Here Are The Goals  of Big Tech, NGOs, and Startups

Every organization needs to set quality improvement goals to keep its competitive edge.

This way, an organization can evaluate its services and make the necessary adjustments.

Strategic planning is a disciplined effort, where it produces fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why.

This blog post is all about unique goals and strategies taken by some of the Big-Tech companies, NGOs, and Startups.

1. Google — Sustainability

Goal: To be the first major company to operate carbon-free by 2030 for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year

Strategic Plans by Google for the next decade:

• Enabling 5 Gigawatts of new carbon-free energy in manufacturing regions by 2030, creating over 8000+ clean energy jobs.
• Helping more than 500 cities reduce one Gigaton of carbon annually by 2030, supporting green infrastructure and jobs.
• Helping commercial buildings and data centers apply AI innovations to reduce energy use.
• Working with environmental organizations to remove carbon from the atmosphere through science-based reforestation, and Google.org will pledge $1 million to support this effort.
• Committing to help 1 billion people to live more sustainably by 2020 through core products like Search and Maps.
• Purchasing carbon-free energy everywhere Google operates, catalyzing technologies, and support policies that will create a zero-carbon electricity system. In the process, enabling more than 10,000 green jobs in the first five years.

And much more…

2. Apple — Privacy

Goal: Design Apple products to protect user privacy and give the user control over their information. Privacy is one of the core values at Apple

Strategic plans by Apple for Privacy in the new iOS 14

Camera & Mic Permissions

• Apps on iOS 14 onwards provide an indicator dot on the top right of the screen when either Camera or Mic functions are used. Where a green indicator dot corresponds to the Camera and an orange indicator dot for Microphone.
• The Control center shows the apps that most recently used the user’s camera or microphone.

Limited Photo access

• iOS 14 gives the user the choice to allow access to Select Photos, all photos, or don’t allow.
• The new “Select Photos…” option allows users to choose specific photos or folders to give the app access too.

Location Permissions

• On iOS 14, the user can configure to access the phone’s location: never, always, only when the app is open or only when the user gives explicit permission.
• The new “Precise Location” option allows users to either use the pinpoint GPS location. Or can turn off the precise location which will convert the location to a big radius surrounding the pinpoint location to protect the user location data.

Tracking Permissions

• iOS 14 provides the user with a new privacy setting: “tracking option”, where Apps will request to Track explicitly to the user providing greater control towards user privacy.
• The new Wi-Fi setting: “Use private address” which prevents network operators from tracking User’s iPhone by using a random MAC address.
• Safari2 now has a new privacy feature: “tracking reports” which list down all the cross-site trackers blocked in the browser.

‘Local Network’ Permissions

• Apps like Facebook, YouTube, PUBG will be able to discover and connect to devices on the network users are using.
• In iOS 14 though, the local network permission prompt pops up which provides users to Allow or Don’t allow these apps to discover other devices.

And much more…

3. Intel partnered with Resolve

Goal: To develop an AI-powered anti-poaching device called Trailgaurd.

Strategic Plans by Intel & Resolve with MARA elephant project:

• Build a motion capturing camera integrated with an image recognition system.
• Input the captured images through a Visual Processing Unit (VPU) and classify the image into poachers and non-poacher images using an AI algorithm.
• To set up the Cameras in the MARA Reserve for real-world testing.
• Send the classified images to the headquarters, in a few minutes. And helping deploy the ranger team to the site and hopefully make an arrest, before Poachers kill the animals.
• Check the device images sent by the camera are correct or not from the headquarters.
• Improve the AI algorithm in classifying poachers more accurately by feeding more data and tuning the hyperparameters after testing in the field.
• Deploy in various locations of the MARA reserve to prevent poaching.

And much more…

4. NotCo — An AI start-up

Goal: Save the planet by reducing animal-based products with plant-based food.

Strategic Plans by NotCo company

• Use AI to build a library of thousands of plants and find how to use them, to recreate the same taste, smell, function, look, and feel of the products.
• Build a technology that is able to tell us how to reproduce an animal-based food just using plants.
• Develop and test the plant-based food using the trained AI algorithm, to taste and feel like animal-based food.

And much more…

5. Udemy: E-learning platform

Goal: Improve lives through learning and provide as many people as possible access to learning resources.

Strategic Plans by Udemy:

• Teams make decisions based on research and analysis — not instinct or assumption — and we carefully measure their effects on students, instructors, organizations, and our own business.
• Prioritize staying accountable to the people who use the platform. Regularly have students and instructors come to our office and talk with Udemy face to face.
• Learning and Development team runs a huge variety of in-house workshops, programs, and learning fairs year-round. And much more…

About Myself

I’m Aswin Barath, a Budding Software Engineer from India.
Web Development and Machine Learning is my passion!
And I write blog posts as a hobby on day-to-day technologies.