2019年7月30日
Former Qantas executive raises $3.5 million for anti-slavery blockchain startup
When Jamila Gordon was a five-year-old in Somalia she was forced to work instead of receiving an education — fast forward several decades, and she has just raised $3.5 million to grow a business she hopes will help in the fight against modern slavery.
The company’s product uses blockchain technology to find and track items in the food supply chain which could be unethically sourced or the product of forced labour. This function is not just good for society, but good for business, as it can help reduce waste, avoid recalls and — for companies with revenue of more than $100 million per year —ensure they stay compliant with the Modern Slavery Act introduced in Australia in 2018.
That might be part of the reason Gordon has been able to raise millions from private investors, including some heavy hitters like Main Sequence Ventures, which manages the CSIRO’s Innovation Fund. “The way goods move within the supply chain is still very basic, which means there’s still a lot of waste, inefficiency and risk,” Gordon said.
The investment comes as businesses across all sectors are under pressure to ensure they are not profiting from forced labour or other forms of modern slavery. Earlier in July, Australian retailers Cotton On, Target and Jeanswest announced they were investigating their own processes after an ABC Four Corners report found the companies were linked to factories in China where forced labour could be occurring. Two brothers were jailed in the UK in January after being found guilty of breaching the country’s modern slavery laws for exploiting Polish workers in a warehouse owned by athletic wear retailer Sports Direct.
Google reportedly once gave about 100 engineers from Huawei their own lab at the Googleplex HQ
Google’s ties to Huawei– the Chinese tech giant considered a threat to US security by the Trump administration – may run deeper than previously known. During the development of one its Nexus phones back in 2015,Google reportedly hosted nearly 100 Huawei engineers at its famed Googleplex headquarters in Silicon Valley, giving the visitors from China their own lab.
Google engineers worked side-by-side with the Huawei team to develop the display and camera for the Nexus 6b phone, among other features. Employees from the two companies became so close, the report said, that they would grab dinner and drinks together. And while sales for the Nexus 6b failed to meet internal goals, Huawei sources said that what they learned from working with Google helped the Chinese firm produce better phones in the future.
Many other third-party hardware makers – including Sony, Lenovo, and Sonos – offer Google Assistant-powered speakers today. On the face of it, this reported Huawei speaker would have been a similar arrangement. At the time, the most urgent question facing Huawei was what the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer would do in terms of its device’s operating systems, which had been powered by Google’s Android OS. With Trump’s trade ban in place, it seemed, Huawei would need to develop its own, in-house OS.
Last week, Trump met with the leaders of top US tech companies – including Google – during which the president reportedly agreed to “timely” decisions as to whether trade with Huawei could resume. Last year, Google was widely criticised for Project Dragonfly, its nascent plans for building a censored search engine for China a project Google recently confirmed that it had terminated. However, more recently, President Trump revived concerns, tweeting that Google’s relationship with the Chinese government “may or may not” pose national security threats.
The stock market is getting increasingly confused about how the US government should regulate cannabis and CBD
Pot stocks have been subject to recent volatility as a number of key hearings show that, while there is support for progress on cannabis regulations, there’s confusion from legislators about how to best proceed. Shares of Tilray, Cronos, and Curaleaf slid around 2% last Thursday after a hearing with the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry entitled “Hemp production and the 2018 Farm Bill.” Aurora and Canopy Growth were mostly flat following the hearing.
The cannabis industry in the US and abroad is growing much faster than regulation is being introduced, said Bethany Gomez, the managing director of Brightfield Group, a market research and predictive analytics firm. Even though the 2018 Farm Bill federally legalised hemp and its derivatives, the Food and Drug Administration has yet to release clear guidelines on the marketing and sale of CBD products. It is also currently illegal for banks and financial institutions to work with cannabis companies, even though the Secure And Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which would reverse this, has bipartisan support.
The stakes are high for the US government and for companies that produce and sell cannabis products. It has been estimated that the CBD industry alone could grow to be a $US16 billion industry by 2025. Globally, the legal marijuana market could reach $US66.3 billion in the same timeframe.
Take Curaleaf for example. It took a hit last week after the FDA sent the company a letter saying some of its products don’t have approval to be sold in the US. Shares also came under pressure after CVS Pharmacy said it would pull Curaleaf products from its stores. Another hearing earlier in the week on cannabis banking reform sent Tilray, Canopy Growth and Aurora up as much as 2% after positive signs from Senate Banking Chairman Mike Crapo that the SAFE act wouldn’t face any obstacles moving forward.
The grey area in the CBD market has also presented an opportunity for cannabis companies, Gomez said. For many consumers, it’s played a part in normalizing the idea of using a product derived from cannabis and has driven talks about legalization. Canopy Growth also completed a major deal when it spent $US3.4 billion to purchase Acreage Holdings, a US pot company, pending the federal legalization of marijuana in the US. Tilray surged 18% when it announced its intent to join Privateer Holdings, its majority shareholder, and extended its shares lock-up period. The consensus is that legalization will occur at some point – it’s a question of “how”, not “when.” Companies have already set themselves up to profit – Whole Foods and Coca-Cola have said that they’re eyeing the market and Heineken and Molson Coors have produced CBD or THC infused products.
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