E-Business
IBM Supports D4Ag Collaboration for African Start-ups
IBM has announced support for the Digital4Agriculture Initiative (D4Ag), which aims to foster African start-ups in the agricultural sector and strengthen the long-term living conditions of local small farmers by increasing productivity and quality.
In a statement released to the media, IBM said that with the help of digital expertise from IBM Services and access to accurate weather data provided by IBM’s The Weather Company, D4Ag has successfully launched “and is helping over 36 African agricultural companies become better prepared for the digital future.”
The company’s statement reads: “Reliable weather forecasts are very difficult to make for Africa’s agricultural industry due to IT infrastructure unavailability. Small agricultural enterprises not only lack internet access and suitable hardware, but existing data is often unreliable or difficult to process.
“By making high-resolution weather data available to agricultural start-ups, DG4Ag is providing valuable information to small farmers that can help them make important decisions with greater confidence.
“For example, historical weather data from a tea plantation served as training material and showed how data analysis can be used to increase yields, as well as to determine the best time to harvest or the optimal use of fertilisers or pest control.”
Moreover, on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) is implementing the D4Ag program within the framework of the project “Make-IT in Africa”.
This project is designed to promote the start-up scene in the digital sector of developing and emerging countries together with (primarily) European technology companies, start-ups, associations, research & science and non-governmental organisations.
IBM joined the Make-IT Alliance in 2017 as part of its #GoodTechIBM program.
Desiree Winges, consultant at Make-IT in Africa and responsible for D4Ag, said: “We want to help local start-ups to reach more customers and develop new markets. To this end, we provide them with basic knowledge in the areas of data analytics, interoperability and business modelling. We also want to promote cooperation between start-ups and platform operators to fully exploit the opportunities of the digital world.”
Florian Scheil, Account Executive Public Sector, IBM, added: “Small farmers are the backbone of Africa’s food supply and their success and quality of life depends upon having reliable weather forecast data and insights. We’re proud to provide African farmers with weather information and services access to help them better manage and improve their crop production.”
Three-stage training expands skills of agricultural start-ups
Experts from GIZ and IBM Services have been working together on the project for about three years and have developed a digital coaching concept for start-ups offering agricultural services to African farmers. The high-resolution weather data, which serves as a basis, is provided by The Weather Company.
To achieve this, IBM Services and GIZ have created a three-stage, interactive training concept consisting of individual e-learning, workshops on business modelling, interoperability and data analytics and detailed materials with tips and suggestions for future projects. The virtual training lasted several weeks and showed the participants how to use high-resolution weather data and up-to-date alerts to help smallholders grow their products more sustainably and healthily.
Reading tea leaves
In the workshop, participants were able to analyse historical data about a tea plantation – crop size, temperature, rainfall, etc. – and determine whether there is, for example, a correlation between weather conditions and yields.
“The next step was to use the results for the future. If you discover a pattern, you can plan future harvest phases accordingly and thus increase yields in the long term,” explained Silas Macharia, trainer at D4Ag’s Capacity Development Workshop.
Access to information from the industry enables start-ups to establish themselves successfully on the market in the long term, thus ensuring more jobs in the region and stable growth.
In the first edition of the training sessions, more than 36 start-ups from 13 countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Zimbabwe in Africa took part.
“This course came at exactly the right time for my company. We are currently considering integration into a larger digital platform and this week has really opened my eyes,” says Fred Zamblé of Seekewa, an Agrifintech that identifies promising agricultural projects and promotes them with the help of third parties.
Kaspersky has identified an advanced phishing campaign targeting employees with personalised emails and attached documents disguised as HR policy updates.
This campaign marks a significant escalation in phishing tactics, with attackers tailoring not only the email body, but also the attachments by addressing individual recipients, showcasing an unprecedented level of customisation. The goal was to lure the victim into entering their corporate email credentials.
The attackers likely prepared by parsing employee names to make the campaign targeted and more convincing.
The emails feature a deceptive body: a fraudulent “verified sender” badge to build trust, the recipient’s name, and an invitation to open the attached file to review remote work protocols, benefits administration and security standards. However, the whole email body is in reality just an image with no real text in it; this is done to bypass email filters.
The attached document, posing as an updated “Employee Handbook,” does not contain any actual guidelines – only a title page, a table of contents with the items that have supposedly been changed highlighted in red, a page with a QR code, supposedly for going to the full document and common instructions on how to read QR codes using a phone. The document features the victim’s name multiple times to convince that this document was created specifically for them.
If the victim scans the QR code and follows the link, they land on a fraudulent page where they are asked to enter their corporate credentials, which is what the attackers are hunting for.
“This campaign demonstrates a new level of sophistication in phishing attacks, and we may be seeing a new mailing automation mechanism that generates a separate attached document and a separate image for the email body for each recipient.
“This tactic allows to scale the attack and at the same time possibly evade traditional defenses. Organisations must prioritise advanced security measures and employee education to stay ahead of these threats,” comments Roman Dedenok, Anti-Spam Expert at Kaspersky.
Temu, the global online marketplace, has joined the International Trademark Association (INTA) as a corporate member and serves on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee.
INTA is a global association that brings together more than 6,700 organizations, representing over 37,000 trademark professionals and brand owners across 181 countries. By joining INTA, Temu deepens its commitment to building a trusted online marketplace and advancing global IP protection through broader, cross-industry collaboration.
“INTA welcomes TEMU’s willingness to engage in anticounterfeiting initiatives, including in the Association’s annual Anticounterfeiting Workshop and Online Takedown Certificate Program which serve to share best practices and connect stakeholders,” said Alastair Gray, Director of Anti-Counterfeiting, INTA. “Constructive collaboration with these efforts can contribute to the protection of intellectual property rights for INTA members and support the removal of counterfeit products from the platform which ultimately protects consumers.”
At the 2025 INTA Annual Meeting held in San Diego in May, Temu participated in the Anti-Counterfeiting Committee Roundtable, serving as a moderator to facilitate discussions among brand owners, online platforms, and government officials on emerging technologies, best practices for collaboration, and strategies to strengthen global anti-counterfeiting efforts.
“Joining INTA and serving on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee reflects Temu’s ongoing commitment to ensuring a trustworthy online shopping experience,” said a Temu spokesperson. “We value collaboration with industry peers and stakeholders and are dedicated to advancing collective efforts in intellectual property protection.”
Temu also participates in INTA-led online workshops, including the Online Platform Notice and Takedown Certification Program, which outlines the latest procedures and best practices used by e-commerce platforms and social media companies. These workshops aim to enhance the quality and accuracy of rights-holder notices, promoting more effective takedown processes and content moderation.
Since launching in 2022, Temu has made significant investments in IP enforcement. Its measures include comprehensive seller vetting and compliance training, 24/7 algorithmic monitoring with manual review, a dedicated IP protection portal and brand registry to streamline takedown submissions, and an internal enforcement team that handles claims with speed and accuracy.
China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled an AI computing system on Saturday that an industry expert said rivals Nvidia’s most advanced product, as the company aims to expand its footprint in the country’s booming AI sector.
The CloudMatrix 384 system made its public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai, attracting a large crowd to Huawei’s booth with its showcase of cutting-edge AI innovations.
The system has attracted significant interest from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first introduced it in April. Industry analysts see it as a direct challenger to Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, the most advanced system-level offering currently available from the U.S. chipmaker.
In an April article, Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, stated that Huawei now possesses AI system capabilities that could surpass those of Nvidia.
Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system.
A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.
Huawei has become widely regarded as China’s most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions.
Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been “moving quite fast” and named the CloudMatrix as an example.
The CloudMatrix 384 system features 384 of Huawei’s latest 910C chips and, according to SemiAnalysis, surpasses Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, despite the latter using 72 B200 chips.
SemiAnalysis attributes this performance advantage to Huawei’s strong system design, which offsets the lower power of individual chips by leveraging a greater number of them and incorporating system-level innovations.
Huawei describes the system as utilizing a “supernode” architecture that enables ultra-high-speed interconnectivity between chips.
In June, Zhang Pingan, CEO, Huawei Cloud confirmed that the CloudMatrix 384 was already operational on Huawei’s cloud platform.
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