Issue 7 2019

30 Acquisition International - Issue 7 2019 May19417 Bringing the Power of Inference-Based Thinking to all Corners of the Internet Mindtrend provides people with the ability to share, explore and connect information in a meaningful, collaborative and machine-verifiable manner with the natural feel of blogging. Having been awarded the accolade Most Innovative Computer Networking Platform – 2019 in AI’s Global Excellence Awards 2019, we’re take a closer look at the innovative ways the firm delivers their services, as well as catching up with the Founder, Matthew Erwin, who provided us with a detailed glimpse into the innerworkings of Mindtrend. Since the inception of Mindtrend, the team has been dedicated to helping their customers to grow intellectually by harnessing the semantic web, AI, and a personally cultivated community of experts. Mindtrend is designed to allow users to cultivate an online browsing experience based on accuracy and trending by merit while navigating around content primarily designed for popularity and viral clickability. To reduce the growing problem of content credibility and information reliability, Mindtrend presents users with a dashboard of metrics to assist in navigating online bias and making accuracy in underlying content readily visible. Users are provided with a set of tools to connect information semantically within a community of people they respect and who assist them in quickly discovering when previously assumed “factual” information has since been disproven or made irrelevant. “Here at Mindtrend, our metric of success is the impact we have on the quality of people’s lives, particularly in the realm of awareness,” explains founder Matthew Erwin. Mindtrend is a SaaS platform wherein the article you are viewing in your browser is automatically communicating with the other articles it was based upon. Information is validated with increasing resources organically allocated to the most viral articles in the network. Visual indicators and tools for gaining additional context are provided whenever underlying content may no longer be accurate. Including whether that content is flagged due to a change in stance of the original author, a syndicated expert’s opinion, or a review by a person you respect on the subject. The platform provides the digital content equivalent of GPS navigation, real-time communication of latest accuracy status, and fingertip access to instant context beyond what is immediately visible. When sharing how the firm delivers these kinds of services, Matthew is keen to highlight the internal culture and the significant role the committed team that forms the backbone of Mindtrend plays in the overall success of the firm, labelling the staff as massive community formed of volunteers, advocates, full-time and part-time employees, contractors, translators, researchers and marketers to name but a few, who all deeply care about making a positive difference in the world. “An idea of this scale is not possible without the tireless effort and collaboration of our community and the support of like-minded people. Building a platform that can treat human information as a traceable, connected, living thing involves innovating and building many supporting structures, from financial to functional to experimental,” Erwin says. Mindtrend’s solution to the modern digital credibility crisis involves organically encouraging self-discovery alongside an anti-censorship stance and has gained the attention of Acquisition International (“AI”). As a part of AI’s Excellence Awards 2019, Mindtrend is being recognized and awarded Most Innovative Computer Networking Platform of 2019. More importantly than accolades to the company though is their sense of purpose. At a time when democracy is under assault globally, and with Internet credibility waning alongside a rise in authoritarianism and populist uprisings worldwide, the need for more reliable and valid online information couldn’t be greater.