Exclusive Interview Archives

Kimo: Helping Personalized Education at Scale

With the intent of providing personalized education at a scale, Amsterdam-based Kimo, was established in 2018. With +1 billion in need of upskilling in digital domains in the coming decade, Kimo believes that’s a big deal. In practice, personalization means Kimo’s system can tailor learning content to the specific context and needs of the student. Behind the scenes, that means Kimo needs to have millions of content items in all formats (e.g. videos, courses, books, articles, podcasts, market reports, etc.), difficulty levels, and price points. The essence of the company is thus content curation.

Purpose Driven Leader

Kimo is being led by its CEO, Rens ter Weijde, who started his career as a sports psychologist, working with athletes to improve their performance. Rens worked in professional football, field hockey, free diving, base jumping, and with artists in Cirque du Soleil. After some successes Rens joined McKinsey & Company to do similar work with their clients. A few years later he left the organization to build his own impact + strategy consulting company called Purpose+. Rens led this company for 6 years, he and his colleagues worked for 80 clients, including G20 summits. After that Rens was looking for, something new and challenging and realized that EdTech needed a significant upgrade.

Rens believe, the AI industry is one of the most fast-moving industries in the world today, with some improvement areas (e.g. parameters in large language models) seeing a CAGR of +100%. It’s also an area where many great minds work together and share knowledge, e.g. through code and papers. For Rens, he sees it as an extension of psychology, which is his original domain of interest. One could see AI research as a decentralized way of testing many psychological hypotheses, done by many developers globally and with lots of budget behind it.

AI Industry Trends

Rens realizes many things are happening, depending on the angle you take – tech, philosophy, competition, regulation, etc.

He believes a few relevant trends are changing the AI industry; First of all, the data-centric AI approach advocated by Andrew Ng is an interesting change of perspective in Rens’ view, as much progress depends on the quality of the data now.

Second, the race for specialized silicon to run AI software more efficiently (cloud or edge) is intriguing to watch as well, coming from both big players like Nvidia and Google as some new kids on the block.

Third, the rapid rise of large language models in recent years (e.g. GPT3, Megatron-Turing, Wu Dao) based on the transformer infrastructure is something to keep an eye on, as similar things may happen in other domains.

Fourth, zooming out to a geopolitical level, there is clear competition for AI progress and talent between nations, with many countries drafting an AI strategy and significant budget allocations.

As a final trend, Rens mentions the regulatory landscape ,which is emerging, combined with the preference of some companies to reduce their dependency on big data.

AI has millions of use cases for society. Rens believe the general trend to be, one of ‘human + machine’ augmentation, not direct competition for jobs. For customer service specifically, there are many ways to

Pre-segment calls based on text
Provide smart support to CS agents through AI suggestions, sentiment monitoring, etc

Helping People to Learn New Things

KIMO is a meta-level platform, it doesn’t make its content and Rens believe they don’t have to. As an organization, Kimo realized a few things that were not common knowledge, in education companies.

First, there is enough learning content for most areas on the web, making more is not necessarily the solution to drive engagement.

Second, the web is heavily polluted and ad-heavy, thus curation and/or finding direction for people is hard.

Third, people spend 5 hours per week, 260 per year, on average on the web, ‘trying to learn new things, versus 10-20 hours per year, in the organization they work for.

Fourth, people mostly look for ‘short content’ instead of, long content (e.g. courses, which have a 95% dropout).

Fifth, most people patch together content in different formats depending on the context, e.g. a podcast for a bus ride, or a book chapter for the weekend.

Effect of the Pandemic

Even during the pandemic, Kimo’s funding perspectives were still positive due to low a low-interest-rate environment, excess capital, etc. AI did some amazing work during the pandemic to speed up progress in certain areas, although largely out of sight. Rens also believe it will inspire new AI in healthcare trends, in the coming years, see e.g. AlphaFold from DeepMind.

Mission and Vision

Kimo’s mission is to provide personalized learning at scale, with a strong focus on emerging economies where access to high-quality education is harder. The firm believes that having a system that curates all the learning content on the web (note: 95% is free) is the way to go, given that the web contains everything but is also heavily polluted.

Future Roadmap

When it comes to the future, Kimo is headed to full-scale personalized learning, on N = 1 level, reaching 5 million users minimum in the next 2 years. On being future-ready, the firm is deeply embedded in expert networks in the tech industry, and it invites two guest speakers a week for its students on a wide range of topics.

Soleadify: Providing Honest and Dependable Data to Automate B2B Processes

With the intent of providing firmographic and technographic data on SMBs, Soleadify was Co-founded by Florin Tufan in 2018. Previously Florin was the Chief Product Officer at T-Me Studios, which is one of the largest mobile app publishers in Europe. Florin has been working in tech for the past 10 years, in various roles: sales, business, marketing, and product. He completed his Bachelor’s degree from Academia de Studii Economice din București, and Marketing from IAA School.

By leveraging the most modern AI and ML technologies, Soleadify constantly crawls the internet to produce 50+ data points on 70M+ companies from around the world. The firm’s clients usually integrate its APIs to streamline internal processes in industries like SMB lending, insurance, management consulting but the firm also has multiple partners in the financials technologies space that use its APIs to build new features in their existing products, features that make use of Soledify’s data enrichment capabilities and ESG data feeds for mid-market companies.

Helping Clients to Create Value

As a firm, Soleadify’s main goal is to focus on clear business outcomes, Florin has witnessed a lot of executives that push the use of AI tools just for the sake of the technology without questioning if that particular tool can bring value to the business.

Like many other geeky CEOs, Florin is also fascinated by innovative tools and use cases but, at the same time, as the leader of the company, doesn’t want to over-engineer Soleadify’s activities so it can be said that his main goal when considering new AI tools is to choose the one that aligns with the firm’s business objectives, help it create value for its customers and can be easily integrated into the existing workflows.

Emerging AI Trends

According to Florin, the future will see AI advancements in two very important and different niches;

NLP: One of the biggest emerging trends in AI is, of course, language modelling. A particularly difficult challenge in AI since language is intrinsically a very human concept that we “force” computers to adapt to. Florin and his team at Soleadify believe GPT-3 will have a significant impact on AI adoption since it opens the door to so many new use cases, particularly in the world of marketing. And this is where Soleadify fits as well, with more on the understanding rather than creating side, the firm’s ML models are trained to be able to understand the global business world at huge scale and speed.
Real-World Understanding with Advanced Computer Vision: AI is making it possible for driverless cars and heavy industry automation to heavily increase production speeds for the goods humans need.
The Use at Scale of Deep Neural Networks: AI is being used to automate the most repetitive decision-making processes across enterprises, allowing easier data interpretation when combining inputs from different and varied sources, such as text, images, and numerical business outcomes (e.g. revenue, order value).

When Covid Came as a Blessing in Disguise

Right after the first Covid outbreak, Soleadify used its NLP and big data capabilities to build a search engine for various medical supplies, which was used by thousands of companies in need.

For Soleadify’s specific niche, Covid-19 has been a blessing in disguise, because the pandemic accelerated digitalization for most businesses, especially for SMBs, which had 2 choices at the start of this pandemic, focus on your online presence or go bankrupt. With this shift, the firm experienced a substantial increase in business data that it could collect and sort.

From Florin’s knowledge, this influx of data happened all over the internet since the beginning of this pandemic, so anyone that’s in the AI industry can be more than thankful to have access to increasing volumes of valuable data, that eventually will be used to build more efficient models and tools.

Tackling Challenges and Getting Prepared for the Future

One of the specific challenges Soleadify is facing right now is company classifications at scale. The models it builds can accurately predict most types of businesses, but there are still edge cases for new emerging industries and companies, one good example would be blockchain companies that still don’t have a specific industry classification. Another issue that challenges Soleadify’s models is the language barrier, the firm’s goal is to collect data on businesses from all over the world, and right now it is trying to find creative solutions to increase its coverage in countries with emerging economies.

Florin says, “In the next years we want to explore new opportunities based on our core technical capabilities, I’m talking about AI-based data extraction, sorting, and delivery. Starting from that three main pillars our goal is to build tools that facilitate access to data about any business in the world.”

Some of these tools that Soleadify is planning to build are:

an open search engine for companies so that global company information is easily available online, at scale.
Launching a few free company data APIs to democratize the usage of company data.
Partnerships with major complementary players for data enrichment.
Launching a “market trends” offering, where Soleadify can use its data to publish insights on the dynamic business world that it studies.

aiconix: Offering B2B Solutions to Improve Productivity

Artificial Intelligence or AI is a term that describes a machine’s learning, reasoning, logic, creativity, and perception, which were once thought of as unique to humans but now replicated by machines and is used in every industry.

AI is a game-changer in all industries. Nowadays, the amount of data that is generated, by both humans and machines, far outpace humans’ ability to absorb, interpret, and make complex decisions based on that data. Artificial intelligence forms the basis for all machine learning and is the future of all complex decision-making. Today AI technology offers several critical benefits that make it an excellent tool for any modern organization. That’s not all, AI also allows organizations to make better-informed decisions, thus improving businesses by quite a few folds by increasing the speed and accuracy of decision-making processes.

It was on April 2018, when Eugen L. Gross, Co-founded aiconix, which enables its customers to enrich their audiovisual content to make it detectable, searchable, and usable.

aiconix currently offers B2B solutions that aim to improve productivity by providing customers simple and immediate access to the recent AI innovations.

An Creative Turned Entrepreneur

aiconix’s Co-founder and CEO, Eugen L. Gross, started his career as a camera assistant in Vienna and quickly became a cameraman for news when he moved to Berlin. In the 90s Eugen worked as an SNG operator and technical lead of an OB-van. But he was drawn back to the camera, shooting mainly live music and entertainment productions for TV. In the 2000s he became a partner of a TV production company in Cologne and produced a beautiful but very unsuccessful long-term documentary in Northern Germany where Eugen was a shareholder. In early 2010 he also worked as a producer and director before pursuing a master’s degree in media management and set the course for aiconix in 2016 with his master’s thesis.

Path Breaking Offerings

In an automated process, aiconix can enrich audio-visual content with metadata. Also with the auto-cataloging process, the search in the media archive according to certain parameters is very easy. With AI features such as face recognition, object localizer, or person tracking, one can search and process the AV content in many ways.

The organization also offers several speech-to-text solutions such as the automated transcription and subtitling of any audio or video file and live-video streams, which is important for companies who want to reach those who are deaf or hearing impaired and also help non-native speakers to better understand the content.

Additionally, as a part of the STADIEM acceleration program aiconix has set itself the goal of improving the automated recognition of Austrian dialects in audio-visual media. For this purpose, aiconix is training a language model that specializes in the recognition of Austrian dialects. The focus of the project is on the recognition of “Wiener-Standard-Deutsch” (Viennese Standard German), followed by other Austrian dialects, and the recognition of other dialects within Europe. This project has indirectly received funding from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme through the STADIEM project (Grant Agreement 957321).

aiconix’s customers are mainly media companies and digital asset management or content management software companies, but in general, all owners of the high volume of media content are potential customers such as educational institutions, Government, Healthcare providers, or Insurance companies.

A Life Changing Technology

As we all know AI is a game-changer in all industries. Nowadays the amount of generated data outpaces our ability to absorb, interpret, and make complex decisions based on that data. Artificial intelligence forms the basis for all machine learning and aiconix believes, it is the future of all complex decision-making.

AI technology offers several critical benefits that make it an excellent tool for any modern organization. Just a few examples: AI can automate a repetitive task that was previously done manually, it can make products and services smarter and more effective.

Additionally, this technology can also analyze data at a much faster rate than humans, allowing it to find patterns much more quickly, and to uncover patterns humans would simply miss. Simply put, Artificial Intelligence allows organizations to make better decisions, improving business processes by increasing the speed and the accuracy of decision-making processes.

Protecting Data and Privacy

When it comes to upcoming trends of AI, data privacy and ethics are the top focus. According to the organization, Multimodal models and federated learning are the next big things and will again speed up the possibilities it has. Multimodal AI is the ultimate convergence of computer vision and conversational AI models to deliver powerful scenarios closer to human perception. It takes AI inference to the next level, combining visual and speech modalities.

In machine learning, usually data that is aggregated from several devices and is brought together to a centralized server. Machine Learning algorithms, then grab this data and train and finally predicts results for new data generated. But this could become a “privacy nightmare”. The solution could be federated learning, which is a method of machine learning that enables individual devices to learn together using a common model. It enables the individual training of models on different, isolated data sets. Only these trained models, which no longer contain personal data, are then shared with each other. The devices send their respective models to a central server, which creates a single, combined model from them.

Preparing for a Bright Future

As an AI company, aiconix want to play a pivotal role in its market and strive for long-term customer relationships. The organization is agile and able to cope with the changes brought and driven by external factors. But most importantly, aiconix is always trying to drive change instead of responding to change. The organization’s goal is to bring (AI) solutions to the market and create a demand for it by relating its utility to the daily work of its customers. Therefore, the best way to become future-ready is to create the future.

AgroScout: Bringing Sustainable Farming Mainstream

Agricultural supply demand will grow by 60% (by 2050) according to FAO.Agriculture, unpredictable by nature, will struggle to supply quantities and consistency

With the intent to aim for ‘zero hunger’ and sustainable farming AgroScout AgTech was founded in 2017 in Israel. The firm offers unique crop intelligence to support processor supply in real-time, to more accurately plan processing and manufacturing operations across regions and growers.

The company helps suppliers of fresh produce and food production companies to transform their supply chain and improve margins with greater visibility and data driven insights. The deep learning algorithms of Agroscout solutions are based on artificial intelligence in order to enable an efficient detection, identification, and monitoring of crop throughout the whole year. The system inputs data from different sources aerial , satellite and plant level.

AgroScout is dedicated to Leverage Supply Chain Insights to maximize the productivity and efficiency of the entire agro production operation to produce actionable reports with supply insights.

The Steadfast Leader

Simcha Shore is the CEO, and founder of AgroScout AgTech company seeking to impact global food security with and AI helping agro industry make informed and better decisions and grow more with less. Simcha brings vast experience leading development projects in information systems, remote sensing, image processing, AI, and drones.

Innovative Services

Our current food systems are not sustainable for either the planet or the market. AgroScout solutions based on AI reduce agricultural waste and improves food production efficiencies in order to help conserve global resources, bringing more value to growers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers, and making food manufacturing more resource-efficient , and sustainable than ever before.

Dedicated to developing advanced technology for crop monitoring in order to boost Supply Chain and Production Efficiency AgroScout has launched its dedicated platforms :

Web App: The robust data architecture and AI engine process the real-time data of tens of thousands of crops and farms lines globally. Constantly optimizing end-to-end solution and offering highly specialized supply chain optimization and intelligence.
The WebApp with AI reporting and analysis platform generates an internal report with comprehensive and informed insights geolocation of all abnormalities found in the crop. With a dashboard enterprise AgroScout is aggregating data and insights from leaf level to field level to enterprise level to better supply and procurement decisions generating real-time actionable insights, and getting smarter and more personalized with every new signal.
AgroScout Sky: The AgroScout solutions are accompanied by mission planning intelligent support with Skyapp where a user will apply autopilot flight patterns. To get a informed insights for procurement and sustainability areas, one needs an auto scouting app.
AgroScout mobile App: The mobile app is a complement of the webapp and get all the insights on the go. Just like any other road navigation app, this app helps its users to navigate each infected location. This mobile app provides an additional level of agronomy services in the field, which eventually helps to detect pests and diseases in real-time, monitor the crop and view based on layers satellite, aerial or plant level. The mobile app also has a live option of Consulting to an Expert, which provides additional support via direct chat within the app for spotting irregualrites and asking for recommendations.

Helping Farmers to Increase Yield

AgroScout’s platform brings simple-to-operate and easy-to-understand technology to Maximise commercial opportunities with insights and analtics designed to offer food & beverage companies comprehensive and informed insights.

With the AgroScout platform, win and maintain contracts with more accurate forecasting and a and a better quality of service and you dont have to maintain or install any complex infrastructure, thus keeping investment to a bare minimum. The organization also offers variable pricing plans to give the much-needed flexibility.

With the ability to have leaf-level detection and see GPS-tagged images to locate and navigate directly to individual plants or areas, now agronomists and procurement teams can target areas that need to be treated and, more importantly, determine the best type of treatment to implement. Information provided by the AgroScout software will eventually enable food industry to reduce the number of pesticide or fungicide applications and use fewer resources in a sustainable way for future generations.

Increased Support for Farmers

Recently, AgroScout has announced that it has acquired the assets of TerrAvion, which is a market leader in imagery data management for agriculture. The acquisition adds to AgroScout a higher-resolution agriculture imagery capabilities and agro data artificial intelligence for a wide variety of crops. With this acquisition, both the clients of AgroScout and TerrAvion will be able to access a powerful combination of aerial and satellite imagery products and precision agriculture services for their fields.

Effects of the Pandemic

Simcha believes AI space helps AgroScout to work with developers and specialists globally in further developing its capabilities. As AgroScout is a SaaS-based company utilizing AWS cloud to collect and analyze data via AI. It is providing the firm right speed to help all its customers. Covid-19 had extended the outreach to professionals on a global scale that contributes to AgroScout’s software development.

Satisfied Clients

“Easy to use and easy to operate, AgroScout could change everything about my day-to-day with insects, diseases, and viruses.”– Alexandre Dzierwa, Grower and Agronomist Dzierwa Group, Licensed Pepsico Grower.

“I have over 35 years of experience in professional counseling for Yir’on Agrobusiness , Israel, preventing, detecting, and monitoring pests and diseases for a variety of crops. Yir’on has about 20 fields with a total area of 240 hectares. Without a doubt, I have found the use of drone and the AgroScout software very friendly, especially with its ability to get up-to-date reliable information on a much larger scale in a shorter amount of time.”– Mirit Shulman, Chief Inspector, field crops, Yir’on Agrobusiness.

“I have been a professional crop advisor for the last 25 years. As soon as I started using the AgroScout Platform, I realized how this technology is going to change my work. For example, in just 20 minutes, I can scout an area that would have taken me 3-4 hours by foot- and I would have sampled less than a tenth of the number of the plants.”– Amon Fried, Agronomist and Field Crop Inspector.

A Unique Firm

Driven by unique Crop-Intelligence & made to improve agricultural supply-confidence, planability & sustainability for the food processing industry.

AgroScout is an agro analytic platform empowering crop monitoring that collects user-generated data to create timely analytics providing actionable insights.

However, AgroScout has seen its share of ups and downs as, Simcha says, “The main challenges we faced were collecting data, tagging data as biological data are very challenging.”

Although the firm aspires to be a future leader in the sustainability factor, as Simcha says, “We aim to be part of and have a positive impact on global food security and sustainability.”

Lexis Serot: A Thought-Provoking Leader, Humanitarian, and a Doting Mother Setting New Benchmarks

A path-breaking leader, Lexis Serot is driven by a passion for transforming lives and providing life-changing experiences. She is spearheading the motto of Collaborating, Empowering, Supporting, and Protecting others through her organization, LittleWins.

She is the Founder and a model leader at a young, rapidly growing organization. Her vision of leadership is about setting an example and leading a unique path to achieve desired purposes and goals.

“The reason I started LittleWins is a huge part of who I am today. I wanted to tell my daughter that when life presented an “at-bat” I swung like hell. With my daughter, I saw firsthand how difficult it was to access the proper care and equipment that could enable her to reach her fullest potential. Every detail of LittleWins has been carefully designed, with compassion, respect, and love for this community.”

A Ground-Breaking Leader

Lexis is well versed in the care, therapies, and equipment that help her daughter – and people with a range of abilities. She has navigated a frustratingly complex system that leaves people with disabilities and their families feeling isolated and alone. Understanding the need of the hour and being shocked by the disparities that, limit many people’s access to durable medical equipment, she decided to address this problem by founding her company.

Based on her experiences, interactions, and an “unrelenting desire to make a change,” Lexis began laying the groundwork for LittleWins in 2018. The name is personal and relatable to her community because every progress milestone for a person with disabilities is a little win for them and their family.

All About LittleWins

One in six children and one in four adults in the U.S. have a physical, developmental, behavioral, or sensory impairment. Most can’t afford the durable medical equipment they need or wait months for insurance companies to approve it.

Lexis believes that access to equipment and supplies should be simple. The mom of four, including a daughter who has cerebral palsy, founded LittleWins.com to connect and support people with disabilities and individuals who actively work to provide a better quality of life for others.

LittleWins.com harnesses the power of the community to help its members buy, sell or donate medical equipment, get information, and connect with others. Members list and browse equipment by category and location on the company’s website. They connect directly with buyers and sellers through the site’s app. They share tips, experiences, and advice on LittleWins’ social pages.

“People with disabilities deserve to say, ‘there is nothing I’m not worthy of.’ LittleWins goes to bat for every one of them,” says Lexis.

Since 2018, Lexis has continually adapted the LittleWins.com website with web and e-commerce developers. She directs a marketing assistant and marketing communications agency. She works closely with her legal and financial advisors. She collaborates with regional and national organizations that support people with disabilities. She partners with other entrepreneurs, who offer products and services to her community. She created and posts regularly on LittleWins’ online support forum, receiving and providing feedback to help people with disabilities and the families that support them live their best lives.

Coming Together for fulfilling a Bigger Purpose

Lexis is a passionate advocate and cheerleader of the work of national and local organizations that serve people with disabilities. She works with durable medical equipment suppliers such as NuMotion to identify used equipment that can fulfill the needs of LittleWins community members. She connects regularly with other entrepreneurs – such as Communikind founder Cimeran Kapur– and promotes their services on LittleWins.

She joined forces with another woman entrepreneur, Hotsy Totsy Haus CEO Christi Leonardi, a deaf single mother, to create LittleWins-branded, natural ingredient bath bombs, that are now being sold, on the LittleWins website.

Lexis regularly works with NuMotion, National Seating & Mobility, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, and Clearbrook.org, which empowers adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live their fullest lives possible.

Building a Resourceful Community

Lexis’s relentless efforts to build an online community of people with disabilities have paid huge dividends. More than 6,000 followers now visit LittleWins.Facebook and Instagram pages; and 800+ visitors go to the LittleWins website every week. To date, LittleWins.com’s 7,500 + community members have donated, purchased, or exchanged more than 200 pieces of equipment. They also exchange experiences and advice daily on the site’s secure messaging app.

The Team LittleWins “Empowering Communities and Smashing Stereotypes” Private Facebook Group. Now 400 members strong, the Group, led by Lexis, is a platform for families and people with disabilities to share their stories, provide advice and experiences on products and services and provide mutual encouragement.

After launching LittleWins.com in 2019, Lexis began to explore how the site could serve her community’s needs beyond durable medical equipment. To build the LittleWins brand, she launched a line of LittleWins apparel – beanies, trucker hats, and t-shirts.

The LittleWins blog and podcast feature educational posts, stories about her clients, inspirational leaders in the disability movement, interviews with durable medical equipment and adaptive technology experts, and more.

Lexis continually mines feedback from the company’s surveys and emails that can inform how it can create (or support) solutions to common challenges for people with disabilities. She is preparing to launch a medical supply subscription box program that will provide people with disabilities and their families exactly the right supplies they need, when and how they need them.

Combined, these initiatives are raising awareness of LittleWins’ mutually-supportive community, and the used durable medical equipment items that are available on LittleWins.com

The Big Wins of LittleWins

During the past year, Lexis launched two new projects, with a third about to launch. LittleWins teamed up with Dine-It-4ward to raise money for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.

LittleWins sponsors events that, support services for people with disabilities, such as the abilities Expo, Virtual Run/Walk of Clearbrook, a leader in creating innovative opportunities, services, and support for people with disabilities; Farm Fresh Food Bank, The Kids Equipment Network, and front line responders. She also put together the first-ever music festival to accommodate people with disabilities this past summer.

She’s donated hospital beds to people who needed them during the start of stay-at-home orders. For this effort, Lexis Serot took out an ad to reach people who had hospital beds but no longer needed them. She picked the beds up from each donor’s home, disinfected them, and delivered them to people who needed them.

Lexis Serot gives virtual shout-outs to companies that actively support people with disabilities through their product marketing and hiring practices. She shares stories of LittleWins community members and their loved ones.

In 2021, Lexis Serot was named a Top 100 Healthcare Visionaries by the International Forum on Advancements in Healthcare, previously known as the Smart Health Conference. She has been asked to be a keynote speaker at this year’s conference, to be held in Dubai. LittleWins was also awarded honorable mentions, by Fast Company’s 2021 World-Changing Ideas.

Lexis’s Ultimate Vision

In addition to her day-to-day leadership of LittleWins.com and full-time care of her four young children, Lexis’s entrepreneurial spirit, drive, and relentless pursuit of growth for LittleWins.com are rooted in her desire to help others. Her deep belief in the unique service she’s created, her ability to tell her personal story, and her talent for connecting with people who share her vision and journey.

She believes that community-based models – supportive online villages like LittleWins – can re-unite everyone to solve shared challenges, reach common goals, and make sure everyone has an equal shot at success. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, she has used the power of online communication to tell the stories of her customers and her community.

The Road Ahead

Lexis Serot envisions a world that values people of all abilities – a world that actively supports their right to the help, equipment, and services that help them achieve their full potential. She reckons that everyone’s attitudes toward people with disabilities are improving, she believes – pointing to companies whose policies and practices support workplace equality. “But we still have a long way to go,” she notes. “We must celebrate and tap into our differences on a much broader level.”

Lexis Serot exemplifies leadership in 2022 – an entrepreneur in evolution who derives satisfaction from helping others – and continually finds new ways to serve them a better and brighter future. She has even launched version 3 of the LittleWins website at the beginning of this year. This version update was spearheaded by the community and what they wanted to see from LittleWins and how it could be better. The latest update includes a premium membership which allows members a fixed shipping rate through FedEx and the ability to print their labels at home.

Kevin MacRitchie: Helping The Men And Women In Uniform

Meet the Executive Team of Tactical Rehabilitation, which works to deliver the best possible service, solutions, and healthcare to the biomechanical needs of the world’s greatest heroes- the men and women of the United States Military. All of Tactical Rehabilitation’s products are battle-tested having been used by service members deployed across the planet. The organization’s staff is trained to provide the highest quality care and fit for patients and to be a resource for providers.

The organization was founded by David Marr in 2013. As the founder of Tactical Rehabilitation, David surveyed the providers and solutions offered before laying the foundation stone of the company in 2013. While surveying, David saw a need for healthcare that is entirely focused on healing patients with the best possible solutions and less focused on maximizing profits at the expense of those that ensure the freedom of every citizen of the United States and its allies.

The Leadership Team

David Marr is the founder and CEO of Tactical Rehabilitation. He leads the oversight of Compliance and Financial oversight with the CFO. He founded the company in a modest 640 square foot storefront in 2013 with a simple mission to ‘Serve those that serve’ and honor those who protected our nation with the best solutions available. As the founder of the organization, David spearheads the diligent research of new products and is the core of Tactical Rehabilitation’s knowledge and compliance base. He continually seeks innovations in technology and has made available a superior line of products that the organization makes available to its patients to ensure the best possible healing process creating one patient at a time-serving their individual needs. He says; “It is an honor to serve the world’s greatest heroes and lead the way to Service Readiness for those that ensure freedom around the globe.”

David prides himself on maintaining a family atmosphere and a caring culture for the employees and their families of Tactical Rehabilitation. With David’s long-standing commitment to serving others in law enforcement, as a Game Warden, and for other pioneering DME providers growing their patient success each year, it is easy to see why the military and industry welcomes David and Tactical Rehabilitation’s down to earth approach to ensure the best in healthcare to the servicemen and women.

With over thirty years of experience working in the healthcare and IT industry, Kevin MacRitchie currently serves as the Chief Operations Officer of Tactical Rehabilitation. As a leader in the healthcare sector, Kevin MacRitchie has worked tirelessly to create the best possible patient experience. He specializes in high customer satisfaction, engineering leadership, and information technology.

Kevin says, “Maximizing patient success will always be our most critical of priorities.”

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and Operations Management from the University of Toledo. Kevin MacRitchie has received multiple healthcare industry awards for his incredible work in transforming the organization and the industry to enable more focus time on patient care and improving business operational efficiencies of healthcare behind the scenes as not to interfere with patient care.

Karen Lyons is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Counsel for Tactical Rehabilitation. Karen has more than 30 years of experience working in healthcare, non-profit, and construction industries. As a financial professional, Karen also combines operational information with financial outcomes to enhance company performance and provide trends and analysis to meet the need of multiple stakeholders.

“Balancing the priorities of the day-to-day with the long-range financial goals and stability of our company will ensure our company can continue to “serve those that serve” for decades to come and create life-long careers for our employees.”- says Karen.

James Polka, on the other hand, serves as the Vice President of the organization. He is also the founder of many Tactical Rehabilitation early systems and policies, supports the company growth through strategic planning and property management along with optimal location and site selection/build-out of locations. James also co-leads new product solutions with Reed for inclusion in Tactical Rehabilitation’s plethora of incredible partners and solutions, works closely on CRM activities and how they positively impact sales and sales reach to new providers in order to help heal additional servicemen and women.

James says, “Understanding the community we serve through listening to our providers and partners, ensures our patients will always be provided the best possible care.”

Reed Abernathy serves as the Vice President of the company. He is the founder of the vision/mission/goals and purpose statements and the keeper of the company culture of Tactical Rehabilitation. Reed also plays a crucial role in mentoring Business Development/Sales Team members and seeks out many of the new products and solutions Tactical Rehabilitation reviews for inclusion in their plethora of incredible partners and solutions.

“Ensuring our Mission and Vision is at the heart of all we do ensures everyone in our company is working together as a team”. – Says Reed.

Also, the executive team of the organization works as a family among themselves and with their employees. It is a strong binding partnership and heartfelt responsibility to communicate well with each other and, as a result, with their employees to ensure the best solutions and vision are executed to enhance the well-being of their patients and continuously improve the quality of the Healthcare provided to their patients.

Serving the Men and Women in Uniform

David sought out the best possible brand names from Sole Supports Orthotics to Aspen, Don Joy, Intensity, and more in Orthotics, Bracing, Intramuscular Pain Management, and more to help address the most common injuries that affect 68% or more of the most common areas that prevent soldiers from a constant “Service Ready” status. Through incredible partnerships and a steadfast Mission to humbly “Serve those that Serve”, David set the initial focus for the company Tactical Rehabilitation continues to become.

Since its inception, Tactical Rehabilitation has expanded into various additional areas including Bone Stimulation, Portable Ultrasound, Para-Somnia Solutions, and more.

These areas are similarly critical to ensuring the “Service Ready” of freedom. Tactical Rehabilitation is not a typical DME with solutions in every DME category, rather a highly specialized and trained team servicing the very specific needs of their patients and ensuring they can return to “Service Ready Status” as quickly as possible.

Tackling Challenges

As the COO Kevin MacRitchie believes, growth brings change, and change brings new challenges and acceptance to change itself. As the company grew, so did its awareness to bring in new skills from outside the company in critical roles like CFO and COO. The very same growth created new leadership and promotional opportunities from within the company allowing team members to rise to new challenges and lead their peers while developing new employees in new markets. The Executive Team works tirelessly to create the delicate balance of internal and external employee growth which has been a crucial part of ensuring the longevity of Tactical Rehabilitation’s culture to serve those in uniform.

Also, Covid was everyone’s nemesis, but the executive team invested in and grew the company and never once shut, paused, or closed their doors. All this ensured providers and patients that Tactical is there to serve the needs of its patients. During the pandemic, Tactical grew and nearly doubled as others closed their doors to the needs of their patients and providers. Tactical Rehabilitation grew in their current locations and opened doors in new locations where patients no longer had services available. Throughout the pandemic, the organization ensured employee safety and its presence for patients and providers.

Giving it Back to the Society

CSR plays a crucial role in understanding the partnerships between Tactical Rehabilitation and the providers that entrust their patient care to Tactical Rehabilitation. Understanding who Tactical Rehabilitation serves ensures the company to better align itself with the needs of the providers and ultimately the patients served.

According to Vice President James Polka, “The most crucial step in understanding the business of Tactical Rehabilitation is understanding the needs of those we serve.” He also adds, “This is best accomplished through constantly ensuring our business development and sales reps have the tools and information critical to know and support our providers”.

Mission and Vision

Kevin MacRitchie believes in the foundations set by Vice President Reed Abernathy, with core values like patient care to die for, profound level of respect for one another, and to make a positive difference in the lives of employees, patients, and providers, Tactical Rehabilitation can continue to provide highest quality products and the highest level of service to active-duty service members, veterans, and their family members.

Advice for Upcoming Entrepreneurs

When we requested Kevin MacRitchie to provide any advice for young upcoming entrepreneurs, he said, “Know your strengths and leverage them. Know better your weaknesses and ensure your plans include how to garner this perspective in-house until you can hire it in-house. Allowing yourself to become blind-sided is an intentional plan… to failure.

Dr. Sam Swapn: Helping Organizations Train Their Employees

Headquartered in Fremont CA Strategism Inc offers the best online and in-class training, certification, staffing, and consulting services. Founded in 2008 by Dr. Sam Swapn, CEO, the firm currently employs more than 100 employees across the planet. The firm’s strength lies in its training courses, which are mainly geared towards obtaining accredited and industry-leading certifications in management and information technology (IT).

As the founder and CEO, Dr. Sam Swapn brings a formidable reputation of working for more than 25 years in the project management field, having worked as an entrepreneur, consultant, investor, corporate trainer, educator, and mentor to several companies and executives in the Bay Area.

Dr. Sam is a well-known figure in television debates, panelists, and keynote speaker at various events. He has also authored several books related to Project Management, FDI, etc. His latest book, ‘World War III: Corona’ is already a top seller on multiple e-commerce platforms.

Tackling Professional Failures

Dr. Sam believes failure is a must, risk-taking is a must, and learning from failure is very important. Twice in his career, he felt this thing is coming to an end in 2016 and 2019 but he came out of them successfully as the biggest mantra is- ‘keep trying’, ‘do not give up, ‘there is something you are missing’. Failure and crisis are the best opportunities that cannot be wasted. Dr. Sam has learned most from his failures and tries not to make the same mistakes tough it is a constantly changing landscape. He is a lifelong learner and wants to learn from everyone including a ‘kid’.

Dr. Sam loves challenges and enjoys the uncertainty and complexity of decision-making. He thinks the biggest asset leaders should have, is to be a person who does not get afraid of any situation, applies his intellect to find solutions consistently. The ability to stand quiet and calm and find answers for an ever-changing environment is the key to success, and he is ready to face that challenge.

Handling Success

According to Dr. Sam, business success is achieving numbers, making an impact on larger numbers, and building a positive cash flow in the business. On his side, success is creating constant ‘happiness’ for him. He believes money and power do not bring success, it facilitates it, beyond that is how we nurture relationships and personal friends.

Dr. Sam believes the greatest achievement for him and the entire team of Strategism in the training business has been to understand the pulse of the market and design training courses suited to that specific need of the employers because at the end of the day companies want to hire people who have the right skills.

Associating with Good Guys

When we asked Dr. Sam Swapn, about his leadership style, he says “Well, the bad news is that you cannot please everyone.” He also adds, “In the corporate world, there are some good guys and some bad guys. Bad guys create a negative culture. Good guys want to create a change. I want to associate with good guys and build on their energy.”

As the CEO and founder of the firm, Dr. Sam wants to try and engage the bad guys if he cannot let them go from the company. His leadership style is to be open to change and constant learning. Learning from anyone is the key.

He says, “I do make a lot of mistakes but I am willing to always say ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you to people who help me learn and grow.”

Also, when it comes to the attributes of a good leader, Dr. Sam Swapn believes a good leader is a good listener and a problem solver. It is also someone, who tries to take everyone along, and creates a positive & happy atmosphere where everyone feels welcome and open to learn and contribute.

The Vision

Dr. Sam’s vision in life is to move into the non-profit world in the next few years. He has already created a non-profit, Dr. Sam Foundation that will work on educating girls all over the world from 5 years of age, till they start earning. It is called “Sabla”. Dr. Sam wants to serve humanity and make a bigger impact on the lives of people globally. He wants to give back to society. Manavta and University are two pieces of his plan.

Future Roadmap

Currently, Strategism has a training arm that teaches people Project Management, Agile, Data Science, AI, ML, Blockchain, etc. The firm also has a consulting arm where it works with its clients and provides the latest and most equipped human capital. Dr. Sam says, “Our plan is to grow the business to 100 people on consulting side in 2022 and make it a 10-million-dollar business.”

Mohammed Mubin Mallick: Transforming the Robotics Industry

Robotics was merely a fairy-tale/fiction when it was first introduced to the world. With technological evolution, we have witnessed a plethora degree disruption in the traditional business sphere. Though robotics has not grown as it was depicted two or three decades prior, it has shown tremendous/note-worthy development in disrupting traditional businesses. Very few in the industry have contributed to this, and one such revolutionary personality is Mohammed Mubin Mallick, the CEO and the Founder of Kiran Smart.

Mubin discovered the potential of robotics during an international summit GITEX, 2018 in Dubai. He was surprised by the technology and developed a curiosity about its possible applications. As automation and robotics have shown a promising future, Mubin decided to blend his newly developed interest into his company’s product portfolio. “I have always thought about robot but it came in reality,” he adds. Since then, he carried out research programs and held interactive campaigns with various robot manufacturers around the world. He started acquiring robots to understand its technical factors and what services he can offer to the market with robots. Currently, Kiran Smart is signed up with many Robotics companies and manufacturers around the world to be the most innovative robotics Technology Company in Kuwait and GCC. He strives to make his company one of the best robotics service and solution providers globally.

He and his team focus on adapting innovative technologies to solve the problems of their customers and help them to be abreast with the latest advancements. The company is continuously investing in its research on the new trend of products and solutions that are coming into the market. “We adopt it and also educate our customers too so that they could have the knowledge of it,” he mentions. He claims his company is an out-of-the-box thinking entity that stays ahead of its competition with its ability to bring authenticity to the robotics industry. He considers his KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE has been the biggest failures of his professional life. He understood the power of knowledge and started to acquire as much as he can to prevail in the revolutionary industry of robotics. “So, to acquire knowledge I have invested my personal life and time in it to know more and more,” he asserts. He is proud of his endeavors on how he went the extra mile to fabricate himself as a pioneer in the field achieving milestones in his pathway. As per a say ‘it doesn’t come easy’, Mubin also faced various challenges and obstacles while paving his journey.

Most primary obstacles for him were focused on how to face the challenge in terms of competition, handling the employees, maintaining the best customer relationships, and customers satisfaction. To overcome these challenges, he follows a different approach strategy for every specific challenge faced. “Sometimes it cannot be defined because it comes within, which is inner self instinct,” he adds. He relies on his leadership principles which are driven by being Kind Hearted. Before a business leader, he is a humanitarian at heart. He prefers to be kind towards people and recommends others to do so. “Because kindness can win anything,” he asserts. “According to me any Leader must have certain skills and it could vary leaders to leaders. As of me, what I would say about my leadership’s skills: kindness, problem solver, supportive, forecaster, innovator, and giver,” he mentions. Kindness and compassion have always been key ingredients behind Mubin’s success. According to his experience, he has learned that kindness is even more powerful than love. “The reason is that Love you cannot show to everyone but one can be kind to any person,” he adds. “I would say that you cannot love mankind but you can be kind to mankind.”

Moreover, he always provides guidance to his team and resolves problems immediately with his decisiveness. As a visionary, he prefers an optimistic approach while dealing with new innovative ideas and provides creative space for his team to contribute to the better growth of the company. “Reason when I am leading the team, I am learning how to treat the team members, I am understanding the psychology of the team member and many more,” he emphasizes.

Marching with Compassion and Conviction

Mubin defines success as a journey and not a destination. He says, “one’s journey ends when death comes. Therefore, till then the journey will be on with more achievements and success which means success is non-stoppable achievements in life.” He equips many innovative ideas but looking at the current situation he desires that we all must cumulatively take measures to tackle the biggest dilemma—COVID 19. He paraphrases his mother advice, Live up to others expectation. Don’t be in luxury but give to others who cannot afford in their Life. He considers it as the best life-leading advice one can ever receive as it teaches the true essence of compassion. “I do not make people feel their position whether they are rich or poor or in higher position or in lower position and I treat everyone equally with love and respect all,” he adds. He firmly believes in God and the notion of helping others through his endeavors. “The more I am giving to the world then more blessing I have from GOD. Factor which give me immense pleasure is the Love that I am getting from people for my work,” he mentions.

Moreover, he envisions achieving the successful stature of a World-Renowned Robotics Solutions and Services Company. He claims his success journey differently than many as he started his business to help others to prevail rather than for his benefit. Professionally, he still believes that he has not reached the ultimate goal and considers his accomplishments as mere steps of the ladder aiming towards success. He will not his achievements hammer his persistence and will continue to strive in building brand trust across the globe.

Quote

“LIFE IS LIKE A WAVE OF OCEAN THAT GOES UP AND THEN COMES DOWN. SAME WAY WE HAVE HAPPINESS AND SADNESS IN LIFE. IN BUSINESS WE DO HAVE PROFIT AND LOSSES AS WELL.”

Susan Semmelmann: An Exemplary Woman in Design

Our homes are our sanctuaries; our comfort zones, a place where we can acquire a sense of belonging. We personalize this place to meet and suit our preferences. However, with all of the intricacies, options, and decisions to consider, the decorating process can become daunting. In such cases, seeking advice from interior designers help us bring balance and elegance to our space. They adapt to our tastes in creating environments that make us happy to reside, under the banner of interior design.

Interior design is a space that is equally dominated by both men and women, but one must acknowledge the extra creativity that women bring to the table. From extending their finesse and artistic skills to creating brands that are loved by people all over the world, women interior designers are carving a niche for themselves. One such young and inspiring Interior Designer is Susan Semmelmann. Susan has worked tirelessly over the years to build her design firm — Susan Semmelmann Interiors. Susan designs amazing one-of-a-kind feature elements that can be included in the home throughout the construction phase. Her brand is known for catering to various lifestyles and having a blend of contemporary, modern, vintage and bold vibes. the inception in March 2019, she has expanded by leaps and bounds in merely three years. Currently, the company has 70 projects in the pipeline, and Susan’s expertise is in high demand.

Susan brought her 23 years of design and construction knowledge to the table. She stepped out in faith, armed with vast experience and a crystal-clear vision, to start her new venture with no clients and only a few willing staff. Her customer list swiftly grew, and she now needs to hire more designers and critical personnel to keep up with Demand. Her key goal in growing her company is to retain loyalty, relationships, and connections among her employees. She believes, that if fundamental values are prioritized, work will always reflect a high degree of excellence, resulting in a trusted brand. “The quality of life lies in how you choose to see it. It’s all about perspective,” she adds.

Transforming Styles into Spaces that Rejoice Living

Susan has remarkably carved her journey to attain her current stature. With the help of her team at her design firm, she continued to work with her clients to create inspiring and innovative designs that meet their tastes and styles. Through networking, word-of-mouth, and recognition from peers and contemporaries, Susan Semmelmann Interiors has become a hot topic. Much like Susan’s firecracker personality, she and her team’s designs are utterly unique. “We are a turn-key design firm that can walk our clients from construction through completion. Soup to nuts. We provide many levels of custom consultation and design options, as well as hundreds of top-quality vendor lines offering art, décor, and furnishings,” she asserts.

She states that every project uniquely identifies itself as each space has its own identity and feel. While designing a project, endless factors are incorporated together. Almost everything in the environment, including what lurks deep within the senses, acts as a stimulus; be it a piece of music, a painting, enticing objects, nature, culture, and most importantly people and their stories. Susan’s competitive advantage is her ability to build a home that is truly theirs, integrating elegance, comfort, and function while remaining within their means and budget. Aside from having a thorough understanding of their requirements, she was able to save time and make the entire process fun and painless.

If you can dream it, she can Build it!

Keeping supply-chain constraints into consideration, the company focuses on broadening product access and availability to satisfy clients’ needs. Her clients undoubtedly agree to the fact that Susan Semmelmann Interiors puts the ‘custom’ in custom-made. The firm’s construction detailing options include floor-to-ceiling feature walls, fireplace surrounds, ceiling details, cabinetry, tile design, and integrated lighting, to name a few. Semmelmann Interiors also has an in-house collection of beautiful custom drapes, bedding, and upholstered furniture made from quality fabrics sourced directly from mills. Their exclusive offerings also include custom-crafted mattresses, seats, ottomans, mirrors, and headboards. Momentarily, the designed pieces chosen for projects are not found in retail, so it intends to customize the desired items.

‘The Spirit of Living is in the Giving’ is the motto that encapsulates Susan’s purpose for doing what she does. “I have the amazing privilege to use the vehicle of top-notch client service and fabulous design to invest back into my community and make a difference,” she says. Susan Semmelmann’s star is blazing across the interior design landscape of Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond. She thrives on giving stellar service to her clients and also shines a light on charitable pursuits near and dear to her heart.

Future Endeavours

Susan and her team are developing something spectacular in Fort Worth in an attempt to build dreams for their clients. She mentions, “What started as a cautious commitment to take on 2,500 square feet of office space has grown into a 10,000-square-foot firm with aspirations for an online presence and off-site storage to retain items and merchandise.” The Vickery location will house the firm’s office as well as Fort Worth Drapery and Fort Worth Design Studio. The concept is to open these resources to the public and give other designers more options to offer their clients. Moreover, being a compassionate personality, Susan is committed to sharing and desires to enlighten others with her insights.

“Susan Semmelmann Interiors is 100% invested in making our clients’ dreams a reality. They are trusting us with their hearts’ desire for their homes. It’s an honor to be part of that process, and we don’t take it lightly. We simply partner with them by bringing our resources and expertise to the table to build something beautiful!” one of her clients emphasizes.

Lona Alia: Helping Distributed Companies & Remote Workers

With the pandemic wreaking havoc, organizations across the globe moved to work from home otherwise known as working remotely, which helped people move out of their comfort zone and work from anywhere. Those that were part of the first wave before the pandemic started were called digital nomads and their numbers were growing exponentially each year. However, the pandemic and more remote working opportunities are making this lifestyle much more common than ever before. So, SafetyWing, headquartered in San Francisco was founded to build the first global safety net for remote companies, remote workers, and nomads worldwide. It offers medical insurance for nomads and remote companies around the world. It is also developing other insurance products such as retirement, income protection insurance, life insurance and more. Its products are built and designed by a fully remote team of nomads distributed across three continents.

Meet Lona Alia, who is a venture-backed Y Combinator Founder at StyleLend, and Head of Revenue at SafetyWing. Lona is also an advisor to start-ups and EU for innovation, remote work advocate, and expert at building fully remote teams. The avid traveller in her has taken her to more than 80 countries. She is interested in building things that people want, teams that employees want to be a part of, and companies with a mission, that is greater than making money.

Be Insured

As an insurance company SafetyWing provides multiple insurance services for its clients;

Nomad Insurance: Nomad insurance is a global travel medical insurance that covers people across the planet, while outside their home country. This policy is specifically made for digital nomads. It can be purchased while already aboard, covers home trip visits, and operates as a monthly subscription.
Remote Health: Remote health insurance is fully-fledged health insurance for those who are working as remote teams. It provides a flexible solution that no other company offers.

Through Remote health insurance, full-time nomads can stay safely abroad, no matter where they go or how long they stay.

Influencing Factors

Freedom is the biggest factor that influenced Lona. She always wanted freedom over her time and location. She wanted to be able to live the best life possible under her terms and not have to follow orders, which eventually drove Lona to start her first company.

Lona believes freedom is the only condition for happiness. And she has found that independence in the flexibility that SafetyWing affords it’s team to work from anywhere in the world.

The Best Company Culture

Lona says, “We have created the best company culture in my opinion that exists out there.” SafetyWing’s team members are happy to be given the freedom and flexibility to work from any location and most times zones that are in line with the Americas and Europe. They have the freedom to be creative and be entrepreneurial within their positions in the company.

Authenticity is one of the ingredients the organization values very highly. “Be the same on the outside as you are on the inside. Be brave enough to say what you think is true instead of what other people want to hear.”- adds Lona.

Tackling Challenges

Lona Alia believes, keeping the company’s culture intact while growing rapidly is very important to the success of the company, their customers and their team members. The entire team of SafetyWing values it’s culture so dearly that every team member makes sure to have regular brainstorming sessions quarterly as a team to come up with tactical steps that are necessary to implement in order to preserve the organization’s culture.

Future Roadmap

SafetyWing currently offers 2 products to its customers. However, the organization is planning to launch at least two more services for its clients in the coming year;

Remote Doctor: This service will help SafetyWing’s clients to consult with a doctor remotely. No matter where the clients are, they will be able to get premium medical care from the comfort of their homes.
Remote Retirement: This is a retirement product that prepares SafetyWing’s clients for their future when they are ready to leave work.

Advice for Leaders in Organizations during the Great Resignation

When asked about suggestions for organizations on contributing to a balanced industry, Lona Alia says, “Listen to your team members the same way you listen to your customers.

Your team is creating tremendous value for your company and they should be treated with care, respect, and appreciation. Implement the things they want and you will be surprised how much your bottom line will benefit.”

Also, when it comes to advise for female entrepreneurs, Lona Alia says, “You live in the best possible time to be alive in terms of global opportunity. No matter where you come from if you have an internet connection you can learn the skills needed to get the position that you want by standing out from the crowd.” She adds, “Put a presentation together of what you can do for the company you want to work for and reach out to the hiring manager and present it. You will be surprised with how few people go above and beyond.”