"People who can do this, and with wiggle room in their moral code, have realized the business opportunity." Mansoor received text messages on August 10 and 11 promising that secrets about detainees being tortured in UAE jails could be accessed by clicking on an enclosed link, researchers said.Invoices posted online have shown that hackers can charge tens of thousands of dollars per target hit with their software. "The smartphone is a valuable target, and breaking into it is a valuable skill set," Murray said.He declined to reveal anything about other targets, saying that they were people likely to be under surveillance in other ways by local authorities.The spyware was detected when used against Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights activist in the United Arab Emirates, who has been repeatedly targeted using spyware. Citizen Lab saw the attack on Mansoor as further evidence that "lawful intercept" spyware has significant abuse potential, and that some governments can’t resist the temptation to use such tools against political opponents, journalists and human rights defenders.

Mansoor was targeted five years ago with FinFisher spyware and again the following year with Hacking Team spyware, according to Citizen Lab research.Although the cyber attack on Mansoor was not linked to a specific government, Citizen Lab said indicators pointed to the UAE.""It is also being used to attack high-value targets for multiple purposes, including high-level corporate espionage on iOS, Android and Blackberry. San Francisco: Apple iPhone owners were urged to install a quickly released security update after a sophisticated attack on an Emirati dissident exposed vulnerabilities targeted by cyber arms dealers. Once infected, Mansoor’s iPhone would have been turned into a "spy in his pocket" capable of tracking his whereabouts and conversations, Citizen Lab said. UAE authorities did not comment on the matter. "The attack sequence, boiled down, is a classic phishing scheme: send text message, open web browser, load page, exploit vulnerabilities, install persistent software to gather information," the joint blog post said.It was acquired by the US firm Francisco Partners Management six years ago, according to Lookout and Citizen."We were made aware of this vulnerability and immediately fixed it with iOS 9.Had he fallen for the ruse, the Trident chain of "zero-day exploits" would have broken into his iPhone and installed snooping software."

Lookout and Citizen Lab worked with Apple on an iOS patch to defend against what was called "Trident" because of its triad of attack methods, the researchers said in a joint blog post.Cyber arms dealersMansoor’s decision to enlist Citizen Lab instead of falling into the trap gave researchers a rare chance to expose the work of "shady cyber arms dealers" who command high prices for morally questionable services, Lookout vice president of security research Mike Murray told AFP."Citizen Lab has also found evidence that "state-sponsored actors" used NSO weapons against a Mexican journalist who reported https://www.hwugu.com on high-level corruption in that country and on an unknown target in Kenya.Sophisticated attack on Emirati dissident exposed vulnerabilities targeted by cyber arms dealers.3."NSO Group has been around since 2010 and the capture of one of its weapons was billed as a first. Lookout referred to Pegasus as the most sophisticated attack it has seen, sneakily accessing calls, cameras, email, passwords, apps and more on iPhones.The NSO tactics included impersonating sites such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the British government’s visa application processing website, and a wide range of news organizations and major technology companies, the researchers said. Trident is used in spyware referred to as Pegasus, which a Citizen Lab investigation showed was made by an Israel-based organization called NSO Group."This, however, happens invisibly and silently, such that victims do not know they’ve been compromised."

The use of such expensive tools against Mansoor shows the lengths that governments are willing to go to target activists," the researchers said.Phishing schemeAfter receiving a suspicious text with a link, he reported the matter to Citizen Lab, which worked in conjunction with San Francisco-based Lookout to research the affair. Researchers at Lookout mobile security firm and Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said they uncovered a fierce, three-pronged cyber attack targeting a dissident’s iPhone "that subverts even Apple’s strong security environment.Lookout and Citizen believe the spyware has been "in the wild for a significant amount of time. Studying Trident has helped cyber defenders find ways to spot spyware that had been operating unseen, and they are "actively catching it in the wild now," Murray said." Apple said in a released statement.
Tweets for help were sorted and resent by thousands of volunteers to any one nearby who could reach the affected. Google’s crisis response page, South India Flooding provided a useful rallying point, with a dynamic, crowd sourced map of flooded streets and roads still open. Ola mobilised a fleet of boats where taxis could not go."Another clearinghouse was Together Chennai, whose stark graphic was peppered with icons which said Needs boat, Needs food, Needs rope, Needs medical help, or just SOS, which they tried to match with another map of people ready and able to help. Also useful was a listing complete with mobile phone numbers and twitter handles, of " People and Places offering shelter" sourced from ChennaiRains.Practo, the health portal compiled a verified list of doctors and hospitals in each affected area, with gateways through its FaceBook and Twitter pages.

Mark them safe if you know they’re OK.Mobile payments gateway Paytm provided free recharges of Rs 30 for Chennai residents and almost all telecom players announced schemes where they provided free talktime for local and STD calls.With other means of communication rendered unreliable or non-existent, social media users elsewhere in the country harnessed FaceBook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other tools to create a vital lifeline to the stranded citizens..In Bangalore, the metro nearest to Chennai, an organisation, BangaloreForChennai, invited the public to fund mobile powerbanks -- packed thousands of them and took them by road to deliver in the flooded city. This ambivalence will likely vanish https://www.hwugu.com/ after the exemplary manner in which Cyberia stepped in to fill the breach in official outreaches to the lakhs of hapless citizens at the mercy of the flood waters in Chennai and places south last week.Food app Zomato launched a ‘Meal for Flood relief’ initiative promising to provide one meal free for every one ordered.

Mobile Taxi aggregators Ola and Uber made all rides in Chennai free and also moved relief supplies. Some 55,000 meals were booked by people in other parts of India, and over a lakh of meals were delivered.The message was clear: Indians as individuals and corporates are pitching in at Tamil Nadu’s hour of need and putting to use the Internet-driven tools and technologies that have empowered them in recent years.Tweets for help were sorted and resent by thousands of volunteers.For the Indian government, social media and Internet have been like the urumi or flexible sword of kalaripayattu or Kerala martial arts fame: a double edged weapon: to be exploited by the likes of Prime Minister Modi for cutting a direct path to the electorate, even while exercising extreme caution to ensure that it doesn’t wound itself in the process.FaceBook activated its Safety Check tool, Chennai Flooding: "Quickly find and connect with friends in the area.
Earlier this year the UK government appointed Tracey Crouch into the newly established post of ‘Minister for Loneliness’. All of us our subject to the tyranny of medicalisationUnlike old school tyrants who openly wished to impose their will on society, todays crusaders against loneliness are well-meaning people who are simply trying to make people feel good. Our solitude provides a space where we can be free from any external pressure and control. Loneliness can be a source of desolation and anguish. The theologian, Paul Tillich, took a distinctly nonmedical view of loneliness.campaigntoendloneliness. Humans have struggled to explain and understand what it means to be alone. Earlier this month, a survey carried out by Facebook concluded that young people are likely to be even more lonely than the youngiii.When being lonely is regarded as a risk factor akin to smoking or being obese it becomes evident that peoples inner life has become the object of medicalisation. What Arendt, Tillich and other philosophers understood was that the meaning of life can be gained through our solitude. She believed that the anguish of loneliness could be managed through the habit of conversing with oneself.In the United Kingdom, the Royal College of General Practitioners has recently asserted that doctors should be able to prescribe exercise classes, cooking groups and quiz teams to the growing number of ‘lonely and miserable patients’.thetimes. It has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. Social prescribing means getting general practitioners to prescribe community projects, sports, arts and gardening activities to their lonely patients.    (The writer is a sociologist and commentator besides author of 17 full-length books. So when researchers conclude that loneliness is a ‘comparable risk factor for early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and is worse for us than well-known risk factors such as obesity and physical inactivity’, they speak the language of Orwellian propaganda rather than of scienceiv. In recent years experts have discovered the condition of ‘loneliness at work’ and now the problem has expanded to include the young. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone. This is a feeling that has profound and complex, and very personal meanings, which cannot be reduced to quantifiable numbers. Murthy, asserted that loneliness is best thought of as an epidemic ‘because it affects a great number of people in our country’ and also because ‘one person’s loneliness can have an impact on another person’. For example, a report published in the beginning of May claims that nearly half of Americans report that they feel ‘sometimes or always’ lonely and 20 per cent of those surveyed indicated https://www.hwugu.com that they never feel close to people and do not have anyone to talk toi.What’s fascinating about the current anti-loneliness crusade is that it does not confine its focus on the elderly. But far from being a health problem, loneliness provides people with an opportunity to reflect on and try to understand their place in the world. What they do not understand is that not only there is no cure for loneliness but that if doctors ever came up with an anti-loneliness pill, it would actually be a curse!Finding meaning in our lives rather than searching for a quick-fix cure is what helps us deal with the problems of existence. Campaigners against loneliness use big numbers drawn from badly cobbled together surveys to highlight the gravity of the problem. Nietzsche’s little essay, Schopenhauer as Educator (1874), offers an eloquent warning on this point: ‘Wherever there have been powerful societies, governments, religions, or public opinions — in short, wherever there was any kind of tyranny, it has hated the lonely philosopher; for philosophy opens up a refuge for man where no tyranny can reach: the cave of inwardness, the labyrinth of the breast; and that annoys all tyrants.org/loneliness-research/. There are constant demands to find a cure for a condition that is actually a normal feature of human existence. She wrote that ‘though alone, I am together with somebody (myself) that is’.Launching her government’s ‘loneliness strategy’ this month, British Prime Minister Theresa May has called for the institutionalisation of ‘social prescribing’.Tillich drew attention to the two sides of loneliness. It is a precious space that we open up to the gaze of doctors and health experts at the risk of undermining our sense of moral independence.The former American Surgeon General, Dr Vivek H.prnewswire.’In the 21st century, it is not simply lonely philosophers who confront busybody experts committed to relieving them of the burden of feeling alone. Yet, she argued that this nightmare is a symptom of the difficulty we have to engage with ourselves.telegraph.The rhetoric used to discuss the epidemic of loneliness self-consciously is alarmist. Throughout history loneliness was a subject of contemplation and philosophical reflection. They argue that family doctors spend too much time with what they call ‘heart-sink patients’, that is people who suffer from loneliness rather than a conventional medical conditionii.co. He wrote:"Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone.Theologians and philosophers devoted considerable energy and time attempting to understand loneliness.Paradoxically solitude is essential for the development of human subjectivity and of freedom. For Arendt, solitude had a positive connotation. A similar approach is promoted in Australia, where the Government is under pressure to turn loneliness into a political issue."The philosopher, Hannah Arendt, elaborated the two sides of loneliness.Of course it is not pleasant to feel alone. She described loneliness as ‘that nightmare which, we all know, can very well overcome us in the midst of a crowd’ when we feel ‘deserted by oneself’. The current trend for transforming the intangible dimensions of our inner life into calculable quantities is a central feature of the project of medicalising human experience. She called this ‘silent dialogue of myself with myself’, solitude.Even politicians have joined in on the new crusade against abolishing loneliness.As a sociologist, I am sceptical about reports that purport to quantify an existential condition like happiness, fear or loneliness. His latest book, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century, is published by Bloomsbury Press). He stated that it is a condition that we need to embrace because it forces us to engage with lifes two most fundamental questions: what is the meaning of life and how should we use our free will and subjectivity to understand ourselves.The appointment comes in the aftermath of a series of alarming reports about the prevalence of loneliness among the elderly. Until recent times loneliness was associated with old age. Murthy’s claim that loneliness is akin to a contagious epidemic that can spread from one person to another represents a radical version of the growing trend to medicalise, what has always been an integral feature of the human condition. That is why so many great thinkers of the past would be shocked and surprised to discover that in the 21st century loneliness has been rebranded as a medical problem!During the past couple of years the Anglo-American world has become overwhelmed with what is increasingly described as an epidemic of loneliness.
The NGO has also roped in Stree Mukti Sanghatana to provide staff for maintaining the compost pits. The residents in partnership with non-government organisation (NGO) Bravo have set the deadline as December to make the entire area a zero-garbage one.On a pilot basis, two housing societies have successfully become a  part of the ‘zero-waste’ campaign by installing compost pits on their premises."Once segregated, the wet waste goes for composting in the compost pits and the manure obtained from there is utilised for gardening in the society."We have donated the pits to the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and fire brigade buildings in the reclamation area where composting work will start by October 6. Aditya Birla Group is funding the project as a Corporate Social Responsbility initiative.

Mumbai: The residents of Bandra Reclamation are all set to make their surroundings a ‘zero-garbage’ area by December, wherein wet waste will be treated in the area itself instead of sending it to the dumping ground.Furthermore, 30 such projects are planned for residential as https://www.hwugu.com/ well as education and government organisations..The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation felicitated these societies on Monday. The dry waste goes to the ward’s dry waste collection centre," said Ms D’Souza.

The staff members are selected from women workers who manage the waste at dumping grounds. Two buildings, Agasti and Anand Sagar had started with composting in the month of April and have been successfully treating the waste generated from the 28 flats in each building.Under the zero-garbage initiative, 70 residential buildings and 12 government and educational institutions will be covered.The women are trained and then sent to such private premises for waste management duties. Lilavati Hospital and Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped too will also soon start composting," added Ms D’Souza."By December we want to make the entire reclamation area garbage-free," said Deepika D’Souza, Bandra Reclamation resident.
It created the new Pavlovian, policy patriots who beat out "yes" to anything the regime inaugurates. But is targeting an act of hygiene, of reform or does it smell more of vigilantism and a witch-hunt?X felt one can sense this in the performative acts of a policy. How does policy handle differences? How does one map a differential terrain of suffering? Does Mr Modi’s policy have a narrative for that?How does Mr Modi and his experts look at ordinary people? He talks of kadak chai but do ordinary people figure in his mind? Where in his calculus do we evaluate or mourn the roll call of the unnecessarily dead people who died because the families did not have ready cash. Demonetisation desperately needs such a remedy. It is the regime, right or wrong for the nth time.As spectators, what we then confront is the noise of policy not against critiques but the silences of the first week. One needs capital with a small "c" for subsistence economies. One discovers money is critical in small amounts.Sometimes news as a backyard creates a world of reflections, meditations on news, which are more profound than the event itself. I will call him X." One begins wondering whether the wrong groups are suffering. The initial drama of demonetisation then loses out to doubt and confusion. Many people hoard cash with none out of the villainy that policy https://www.hwugu.com/ attributes to hoarders. One realises that the timetables of the government are meaningless. Suddenly lines fall apart in consternation as those waiting patiently discover that ATMs do not have sufficient money. Language for him was both sign and symptom. The illiteracy of policy, the barrack yard of assumptions that accompanied its advance is lost. They feel exposed and even criminal before the husband as patriarch. Is Narendra Modi admiring himself or is he looking critically at policy? Does he have a Manichean sense of the world? If so, X asked is policy based on trust? Does Mr Modi see it as a part of the social contract? Or is Mr Modi like Sanjay Gandhi so utterly determined to fight poverty that he eliminates the poor? Ironically, policy in empowering the state might disempower people. It is this part that the media has been indifferent to.

If policy does not produce such an ethnography, democracy gets weakened.What do ordinary people feel about demonetisation? One senses little of this in the initial drumbeat of policy. How do they manage, cope with such artificial shortages? The demonology of black money has no place for ordinary people and ordinary lives. Mr Modi has to realise that policy is not a magic wand but a muddy process that he has muddied further with bad homework. All these are poor who turn up again. The slick policy statements confront the sheer anarchy of streets. Mr Modi does not seem capable of listening to it. While they write certificates of conduct for the PM, the ATMs become the nerve centres of the city. One needs a new kind of storyteller for such an epic. For X, an ethical editorship of news was a way of keeping the story open. This essay is a tribute to the professionalism of such a man. The language becomes didactic and politics becomes demagogic. Ready cash is the language of emergency, not of the black market.Suddenly one realises money means different things to different people.As the journalist hears different narratives, the uniformity of policy which one tacitly assumed so far is challenged. It revealed both the arrogance of power and its ironies. If the PM announces it as a threat, plays demagogue and the citizens echo him like a well-meaning chorus, then it does not augur well for democracy. The problem of pollution moves to the background as people wait for hours in line. Black money makes little sense to the daily wage-worker. Black money and "black" people become targets.

But there is little nuance and understanding in this group. Sociology begins giving a different picture of the economy. It takes the Supreme Court to point out this simple fact, that people cannot keep waiting. Housewives, migrant labourers, daily wage and dhaba workers need small amounts of money, which dry up in the demonetisation sun. It is democracy that is sounding vulnerable. People are too busy salvaging money, handling day-to-day survival to resist, oppose or even write little editorials on policy. One also confronts the everyday suffering of daily wager and students. The storyteller begins asking whether the government has even done its homework. Both are narratives, which had to be questioned as narratives. One of the most interesting of editors is a recent friend who hinted that editing is often like the mythical cleaning of stables, leaving the editor brain dead. By that time one hears that the government has thawed, offering concessions to families who are planning marriages. The tenor of policy is overemphasised when policy trumpets out its targets. Doubts accumulate about the great preparation and sink into the general tiredness of the day. Different people read it differently.Time becomes another significant variable.X warned against the narcissism of power.My friend was deeply concerned with language. It is now the government that seems to be creating law and order situations. Policy inaugurates its speech with a megaphone instead of creating a quieter accompaniment of hearing aids. The inversion is ironic but the media does not mention it. Ordinary citizens need small stashes to survive the everyday crises of economic life.

Humour gives way to the cynical as people realise that a lot of black money is already legitimate as gold and real estate, or reworked as savings.When the demonetisation project started, X quietly established a parallel between interrogating news and questioning policy.Policy on the ground is demanding a different set of narratives. Marriage without small change can be a heavy-handed affair. But there are a few stories about the difficulties of ordinary people. An editor not only evaluates script, he interrogates news. Many housewives who store money in little closets find themselves at a loss. Part of this takes place through the rituals of gardening, weeding, trimming that are the tasks of an editor. The professionalism, integrity and competence required is quite demanding. Meanwhile, the experts we hear, the editorials we read are of predictable sages who sound holier than the PM himself. Interrogating news is often like interrogating power. Is there a point of ending, or do people play the waiting game of lines endlessly? A bank official watching the lines was heard saying: "I do not see rich people waiting. The power of storytelling becomes crucial. Policy, he hinted, becomes an act of navel-gazing.
To take just one example, loss of customer privacy is all but inevitable, despite efforts to create safeguards. However, digital finance can have negative effects for financial inclusion. Making India cashless is like treating multiple chronic societal diseases with one injection.2 per cent during 2017-18.

First, physical banking is relatively costlier and riskier for consumers to perform even while engaging in basic financial activities — payments, savings, investments and remittances. They must use a https://www.hwugu.com/ less-aggressive marketing tactic to persuade low-income and poor customers to use new or existing digital platforms or infrastructure if they believe the latter cannot afford the associated fees. Sparse populations, inconsistent network coverage, insufficient capital for building new business models and customers’ lack of trust and comfort with technology can stand in the way of success, particularly in remote or undeserved communities. Corporate providers of digital finance services can discriminately use a more aggressive marketing tactic to persuade high- and middle-income customers to use a new or existing digital finance platform or infrastructure. What we know is that debt burden and repayment capacity must be adequately scrutinised.In several cases pure reliance on computers has many a time proved to be deceptive. Digital tools have fostered speedier and more inclusive growth by dramatically reducing financial service providers’ costs and making services more convenient and accessible for users, especially low-income subscribers in remote locations. However, there are several challenges peculiar to India that may constrain a full-scale digital transition in the foreseeable future. Governments around the world will have to step up and take control of the regulatory provisions of digital financial inclusion to deal with discrete challenges, like above that have emerged with the rampant use of technology and multiple stakeholders in the arena. Although it would be impossible for India to become a cashless economy in the immediate future, this is definitely something the country can look forward to. Second, it is very costly for utility firms, banks, insurance companies and other institutions to transact with them as it makes their operations infeasible and unsustainable.

The corresponding value of these transactions has soared to Rs 1,638,495 billion over the same period. They grew by 19.  During this transition, it’s in everyone’s interest to pay heed to the words of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2004, when the world was in the midst of an earlier phase of digital upheaval: "In managing, promoting and protecting the Internet’s presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative than those who invented it. This stems from their lack of trust in it. And the risks of implementing digital financial services are not just operational and technical: There are also concerns about the security, affordability and safety of these new financial channels.The fintech revolution is led by a host of players, including commercial banks, telecommunication firms, payment banks, small finance banks and financial technology companies.5 per cent during 2018-19, compared to the growth of 22.According to the latest RBI report, between financial years 2017 and 2019, the number of digital transactions in India shot up by 139 per cent to 23,373 million transactions. Clearly, there is a need for governance, but that does not necessarily mean that it has to be done in the traditional way, for something that is so very different. Digital channels offer a robust fix for the problems encountered by both consumers and financial institutions in traditional systems of finance. Someone might pay off your loan well, but computer modelling tells them that anyone from a particular area is likely to default. It will actually involve a migration to new social and cultural patterns and habits.

The aversion of the "other India" to digital finance has more to do with their aversion to everything that has to do with technology. For India’s financial inclusion industry to capitalise fully on the benefits of digital finance, the accompanying risks must be understood and adequately addressed.The financial industry’s efforts to serve lower-income customers have gone through four distinct phases — from social banking to microfinance to financial inclusion and now to technology-driven financial services or digital financial inclusionDigital technologies have now become the most powerful lever for financial inclusion and are considered the smartest way to rapidly unlock economic opportunity and accelerate social development with economic empowerment.Digital finance also offers major technological and infrastructure challenges. Money sits in a virtual account on a server where it can be transferred with the click of a button. If this is not the case, it can lead to over-lending and customer over-indebtedness, or rejection of a loan based on opaque reasoning, including arbitrary profiling based on factors such as location. In microfinance individual traits can best be captured by personal interface. India has to contend with a geographical and cultural divide of a great magnitude. Most of the financial work can now be done via the smartphone, improving payment systems, eliminating paper receipts and reducing a number of frictions thus not only saving customers’ time and money, but improving their quality of life. Meanwhile, the phenomenal data footprint provided by smartphones and data-connected mobile phones is providing an unprecedented opportunity to bring people with limited credit-history into the formal mainstream through alternate credit profiles. There are marked demographic and class issues built into India’s cashless transition. Women often face additional barriers: Less access to mobile phone, lower literacy and numeracy levels, less confidence in using technology and restrictions on travel or social interaction.

In many markets, cash is fast becoming obsolete and transactions are mostly via digital tools."The writer is a member of the Niti Aayogs National Committee on Financial Literacy and Inclusion for Women. In conjunction with this digital data, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can assess the credit worthiness of the user, making it possible to provide loans to them even in the absence of a traditional credit history. Adequate knowledge of challenges in the path of digital financial inclusion, is a priority, for it to be addressed with precision. It is also partly on account of low technical literacy of consumers.Fintech has freed bank staff from counters and relieved customers of the inconvenience of transacting solely during banking hours. Evidence shows that the best clients have been those who got an entry not on the strength of credit scores but on the basis of their transparent and unvarnished honesty shining through their financial dealings. Banking is also moving into a presence-less, paperless and real-time era: While there will always be bank branches, banks will become more "invisible" in how they deliver their services — many of which will primarily be accessed online.

In contrast to digital financial systems, physical channels are prohibitive for even low-income populations.The popular term for the digital financial revolution is "fintech", which has fundamentally changed people’s lives and transformed the business landscape. It offers a preview of what the global banking model may look like a generation from now. It has accordingly set an ambitious target to push up the volumes of digital transactions by four times by 2021.Digital finance payments and financial services delivered via mobile phones and the internet are greasing the wheels of the economic system and transforming the lives and economic prospects of individuals, businesses and governments across the developing world, thus boosting GDP and making the goal of financial inclusion a reality. It is harnessing technology to reinvent traditional business models, creating opportunities to connect India’s hitherto unbanked communities to affordable and reliable financial tools at an unprecedented speed and scale. Furthermore, villagers’ value personal relationships — particularly when it comes to money. Providers of digital finance services can be profit-seeking corporations that use digital finance to maximise their profitability or to maximise the profitable opportunities of businesses affiliated with digital finance providers, namely banks, financial and non-financial institutions.This is a challenge that goes unrecognised with the changing dynamics of digital financial inclusion. They will not trust technology that they do not understand for anything except very basic paymentsIndia culturally believes in cash and a paradigm shift in thinking will need time and resources. The central bank report says that, over the years, the digital finance landscape has witnessed unprecedented waves of innovation.