Headline June 15, 2017/ ''' START-UPS -*SUPER*- SHARP-BITE '''

''' START-UPS -*SUPER*- SHARP-BITE '''

PERU, VENEZUELA, CHILE, ARGENTINA, ECUADOR, BRAZIL, COLOMBIA : O'' these very beautiful countries! 

Now, beauty aside, tell me,   what's the state of start-ups? And what's the focus of these countries  on technology development and markets : Merium? Rabo? Hussain? Zilli? Salar Khan? Eman/LUMS? Jordan/US?

''Zilli, can you have a word with Jane, on  WhatsApp?'' and ask for help and guidance, and some specific and cardinal steering points for researching these countries? 

And in *Proud Pakistan* who is minding Baluchistan?  KPK?  When can you all brief me on the status of start-ups? 'Zilli, maybe you ought to have Sanyia Roomi, research and report?'

The truth is, that there's a Revolution afoot, as the world finds a solution to battling poverty and a hope for raising the standards and quality of life.    

AMIR MORAVEJ-  AN IRANIAN COMPUTER engineer in Montreal, quietly worked last year on building software to help people navigate the Canadian Immigration system.

He saw it as a way for others to  avoid the same immigration travails he suffered a few years earlier.

Then came the  American presidential election. ''Trump accelerated everything,'' said Mr. Motavej, 33, the chief executive of a software start-up Botier AI.

With immigration taking the center stage in American politics and elsewhere,  Botier AI began putting more resources into building a chatbot tailored to one of Canada's immigration programs.

On one recent Wednesday, the  start-up was planning to announce that Yoshua Bengio, a research pioneer in  Artificial Intelligence  and director of the Montreal institute for   Learning Algorithms, is joining the fledgling company as a  strategy adviser.  

''START-UPS THE WORLD ENTIRE OVER''   -are changing the world, just as they are changing the work culture.

The very word  'start-up'  conjures up images of flexible workplace environments and hours, and a so-called : 'gig economy' where young, incredibly driven people work remotely-

Through their Laptops, possibly from their bed, keep very absurd hours and are usually on short-term contracts or freelance work, as opposed to having a permanent job.

The vision one gets is of an informal scene where young people in jeans, canvas shoes and hoodies lie on beanbags, cradling laptops, with a ping pong table within easy access. How true is it?

Here in *Proud Pakistan*, the  President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association, says this is partially true. 

As head of the  The Nest i/o, a Pakistani technology incubator launched with  Google for Entrepreneurs and Samsung as global partners and a supporting grant from the US State Department   she knows what she's talking about.     

Yes, it does  so seem,  that millennials are making some very brave attempts. But let's take the case, below, a classic work,  when great observation and thinking meets a great cause.

''ONE SHOULD EAT TO LIVE,  not live to eat,'' wrote Moliere, the French comedic playwright.

Some workaholic entrepreneurs have taken him at his world. Soylent, a four-year old startup, is trying to save consumers time and money by selling them a healthy, cheap  ''meal''  that they can drink.

Each vegetarian portion has only around 400 calories.. costs around $3 and boasts of being as nutritious as, and more environmentally'' friendly than processed food and meat.

Soylent has found a place among  American workaholics  who resent the cost and hassle of preparing regular meals. 

This is specially true in Silicon Valley, home of many  ''early adopter'' engineers too consumed with coding the future to break from work.

Their bad diets can damage their health. Several years ago  Sam Altman, an entrepreneur who is now president of  Y Combinator, a startup boot camp, was so  cost-conscious  and focused on building his first company, Loopt-

That for weeks he ate only  ramen noodles and coffee ice-cream, until he developed scurvy. He later became an investor in Soylent.

At first the product was sold as a powder, but even that was a hassle for some consumers, so on September 9th 2015, it started shipping version 2.0, which comes already mixed and bottled.

The name Soylent  is a tribute to a  1966 science-fiction novel . ''Make Room! Make Room'', set in an overpopulated world where everyone eats a mixture of  lentils and soy [ and, in the film version,  human flesh].

Rob Rhinehart, the drink's  27 year old creator came up with the idea when he was working on a different startup, focused on  wireless internet.

He was so poor that he started mixing his own food, and later dropped the other project to focus on food technology.

He is, by any measure, extreme.

He considers shopping at grocery stores, in the presence of ''rotting produce'' , a multisensory living nightmare'' and no longer owns a fridge.

Soylent has proved that it can appeal to a niche, as well as to a handful of financiers,: In January 20016, the firm raised  $20 million from investors, including  Andreessen  Horowitz, a well regarded  ''venture capitalist''  firm.

But it has plenty of obstacles to overcome.

Yucky-sounding ingredients like  algal oil [yes, derived from algae] will put many off, as well as reviews from early users that  Soylent  makes them gassy:

''I prefer my food with both flavour and texture,'' says one young, vegetarian entrepreneur who has tried it.

Mr. Rhinehart insists that  Sorlent's   ''neutral''  taste is the best way to appeal to the  broadest group of people.

Just how big is that group really is,  however, remains to be seen.

In the meanwhile, Welcome to Liquid Lunch and a fast changing Food Technology.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society and............... Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Students & Surprises '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless