Digital Frontier

WE STARTED DIGITAL FRONTIER with a belief that the future deserved better stories. A publication grounded in optimism, curiosity and context that would serve the future-curious: the dreamers, doers and decision-makers seeking answers to what's next. Over the last 24 months, we built a home for that kind of thinking.

IN THE BEGINNING, Oleg Bilozor wasn't sure whether he should be launching a new product feature for his startup or training for the battlefield. He was on holiday in the Dominican Republic when Russia invaded, but most of his employees at , which sells a digital sales engagement platform, were still in Ukraine. To stay, or to go? Before the rumours of Russia's invasion had even emerged, Bilozor used to tell his team: "We are not in business. We are at war.

Hard - and at this stage of AEO/GEO's development - expensive too. ​​Pricing in this still-loosely-defined space is far from standardised. Most tools like Athena and Evertune target brands and agencies with serious marketing budgets, and pricing is rarely made public. Where it is, typical entry tiers fall between $1,000 and $5,000 a month.

WHEN YOU PUT A USEFUL TOOL out into the world, you never know who might end up using it. Perhaps it could even play a part in world events. In 2020, Joe Biden was running an election campaign against Donald Trump and posted on X to illustrate just how badly the US had been responding to covid. Biden used a bar chart race made using Flourish - a data visualisation tool that was acquired by Canva in 2022 - to illustrate his point.

SOME SAY WE'RE ALL just six handshakes away from anyone on the planet, regardless of where we live, what we do or where we come from. It's a century-old theory that fuels an almost magical thought: a global stream of human connection waiting to be discovered at any given moment. It's also why so many of us value the art of networking in the first place, often hoping to discover chance encounters and serendipitous moments.

"I REMEMBER WHEN MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER were fighting, screeching at each other because my dad asked my mom if we could re-mortgage the house so he could put the money into his startup." Nina Mohanty, founder of financial services platform Bloom Money, knows the risks and rewards of startup life all too well. Growing up in Silicon Valley - where the air buzzes with energy - she was raised in an entrepreneurial household that showed her what it really takes to build a business from the ground up.

DIGITAL PRODUCT DESIGN HAS GOTTEN BORING. The prioritisation of short-term metrics, predictability and scalability has obliterated the character from most digital product experiences. And it's getting worse. The emergence of AI has been a force-multiplier. In this virtual gold-rush, speed to launch is everything, stripping focus from anything that won't directly contribute to MAUs and CTRs. The democratisation of design and coding tools has unleashed a torrent of indistinguishable mediocrity.

THE FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR FOR HEALTHTECH HAS BEEN, in the words of researchers at venture firm Rock Health, "like a highlight reel". And much of it has been thanks to AI. All indications point to the critical role the technology is playing in the sector, with startups attracting fresh funding from investors, strong interest from consumers and even a cautious embrace by governments.

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