The 007s — Week 2
This week’s list of things that I learnt is again a mix of things that I read and heard. I am currently reading: Invisible Women, deep-diving into Fintech and watching a lot of Ted-Ed, needless to say, my list of learnings are hugely inspired by the aforesaid.
- Neobanking: A Neobank is a kind of digital bank without any branches. Neobanks can be called fintech firms that provide digital and mobile-first financial solutions, on account of not having a bank license of their own — they count on bank partners to provide licensed services. With the recent Fintech boom — customers are moving away from physical banks and physical cash, and more towards online banking and wallets. The global market size of Neobanks and other alternative banks was valued at $35 billion in 2020, which is estimated to grow at an annual average rate (CAGR) of 47.7% to be valued at around $722.6 billion in 2028. Jupiter, Fi Money, Niyo, InstantPay and RazorpayX are some of the Neobanks operating in India.
- Shadow Banking System: Coined by economist Paul McCulley, Shadow Banking System is the group of financial intermediaries facilitating the creation of credit across the global financial system but whose members are not subject to regulatory oversight. The shadow banking system also refers to unregulated activities by regulated institutions. Examples of intermediaries not subject to regulation include hedge funds, unlisted derivatives, and other unlisted instruments, while examples of unregulated activities by regulated institutions include credit default swaps.
3. Inclusive AI: Artificial Intelligence, contrary to belief is as strife with biases as humans, sometimes more — because they mirror the sensibilities of its inventor. AI reflects the people who build it, as much as we might want to believe in its neutrality. Hiring diverse backgrounds, disciplines, genders, races, and cultures into the teams designing and engineering these experiences is thus critical. Today, inclusive AI means several things: Collaboration on AI projects between different people with different profiles, strengths, and educational backgrounds. “So inclusivity matters — from who designs it to who sits on the company boards and which ethical perspectives are included. Otherwise, we risk constructing machine intelligence that mirrors a narrow and privileged vision of society, with its old, familiar biases and stereotypes.”
4. Phantom limb syndrome: Phantom limb syndrome is the feeling of sensations in a limb that has been removed. The limb may feel as though it is still attached to the body. This is because the brain continues to get messages from nerves that used to “feel” for the missing limb. Studies suggest that between 90 and 98% of amputee patients suffer from phantom limb right after amputation or loss of their limb. Removal of parts other than the limbs may also cause phantom sensations. People born without a certain body part can also experience such phantom sensations.
5. Microaggression: Back in the 1970s, Harvard University professor Chester M. Pierce coined the term “microaggression” to describe the insults he had witnessed against black people. Microaggressions are more than just insults, insensitive comments, or generalized jerky behaviour. They’re something very specific: the kinds of remarks, questions, or actions that are painful because they have to do with a person’s membership in a group that’s discriminated against or subject to stereotypes. And a key part of what makes them so disconcerting is that they happen casually, frequently, and often without any harm intended, in everyday life. Examples of microaggressions include A White man or woman clutching their purse or checking their wallet as a Black or Latinx person approaches or passes.
6. The Henry-Higgins Effect: Throughout history, the male body had been considered the default. “Men are not a standard, women have failed to live up to,” Criado Perez said, referring to a theory she dubs the ‘Henry Higgins effect’ — named after the character in My Fair Lady who sang “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” — which describes the tendency for others to assume problems women face in the workplace and elsewhere. The Henry Higgins effect was visible when an executive whose voice-recognition system failed to recognize women’s voices suggested that women should undergo hours of training to fix “the many issues with women’s voices,” rather than, you know, fixing the many issues with his voice-recognition software that doesn’t recognize the voices of half the human population (women roughly make up for half of the human population).
7. Shakti Ammas: Project Shakti enables rural women in villages across India to nurture an entrepreneurial mindset and become financially independent. In an attempt to provide regular income, these women entrepreneurs (called Shakti Ammas) are trained on the basic principles of distribution management and familiarisation with our company’s products. Their role enables them to sell HUL products to the small retail outlets in their immediate village as well as directly to the households within the community.
At the end of 2020, there were nearly 1,36,000 Shakti entrepreneurs spread across 18 states. Project Shakti has helped generate income by selling products and has created a great impact on the livelihoods of women. This venture has not only helped them improve their confidence and self-esteem by gaining selling skills and enhancing their communication skills, but it has also helped build, as well as foster an entrepreneurial mindset amongst the women Shakti entrepreneurs.
