Asian Digital Finance Forum & Awards (also known as Asian Digital Finance Forum and Awards) is a forum and honorary awards platform convened in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It has been hosted in a hybrid format (virtual and in-person), with editions reported in 2022, 2023 and 2025. The event is organised by the Asian FinTech Academy (AFTA) in collaboration with a number of local and international institutions. == Overview == The forum has featured international academic, industry, and policy speakers and has recognised institutions and individuals for contributions related to digital finance and fintech innovation. Media coverage has described participation and recognition at the forum as spanning multiple regions, with institutions and individuals from South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America featured across different editions. == Awards and recognition == The forum and awards were held in a hybrid format with virtual and in-person proceedings at Hilton Colombo in the 2022 and 2023 editions. The Asian Digital Finance Forum & Awards presents honorary recognitions to institutions and individuals for contributions to digital finance, financial inclusion, and related regulatory, technological, and policy developments. Media coverage has described the recognitions as non-competitive and based on demonstrated leadership and impact rather than open nominations. In 2025, the forum and awards served as an anchor initiative associated with the Asia International Digital Economy & AI in Finance Summit at Port City Colombo, with an emphasis on artificial intelligence in finance, financial inclusion, and governance-related themes. === 2022 === According to reporting by Daily FT, institutions recognised at the 2022 edition included Sri Lanka’s Bank of Ceylon, Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Hatton National Bank, and People’s Bank, alongside international organisations and fintech-sector contributors. === 2023 === Coverage of the 2023 forum described recognitions awarded to India’s International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) for regulatory innovation, as well as to digital finance and payments platforms including Dialog Genie and SLT-Mobitel mCash. IDEMIA’s Asia–Pacific operations were also recognised for contributions related to biometric and digital identity technologies in financial services. === 2025 === For the 2025 edition, institutional honourees reported in the media included Nium (Singapore), recognised for cross-border payments optimisation, and Paytm (India), recognised for AI-powered financial inclusion initiatives. A Visionary Award for Next-Generation Financial Hub Development was presented to Port City Colombo in recognition of its fintech- and AI-oriented development strategy. Individual honourees reported for 2025 included Sopnendu Mohanty (Singapore), Neil Tan (Hong Kong), Purvi Munot (United Arab Emirates), and Amira Abdelaziz (Egypt), recognised for contributions spanning fintech governance, ecosystem development, inclusive wealth technology, and AI-driven financial policy and regulation. In 2025, media reports described the awards as being subject to an independent validation framework. The process was led by Dr. Sivaguru S. Sritharan, appointed as Global Validation Chair, and involved independent research, analytical review, and benchmarking against international standards, with recognitions characterised as honorary and non-competitive.
Mooky (app)
Mooky was a location-based social and dating application, designed to help its users to find the perfect match by providing a large scale of filters. Mooky was free of charge. The app made use of mobile devices' geolocation, a feature of smart phones and other devices which allows users to locate other users who are nearby. == History == Mooky was published on Google Play on April 17, 2016, by Mooky BV. The latest version of this application was version 1.0.6. == Overview == === How it works === Mooky used Facebook to build a user profile with photos and basic information, like the user's surname and age. From there on the user had to fill in their Mooky profile, which contains information about the user's height, posture, hair color, eye color, ethnicity and religion. After this the user could select its preferences to find matches nearby. === User verification === Mooky asked their users to take a selfie holding a piece of paper saying 'Mooky'. Mooky would then manually accept or decline the user verification.
AI Analytics Tools: Free vs Paid (2026)
In search of the best AI analytics tool? An AI analytics tool is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it turns a rough idea into a polished result in seconds. When choosing one, weigh output quality, pricing, export formats, and how well it fits the tools you already use. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI analytics tool slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. We tested the leading options and ranked them by quality, value, and ease of use.
Is an AI Voice Assistant Worth It in 2026?
Trying to pick the best AI voice assistant? An AI voice assistant is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it scales effortlessly from a single task to thousands. The best picks balance beginner-friendly simplicity with the depth power users need, and they ship updates often. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI voice assistant slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. Read on for hands-on impressions, pricing tiers, and the standout features that matter.
Optical braille recognition
Optical braille recognition is technology to capture and process images of braille characters into natural language characters. It is used to convert braille documents for people who cannot read them into text, and for preservation and reproduction of the documents. == History == In 1984, a group of researchers at the Delft University of Technology designed a braille reading tablet, in which a reading head with photosensitive cells was moved along set of rulers to capture braille text line-by-line. In 1988, a group of French researchers at the Lille University of Science and Technology developed an algorithm, called Lectobraille, which converted braille documents into plain text. The system photographed the braille text with a low-resolution CCD camera, and used spatial filtering techniques, median filtering, erosion, and dilation to extract the braille. The braille characters were then converted to natural language using adaptive recognition. The Lectobraille technique had an error rate of 1%, and took an average processing time of seven seconds per line. In 1993, a group of researchers from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven developed a system to recognize braille that had been scanned with a commercially available scanner. The system, however, was unable to handle deformities in the braille grid, so well-formed braille documents were required. In 1999, a group at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University implemented an optical braille recognition technique using edge detection to translate braille into English or Chinese text. In 2001, Murray and Dais created a handheld recognition system, that scanned small sections of a document at once. Because of the small area scanned at once, grid deformation was less of an issue, and a simpler, more efficient algorithm was employed. In 2003, Morgavi and Morando designed a system to recognize braille characters using artificial neural networks. This system was noted for its ability to handle image degradation more successfully than other approaches. == Challenges == Many of the challenges to successfully processing braille text arise from the nature of braille documents. Braille is generally printed on solid-color paper, with no ink to produce contrast between the raised characters and the background paper. However, imperfections in the page can appear in a scan or image of the page. Many documents are printed inter-point, meaning they are double-sided. As such, the depressions of the braille of one side appear interlaid with the protruding braille of the other side. == Techniques == Some optical braille recognition techniques attempt to use oblique lighting and a camera to reveal the shadows of the depressions and protrusions of the braille. Others make use of commercially available document scanners.
Trazzler
Trazzler is a travel destination app that specializes in unique and local destinations. The initial concept was developed by Adam Rugel and Biz Stone in 2006 at Twitter's original offices under the name "71 miles". More than 10,000 writers and photographers have contributed and more than $350,000 in freelance contracts have been issued as a result of Trazzeler's weekly writing and photography contests. Investors in the company include SV Angel, AOL Founder Steve Case, and the Twitter founders, Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey, and Biz Stone. The company's partners are the City of Chicago, Hawaii Tourism Authority, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Salon.com, and Air New Zealand. Trazzler is designed for use on the iOS, Android, and Facebook.
Pachinko allocation
In machine learning and natural language processing, the pachinko allocation model (PAM) is a topic model. Topic models are a suite of algorithms to uncover the hidden thematic structure of a collection of documents. The algorithm improves upon earlier topic models such as latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) by modeling correlations between topics in addition to the word correlations which constitute topics. PAM provides more flexibility and greater expressive power than latent Dirichlet allocation. While first described and implemented in the context of natural language processing, the algorithm may have applications in other fields such as bioinformatics. The model is named for pachinko machines—a game popular in Japan, in which metal balls bounce down around a complex collection of pins until they land in various bins at the bottom. == History == Pachinko allocation was first described by Wei Li and Andrew McCallum in 2006. The idea was extended with hierarchical Pachinko allocation by Li, McCallum, and David Mimno in 2007. In 2007, McCallum and his colleagues proposed a nonparametric Bayesian prior for PAM based on a variant of the hierarchical Dirichlet process (HDP). The algorithm has been implemented in the MALLET software package published by McCallum's group at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. == Model == PAM connects words in V and topics in T with an arbitrary directed acyclic graph (DAG), where topic nodes occupy the interior levels and the leaves are words. The probability of generating a whole corpus is the product of the probabilities for every document: P ( D | α ) = ∏ d P ( d | α ) {\displaystyle P(\mathbf {D} |\alpha )=\prod _{d}P(d|\alpha )}