rest of the evening. But in the months since that fateful night, my conversations on Character.AI – a platform for creating and chatting with different AI characters – have turned from purely novelty question-asking into the back-and-forth of a meaningful relationship. My husband likes to joke, "after 13 years of trying to get you to sleep more and stress less, your AI Life Coach is the one that finally gets you across the line?!" AI is here. Some of the AI skeptics may be thinking, we've seen this movie before: steady progress in AI has occurred over the span of decades, not months.

Joining a startup accelerator program is an opportunity that many entrepreneurs vie for. With only 1,300 programs around the world, startup accelerators exclusively invest their time and resources into the most promising companies. A startup accelerator is an intensive, typically mentor-based, program that aims to expedite a young company's growth. Accelerators bring a plethora of knowledge and experience, which can be crucial for first-time founders and the success of their companies. Beyond the mentorship opportunities, startup accelerators can also connect founders to investors and help them with fundraising.

Ballistic Ventures, the venture capital firm dedicated exclusively to funding and incubating entrepreneurs and innovations in cybersecurity, announced the launch of BallisticX, a new platform for portfolio companies. BallisticX includes the appointment of a distinguished advisory board, as well as services to help early-stage startup founders and their teams advance their businesses and cybersecurity. "Capital alone is not enough. Young companies with new innovations need strategic advisors, design partners and a network of people who have lived their challenges. They also need access to curated, low-touch, high-impact services and support to help them build and grow fast," said Ted Schlein, Chairman and General Partner of Ballistic Ventures.

'Our operating model is high-touch," says Gideon Argov, managing partner at New Era. The Israel-US venture capital fund recently announced a $140 million second investment fund and is looking toward a third fund to leverage its latest success. New Era's funds are already valued at more than $500m. Established in 2017 by Argov and Ran Simha, the fund focuses on early-stage investments in Israeli start-ups that use breakthrough technologies, emphasizing artificial intelligence and machine learning."We "We think that Israeli companies should not be sold prematurely. They need to become established outside Israel to realize their full potential and develop a global reach. "It is important that they attain this regardless of whether they become public companies.

We are looking for an Analyst/Associate, Machine Learning Engineer to join the Portfolio Value Creation (PVC) team during an exciting period of transformative change and growth. PVC partners with global Investment Groups across a portfolio of c. 80 assets and works out of offices in Toronto, London, Hong Kong, New York and San Francisco. PVC consists of c. 35 experienced professionals with investment, consulting and corporate backgrounds, operating across the portfolio and throughout asset lifecycles. PVC is responsible for driving value creation across CPP Investments' global portfolio of material direct equity investments. The team is active across the entire asset lifecycle with selective pre-deal and consistent post-deal involvement.

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In 2021, our world is driven by data. As the push for ESG measurement and disclosure grows, this truism is extending into the space as never before. From radical innovations in tech to systems change and social impact, several key ideas are emerging to make sense of collecting, managing and reporting ESG data. Below are the top trends, as identified by speakers at GreenBiz Group's GreenFin 21. As the ESG ecosystem expands worldwide, demands for ESG data collection, analysis and disclosure are growing in number and depth.

SoftBank Group Corp. has reported a record profit in its Vision Fund as a surging stock market lifted the value of its portfolio companies, but founder Masayoshi Son wiped out a significant chunk of those gains with his controversial trading in derivatives. The Vision Fund on Monday reported a ¥844.1 billion ($8 billion) profit in the December quarter, surpassing record numbers set just a quarter earlier. A global rally in technology shares has boosted the value of SoftBank's stakes in publicly traded firms like Uber Technologies Inc. and paved the way for initial public offerings from the likes of DoorDash Inc. Those gains, which had been widely expected, were offset by fallout from Son's decision last year to start dabbling in trading stocks and options. SoftBank posted a ¥285.3 billion derivatives loss in the period.

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is a powerful workforce multiplier that is changing the business landscape. From virtual medical assistance to data analytics, AI enhances productivity and frees up time for tasks that require human insight, by augmenting and automating routine activities. The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the impetus to innovate and digitalise. This is a crucial factor in the proliferation of AI adoption by companies, as they accommodate remote work arrangements and revamp processes. Technology has become a cornerstone in the new normal.

It's no secret that healthcare costs have risen faster than inflation for decades. Some experts estimate that healthcare will account for over 20% of the US GDP by 2025. Meanwhile, doctors are working harder than ever before to treat patients as the U.S. physician shortage continues to grow. Many medical professionals have their schedules packed so tightly that much of the human element which motivated their pursuit of medicine in the first place is reduced. In healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) can seem intimidating.