Joe Issa Excited about Google Algorithm that Could Help Amateurs Search for Earth-Like Planets

Science enthusiast Joe Issa, who has often hailed NASA for discovering new deep-space objects, has said it would be thrilling if one day he could make his discoveries.

“I would like to be the first to discover a planet similar to earth that can be colonised, and leave it to the experts to determine how to get there. Perhaps I might own the right to erect the first billboard there which, of course, will be a Cool Corp sign.
“But in all seriousness, if what the Google expert said is true, this could open up a new era of interests in the deep-space search by amateurs using their computer to discover new planets.

 

New planet Kepler-90i Credit: NASA

 

“It may be a dream today, but it is entirely possible that if Earth-like planets do exist, an amateur could one day in the distant future discover one, a feat which has so far alluded the professionals.

“I also have no doubt that if we find one, chances are that one day the experts will find a way of getting there, as knowledge increases,” said Issa, who is said to share the same passion with his colleague Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group, whose Virgin Galactic’s new spaceship VSS UNITY has been launched, as well as founder and chief executive of SpaceX Elon Musk, whose next attempt is to send a Red Dragon to Mars this year – and actually land on the red planet, as he explores his ambition to establish a human city there.

Issa was commenting on an article by The Telegraph, in which Google is said to have discovered a new planet and that the technique used to do so would be released publicly for amateurs to try their hand at making their discoveries.

According to the report, Google has previously discovered lost tribes, missing ships and even a forgotten forest. However, now it has discovered two planets, one of which named Kepler-90i was found hidden in a new star system Kepler-90 named after NASA’s Kepler space telescope which discovered it.

Kepler space telescope

Joseph “Joey” Issa

Sir Richard Branson

Kepler-90i is said to be around 2,200 light years away from Earth and is about 30 percent larger than Earth. It is a small rocky planet which orbits so close to its star that the surface temperature is a ‘scorchingly hot’ 800F (426C). It orbits its sun once every 14 days.

Google is said to have found it by using one of its algorithms to sift through thousands of signals sent back to Earth by the space telescope.

 

Christopher Shallue

Christopher Shallue, the senior software engineer at Google A1 in Mountain View, California, who discovered the new planet, said the algorithm was so simple that it only took two hours to train to spot exoplanets.

 

Test of the neural network correctly identified true planets and false positives 96 percent of the time. They have promised to release all of the code so that amateurs can train computers to hunt for their exoplanets, the article said.

“Machine learning will become increasingly important for keeping pace with all this data and will help us make more discoveries than ever before.

“This is a fascinating discovery and a successful proof of concept in using neural networks to find planets even in challenging situations where signals are feeble.

“We plan to search all 150,000 stars; we hope using our technique we will be able to find lots of planets including planets like Earth,” said Shallue.

Although the observation mission ended in 2013, the spacecraft recorded so much data during its four-year mission that scientists expect will be crunching the data for many years to come.

Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said: “When we launched Kepler in 2009 we did not know if planets were common or rare. We now know every star in the night sky has a family of planets orbiting it.

“The archive Kepler data is a treasure trove of information which will bring many more discoveries. Today’s announcement is one such discovery.

“It shows what happens when new scientific methods are applied to archival data.”

Jessie Dotson, Kepler’s project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, added: “These results demonstrate the enduring value of Kepler’s mission.

“New ways of looking at the data – such as this early-stage research to apply machine learning algorithms – promises to continue to yield significant advances in our understanding of planetary systems around other stars. I am sure there are more firsts in the data waiting for people to find them.”

Joe Issa Comments On Current Initiatives Spurred By PM

Joe Issa, head of the successfully branded Cool Group of companies that are being leveraged internationally, says there are opportunities for synergy in the quest by the authorities to achieve some major objectives that are consistent with the Prime Minister’s latest call to expedite economic and structural reform.

Joseph “Joey” Issa

Issa was commenting on some initiatives, including the move by the sports ministry to tap into the sports goods market. Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange, reportedly said, “Jamaica should consider carving out a niche market in the sports goods industry, which includes items such as equipment, accessories, and apparel.”

Speaking at a recent two-day Inter-Regional Conference on the Strategic Use of Intellectual Property in Sport in Kingston, she said that “Jamaica could also consider marketing itself as a Sports Destination Country similar to Dubai.”

Issa explains that “the synergy is the increase in efficiency and effectiveness that will result by the authorities in sport and commerce working together on the one hand and with the intellectual property agency on the other.”

He adds that “by working together they can strengthen sports brands and ultimately, Brand Jamaica with the increase in efficiencies and effectiveness achieved. This means they are not only doing things right; they are also doing the right things.”

What he says is that “when the ‘chemistry’ of each party is mixed it creates something more significant than the total of the individual contributions of the parties,” noting, “In this case, it is Brand Jamaica.”

Issa said the country brand – which is estimated to have a value of US$35 billion annually – is more important than all the individual brands on the island put together, yet it is the brand most vulnerable to being tarnished by companies outside the learning curve of the significance of intellectual property in the brand development.

 

In addition to the National ID card initiative, Issa also cited the move to repeal the Agricultural Credit Board (ACB) Act as consistent with the kind of reforms being pushed by the Prime Minister.

The ABC Act will make new provisions and arrangements for agricultural credit. It was recently passed by the House of Representatives and is to be debated in the Senate in short order.

Piloted by the Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Karl Samuda, the move is said to come out of “the decision to modernise the agricultural sector to meet the demands of increased food security and agricultural productivity,” the Jamaica Observer wrote.

The modernisation process – which involves some streamlining of specific functions performed by the board to promote efficiency – will require the ACB to be dissolved and its monitoring and inspection functions were taken over by the Registrar of Co-operative Societies.

Joe Issa Supports Teaching Money Management to Kids

Founder of one of the nation’s largest retail conglomerate Joe Issa, who is a member of “The Ultimate Professional Directory of International Who’s Who”, has said that he supports the teaching of money management across the school system, stating it will make for a more frugal populace.

“I am of the view that if we teach money management to kids, it will make them more thrifty later on in life,” says Issa, adding, “It could break the back of the phenomenon of living from pay cheque to pay cheque and make for a less turbulent credit environment, such as what we experienced in the late 1990s when both consumers and financial institutions went belly up.”

Issa’s comments come as the present administration moves to introduce an entrepreneurship curriculum in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions to foster innovation among school leavers and generate economic growth.

However, now Issa, who supported the idea of early entrepreneurship training, is pushing the envelope to include money management, which he argues is a critical skill for managing spending and credit in adult life, whether for personal purposes or as managers of institutions.

Moreover, Issa is not alone. In a survey in the United States, 87 percent of respondents believe that teaching kids about money management in schools will lower the population of people with credit issues in the future, according to the website Debate.org.

Noting it could be argued that there is no guarantee that the teachings would be put into practice once they reach adulthood, Issa says, “It is not sufficient to negate its introduction,” citing many US states which now embed financial literacy in their school curricula.

“Yes we do not know whether they will use the financial education learnt early in life to better their futures, but what we do know is that if we do not expose them to it early, they are less likely to have the money management knowledge necessary to produce good spending habits later in life,” says Issa, whose business strategy is to spend as little as possible and earn as much as possible.

 

A former commercial bank director and Nominee for the Business Observer Business Leader of the Year 2004, Issa says too many consumers fall into the trap of buying on credit without the ability to manage the payments, stating that by not paying their credit card bills in full and on time, they run deeper into trouble.

“More people must understand the cost of not paying cash and the benefits of saving for the future…They must learn early not to be influenced by the Joneses and spend unnecessarily.

“They need to create a budget and stick to it…In that budget, there must be something set aside for saving for future consumption, such as the children’s education, unforeseen circumstances and paying their taxes when due. This means they must be able to track their expenses and manage their income,” says Issa, Executive Chairman of Cool Group of Companies.

He says more people need to think like Warren Buffett, referencing one of the wealthiest men in the world, who has warned would-be investors to hold on to his ideology of frugality, which involves making every financial transaction worth the expense.

Joe Issa’s Cool Corporation Looking Global in 2016

Founder of Cool Corporation, Joe Issa, says 2016 started where 2015 ended, with Cool Group of companies continuing to leverage its dominant brand on the global market.

As one of Jamaica’s most respected young entrepreneurs Issa, who famously founded over 50 firms covering all major sectors of the economy, said the Cool brands transitioned seamlessly into 2016 in the international community.

“International business does not go to sleep as people do; so even as we celebrated 2015 many markets around the world continue to acknowledge business agreements and process transactions,” Issa explains, adding, “Sometimes, though, you can have computer hiccups that may cause delays, but as far as our businesses were concerned it was a smooth transition into 2016.”

Issa, whom today does business throughout the major world markets, including stocks and commodities, started a business with one petrol station which he named Cool Oasis, a name that would later become a formidable brand.

Expanding quickly with other gas stations, all painted in the same bright colours, Issa began adding value to them by introducing a range of innovative services led by customer care. Within a short time, they had become the gas stations of choice to stop at and find services they have never experienced before.

The Cool Oasis gas stations were ready to be leveraged, along with other Cool brands which adorn Jamaica’s roadways. Brands such as Cool Distributors and Cool Card emerged soon after, and they too would later become leaders in their sphere of activity.

With an emphasis on creating lots of jobs, Issa soon set up his first technology driven company – Cool Biz, a Commerce and eCommerce Company involved in mobile telephony.

Using a mobile phone with one or more slots for Smart Cards to support various commerce values and applications, CoolBiz is a direct selling business – selling prepaid mobile airtime for all major telecommunications companies in Jamaica, as well as a variety of other consumer products to Jamaicans.

By 2007, this unique business model had successfully built a local value chain by matching micro entrepreneurs directly with suppliers thereby making products more accessible and affordable in their markets.

The model and effective use of the technology had also enabled CoolBiz to reward its affiliates (sellers) and retailers for their consumption while allowing the affiliates to sell directly to friends and neighbours without limiting the size or scope which they choose to grow their businesses.

By January 2008, Cool Biz was serving more than 10,000 customers per month through a network of affiliates and had grown to become the largest single direct top-up channel for Cable & Wireless Jamaica. Col Biz now sells all brands of prepaid airtime including Device and Flow.

Today, with over 3,000 active affiliates selling to more than 30,000 unique customers per month, Cool Biz aspires to be the leading commerce network in the Caribbean.

 

 

 

Joey Issa Agrees Workplace Issues Can Impact Employees, Productivity.

A call by the authorities – carried by both main newspapers – for employers to support workers with mental illness has received the support of Joe Issa, whose Cool Corporation employs many workers. “I am not aware that any of our employees are suffering from stress or anxiety or any other mental illness issues, but to the extent that there are workers elsewhere experiencing these problems, I believe it is only humane for their concerns to be addressed.

Joseph “Joey” Issa Founder Cool Group of Companies

“No one willingly chooses to have mental challenges so we must be a caring society and demonstrate it both at play and at work, where we must identify who is being affected as well as what is triggering their illness and address the matter immediately.

“Moreover, I believe that the employer will benefit by addressing such workplace issues as they can affect productivity, which must be a major concern for any business,” said Issa.

Issa was responding to a call by the Ministry of Health urging employers to provide support for workers who may be afflicted with mental-health issues.

The message by Director of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in the Ministry, Dr Maureen Irons-Morgan, was published by both the Jamaica Observer and Gleaner.

The statement came as Jamaica joined the rest of the world in commemorating World Mental Health Day 2017, recently, under the theme ‘Mental Health in the Workplace’.

According to the Observer, the Ministry reportedly told JIS News that one in every five persons in the workplace has mental-health issues and that two of the most common problems dealt with each day are anxiety and depression, adding that these conditions can affect productivity in the workplace.

 

Dr. Irons-Morgan

 

However, she said the ministry “is concerned that people are being discriminated against by some employers when they disclose they have mental-health problems,” as that “the way to deal with this is to help employers to understand more about mental-health conditions.”

Irons-Morgan is said to have pointed out that “while the ability to do work is a marker of mental health, it is important to note that there are issues in the workplace that can affect a person’s mental health,” explaining that for some people, it might be workload issues that trigger it, and for others, family issues.