The Startups That Give You a Second Opinion on Costly Surgery (BusinessWeek)

Employers say double-checking doctors' orders can control medical costs

In the window before his kids wake up and he has to go to work, Dr. Gregory Gebauer helps people he's never met avoid needless surgery. That's when the Florida spine surgeon reads charts and examines MRI or X-ray scans referred to him through a company called Grand Rounds, a San Francisco startup that promises to save employers money and help their workers find better care. He often finds that patients have been given an inaccurate diagnosis or recommended for an operation unlikely to help them. "There’s certainly a time and place for surgery, but usually, at least in my practice, I recommend other things before jumping to surgery," says Gebauer, who has reviewed more than 50 cases from patients across the U.S.

The full-time orthopedic surgeon is one of an army of expert doctors who moonlight remotely for Grand Rounds, which has raised $106 million in venture capital, including a $55 million round announced today.  The four-year-old company, which takes its name from the term for expert presentations doctors give to their colleagues, has signed such clients as Comcast, Costco, and Jamba Juice. About 60 percent of large employers plan to offer tools like second-opinion services or other advice to help patients make medical decisions in 2016, up from 48 percent this year, according to a survey of 140 large companies by the National Business Group on Health. Grand Rounds Chief Executive Owen Tripp says about two-thirds of all its reviews lead to changes in diagnosis or treatment. The number "still shocks me,” Tripp says. "Most of the frontline care we deliver today is either inadequate or ineffective."

Grand Rounds and its competition—companies such as Best Doctors, 2nd.MD, and Accolade—are trying to help employers deal with a problem that plagues American health care: wild deviations in care among different providers and regions. For example, patients in Bradenton, Fla., get a controversial spinal fusion surgery for lower-back problems almost 14 times more frequently than patients in Bangor, Me., according to data from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which tracks disparities in care.

That kind of variation is at least partly responsible for America’s outsize medical costs, which are higher per capita than anywhere else. It’s some combination of errors, differences in professional judgement, and a payment system that often creates incentives for doctors to prescribe treatments most lucrative for them. "There is a tremendous amount of misdiagnosis that goes on," says Lewis Levy, chief quality officer at Best Doctors, which contracts with 50,000 physicians to do remote second opinions for clients. The doctors are recommended by peers as leaders in their field.

Second-opinion services allow employers to take a softer approach than enforcing strict rules requiring workers to get permission before seeking costly treatments. Most companies that offer services like Grand Rounds and Best Doctors make them voluntary, and though there may be incentives to get a medical decision reviewed, workers can usually skip the second opinion or ignore it if they disagree. That makes the services seem less coercive than restrictive HMO rules. It also means companies sometimes struggle to get workers to use them. "One of the biggest knocks on this is no matter how much you communicate this, at the time the employee needs this, they may not remember that that service is available to them," says Shari Davidson, vice president of health-care cost and delivery at the National Business Group on Health, a nonprofit alliance of large employers.

A group of Pittsburgh-area school districts that buy health care together through the Allegheny County Schools Health Insurance Consortium began using Grand Rounds this spring. Outreach through mailings, a quarterly magazine, and direct prompts from Grand Rounds based on peoples’ medical claims have gotten 15 people to use the second-opinion service so far, says Jan Klein, the group’s trustee chairman. "We can’t force it on people," she says. "Well, we could. But we don’t."

At least one employee avoided a surgery after the expert reviewer "said absolutely not a good thing to do, not justified, no research that this operation will help this person," Klein says. Though she expects the service to save money, Klein says getting people the proper diagnosis and treatment is more important. "Sometimes their costs are more than it would have been under the wrong diagnosis," she says, "but they would have been treated for the wrong thing."

Will Saudi Arabia’s economy crumble from cheap oil?

The oil price was near its lowest in more than a decade, cash reserves were being depleted, emerging markets were in turmoil and Saudi Arabia was beginning to panic.

“It was a very scary moment,” said Khalid Alsweilem, former head of investment at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the country’s central bank. “And luckily at that point, oil prices started going up. Not by design, by good luck.”

That was 1998, and now Saudi Arabia’s fortunes threaten to turn again. This time, luck might not be enough as the government tries to protect the wealth of a nation whose economy has swelled by five times since then. The bastion of conservative Sunni Islam also is paying for an expanding role in regional conflicts in the face of a resurgent Iran and Islamic State extremists who have bombed Saudi mosques.

Economists are predicting a budget deficit of as much as 20 percent of gross domestic product and the International Monetary Fund forecasts a first Saudi current-account deficit in more than a decade. Reserves at the central bank tumbled 10 percent from a year ago, or by more than $70 billion.

As a result, bets on the devaluation of the riyal are surging. The Tadawul All Share Index lost 18 percent in the past three months and dragged stocks down across the Gulf region. The benchmark’s moving averages made a so-called death cross on Aug. 18, a sign to some investors that more losses are ahead.

Patient Saudis

The Saudis have “played a waiting game,” Robert Burgess, Deutsche Bank AG’s chief economist for emerging markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said from London. “The budget for next year is going to be a very important milestone that the markets are going to be focusing on quite intently.”

With oil prices down by more than half over the past 12 months to below $50, Saudi Arabia faces many of the same financial problems it did in 1998.

“There’s a long list of things that Saudi officials can do before touching the livelihood of ordinary Saudis”

The difference is the sheer cost of maintaining the state as an employment machine and guarantor of the riches that Saudis have become accustomed to since the last squeeze. Subsidized gasoline costs 16 cents per liter and while there’s the religious levy called zakat, there is no personal income tax in the nation of 30 million people.

“The Saudi government can’t continue to be the employer of first resort, it can’t continue to drive economic growth through the big infrastructure projects and it can’t keep lavishing on subsidies and social spending,” said Farouk Soussa, chief Middle East economist for Citigroup Inc. in London.

Taking Action

That’s not to suggest Saudi Arabia is headed for the kind of spending cuts and tax increases more familiar to austerity-hit Europeans. The government, for instance, could first freeze the expansion of two mosques in Mecca or tax wealthy landowners, Jamal Khashoggi, a former media adviser to Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, said by phone from Riyadh.

“There’s a long list of things that Saudi officials can do before touching the livelihood of ordinary Saudis,” said Khashoggi. “Yes, it’s a difficult time and maybe it could have been much better if we did what we’re doing today a couple of years ago when the price of oil was in the $100s.”

During those good times, King Abdullah, who ruled from 2005 until his death in January, increased social spending as the Arab Spring uprisings toppled leaders elsewhere.

It’s also not like Saudi Arabia has no control over its destiny. Oil rebounded after 1998 – the price of crude advanced in 11 of the 16 calendar years since then – not least because the Saudis used their clout as the de facto leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.

What Crisis?

The country has declined to cut production and lift prices over the past year to gain market share from the shale industry in the U.S. and other producers with higher expenses, even if that’s come at a cost to its finances. Saudi Arabia still has $664 billion of net foreign assets, equal to almost 90 percent of the economy, and little debt.

“I wouldn’t say there’s any kind of crisis or even a crisis on the near horizon,” said David Butter, associate fellow at Chatham House in London. “They’re in the oil business. They’ve had it pretty good for quite a long time and that’s not typical.”

Even so, the IMF recommends that Saudi Arabia control its growing wage bill, make changes to government subsidies for fuel and electricity and bring in more non-oil revenue through taxes. The country’s breakeven oil price – the point at which it can balance its budget – is about $100, said Soussa at Citigroup.

Fuel subsidies alone will cost Saudi Arabia as much as 195 billion riyals ($52 billion) this year, or 8 percent of GDP, Riyadh-based Samba Financial Group said in an Aug. 18 report. Central bank Governor Fahad al-Mubarak already has called for a review of price subsidies.

A new economic council headed by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could help make the changes if it can move quickly, said Alsweilem, the former investment chief who is now a fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.

While less per capita than in smaller energy-rich Gulf states Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, the relative wealth of Saudi Arabia means the government might need to tread carefully. Any adjustment will be “jarring,” said Soussa.

“These are things that are absolutely politically explosive,” he said. “You’ve gotten accustomed to a certain lifestyle and that lifestyle is far in excess in terms of luxury that was prevailing in 1998.”

http://www.bloomberg.com

A Bank for People Who Hate Banks (BusinessWeek)

Mondo CEO Tom Blomfield doesn't look like a typical banker, and he doesn't want his mobile app to behave like a typical bank.

Tom Blomfield, the 29-year-old CEO of Mondo, says his grandmother wouldn't bank with his app, but he's betting a big segment of the U.K. population would.

On a sweltering afternoon in July, Tom Blomfield emerges from Bank of England offices in the heart of the City of London and promptly sheds his suit jacket. Blomfield, the 29-year-old, bearded CEO of Mondo, a startup smartphone bank that’s applying to operate in the U.K., isn’t the suit-wearing type. He’s eager to get back to his Clerkenwell workspace for a beer to celebrate Mondo’s surmounting a big hurdle in its quest for a banking license.

Blomfield and his team have just spent two hours getting grilled by eight regulators from the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its October issue. The officials quizzed them on how Mondo will attract customers and remain financially viable. After poring over Mondo’s 250-page submission, which included details of its capital and liquidity plans, the group pressed Blomfield on why he wanted to run a bank. “They said he didn’t look like a typical banker,” recalls Mondo Chairman Denise Kingsmill, who, as a member of the House of Lords and a former deputy chairman of the U.K.’s Competition Commission, added a touch of gravitas to the presentation.

Blomfield had a ready retort: “I said I want to run a new type of bank.”

When he’s not trying to charm regulators, Blomfield shows the kind of passion—and irritation—it takes to build a bank from scratch. His catalog of complaints about big lenders is familiar to most consumers: hours of paperwork to open an account or apply for a loan, exorbitant fees for using your credit card abroad, onerous overdraft charges, and clunky mobile apps. “I wake up and say: ‘My bank is so bad. These guys are dinosaurs!’” Blomfield says. “It impacts me, my family, all my friends. We all have to use banking, and it’s broken.”

Blomfield wants to make Mondo the Google or Facebook of banking with accounts that are as easy to use as e-mail. “We are targeting a demographic that values being able to do everything over a mobile phone in five seconds,” he says.

If Blomfield and Kingsmill get their way, Mondo won’t be just another snazzy app using the license of an existing bank. That’s been done in the U.S. by Simple.com, which piggybacks onto Bancorp Bank, and in Germany by Number26, which is bolted to Wirecard Bank. Unlike most other startups, Mondo has built proprietary software. If Mondo gets a license from the BOE’s Prudential Regulation Authority, it could—as early as next year—begin taking deposits and lending money.

Denise Kingsmill, a member of the House of Lords, serves as Mondo's chairman

Should Mondo pass muster, it might thank Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. He’s overseen the regulatory revamp that’s made it easier for startup banks to get off the ground. In a speech last year at Canary Wharf tech accelerator Level39, Osborne said he wanted to make London the “fintech capital of the world.” In March, he said the Bank of England should grant at least 15 new licenses in the next five years.

“Osborne is a real tech geek,” says Rohan Silva, a former technology adviser at 10 Downing Street, pointing out that the chancellor learned to code as a teenager. “Investors and entrepreneurs haven’t started new banks in this country because they knew the regulators wouldn’t let them,” he says. “We thought if we took away regulatory barriers, fintech would explode.”

When it comes to British banking, such innovation looks long overdue. The big four banks—Barclays, HSBC Holdings, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, and Lloyds Banking Group—control 77 percent of the U.K.’s 65 million personal checking accounts. Customers aren’t overwhelmingly happy with the available choices. Only 60 percent say they’re satisfied with their bank, a 2014 survey from consulting firm Accenture found.

It used to be exceedingly difficult to start a bank in the U.K. The process took years and required millions of pounds in upfront capital, without any indication whether regulators would give their seal of approval. When a bricks-and-mortar lender called Metro Bank opened its doors in 2010, it was the first new retail bank U.K. regulators had authorized in 100 years—and it took them almost two years to OK it. Today, Metro has more than 500,000 customers, and deposits surged 188 percent to £2.9 billion ($4.5 billion) last year. While Metro’s branches are open seven days a week and feature amenities such as water bowls for dogs, the bank began offering a mobile app only last year.

The application process is now simpler—for both physical banks like Metro and digital ones like Mondo. Under BOE and FCA rules, a new entrant can hold as little as £1 million in capital initially. An applicant needs common equity Tier 1 capital of 4.5 percent of risk-weighted assets, significantly less than the 9.5 percent required under the old rules that still apply to existing banks. The Bank of England says it will use its discretion to give startups more time than before to build the additional capital required under Basel III.

“Regulators here are much more progressive and open than in the U.S.,” says Eileen Burbidge, an American who’s a partner at Passion Capital, the London venture firm that in April gave Mondo $2 million in seed money. “If you’re doing leading-edge fintech, London is the place to be.”

Indeed, investment in fintech companies is growing faster in the U.K. than it is anywhere else in the world. Last year, London’s fintech startups attracted £343 million, triple the amount invested in the previous year, according to London & Partners, a firm set up by London Mayor Boris Johnson to promote the city. U.K. fintech companies raised £306 million in the first half of 2015 alone. With venture capital red-hot for fintech, Mondo’s goal to attract a further $15 million to begin operating as a bank looks modest. The sum would cover additional hiring and marketing as well as initial capital to back any lending losses.

Eileen Burbidge is a partner at Passion Capital, which gave Mondo $2 million in seed money

More banks are getting the green light—and getting it faster. Thirteen have won licenses since the regulatory changes in 2013. In June, Atom Bank became the U.K.’s first digital-only lender to secure approval, just six months after it formally applied. It expects to begin opening accounts next year, focusing on its mobile app to target small and medium-sized businesses and consumers.

Atom likely will beat Mondo to the market. It has attracted £25 million in financing from such big names as Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs economist who’s now the U.K. Treasury’s commercial secretary, and venture capitalist Jon Moulton. “It’s in everyone’s interest to digitize as much of the customer experience as you can because it costs less,” says Mark Mullen, Atom’s CEO, who ran First Direct, the telephone bank set up by HSBC in 1989. Atom hasn’t revealed details of its mobile app. Mullen says only that he hopes to use biometric security and locational data to enrich the offering.

In contrast, Mondo is an open book. It’s in the process of rolling out a prototype app and prepaid MasterCard to 500 people initially to get feedback on which parts are popular and which aren’t. “We don’t want to be building a bank behind closed doors,” Blomfield says. “The real value is not in the ideas but in the execution.”

Blomfield’s time at Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator in 2011 shapes his approach, so much so that he sometimes dons a T-shirt with the Y Combinator motto: “Make Something People Want.” Blomfield earned a law degree at the University of Oxford. A few years later, he teamed up with two fellow Oxford grads to build GoCardless, a simplified system for companies to accept recurring payments. Today, it’s used by the Guardian to collect subscriptions and the U.K. government for road taxes. Blomfield still has a stake in GoCardless, which processes $1 billion of transactions a year.

Once GoCardless was up and running, Blomfield set his sights on banking for consumers. He joined with experienced bankers to get Mondo off the ground. The chief risk officer is Paul Rippon, the former head of operations at Allied Irish Bank; the chief financial officer is Gary Dolman, the former CFO of Japan’s Mizuho Internationa

Gen Y is embracing phone-based banking in greater percentages than other generations.

While technology has changed every aspect of our lives, Blomfield says consumer banking has remained frozen in time. Banks continue to offer customers a static list of deposits and withdrawals rather than providing timely updates or useful tools to analyze spending or saving. In a world of instant messaging, many lenders don’t communicate in real time. Blomfield’s current bank (which he declines to name) took two weeks to alert him he’d overdrawn his account by £800 and then charged him £20. “The banks have their hands in your pockets constantly, taking money out,” he says.

The Mondo app is designed to tell you if you mess up. It lets you set up real-time notifications that say how much you’ve spent daily or whether you’re going into overdraft. If you need £500 to tide you over to payday, Mondo will tell you how much it will cost for a short-term loan instead of charging you after the fact.

Pulling out his phone, Jason Bates, Mondo’s 43-year-old co-founder and chief customer officer, shows his Mondo prototype app. He’d just had a burger with his wife at Five Guys in Soho, which turned up immediately on his account with a map of where he’d used his Mondo card. With a swipe, he demonstrates how you can turn off the card if you lose your wallet and immediately turn it back on if you find it. You can even block your card at pubs to encourage a dry spell.

By tracking your regular bills, Mondo can alert you if something is out of the ordinary, like a utility charge that’s higher than normal. This smarter use of data can help detect fraud, Bates says. “We see your phone is in Manchester but your card was being used in London,” he says. “We can block your card and send you a text saying: ‘Something is fishy. Can you confirm?’”

Mondo's app lets you track expenses as you spend and provides weekly reports

Blomfield and Bates say Mondo could charge much lower fees and still become profitable because its cost base is a fraction of what major banks shoulder. Old-style lenders are saddled with the expenses of maintaining branches and updating antiquated IT systems. 

Back-end computer systems that process transactions can date to the 1970s and have had meltdowns, says David Parker, head of banking at Accenture in London. Last year, British regulators fined RBS £56 million for a computer failure in 2012 that left 6.5 million customers without access to their accounts for weeks after a contractor updated software. The problems “revealed unacceptable weaknesses in our systems,” Philip Hampton, RBS’s chairman, said.

“It’s difficult to build an app that’s fantastic when you have an ugly core banking system,” Parker says. “The banks have to change quickly or they run the risk their customers will desert them.” 

Not everyone is convinced tech-savvy banks will lure enough customers from the big four to become major players. New fintech banks may have a hard time attracting more than just “hardcore money geeks,” says James Moed, a consultant to fintech startups and a former director of IDEO,  where he was a London-based financial services designer. “Most people find managing their money boring and regard banking as a utility,” Moed says. “I’m not sure great apps will motivate people enough to switch.”

Even so, mobile bank users globally are forecast to more than double by 2019, according to a 2015 KPMG report. Generation Y, the so-called millennials, born from the 1980s to the early 2000s, may be the most fertile hunting ground. Almost 67 percent prefer mobile apps for banking, compared with 46 percent of baby boomers, aged 51 to 69, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. A study by Viacom’s Scratch research unit called “Sorry Banks, Millennials Hate You” found 71 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds would rather go to the dentist than listen to what their bank says.

Blomfield acknowledges that Mondo isn’t for everyone. “My grandmother would not use this bank,” he says. “But a big segment of the population would.”

He likens the banking behemoths to Blockbuster Video, while digital startups such as Mondo are like Netflix. With the right technology and open-minded regulation, Blomfield says, even as staid and entrenched an industry as retail banking can be disrupted. “We think,” says the guy who doesn’t look like a typical banker, “there will be a generational shift in how banking works.”

Calendario de Eventos de CAMACOL / CAMACOL Calendar of Events

The Calendar of Events is a tool to be informed of everything CAMACOL does in the Calendar Year. It is in our WEB Site,   http://camacol.org/events/

El Calendario de Eventos es la Herramienta que permite mantenerse informado de todo lo que hace CAMACOL en el Año Calendario. Está en nuestro Sitio WEB, en:

http://camacol.org/events/ 

Iraq’s oil output climbs to record despite fighting

Iraq’s crude production climbed to an all-time high in July with record exports from southern terminals mostly unscathed by Islamic State militants.

Output in OPEC’s second-largest crude producer rose to 4.18 million barrels a day last month from 4.15 million in June, according to the International Energy Agency monthly report on Wednesday. Giant fields in the south cranked out record Basra crude exports of 3.06 million barrels a day, up about 40,000 barrels from June, it said.

Related: OPEC Sees More Balanced Oil Market in 2016

Brent oil dropped 14 percent this year as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries defended market share against booming production in the U.S. Iraq needs to keep increasing oil production because lower oil prices have curbed government revenue at a time when Islamic State militants captured parts of Iraq’s north last year.

Exports in shipments from the north of Iraq through the port of Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast dipped 50,000 barrels a day to about 520,000 barrels a day, according to the IEA. The drop was due to rising tension between the central government and the self-ruled Kurdish regional authorities in the north over oil payments and after an attack at the end of July on an export pipeline inside Turkey, it said. Exports resumed on Aug. 6.

Related: Oil slips in anticipation of Iran deal; IEA data pressures

International oil companies operating KRG’s oil fields have not received revenue from exports since late last year, although they have received some cash for domestic sales, the IEA said.

http://www.bloomberg.com 

Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi: What you need to know

Microsoft has released a version of Windows 10 for the credit card-sized machine. But just what can you do with it? 

Windows 10 IoT Core on the Raspberry Pi

Windows is an unlikely match for the credit card-sized Raspberry Pi computer.

But the Microsoft operating system more commonly associated with bulky desktops is now publicly available for the $35 Pi - which until recently primarily ran Linux-based software.

However, this is no ordinary version of Windows but rather Windows 10 IoT Core - a slimmed-down version of the OS aimed at Internet of Things (IoT) devices and which can be downloaded for free.

Here's what you need to know about running Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi.

Who's this aimed at?

It's primarily designed for developers and hardware hackers who want to prototype IoT appliances using the Pi.

What is Windows 10 IoT Core?

It's not Windows as most people understand it. A fresh install of Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi doesn't boot to the familiar Windows desktop. Instead, Windows 10 IoT Core will show users a single full-screen Universal Windows app. The system will only display the interface of a single app at a time, although additional software can be run in the background. Apps are loaded onto the Pi from a Windows 10 desktop machine.

Which apps will it run?

As mentioned, this isn't a replacement for your Windows desktop. If you're looking for that on the Pi you're better off sticking with something like the Linux-based Raspbian. Windows 10 on the Pi won't run traditional Windows desktop applications with a graphical interface, such as Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer, as these are incompatible with the Pi's ARM-based hardware.

What it will run are Universal Windows apps. These are apps that are written to run on many different types of devices - PCs, phones, tablets, Xboxes and IoT-related machines like the Pi. Universal Windows apps adapt their look and feel depending on which device they are running on - scaling back features where they are not supported by a particular platform but without breaking the app.

Windows 10 on the Pi should be able to run any Universal Windows app. Existing Windows Store apps for Windows 8 machines should also be able to be converted into Universal Windows apps, without "much effort", according to Microsoft. While the Windows Store has faced criticism for the poor selection of apps on offer - there are still a wide variety of apps that could be ported - although the performance on the Pi's smartphone-oriented hardware may vary

However, Microsoft is primarily pushing Windows 10 IoT Core - which can run on hardware with or without screens - as an OS that makes it easier to create IoT devices. This aim of lowering the barrier to building appliances is complemented by the Pi's low price and ability to control a range of hardware via its general-purpose input output (GPIO) pins.

What apps are available?

Microsoft's IoT team and Pi-owners have been busy building since the preview of Windows 10 IoT Core was released for the Pi and other IoT boards in May this year.

Unsurprisingly, much of their efforts have been devoted to controlling robots, such as this rover, this air hockey playing automaton and this wheeled bot. Other creations include a home automation setup and a Pi-powered fan for keeping cool.

How can you make these apps?

Apps can be developed using Visual Studio 2015, Microsoft's Integrated Development Environment for its platforms - whose Community edition can be downloaded for free. They can be written using a range of languages, such as C# or Visual Basic with XAML, JavaScript with HTML, or C++ with DirectX and/or Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML).

What else do you need?

You'll need a PC running Windows 10, Build 10240 or later, to build and deploy apps to the Pi, as well as a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B board. However, some Pi owners claim it's possible to deploy apps to the Pi from Windows 7 and 8 machines. The board can be accessed remotely via Windows PowerShell, as demonstrated in the guides linked below.

How can I get started with Windows 10 on the Pi?

There are already many good primers available on how to create and deploy apps to the Pi - such as this official Microsoft walkthrough or this guide to building an app to switch an LED on and off by Microsoft's Scott Hanselman.

What's the latest with Windows 10 on the Pi?

While a preview build of Windows 10 was released in May, Microsoft released the first public build on August 10. That build brings several improvements, including support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The public Windows 10 IoT Core release also runs on other single-board machines - such as the Intel MinnowBoard Max.

Microsoft is also claiming this latest build improves support for Python and the Node.js JavaScript runtime, as well as delivering better performance when controlling hardware via the Pi's GPIO pins.

It should also soon be simpler to get started building IoT devices for Windows 10 on the Pi, as there are plans to add Windows 10 IoT to the board's NOOBS installer package - which makes it easier to get an operating system set up on the device.

Hustler's ambition: How 500 Startups built a different kind of fund with small bets, diversity, international investments

500 Startups, the startup accelerator and venture fund, has operated full throttle since starting in 2010. Here's how it's become one of the most successful and diverse programs in the market. 

Dave McClure's dreams have bad timing.

Around 2007, McClure began trying to raise his own venture capital fund to invest in new and exciting startups. Unfortunately for him, one of the gravest financial crises in US history was looming just around the bend.

After years working in technology and startups, McClure began advising and investing in startups more formally in the late 2000s. He began working at Founders Fund with Sean Parker and Peter Thiel in the fall of 2008. Around the same time he was also working on Facebook's fbFund. While he couldn't build his own fund at the time, it was a "great plan B."

Then, in early 2010, the time was finally right and McClure, along with co-founder Christine Tsai, founded 500 Startups as an investment fund. The first closing was in July of 2010 and they got an aggressive start.

"We had about 75 investments we made through the end of the year in 2010, which, of course, people thought was kind of insane," McClure said.

The next year the accelerator program began with the first cohort of companies. That same year, 2011, they made some international investments in countries like Japan and India. The international presence of 500 Startups began to deepen as they made initial investments in companies like Mexican VC in Mexico City, which they eventually rolled into 500 Startups as the team on the ground in Mexico.

From the get-go, the founding team had an interest in investing internationally, but it wasn't until they began hiring folks from around the world that it really took off, McClure said. Early partners such as Bedy Yang and Khailee Ng would go on to manage the company's investments in Brazil and Southeast Asia, respectively. Partners Rui Ma, Cesar Salazar, and Santiago Zavala are just some of the others who lead efforts in other countries and regions.

"Gradually, one day we looked and realized almost 30% of our investments were outside the US," McClure said.

So far, 500 Startups has invested in more than 1000 companies across 50 countries. McClure said it is easier for his team to make international investments because of their strategy of making many small bets.

Traditional VC firms make rather large bets in a few companies, usually taking a board seat in the process, so it makes sense for them to invest in companies close by. 500 Startups makes smaller investments in many different companies so they can afford to travel around the world and make bets on emerging markets.

500 Startups' current main fund is $85 million. They also have some microfunds focused on geographic areas like Mexico and parts of Asia, and they have one that focuses exclusively on mobile technology.

They need a large portfolio to have good outcomes, maybe even 500 companies in a given fund, which is where the name 500 Startups comes from. Their first fund was 250 companies, their second fund was more than 300, and their third fund is more than 400, and it might get close to 500.

"A lot of people think our model is kind of crazy, but I would actually correct them and say it's really one of the most conservative strategies around," McClure said. "At least relative to size of [the] bet and percentage of capital deploy."

This allows 500 Startups to take a lot of risks, sometimes moving out of tech and placing bets on companies in unique space. Mayvenn is an e-commerce platform the helps hair salons break into retail without having to buy or hold inventory.

The company's first product within the platform was hair extensions. Initially, the company struggled to find investors.

"We had a product, we had a pretty clear plan, but we had the sort of product that a lot of investors didn't know anything about," said Mayvenn CEO Diishan Imira. "Also, I don't come from a place where I have access to a lot of investors."

Imira was recommended by someone who knew McClure and after applying he was accepted into the accelerator program. For Imira, the program opened doors for him and his company by connecting him with other investors he wanted to pitch. He believes McClure is digging into overlooked verticals and investing in places where other people aren't investing.

That strategy has led to a diverse portfolio of startups, but it has also led to a very diverse team. Roughly one third of the team members weren't born in the US. They're spread across 12 countries and collectively speak about 20 different languages, McClure said. It's not always perfect, though. For example, McClure said, they don't have anybody on the team currently who is black.

Diversity in terms of gender is also a key aspect of the team's identity. The team, which is currently about 70 people, is close to 50% female. Additionally, close to 300 of their portfolio companies have female founders and over 150 are led by women.

To Imira, the focus on diversity isn't contrived. He said it seems to be just part of a very broad and inclusive strategy for how they go about choosing companies.

"As a culture, he's looking for hustlers. He's looking for and finding entrepreneurs in different, various verticals that are hustling," Imira said.

A How-To Guide for Opening Your Own Wealth Management Firm (BusinessWeek)

Since 2007, only one segment of the wealth management industry has boosted its market share every year: independent advisory firms. They’ve more than doubled their assets in that time, overseeing about $2.7 trillion as of 2014. And there’s room for growth. According to an estimate by Boston Consulting Group, a total of $46 trillion in private wealth is up for grabs in the U.S. We asked several independent investment advisers, many of them former brokers, about setting out on their own. Here’s their advice.  

Don’t get sued.

When Hugh Anderson was plotting his exit from Merrill Lynch in 2012, he didn’t even tell his own children. He was trying to meticulously follow broker protocol rules, which govern how to leave a firm without getting sued. If you’re subject to them, don’t tell any clients about your new business until after you’ve resigned. (And when you do quit, there’s a limited amount of customer information you can take, such as phone numbers and e-mail addresses.) Also, you can’t use company time to plan your departure, says Anderson, who’s now managing director of HighTower Las Vegas. So keep your weekends, early mornings, and evenings free.

Enlist professional help.

A cottage industry has emerged to help advisers pry themselves free. Firms such as Dynasty Financial Partners, Focus Financial Partners, HighTower Advisors (which includes firms such as Anderson’s), and Tru Independence can handle details that many brokers are clueless about: getting a municipal license to run a business, setting up compliance procedures, filing necessary regulatory documents, and plugging into custodians that hold assets. They can also help keep your move covert by, say, finding office space and negotiating your lease. Just do your homework before picking one, says David J. La Placa, who, with Dynasty’s assistance, left Deutsche Bank with his team in June to start San Francisco–based Intellectus Partners. The firms vary in how they charge for services (via a percentage of assets or a consulting fee) and may even want an ownership stake in your new firm. Some of their business models may fit better or worse, depending on whether you plan to charge only annual fees on assets or charge commissions on certain investments.

Embrace technology.

Several shops have developed software in recent years geared toward independent advisers. Some of it matches or exceeds what brokers have at large banking and trading firms, says Colin Williams, who, with help from Tru Independence, left Morgan Stanley with four teammates to start Encompass Wealth Advisors in Portland, Oregon, last year. He and his partners picked a trading and reporting tool made by Chicago-based Envestnet because it lets them customize model portfolios for clients, see hypothetical changes to a portfolio, and easily rebalance investments. La Placa went with Mountain View, California-based Addepar, whose software allows you to see exposure to a given asset class across an entire portfolio, updates the value of clients’ investments in real time, and generates comprehensive reports at the push of a button.

Hone the sales pitch.

If you follow broker protocol rules, your exit should come as a shock to clients. Most teams head straight to their new office after resigning and begin calling clients to persuade them to move their money to the new firm. Clients typically want to know what you’ll be able to deliver. “We talked about the future and taking our service to the next level of sophistication,” Anderson says. Those who agree to follow you must sign documents to shift accounts. Have overnight mail packages with express return envelopes and transfer paperwork ready to go on day one of your new firm, says Matthew Presjak of Encompass. And remember that once you quit, your old company will probably divvy your clients quickly to other brokers, who will solicit them too, he says.

Don’t forget the details.

While your firm’s name and logo are important, the website is crucial. “It’s everybody’s gut check on you,” says Michelle Smith, chief executive officer of Source Financial Advisors. You’ll also want to think about how to divide your equity among your partners. If you’re defecting as a team, create an operating agreement among partners before you start. It should outline each owner’s equity stake and contingencies for when someone retires or wants to sell shares, or if there’s an ethical breach, says Williams of Encompass. Some of the terms you hope you’ll never have to enforce, but it’s prudent to have them in place, he says.

Tasador de Miami Dade recupera 197 millones de dólares

Tasador de Miami Dade, Pedro Garcia

Poco tiempo después de ser elegido, el Tasador de Miami Dade, Pedro J. García, actuó con rapidez y eficacia para que todas las propiedades que cumplieran con los requerimientos se beneficiaran del Homestead Exemption en cumplimiento con las leyes de la Florida.

La ley estatal requiere la divulgación de números de Seguro Social (SSN) para recibir una exención de impuestos por la vivienda principal.  Pero aproximadamente 4.500 propietarios se negaron a proporcionar esta información a la oficina del tasador de Miami Dade .

“Hemos dado a estos propietarios numerosas oportunidades para cumplir, pero nuestras peticiones fueron ignoradas”- expresó esa entidad en un comunicado rese;ada por Bienes Raices America. 

Según la misma fuente, el pasado mes de enero la Oficina del Tasador de Propiedades les envió una carta detallada y cartas de seguimiento que requerían una respuesta. De los 4.500 cartas se obtuvo respuesta en la mayoría de los casos; sin embargo, aproximadamente 1.600 propietarios todavía se negaron a proporcionar toda la información requerida.

En un comunicado Tasador de Propiedades García había dicho que  una de sus principales “prioridades es frenar el fraude de exención y esta investigación fue un paso crucial en esa lucha“.

Tras estos esfuerzos se lograron recuperar más de $ 4,3 millones en impuestos a la propiedad, que equivalen a unos $ 197 millones en valor imponible y aproximadamente $ 1.3 millones en multas.

“Cuando los tramposos fiscales tratan de manipular el sistema para sus ganancias egoístas hacen daño a nuestra comunidad. Estos violadores toman dinero de la educación de nuestros hijos y de los servicios locales prestados a nuestros residentes “, concluyó García.

12 things you didn't know you could do with Gmail

Gmail is one of the worlds most powerful and well-built tech tools, but there are ways to make it even more amazing.

Some features are hidden within Gmail itself -- through the Settings and Labs tab; others have been built by third party developers. (Just remember, third party apps will have access to all of the contents of your emails.)

Here are 12 ways to customize Gmail, or completely transform it

Schedule messages to send, or read later

1. Preschedule messages. If there's a better time to catch someone with an email but you know you won't be around to push the send button, use a browser extension such as Right Inbox or Boomerang to do it for you. Both services let you send up to 10 pre-scheduled messages per month for free, or an unlimited amount starting at $5 a month.

There are also scripts you can run on your own for free in Google Sheets to accomplish the same tasks.

2. Snooze emails. You can also schedule emails to pop back up to the top of your inbox at a later date and time. Gmail Snooze is a Chrome extension that can help remind you too.

3. Send stock responses. To save even more time, consider creating canned messages through one of Gmail's Labs feature.

Track readers

4. Find out if your email was read. How many times have you used or heard the "Sorry! Didn't see your email" excuse? Bananatag Email Tracking, Sidekick and Intelliverse Email Tracker are Chrome extensions that can tell you when your email was opened.

They can also show you how many times an email was opened, where the person was when they opened it, and on what device.

All three offer a limited number of emails that can be tracked for free.

5. Blow up your emails. Delicious, a link-sharing platform, also just released Dmail -- a Chrome extension that makes your messages self-destruct. And recently, Google (GOOGL, Tech30) updated Gmail with an "undo send" button that lets you rescind an email.

Be more productive

6. Make a to-do list. Remember The Milk installs a checklist on the right side of your Gmail for Chrome and Firefox browsers. You can turn messages into tasks, and connect your to-do list to Google Calendars and contacts.

Todoist for Gmail organizes your task list in chronological order. It also lets you add emails to your list, assign projects to other people, and get progress updates. There's also a mobile version of the plug-in so you can access the list from anywhere.

7. Schedule appointments. Gmail Labs has a feature that pulls in your Google Calendar next to your inbox for easy scheduling.

8. Get all your mail in one view. Labs also has a handy way for you to check multiple email accounts at the same time.

Manage updates and alerts

9. Work offline. Gmail Offline is a Google app that lets you read and reply to messages without an Internet connection. That means you can work without distractions and delay new updates until you want to reconnect.

10. Get quick notifications. Checker Plus shows you how many emails you have without having to keep a browser open, and switching windows back and forth. You can even reply directly through the pop up notifications.

11. Get Gmail to text you. AwayFind is a paid-service that promises to free you from constantly checking your inbox. Instead, you can tell the app to call or text you only if certain people email you, or if you have a message thread you need to stay on top of.

Do it all

12. Your one-stop shop. Inbox is Google's newest solution to nearly all of these common email headaches. There's a task list function, snooze options, and a clean layout complete with contacts' photos and easy to read message previews.

It works on desktop and mobile.

Back to School Backpack Giveaway: Saturday August 15 @ 10 am