The Deep Learning Indaba is an annual conference and educational event that aims to strengthen machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capacity across Africa. Launched in 2017, it brings together students, researchers, industry practitioners, and policymakers from across the African continent. == History == The Deep Learning Indaba began in 2017 at the University of the Witwatersrand with over 300 participants from 23 African countries, offering tutorials in advanced AI topics and featuring notable speakers like Nando de Freitas. In 2018, it expanded to 650 delegates at Stellenbosch University, introducing parallel sessions to encourage collaboration. The 2019 edition in Nairobi, Kenya, reflected further growth, with increasing sponsorship and support from major tech companies like Google and Microsoft. === Deep Learning IndabaX ===
Cognitive philology
Cognitive philology is the science that studies written and oral texts as the product of human mental processes. Studies in cognitive philology compare documentary evidence emerging from textual investigations with results of experimental research, especially in the fields of cognitive and ecological psychology, neurosciences and artificial intelligence. "The point is not the text, but the mind that made it". Cognitive Philology aims to foster communication between literary, textual, philological disciplines on the one hand and researches across the whole range of the cognitive, evolutionary, ecological and human sciences on the other. Cognitive philology: investigates transmission of oral and written text, and categorization processes which lead to classification of knowledge, mostly relying on the information theory; studies how narratives emerge in so called natural conversation and selective process which lead to the rise of literary standards for storytelling, mostly relying on embodied semantics; explores the evolutive and evolutionary role played by rhythm and metre in human ontogenetic and phylogenetic development and the pertinence of the semantic association during processing of cognitive maps; Provides the scientific ground for multimedia critical editions of literary texts. Among the founding thinkers and noteworthy scholars devoted to such investigations are: Alan Richardson: Studies Theory of Mind in early-modern and contemporary literature. Anatole Pierre Fuksas Benoît de Cornulier David Herman: Professor of English at North Carolina State University and an adjunct professor of linguistics at Duke University. He is the author of "Universal Grammar and Narrative Form" and the editor of "Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis". Domenico Fiormonte François Recanati Gilles Fauconnier, a professor in Cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego. He was one of the founders of cognitive linguistics in the 1970s through his work on pragmatic scales and mental spaces. His research explores the areas of conceptual integration and compressions of conceptual mappings in terms of the emergent structure in language. Julián Santano Moreno Luca Nobile Manfred Jahn in Germany Mark Turner Paolo Canettieri
Research software engineering
Research software engineering is the application of software engineering practices, methods and techniques for research software, i.e. software that was made for and is mainly used within research projects. As usual for software engineering, this also includes knowledge of other (and in this case varying) research fields as well as open science that need to be incorporated into a software development process. The term was proposed in a research paper in 2010 in response to an empirical survey on tools used for software development in research projects. It started to be used in United Kingdom in 2012, when it was needed to define the type of software development needed in research. This focuses on reproducibility, reusability, and accuracy of data analysis and applications created for research. == Support == Various type of associations and organisations have been created around this role to support the creation of posts in universities and research institutes. In 2014 a Research Software Engineer Association was created in UK, which attracted 160 members in the first three months and which lead to the creation of the Society of Research Software Engineering in 2019. Other countries like the Netherlands, Germany, and the USA followed creating similar communities and there are similar efforts being pursued in Asia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, and Belgium. In January 2021 the International Council of RSE Associations was introduced. UK counts over 40 universities and institutes with groups that provide access to software expertise to different areas of research. Additionally, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council created a Research Software Engineer fellowship to promote this role and help the creation of RSE groups across UK, with calls in 2015, 2017, and 2020. The world first RSE conference took place in UK in September 2016 and it has been repeated annually (except for a gap in 2020) since. In 2019 the first national RSE conferences in Germany and the Netherlands were held, next editions were planned for 2020 and then cancelled. US-RSE held its first national conference in 2023. The Research Software Alliance was formed in 2019 to advance the global research software ecosystem by collaborating with decision makers and key influencers. The SORSE (A Series of Online Research Software Events) community was established in late‑2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and ran its first online event in September 2020.
Microsoft Sway
Microsoft Sway is a presentation program and is part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. Sway was offered for general release by Microsoft in August 2015. It allows users who have a Microsoft account to combine text and media to create a presentable website. Users can pull content locally from the device in use, or from internet sources such as Bing, Facebook, OneDrive, and YouTube. Sway is distinguished from Microsoft FrontPage and Microsoft Expression Web – unrelated web design programs previously developed by Microsoft – in that Sway includes a method for hosting sites. Sway sites are stored on Microsoft's servers and are tied to the user's Microsoft account. They can be viewed and edited from any web browser through Office on the web. There is no offline editing or viewing function, but sites can be accessed using the app for Windows, and formerly iOS. == History == Sway was developed internally by Microsoft. In late 2014, the company announced an invite-only preview version of Sway and announced that Sway would not require an Office 365 subscription. An iOS app was released as a preview on 31 October 2014, but was discontinued on 17 December 2018 due to low usage. As of July 17, 2021, the Sway iOS app's discontinuance in 2018 was the last piece of news posted in the Sway tech blog. The Sway feature blog has not received an update since April 2017. The Microsoft Office Roadmap did not include any items related to Sway ever since. The iOS application is no longer under active development, and is not available for download. Since 2023, Microsoft has been consolidating the domains of its Microsoft 365 apps and services under cloud.microsoft. By 2025, the vast majority of services, including Sway, have already migrated to the cloud.microsoft domain. == Features == Users are able to add content from various sources into their Sway presentations. Some of the integrated services are owned by Microsoft, including OneNote, Bing, and other Sway sites. The program also provides native integration with other services, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Mixcloud, and Infogram.
SIP (software)
SIP is an open source software tool used to connect computer programs or libraries written in C or C++ with the scripting language Python. It is an alternative to SWIG. SIP was originally developed in 1998 for PyQt — the Python bindings for the Qt GUI toolkit — but is suitable for generating bindings for any C or C++ library. == Concept == SIP takes a set of specification (.sip) files describing the API and generates the required C++ code. This is then compiled to produce the Python extension modules. A .sip file is essentially the class header file with some things removed (because SIP does not include a full C++ parser) and some things added (because C++ does not always provide enough information about how the API works). For PyQt v4 I use an internal tool (written using PyQt of course) called metasip. This is sort of an IDE for SIP. It uses GCC-XML to parse the latest header files and saves the relevant data, as XML, in a metasip project. metasip then does the equivalent of a diff against the previous version of the API and flags up any changes that need to be looked at. Those changes are then made through the GUI and ticked off the TODO list. Generating the .sip files is just a button click. In my subversion repository, PyQt v4 is basically just a 20M XML file. Updating PyQt v4 for a minor release of Qt v4 is about half an hours work. In terms of how the generated code works then I don't think it's very different from how any other bindings generator works. Python has a very good C API for writing extension modules - it's one of the reasons why so many 3rd party tools have Python bindings. For every C++ class, the SIP generated code creates a corresponding Python class implemented in C. == Notable applications that use SIP == PyQt, a python port of the application framework and widget toolkit Qt QGIS, a free and open-source cross-platform desktop geographic information system (GIS) QtiPlot, a computer program to analyze and visualize scientific data calibre (software), a free and open-source cross-platform e-book manager Veusz, a free and open-source cross-platform program to visualize scientific data
Be My Eyes
Be My Eyes is a Danish mobile app that aims to help blind and visually impaired people to recognize objects and manage everyday situations. An online community of sighted volunteers receive photos or videos from randomly assigned affected individuals and assist via live chat. In 2023, the company launched Be My AI, an AI-based interface to help blind and visually impaired users describe images. The app is currently available for Android, iOS, and Windows. == History == === Founding and early years === The app was developed and marketed by Hans Jørgen Wiberg. He had demonstrated that although there are video chat software such as Skype and FaceTime, none is tailored for the visually impaired. For development, he joined forces with the Danish Association of the Blind, and other organizations. The app was first presented at an event for start-up companies in 2012 and first released in 2015. A version for Android was released in 2017, in addition to the iOS version. Praise was given for easy use of the app. The lack of sufficient data protection, which makes it possible to pass on data to third parties, was criticized. === Recent developments === The company has raised over $650,000, including funding from Silicon Valley, Microsoft, and other angel investors. In February 2020, $2.8 million in Series A funding was raised, allowing the company to further develop its business model while keeping visual support services free for visually impaired users. The investment allows the company to further develop its unique "purpose and profit" business model while keeping the visual support service free and unlimited for all visually impaired users. === User base and accessibility === Over 9.3 million volunteers and 900,000 blind or visually impaired people use the app. == Features == === Human-based assistance === A visually impaired person starts a live stream showing their view from their cellphone camera. They are assigned, through a phone call or chat, a random volunteer who speaks the same language and who is in the same time zone. This allows the volunteer to describe an object and assist the visually impaired person, such as guiding the person to move their camera, read instructions, or clean up a spill. Through speech synthesis, content can be read out loud. This process encourages a more independent life for blind and visually impaired people. === Be My AI === In March of 2023, Be My Eyes launched Be My AI, an AI-based virtual assistant. Be My AI is accessible through the Be My Eyes app, and is based on OpenAI's GPT-4 large language model. Through the interface, the app allows blind and visually impaired users to send images from a variety of devices to be described. The app allows users to then follow up with questions to further tailor the image description. Blind users report using Be My AI for a variety of tasks, including reading menus, identifying clothing, and describing people. The Be My AI interface is available on Android, iOS, and Windows. Within a few weeks of the interface's roll out, the company reported that it had been used one million times, and it was named among Time's best inventions of 2023. Be My AI is part of a growing number of AI-based apps and devices designed to help blind and visually impaired individuals. == Partnerships == === Microsoft === In November 2023, Be My Eyes entered a partnership with Microsoft to share data to help improve accessibility-focused AI models. === Meta === In 2024, Be My Eyes integrated with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, a wearable product developed by Meta and EssilorLuxottica. The partnership enabled users to receive hands-free, real-time visual descriptions and volunteer assistance by using voice commands through the smart glasses. === Hilton === In October 2024, Hilton partnered with Be My Eyes to provide live video assistance for blind and low-vision guests. The free service connects travelers to a Hilton team member that can guide them through tasks like adjusting thermostats, opening window shades, or navigating hotel amenities. This collaboration progressed from a prior arrangement where Hilton helped train Be My Eyes' GPT-4 powered AI model to better recognize objects and layouts in hotel rooms. === Tesco === In October 2025, retailer Tesco announced its partnership with Be My Eyes to launch a six-month pilot aimed at improving in-store accessibility in the UK. The initiative was launched on World Sight Day, 9 October, enabling Be My Eyes users to connect directly with Tesco staff via the app for personalised visual assistance while shopping, Euronewsweek reported. == Awards == Nordic Startup Awards for "Best Social Entrepreneurial Tech Startup" in Denmark 2021 Apple Design Award for best social impact
Invoicera
Invoicera is an online invoicing software. The software was created by a company with the same name that was founded in 2006, had 125 employees, and is based in India. It allows users to monitor, dispatch, and accept invoices in one web service. After signing up for the service, users are assigned a personal subdomain to set up their invoice configuration. It allows users to add clients' data to the service through uploading a Microsoft Excel file. Invoicera is compatible with businesses of varying sizes, including freelancers, small businesses, and large businesses. It is compatible with Basecamp, a project-management tool, so Invoicera can upload data from Basecamp. The software interfaces with more than 25 payment gateways. It supports subscriptions and repeated invoices and allows clients to schedule late fees when payments have not been made on time. Invoicera uses freemium model, letting users dispatch an unrestricted number of invoices to at most three customers. Chelsea Krause wrote in a 2019 review for Merchant Maverick, "Unfortunately, the software isn't as developed as it could be. Time tracking and reporting are limited and there are no live bank feeds — which is surprising for a company so focused on automation (especially since even many of the worst invoicing options out there still offer live bank feeds)." She further criticized Invoicera for having bad customer service and the software for not having recent changes. Brian Turner wrote in TechRadar that Invoicera had fewer templates compared to the other services he reviewed but "the ones offered are fully customizable". Rob Clymo wrote in TechRadar that "Invoicera lets you automate your invoicing and billing needs without too much in the way of hassle" and that although it "isn't a complete accounts solution ... it's a powerful supplement".