Crypto Meltdown & Terra

The Terra stablecoin meltdown today shows how risky crypto can be in these challenging times. Bitcoin, Eth and other crypto currencies are under pressure as well. Personally, I am more optimistic about Ether. The upcoming Merge and Layer 2 will help generate more usage of Eth as “gas” for Blockchain transactions.  Bitcoin doesn’t have these advantages. 

Quadrant Biosciences Answers Governor’s call for Covid Testing

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK, USA, January 14, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- SUNY Partners with Quadrant Biosciences to Provide Community COVID Testing 

SUNY schools across New York State are partnering with Syracuse-based Quadrant Biosciences to open free COVID testing sites for members of the community. The new sites are open to the public and intended to help address the growing demand for additional COVID testing sites in the county. 

Adults or children who are looking to get tested are encourage to schedule an appointment. Anyone experiencing active COVID symptoms is strongly encouraged to consult their healthcare provider to determine if testing is appropriate or if they need to seek further examination. The Clarifi COVID-19 Saliva test from Quadrant Biosciences is currently the most sensitive saliva test on the market, and can detect all known variants including the Omicron variant.

“We are happy to partner with SUNY to support access to COVID PCR testing as we recognize there is an unmet need in the community for access to testing,” said Rita Romano, President of Quadrant Laboratories, the laboratory division of Quadrant Biosciences. 

AI & The Turing Test

 Artificial intelligence had a huge week . Startups H2O , LandingAI and others raised a record amount of venture capital. But, was it well invested? Most AI companies base their AI on neural programming.  Elon Musk’s startup is called NeuralNet . Yet, few of these companies would pass the famous “Turing Test”.  It sets the bar high by setting “human text” or human like thinking & communicating as the goal . A WSJ Opinion column this week pointed out that fact. 

NY Area Has a Banner Week for startup capital raising

 https://twitter.com/jamesbruni/status/1371920839461994498?s=21

New Day in America 🇺🇸

 BRUNI PR welcomed the defeat of Donald Trump and celebrated the new Biden Administration.  Every sector we work in — from FinTech to Biotech - will benefit from the stimulus package 📦 proposed by President Biden . 

New York Times profiles Ultranauts

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/technology/ultranauts-remote-work.html?referringSource=articleShare

Ultranauts/ Advancing Neurodiversity

Can neurodiversity be a competitive advantage for a huge financial institution that manages $35.2 trillion and has “the largest data set in the financial world “ ?

Six months ago, BNY Mellon’s Enterprise Quality Engineering group started an experiment as part of their ambitious “transformation agenda”.

They wanted to know if autistic quality engineers could accelerate the automation of testing and QA of the hundreds of legacy applications being modernized across the bank. 

BNY Mellon hired Ultranauts, an onshore quality engineering startup powered by cognitively diverse teams.

The results are in : BNY Mellon announced this week that they’ll be “doubling down on neurodiversity.”

“Ultranauts’ quality engineers continue to increase our productivity and ensure we are delivering high quality results. Amazingly, we’ve seen a ~250% increase in the number of new test cases we automated” , BNY Mellon CIO Bridget Engle said on Monday.

Send My Bag 💼

Italy 🇮🇹 has just banned hand luggage on flights due to COVID 19 .

The UK 🇬🇧 government is encouraging airline passengers to avoid having airlines handle their bags 💼 and instead use “delivery services”.

The COVID 19 pandemic prodded government officials to issue the travel advisory this week.

Send My Bag, the “Uber of Airline bags”, has seen a hike in business in Italy 🇮🇹 and especially in the UK 🇬🇧 

UK domestic shipments increased by 126%

UK to Spain shipments up by 119%

UK to Portugal up by 58%

UK to UAE up by 100%

Ireland to UK up by 70%

The Northern Ireland based company shipped 250,000 bags last year.
It operates globally and introduced a USA 🇺🇸 service in 2015.

Here’s a clip on the  UK news :

https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1296525/luggage-suitcases-coronavirus-travel-uk-advice-boris-johnson-latest/amp

Quadrant Biosciences Launches 🚀 Coronavirus 🦠Test



	Quadrant Biosciences Inc. ⁦‪@QuadBioInc‬⁩ As you may have heard, our team has been working on a rapid #saliva swab for #COVID19! Check out the latest video update from our director of the research lab. pic.twitter.com/f295c1SBBe   4/3/20, 2:53 PM

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The mayor is giving his TV update and said we need “a very aggressive testing approach” .

The solution might be a “Made in NY” test from a Syracuse biotech & SUNY. 

Quadrant Biosciences has launched a Coronavirus 🦠 saliva test .

Coronavirus PR

The last several weeks have been frustrating.  Not having a virus 🦠 related news pitch is like walking 🚶‍♀️ in a media desert 🌵. But, just yesterday, I learned that Quadrant Biosciences, a Syracuse based biotech client, is working with SUNY on a coronavirus test .  BRUNI PR will now be in the thick of virus news coverage, working closely with the leading biotech reporters at all the major news outlets.

Companies To Watch in 2020

Fintech startups got the lion’s share of VC investments during the past year, followed by AI and Cloud startups.  Thus, many of BRUNI PR’s picks are in this space for 2020.  

1) Revolut 

2) TransferWise

3) Satispay

4) Sardex

5) N26

6) MoneyFarm

7) Oval 

8) Lion

9) Stash Invest 

10) Digital Asset Holdings 

11) Betterment 

12) Hedera Hashgraph

13) ErisX

14) Rice Exchange 

15) Robinhood

16) Sempo

17) Novo 

18) Illimity 

19) Soldo

20) Klarna 

Ultranauts Raises Series A Round

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/markets/staffers-spectrum-propel-startups-profitability

Sempo

Australia 🇦🇺 backed FinTech Sempo & Oxfam are revolutionizing Aid / e-vouchers based on Crypto & Blockchain are cutting edge technology for distributing Aid / Sempo is working with Syrian refugees and alleviating their pain .
https://www.tokenpost.com/Oxfam-tests-crypto-initiatives-to-prevent-misuse-of-disaster-relief-funds-2340

DeFi & Blockchain Week

Decentralized Finance’s time has come.  As we get ready to celebrate 🎉 Blockchain Week here in NYC, we see a DeFi movement that is picking up speed.  There are so many new startups that it’s difficult to keep track.  New names like MakerDAO, Moon , Sempo,  SendFriend , Hashcash, BigChainDB, Monax. , DAH, Consensys DAPP and others are reshaping how Money 💰 moves in this new World 🌎

World 🌎 Autism Awareness Day/ April 2

April 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day.

Data Quality Engineers with Autism are in huge demand right now in the Tech biz.

Why? They have heightened abilities such as pattern recognition and logical reasoning, enabling them to spot errors and design inconsistencies

Ultra Testing / a NYC based Tech firm is 75% Autistic. They compete with IBM , SAP, Capgemini, Accenture and other IT giants.

Ultra's testers include astro-physicists and mathematicians; managers include seasoned agency and Tech execs.  

Co-founders Rajesh Anandan and Art Shectman  (MIT buddies) started the company in 2012 to revolutionize the $25b software testing business and unlock the talent pool of 2 million Americans on the Autism Spectrum (approximately 80% are unemployed).

They call their mission - promoting neurodiverse workforces. 

BioTech “spit test”

Bruni PR scores CBS coverage for Quadrant Biosciences https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/09/18/saliva-concussion-test/

Send My Bag Wins Queen’s Award for Enterprise

https://www.aol.co.uk/amp/2018/04/20/ni-based-luggage-delivery-business-wins-queens-award-for-enterp/

Send My Bag, the “Uber” of Airline Bags shipping, has won a royal seal of approval.

Quadrant Biosciences ICO covered by Bloomberg News

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-27/how-a-hockey-scare-led-banking-vet-to-issue-first-digital-shares

Bruni PR client Quadrant Biosciences is now on the Media Map 🗺

Companies To Watch in 2018

Which are the hottest startups to watch in 2018?

Bruni PR’s annual list focuses primarily on FinTech this year .

Here are our candidates:

Satispay (Italy)
Moneyfarm (Italy & UK)
Monzo (UK)
Oval Money (Italy)
Revolut (Germany)
Klarna
Betterment (US)
Wealthfront (US)
Mode Finance (Italy)
LunarWay (Denmark)
BigChainDB. (Germany)
ConsenSys (US)
Ripple (US)
Prosper (US)
Orchard (US)
Click-Insurance (Israel)
Starling Bank (UK)
Atom Bank (UK)

Bradford ECAPS reaches Space with Green Propulsion Tech

https://www.space.com/38629-frankenstein-rocket-launches-on-halloween.html