Technology
Tech accelerator receives $1 million grant and plans to increase investment in black startups –

The funds can be used to support diverse business owners in South Los Angeles and surrounding cities and neighborhoods.
Plug In Ventures, a Black-owned tech accelerator, has secured a brand new $1 million grant from the California Office of the Small Business Advocate (CalOSBA). Plug In Ventures will receive $250,000 annually for 4 years. The funding goals to empower Black and Brown early-stage startups in Southern California by supporting a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem through access to capital, mentoring, resources and educational programs.
CEO and Founder Derek Smith says financing will concentrate on supporting diverse business owners in South Los Angeles and surrounding cities and neighborhoods. The grant can be used to enhance his company’s accelerator program and support recent founders beyond this system. This will include tailoring services aimed toward preparing Black entrepreneurs for VC opportunities and connecting them with potential equity investors.
“Our goal will be to equip them with the skills and resources needed to develop business models and ideas to support the venture, especially in the field of software technology,” he says BLACK ENTERPRISES.
Generally, tech startup accelerators are run by experienced entrepreneurs who help early-stage tech firms connect with investors, improve their products, and refine their business plans. Capital injection is essential. Funding for Black founders has declined steadily in the three years since George Floyd’s murder in 2020. It’s been a banner yr of funding, with promised commitments from tech firms. Yet last yr, just 0.48% of all VC dollars were raised by Black founders, based on the research company Crunchbase. This implies that roughly only $661 million of the $136 billion went to black businesses.
Smith founded his South Los Angeles-based company in 2014 with a primary concentrate on supporting Black startups. Since 2019, firms in his company’s ecosystem have raised over $22 million in VC funding in areas including climate/sustainability, the creator economy and sportswear.
But now Smith wants the variety of firms his company helps secure investment to grow conservatively by 10% to 20% by 2025 and expand into recent sectors corresponding to automation, healthcare and digital. Plug In Ventures currently works with over 30 firms, including roughly 20 owned by Black entrepreneurs.
Smith explains that his company has until now provided all of its labor freed from charge to help its founders prosper. But this spring, it’s switching to an equity-based model with the goal of owning 5% to 7% of the shares, which is able to allow founders to participate in the accelerator.
“We also intend to facilitate follow-on investments directly and through our investor community,” he says.
Smith expects his company’s revenue to grow conservatively by 30% to 40% this yr, although he didn’t provide exact amounts. He expects the expansion to come from an increase in the corporate’s programming base and recent financing sources, in addition to expansion into recent markets corresponding to Atlanta and New York this yr.
“With a renewed flow of venture capital into Black and Brown entrepreneurs, the work we do to support these enterprises is now more important than ever,” he explains.
Technology
PO clarous Director General Zoom also uses AI avatar during a quarterly connection

General directors at the moment are so immersed in artificial intelligence that they send their avatars to cope with quarterly connections from earnings as a substitute, a minimum of partly.
After AI Avatar CEO CEO appeared on the investor’s conversation firstly of this week, the final director of Zoom Eric Yuan also followed them, also Using his avatar for preliminary comments. Yuan implemented his non -standard avatar via Zoom Clips, an asynchronous company video tool.
“I am proud that I am one of the first general directors who used the avatar in a call for earnings,” he said – or fairly his avatar. “This is just one example of how Zoom shifts the limits of communication and cooperation. At the same time, we know that trust and security are necessary. We take seriously the content generated AI and build strong security to prevent improper use, protect the user’s identity and ensure that avatars are used responsibly.”
Yuan has long been in favor of using avatars at meetings and previously said that the corporate goals to create Digital user twins. He just isn’t alone on this vision; The CEO of transcript -powered AI, apparently, trains its own avatar Share the load.
Meanwhile, Zoom said he was doing it Avatar non -standard function available To all users this week.
(Tagstranslat) meetings AI
Technology
The next large Openai plant will not be worn: Report

Opeli pushed generative artificial intelligence into public consciousness. Now it might probably develop a very different variety of AI device.
According to WSJ reportThe general director of Opeli, Altman himself, told employees on Wednesday that one other large product of the corporate would not be worn. Instead, it will be compact, without the screen of the device, fully aware of the user’s environment. Small enough to sit down on the desk or slot in your pocket, Altman described it each as a “third device” next to MacBook Pro and iPhone, in addition to “Comrade AI” integrated with on a regular basis life.
The preview took place after the OpenAI announced that he was purchased by IO, a startup founded last 12 months by the previous Apple Joni Ive designer, in a capital agreement value $ 6.5 billion. I will take a key creative and design role at Openai.
Altman reportedly told employees that the acquisition can ultimately add 1 trillion USD to the corporate conveyorsWearing devices or glasses that got other outfits.
Altman reportedly also emphasized to the staff that the key would be crucial to stop the copying of competitors before starting. As it seems, the recording of his comments leaked to the journal, asking questions on how much he can trust his team and the way rather more he will be able to reveal.
(Tagstotransate) devices
Technology
The latest model AI Google Gemma can work on phones

It grows “open” AI Google, Gemma, grows.
While Google I/O 2025 On Tuesday, Google removed Gemma 3N compresses, a model designed for “liquid” on phones, laptops and tablets. According to Google, available in a preview starting on Tuesday, Gemma 3N can support sound, text, paintings and flicks.
Models efficient enough to operate in offline mode and without the necessity to calculate within the cloud have gained popularity within the AI community lately. They will not be only cheaper to make use of than large models, but they keep privacy, eliminating the necessity to send data to a distant data center.
During the speech to I/O product manager, Gemma Gus Martins said that GEMMA 3N can work on devices with lower than 2 GB of RAM. “Gemma 3N shares the same architecture as Gemini Nano, and is also designed for incredible performance,” he added.
In addition to Gemma 3N, Google releases Medgemma through the AI developer foundation program. According to Medgemma, it’s essentially the most talented model to research text and health -related images.
“Medgemma (IS) OUR (…) A collection of open models to understand the text and multimodal image (health),” said Martins. “Medgemma works great in various imaging and text applications, thanks to which developers (…) could adapt the models to their own health applications.”
Also on the horizon there may be SignGEMMA, an open model for signaling sign language right into a spoken language. Google claims that Signgemma will allow programmers to create recent applications and integration for users of deaf and hard.
“SIGNGEMMA is a new family of models trained to translate sign language into a spoken text, but preferably in the American sign and English,” said Martins. “This is the most talented model of understanding sign language in history and we are looking forward to you-programmers, deaf and hard communities-to take this base and build with it.”
It is value noting that Gemma has been criticized for non -standard, non -standard license conditions, which in accordance with some developers adopted models with a dangerous proposal. However, this didn’t discourage programmers from downloading Gemma models tens of tens of millions of times.
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(Tagstransate) gemma
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