Category Archives: Society: Social Services

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Society: Social Services

FLock.io Secures Academic Grant from Ethereum Foundation to Advance Blockchain-Driven AI Research

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Flock becomes the sole recipient of the grant from the non-profit foundation to further its academic research and build practical and secure blockchain-driven AI

LONDON, Sept. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — FLock.io, an industry leader in the decentralized AI (dAI) movement, became the sole AI infrastructure recipient of The Ethereum Foundation (EF) Academic Grants Round 2024. This grant will fund research into incentive mechanisms for smart contract-enabled blockchain solutions.

The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit that supports the Ethereum ecosystem by funding protocol development, growing the ecosystem, and advocating for Ethereum. The Academic Grants Round 2024 is a $1M wave of grants to support Ethereum-related academic work.

FLock is at the forefront of federated machine learning on the blockchain. Having recently closed a $6 million seed round, it is building a world-first collaborative dAI training platform with on-chain governance, AI model training and hosting. The London-based Web3 startup, founded by a group of Oxford graduates, is on a mission to redirect power from centralized corporations into the hands of the community.

FLock.io is researching incentive mechanisms for blockchain-based AI training
This grant will accelerate FLock.io’s pioneering research in optimizing incentive tokenomics mechanisms to deter malicious behavior in the decentralized AI development lifecycle. This project will benefit the greater ecosystem by harnessing smart contracts for secure dAI systems, upholding principles of security, trust, and computational integrity while maintaining data privacy.

The research, led by Dr. Zhipeng Wang, lead blockchain researcher at FLock, and Jiahao Sun, FLock Founder and CEO and Research Fellow at Imperial College London, will expand on the findings in FLockpublished paper, “Defending Against Poisoning Attacks in Federated Learning With Blockchain,” in IEEE’s Transactions on Artificial Intelligence journal. The research proposes a peer-to-peer voting and reward-and-slash system that protects against malicious activities by Federated Learning participants.

“We are immensely grateful for The Ethereum Foundation grants that support our research,” said Dr. Wang, “We aim to investigate and establish a practical blueprint for leveraging the potential of smart-contract-enabled blockchains, particularly Ethereum, to support secure and decentralized AI systems.”

“Our research seeks to extend the boundaries at the intersection of blockchain and AI ecosystems,” Sun added. “We look forward to collaborating with diverse communities to revolutionize the landscape.”

FLock is dedicated to supporting the decentralization movement. FLock is the first project to bring an end-to-end AI fine-tuning lifecycle to Web3, akin to a Web3 Hugging Face. Its permissionless, performant ML system comprises AI Arena, FL Alliance, and Model Marketplace. The AI Arena closed beta is underway, where developers compete on the best AI models on one validation dataset in a Kaggle-style leaderboard, using their own or decentralized compute.

Explore FLock.io’s latest white paper, which dives into innovative approaches to decentralized machine learning, highlighting cutting-edge incentive mechanisms that leverage blockchain technology to enhance security, efficiency, and scalability in AI solutions. This comprehensive resource offers valuable insights for developers and industry professionals seeking to understand the future of AI-driven blockchain systems. Other existing academic papers co-authored by FLock include “zkFL: Zero-Knowledge Proof-based Gradient Aggregation for Federated Learning” and “GARNN: An Interpretable Graph Attentive Recurrent Neural Network for Predicting Blood Glucose Levels via Multivariate Time Series” in arXiv.

For future updates, follow FLock.io on Twitter, and see its blog and docs.

About FLock.io
FLock.io is a community-driven platform facilitating the creation of on-chain, decentralized AI models. By integrating federated learning and blockchain technology, FLock ensures equitable incentives for data contributors and fosters open collaboration. It also addresses the increasing need for advanced, bespoke AI models and reduces the risk of data breaches by providing secure model training without exposing source data.

Media Contact

Robert O’Neil, Flock.io, (310) 260-7901, [email protected], www.flock.io

SOURCE Flock.io



Society: Social Services

NEOGOV Introduces Vetted Background Investigation Software for Public Safety Agencies

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Acquisition of Background Solutions created the foundation for an integrated solution to provide a faster hiring process for public safety agencies

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. , Sept. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — NEOGOV, the leader in public safety and public sector human capital management software, today introduces Vetted, a background investigation software designed to streamline the hiring process for new public safety employees. This product launch is the result of the acquisition of Background Solutions and its Background Assistant product.

“Background Solutions has been developing its product and serving the needs of law enforcement agencies for over 15 years. We’ve combined their technology with NEOGOV’s deep understanding of the public sector and our comprehensive public safety platform, PowerDMS,” said Shane Evangelist, CEO of NEOGOV. “The end result is an enhanced version of the Background Assistant™ product, now known as Vetted, which integrates with our applicant tracking software, Insight.”

“We are excited that Background Assistant™ is now a part of NEOGOV’s product suite which I believe will help agencies vet officers more effectively and improve our public safety,” said Tom Ward, CEO of Background Solutions.

For many agencies today, the background investigation process is tedious and time-consuming. Traditional methods like paper or fillable forms lack audit trails and slow down the hiring process. Vetted digitally manages, tracks, and optimizes the background investigation and hiring process, enabling recruiters and background investigators to vet and hire candidates faster, gaining a competitive edge in the hiring process.

A single, secure platform enables applicants and investigators to share protected information while maintaining the integrity and compliance of each investigation. Candidates quickly upload documents and submit for review, which gives agencies the ability to view inconsistencies and identify potential issues early in the process.

“The background investigation process is a crucial component to the hiring process. This is particularly true in public safety as employees are responsible for the safety of citizens within their communities. With Vetted, public safety agencies can now save time and resources while having confidence that they are making the right hiring decisions,” said Denise Hemke, Chief Product Officer of NEOGOV.

Additionally, Vetted is easily configurable to an agency’s needs. Agencies define and document qualifiers and disqualifiers in the hiring process, then easily record why a candidate is approved or denied for hiring. The process is tracked throughout, saving background investigators time and resources.

“NEOGOV continues to broaden its government technology offering to address the most critical needs of its public sector customers and continue our mission to ‘serve the people who serve the people’,” continued Evangelist.

To learn more about Vetted, go to https://www.powerdms.com/power-vetted-background-investigation-software.

About NEOGOV

NEOGOV, a Carlyle and Warburg Pincus portfolio company serving more than 7,000 organizations, is the leading provider of an integrated HR, payroll, talent management and policy and compliance management solution for public sector HR, public safety and education. With NEOGOV, organizations are able to eliminate and automate systems and processes, so they can focus on what matters most – serving their core customers in a meaningful way. This results in improved productivity and engagement, time and cost savings, improved regulatory compliance, and reduced paper processes.

NEOGOVS’s platform includes PowerDMS, a public safety management platform which serves 5,500 police, fire and 911 customers. NEOGOV also offers NEOED, a one-stop shop HR suite for education.

More information at www.neogov.com and www.powerdms.com.

About Background Solutions

Background Solutions LLC created Background Assistant™, a case management tool designed specifically for the law enforcement background investigator. Through years of training law enforcement background investigators from hundreds of police departments, Background Solutions has identified a collection of best practices.

Background Solutions has leveraged years of experience in law enforcement applicant screening to create a streamlined software solution that allows the background investigator to manage the vetting process.

Media Contact

Brianna Swales, NEOGOV, 1 407-924-4497, [email protected], www.neogov.com 

SOURCE NEOGOV

Society: Social Services

Bentley School Intalls Sustainable, Environmentally Friendly Shaw Sports Turf Surface

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