Quid: Helping Organizations Make Informed Decisions

As a software company, Quid’s mission is to help organizations figure out how to truly make informed decisions. Quid’s software was created to augment human intelligence and transform even the most complex information into actionable insights.

Headquartered in San Franciso, California, Quid has a team of engineers, data scientists and designers who are readying the company’s software for the changes  that will take place in the future while the rest of the world are just talking about it. For instance, the Quid software provides information on the features that the smartphones will carry by the year 2015. Quid will guide any smartphone user into the evolution of mobile apps. The information allows users to make the best decision.

Quid is barely two years into its operations but it has financial backing from a number of world class investors, such as Amicus Partners, Founders Fund, Atomico, and Peter Thiel. Most of Quid’s patrons are from London, Madrid, New York, Seoul and Moscow.

Kering: Empowering Imagination

Kering is a world-renowned producer of apparel and accessories. It is a family-run company with business focused on one single line: designing, manufacture and selling of the most saleable products in two segments. One is luxury. The other is sports and lifestyle.

Among the luxury brands associated with Kering are Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Sergio Rossi, Balenciaga, Qeelin, Brioni, Stella McCartney, Girard-Perregaux, Christopher Kane, Boucheron and JEANRICHARD. In sports and lifestyle, Kering carries such brands as puma, Tretorn, Volcom, Electric and Cobra.

All these brands are complementary. They have the potential for a huge organic growth. They are recognized globally and are known for abiding by their individual distinctive values.

With Kering, customers that go for luxury brands or known sports and lifestyle brands can express themselves and enjoy the brands carried by Kering. Kering leverages on the increasing purchasing powers, the need for everyone to affirm individuality and personality, and the longing to feel good and look good.

Using the brands it carries, Kering stays strong by expanding to new and emerging markets while reinforcing the existing markets. Its distribution networks and channels are also strengthened by Kering’s entry into e-commerce. Expansions are also undertaken by acquiring small and medium-sized companies.

Kering believes in the power of imagination and seeks to empower it more. Its products encourage creativity. Imagination pushes them beyond their limits and unleashes their aesthetic side. Imagination leads to innovation and fashion leads.

Kering is known for the “Kering effect”. By harnessing its own expertise, its brands can accelerate expansion. By controlling its own value chain, the brands are empowered with financial firepower and disciple, common resources and business expertise. Each division is synergized, optimizing best practices and promoting sharing of knowledge across all brands.

In spite of the Kering effect, each brand can continue to be autonomous in preserving its creative freedom, its product strategy, sourcing, positioning and imaging.

Kiip: Mobile App with Great Rewards

Kiip is a mobile application rewards network. With Kiip, brands can provide customers with rewards for what they achieve in a virtual environment. Kiip was founded in 2010 by Brian Wong, Amadeus Demarzi and Courtney Guertin. Its investors included Relay Ventures, Hummer Winblad, Interpublic Group, True Ventures, CrossLink Capital and Verizon Ventures, who combined for $15.4 million in funds.

Wong was on board an airplane when he noticed his fellow passengers were playing games on their iPads. He observed that the game’s advertisements were taking too much screen space while adding no real value. He thought of taking advantage of moments of achievement like high scores and level ups with rewards that enable leading brands to reach and engage their target markets.

Today, Kiip is used in over 400 mobile applications played on more than 30 million mobile devices. To date, Kiip has sent more than 100 million reward notices, or about five rewards per second. Its expansions toward mobile fitness apps are on the way.

Mazor Robotics: Great Replacement for the Surgeon’s Hand

Mazor Robotics has inspired the art of robotic surgery to become the world’s leader in spine surgery innovation. Mazor has created a robotic guidance system along with complementary products to promote safer surgical environments for surgeons, OR personnel and patients.

The flagship product of Mazor is the Renaissance^TM Surgical Guidance System. This product transformed spine surgery and moved the procedure form freehand procedures to a state-of-the-art, highly accurate and robotic-guided surgery procedures that set the standards of patient care to higher and better level.

The Renaissance^TM Surgical Guidance System is based on a technology that went through clinical validation. Using the intuitive interface of Renaissance, a virtual 3-dimensional environment is creating a surgical blueprint that would ensure a robotic-guided surgery.

Renaissance is an OR wonder because it can easily integrate with the workflow in this pressure-packed room. It is very accurate and emits lesser radiation for revisions, deformities and minimally invasive surgeries. A review of Mazor’s robotic technologies showed a record-high 98% accuracy in hundreds of surgical patients. Its learning curve helps surgeons to deal with the obstacles set by challenging cases like minimally invasive surgeries. These types of surgeries are known to be notorious in suboptimal results, higher levels of radiation and loner time to perform the surgery when done freehand.

Mazor’s surgical guidance technology has been used in many successful spine procedures, both in routine and complex cases. Most of these successes were not attempted without the help of Mazor robotics. Mazor’s portfolio of innovative products reshapes how spine surgeries are undertaken. Perhaps, the greatest impact of this innovation is how Renaissance has enabled minimally invasive stabilization procedure, its interoperative 3-dimensional imaging system, and the OR imaging system.

By the end of 2012, a total of 18 Renaissance systems have been actively helping surgeons in the US. These systems have combined for over 1,300 spine procedures in 2012. Corrections or repeat surgeries have been reduced by an average of 10% that year.

Enalta: Automated Agricultural Solutions

Enalta is the world leader in automating agricultural markets. Since the company was founded in 1999, Enalta has continuously developed software and hardware components that would help manage and optimize automated processes for both partial and complete activities. The technology also enables real time data gathering, monitoring and decision making in daily operations.

Enalta moves alongside its customers in defining the practical improvements that project executions require. Enalta’s innovation offers excellent management of modern environments and promoting a growing real-time automation.

The company is committed to developing modern computer architectures. This ensures management excellence with a continuing pursuit of higher return on investments for customer in the shortest possible time. Enalta is credited for a number of national and international patents.

The employees of Enalta are highly skilled. They possess experience and knowledge in multiples of disciplines acquired in some of the most prestigious companies and universities worldwide. Enalta’s strong team will ensure that customer needs are differentiated and understood.

Coursera: Connecting People to Learning Without Limits

Coursera is an education technology company that offers free online courses in partnership with the leading colleges and universities around the world. Its partners are using its technologies to teach millions of students.

Coursera was created to provide equitable access to education for everyone. World-class education is not limited to a few people anymore. Coursera believes that education empowers people to change their lives, their families and their communities.

Classes at Coursera have been developed to help the student master their material. The lectures are given by some of the best professors in the world. Students can learn the material at their own pace and take tests to assess their knowledge. Interactive exercises are provided to reinforce the concepts taught.

Students of Coursera attend classes alongside thousands of other students in its global community. Since agreement in terms of time is important and Coursera understands the difficulty of bringing students together at one time, the courses are designed in terms of sound pedagogical foundations. Pedagogy will help the learners master their lessons effectively and quickly. The main idea of pedagogy is to ensure that students have multiple attempts to demonstrate what they have learned. This is done through interactive engagements, where the learners are assured of long term retention and a feedback mechanism that help monitor progress.

Courses offered by Coursera encompass a wide range of disciplines: Engineering, Social Sciences, Humanities, Business, Mathematics, Computer Science, Medicine and many more. Students can find Coursera courses helpful in expanding knowledge, career advancement or improving the resume.

One of the major considerations in Coursera’s partnership with universities is on revenue generation. Aside from tuition fees, Coursera and its partners earn through tutorials, sponsorships, and certification fees. Revenues will be divided with the partner-universities receiving a small part of the revenues plus 20% of the gross income.