7, Aug 2026
Infosys to Accelerate IT System Transformation for Crocs, Inc., Optimizing Global Operational Capabilities to Scale for Future Growth
Tom Britt, Chief Information Officer, Crocs, Inc. said, “As our organization reimagines its IT landscape, we sought a collaborator who could combine deep domain expertise with a commitment to innovation and operational excellence. By leveraging Infosys’ proven delivery frameworks and advanced automation capabilities, we will optimize operations, reduce costs and scale responsibly—while driving continuous improvement and building a foundation for sustainable growth and digital resilience that positions Crocs, Inc. for the future.”Karmesh Vaswani, EVP & Global Head, Consumer, Retail & Logistics, Infosys said, “The retail industry is at an unprecedented inflection point, where new AI augmented, digital imaginations can be industrialized rapidly. Crocs, Inc. is making a bold commitment to digital transformation. We are proud to collaborate with a global footwear business that’s willing to reimagine its operations from the ground up. Our AI-first approach will drive purposeful performance improvements unlocking AI value across Crocs, Inc.’s global operations, scale unique innovations and accelerate profitable growth in this fast-changing global retail landscape.”
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- By Neel Achary
6, Aug 2026
Child Care Aware of Missouri Names Director of Scholarships
Dr. Greg Cicotte brings nearly 30 years of early childhood and elementary education experience to the nonprofit.
(St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 6, 2026) Child Care Aware of Missouri (CCAMO) has hired Dr. Greg Cicotte as Director of TEACH Early Childhood Missouri Scholarships. In this role, he will lead scholarship initiatives that strengthen Missouri’s early childhood workforce. Dr. Cicotte will provide strategic leadership and daily oversight for the TEACH Early Childhood Missouri Scholarship Program and the Child Development Associate (CDA) Scholarship Project, including planning, directing, and managing all scholarship operations to ensure high-quality service delivery and full compliance with contract requirements.
Dr. Cicotte brings nearly 30 years of experience in early childhood and elementary education to this position. Prior to joining CCAMO, he served as Director of Early Childhood for the Pattonville School District. Dr. Cicotte has also worked as a principal at both the Parkway and Fort Zumwalt School Districts. He holds a Doctor of Education in Educational Administration and a Master of Arts in Educational Administration from Lindenwood University, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from Missouri State University.
TEACH Missouri Scholarships are designed for educators who want to continue their education while remaining employed in the field and is a statewide program aimed at increasing quality child care through education, compensation, and commitment. The CDA Scholarship Project is a nationally recognized credential and often the first step into the early childhood workforce.
“Greg is an educational leader who brings deep experience in both classroom settings and district administration,” said Beth Ann Lang, Deputy CEO of Child Care Aware of Missouri. “His leadership will allow Child Care Aware of Missouri to expand access to scholarships, support more early educators in earning credentials and degrees, and ultimately improve the quality of child care for children and families across our state.”
Founded in 1999, CCAMO is a statewide nonprofit that focuses on a comprehensive early childhood education experience through impactful programs and partnerships. The organization’s services include workforce development, child care business supports, advocacy and policy work, and Child Care Keeps Missouri Working, a regional campaign offering concierge solutions to businesses undergoing employee recruitment and retention challenges due to the overwhelming shortage of quality child care options. For more information, call (314) 535-1458 or visit www.mochildcareaware.org
6, Aug 2026
YBVR Launches CultVRe, a New Immersive Platform Bringing Culture Beyond the Screen
The new mobile and VR platform expands YBVR’s immersive media ecosystem into performance, art, heritage, and film.
YBVR has officially launched CultVRe, a new immersive platform designed to bring audiences closer to culture through mobile and virtual reality experiences.
Created by YBVR, the company behind experiential sports and music platforms including Xtadium and Xtadium Music, CultVRe marks the company’s expansion into the cultural sector. The platform gives cultural institutions, creators, and partners a new way to extend the reach of their content beyond physical venues and traditional screens.
CultVRe made its public debut at CM Málaga, where YBVR introduced the platform to cultural leaders, institutions, creators, and industry partners exploring the future of immersive storytelling.
Available on iOS, Android, and Meta Quest, CultVRe brings together point-of-view experiences that put audiences inside performance, art, heritage, and film. At launch, CultVRe features immersive heritage content from Toledo Monumental, while YBVR continues to expand its cultural pipeline through collaborations with leading institutions including San Francisco Ballet.
“CultVRe represents a natural evolution for YBVR,” said Héctor Prieto, CEO of YBVR. “We have spent years developing immersive technology for sports and live entertainment, helping audiences feel closer to moments they could not physically attend. With CultVRe, we are applying that expertise to culture, heritage, and travel, creating new opportunities for institutions, destinations, artists, and partners to bring people closer to places, stories, and performances they may never otherwise experience in person.”
CultVRe is built around a simple idea: culture should be able to travel further. Through first-person video and spatial experiences, the platform allows audiences to step inside curated stories, places and performances from wherever they are, creating a stronger sense of presence, proximity, and access.
For cultural institutions and rights holders, CultVRe opens new possibilities for digital distribution, audience development, education, sponsorship, and long-term content value. Rather than replacing the live experience, the platform is designed to extend it, helping cultural content reach new audiences across devices and geographies.
The launch of CultVRe builds on YBVR’s experience in immersive media, multi-platform video delivery and fan engagement. Through its existing work in sports and music, YBVR has developed technology that brings audiences closer to live and on-demand experiences through mobile, VR, and connected devices. CultVRe brings that expertise into a new category, creating a dedicated destination for immersive culture.
CultVRe is free to download and is now available on iOS, Android, and Meta Quest. Audiences can download the app and explore the platform at https://ybvr.com/cultvre/.
Users can also follow CultVRe on Instagram at @cultvre.app for updates on new content and upcoming experiences.
6, Aug 2026
Vinod Kumar Agarwal Elected Vice President of FTCCI
Hyderabad, Aug 06: The Federation of Telangana Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FTCCI), one of India’s oldest and most respected industry associations, has unanimously elected Vinod Kumar Agarwal, Managing Director of Mahalakshmi Profiles Pvt. Ltd. (MPL Group), as its Vice President for the year 2026–27.
The election took place at the Second Managing Committee Meeting of FTCCI held at FTCCI in Red Hills
A distinguished industrialist with over 35 years of leadership experience, Sri Vinod Kumar Agarwal has been closely associated with FTCCI for several years. He has served as a Managing Committee Member and has successfully chaired various committees of the Federation, making significant contributions to policy advocacy, industrial development, sustainable growth, and strengthening industry-government collaboration.
Expressing his gratitude after the election, Sri Vinod Kumar Agarwal said “I am deeply honoured by the trust reposed in me by the members of FTCCI. The Federation has been a catalyst for industrial and economic growth for over a century. I look forward to working with the President, office-bearers, Managing Committee members, and all stakeholders to further strengthen FTCCI’s role as the voice of industry and contribute to Telangana’s inclusive and sustainable economic development.”
As Managing Director of Mahalakshmi Profiles Pvt. Ltd., the flagship company of the MPL Group, Sri Vinod Kumar Agarwal has led the Group’s diversification across steel, power, logistics, cement, and investment & leasing. Under his leadership, the Group has emerged as one of Telangana’s leading industrial enterprises, generating employment, investing in infrastructure, and promoting sustainable manufacturing practices.
Established in 1913, the MPL Group is among Telangana’s oldest business houses and has consistently contributed to the state’s industrial growth, employment generation, and economic development.
Vinod Kumar Agarwal has also held key leadership positions in industry bodies, including serving as Chairman of the FTCCI Energy Committee, General Secretary of the Telangana Iron & Steel Manufacturers Association (TISMA), and has been actively associated with organisations such as CII and other trade and community bodies.
Recognised for his leadership and business excellence, his election as Vice President is expected to further strengthen FTCCI’s initiatives in promoting industrial competitiveness, sustainable growth, investment facilitation, innovation, and public policy engagement in Telangana.
6, Aug 2026
Tenable Launches Industry’s First Open-Source AI Agent Exchange to Advance Collective Cyber Innovation and Defense
The CyberAgents Exchange, powered by Tenable, introduces a vendor-agnostic community for security practitioners to discover, share and build trusted AI components
Dubai, UAE | Aug 06: — Tenable® Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: TENB), the exposure management company, today launched the CyberAgents Exchange, a new open-source AI exchange created to foster industry collaboration and improve collective cyber defense. The CyberAgents Exchange, powered by Tenable, is the only purpose-built, cybersecurity-native registry for AI agents, skills, MCP servers and multi-agent playbooks in the current market.
Security teams are increasingly turning to AI to scale security operations and manage risk overload, but end up building AI agents in isolation, repeatedly reinventing the wheel. Existing AI exchanges are either general-purpose or vendor-gated, forcing security teams to wade through irrelevant use cases, waste time on duplicate design and build efforts, or accept restrictive vendor lock-in. To improve the cybersecurity industry’s collective defense and outpace AI-generated threats, defenders need a unified, cyber-specific hub to accelerate development and share collective agentic tooling.
The CyberAgents Exchange eliminates these development silos and empowers industry collaboration with a truly open, free-to-use exchange. Built for trust and transparency, the Exchange provides code-level visibility into who built each AI component, when it was created and its peer-supported status. This transparency enables members to deploy AI components tailored to their specific organizational needs confidently. Additionally, the Exchange is a career asset for practitioners to build verifiable expertise in an emerging discipline and develop a catalog of peer-supported AI components.
“The CyberAgents Exchange fills a major and pressing industry need, especially as cybersecurity remains a growing issue and AI-enabled attacks rise,” said Seth Fogie, Director of Security for Baptist Memorial Health Care. “Its core philosophy of working together is what made the threat intelligence community so invaluable. My team has benefited greatly from the Exchange, and we look forward to contributing and collaborating with the wider community.”
Underscoring the industry’s commitment to collaborative, open-source AI defense, industry leaders SentinelOne and Recorded Future have joined the initiative as founding members of the CyberAgents Exchange. By contributing their deep expertise in autonomous security operations and threat intelligence, these industry pioneers will help anchor the Exchange as a truly unified, vendor-agnostic ecosystem. As founding members, both organizations will actively contribute secure AI agents, integration frameworks and playbooks to accelerate the community’s defense capabilities against rapidly evolving AI-driven threats.
More than 50 AI components, released under open-source licenses, are available, including:
● Navi (Agent): A command-line tool that leverages the Tenable One Vulnerability Management APIs to automate common vulnerability management and cyber exposure workflows.
● SentinelOne Purple AI (MCP Server): Allows users to access SentinelOne services with any MCP client.
● Recorded Future MITRE APT Attack Path Analysis (Skill): Pulls an organization’s Recorded Future threat map, maps an APT group’s MITRE ATT&CK techniques and cross-references against live Tenable findings to identify which attack path nodes are actively exploitable.
● SOC-Hunter (Skill): Leveraged daily by Tenable’s internal security operations team, SOC-Hunter provides proactive, hypothesis-driven threat hunting using the LOCK pattern across SIEM, EDR, VM, CSPM, CASB and code search.
● The Hounds Pack (Playbook): A skill-packaged playbook for The Hounds — 18 exposure-management specialists that hunt, tag and calibrate risk.
“Security is a team sport. We’ve addressed a gaping hole in the ecosystem of AI Agents, built for defenders, by defenders. With the CyberAgents Exchange, we’re creating a collaborative ‘town square’ where cybersecurity practitioners can build, test, improve and share the best in agentic defense,” said Vlad Korsunsky, Chief Technology Officer, Tenable. “With our deep roots in the open source community and our global ecosystem of customers and partners, Tenable is uniquely positioned to steward this collaborative effort to help scale security teams’ capabilities and outpace evolving threats.”
“To truly scale defenses against autonomous, AI-driven threats, the security community must move past isolated development and vendor-locked silos,” said Braden Preston, vice president of product management, SentinelOne. “As a founding member of the CyberAgents Exchange, SentinelOne is proud to champion a transparent, open-source foundation for agentic security. By sharing trusted, autonomous components and collaborative playbooks, we are empowering security teams globally to innovate faster, defend smarter and outpace modern adversaries together.”
“Joining the CyberAgents Exchange as a founding member lets us bring world-class threat intelligence directly into the open-source frameworks security teams are building today,” said Jamie Zajac, Chief Product Officer at Recorded Future. “But the promise of AI agents in security depends entirely on whether they can be trusted. Intelligence doesn’t just make agents smarter. It makes them traceable, auditable and repeatable. That’s the foundation the community needs to build autonomous defense that’s not only fast, but reliable.”
The Tenable CyberAgents Exchange is a free, open-source community with no fees for listing or using agents.
6, Aug 2026
HGS’ Broadband Vertical Wins ‘Best Future Ready Network of the Year 2025–26’ at the 12th BCS Ratna Awards
Mumbai, Aug 06: ONEOTT iNTERTAINMENT Ltd. (OIL), one of India’s leading Internet Service Providers and the broadband vertical of Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) has been conferred with the prestigious “Best Future Ready Network of the Year 2025–26” at the 12th BCS Ratna Awards. The award cites OIL’s consistent innovation in technology and leveraging its vast partner-driven network to build a model for the future. Since 2010, the BCS Ratna Awards has been India’s definitive recognition of excellence in broadcasting, cable, satellite and digital media.
In line with HGS’ strategic proposition anchored around AI-led Intelligent Experience, OIL has been focusing on harnessing the 3A’s, Artificial Intelligence, Analytics and Automation to build out an integrated connectivity mesh across the country. The mesh extends across terrestrial platforms layered with SDWAN capabilities to broadband-over-satellite.
CelerityX, the enterprise business of OIL, has been consistently adding prestigious logos to its network across the last year while adding over 5,000 dedicated enterprise links to its network.
OIL is also the enabler and knowledge partner for the unique and transformative digital initiative – Project GANGA, launched by the Government of Uttar Pradesh on June’26. The state-wide digital inclusion initiative is tasked with identifying, training and developing 8,000 – 10,000 youth, especially women, into Digital Service Providers – who are projected to connect over 20 lakh households with high-speed broadband over the next couple of years.
HGS’ digital media business – NXTDIGITAL Media Group, connects over five million homes, operates across 4,500+ pin codes covering 1,500 cities and towns and has a partner base exceeding 15,000.
6, Aug 2026
FireCompass AI Agent Reaches 3 on HackerOne, Signalling a New Era of AI-Driven Cybersecurity for Enterprises
Aug 06: FireCompass, an agentic AI platform for autonomous penetration testing and red teaming, today announced that its AI-powered penetration testing agent secured Top 3 positions across multiple HackerOne global leaderboards during a three-month live bug bounty experiment conducted against authorised live production systems. The achievement demonstrates how AI is making advanced offensive cybersecurity capabilities significantly more accessible, marking a pivotal shift in how organisations approach cyber defence. Operating against real-world production targets not controlled lab environments, the company autonomous AI agents independently discovered, validated and responsibly reported vulnerabilities while operating at a cost comparable to a single manual application penetration test. The findings carry significant implications for India’s rapidly expanding digital economy, where enterprises are accelerating AI adoption while facing an increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape. As advanced penetration testing becomes dramatically more affordable through AI, the same economics that enable organisations to continuously identify vulnerabilities can also empower malicious actors with capabilities that were once limited to highly skilled security researchers. For Indian enterprises, this underscores the need to transition from periodic penetration testing to continuous AI-powered security validation. The timing is particularly significant as India’s technology industry is projected to generate US$315 billion in FY26, while headcount is expected to grow by only 2.3%, reflecting a broader shift from labour-led growth towards AI–driven productivity and innovation.
Bikash Barai, Founder and CEO of FireCompass, said: “Our agents had already reached 100% on the benchmarks we tested. This experiment was about what it costs to get into the Top 3 spots in a global bug bounty leaderboard. We reached there with just $5K per month. What it means is that threat actors with a very small investment can be as powerful as the world’s tophackers. This is an opportunity for defenders, but the same economics reach attackers at the same time. The next challenge is not just building more powerful AI. It is engineering the controls, safety, and accountability around it.”
Jay Bavisi, Founder and CEO of EC-Council, said, “We invested in FireCompass because we believed AI would empower cybersecurity professionals, not replace them. FireCompass reached the Top 3 on HackerOne, demonstrating the strength of its technology and engineering. The future of offensive security testing is not AI replacing cybersecurity professionals. It is AI-powered professionals. The experiment also demonstrates that while AI is rapidly transforming offensive security testing, responsible deployment is equally critical. FireCompass incorporated multiple safety mechanisms throughout the exercise, including strict enforcement of authorised programme scope, non-destructive validation of vulnerabilities, and limits on request rates, concurrency and operational blast radius. These controls ensured that all testing remained within authorised programme boundaries while maintaining human oversight and accountability”. Bruce Schneier, security technologist, author, Harvard lecturer and FireCompass advisor, said, “The history of security is a history of falling costs. When a capability gets cheap, everyone gets it at once, defenders and attackers alike. This experiment shows offensive AI has crossed that line. The question is no longer whether AI can find real vulnerabilities cheaply; it plainly can. The question now is whether defenders adopt the same capability fast enough, and deploy it with safety and discipline.”
FireCompass’ harness engineering had multiple frontier models coupled with its purpose-built small language models created by FireCompass. The safety controls included:
• Hard enforcement of each program’s authorized scope
• Non-destructive validation of vulnerabilities
• Limits on request rates, concurrency, and blast radius
These controls kept the agents within authorised program boundaries. As autonomous ethical hacking becomes more widely adopted, scope enforcement, controlled validation, auditability and human accountability will be as important as model capability. As autonomous ethical hacking becomes more widely adopted, the company believes that model capability alone will not define the future of offensive cybersecurity. Strong governance through scope enforcement, controlled validation, auditability and human accountability will be equally essential to ensuring AI-powered security testing remains safe, trusted and effective for enterprises.
Methodology note
The experiment was conducted over a three-month period against authorised public bug bounty programmes hosted on HackerOne. FireCompass deployed an automated pipeline of autonomous AI agents to discover, validate and responsibly report vulnerabilities on live production systems within authorised programme scopes. The reported operating cost included AI model usage, cloud infrastructure and human oversight, making it comparable to the cost of a single manual application penetration test.
6, Aug 2026
Why STEM Education Needs to Reach Students Long Before They Think About Careers
-Mary Ellen Randall, CEO of IEEE
If you spend enough time with young people, you start to notice something. They are excited to learn about the world. But the way they learn is different. My grandchildren are very comfortable with using technology, however, as a grandparent, I have seen it firsthand. They are accustomed to learning in shorter bursts, through games, videos and social media, formats that center interaction and exploration rather than passive instruction.
Their interest is shaped not just by what they learn, but how they experience it. That matters more now than it did just a decade ago.
Emerging technologies are moving from theory to application at a rate that is much faster than in previous generations. Today’s kindergarteners will never know a world in which artificial intelligence wasn’t broadly available to everyone. Even once esoteric ideas like quantum computing aren’t abstract concepts with far-off implications for this cohort. If we wait until college or even high school to introduce students to these ideas, we are already behind.
The challenge is not a lack of interest. Research shows that fascination with STEM peaks between the ages of 11 and 15. And yet, there is a notable absence of engineering-related content for this age group.
At the same time, the vast majority of jobs, nearly 80% will require STEM skills in the next decade.
Closing that gap requires follow-through. Young people are highly adaptable, but we need to rethink how we teach if we want to reach them effectively.
This is where organizations like IEEE have a responsibility and an opportunity.
We are in a unique position as a global community of technologists, engineers, and educators. We have the expertise, but more importantly, we have the ability to connect that expertise across disciplines and across generations.
The IEEE Future Tech Explorers Challenge launched earlier this year with the goal to find new ways to teach these concepts. This challenge was designed to tap the collective ingenuity of the entire IEEE community and the rules were carefully designed so that participants were not locked into a single way of learning or a single solution to the problem.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach. One of the big lessons of my time working in disaster response through IEEE MOVE is that every disaster is different, and the local needs of every place impacted by a storm is different.
I think that lesson applies to the future of education too. What works for one student or in one classroom may not work for another. The power of IEEE’s community isn’t that it can produce a single right answer, but that it can produce many approaches, suitable for different learning styles, cultures, and contexts.
If we want the next generation to be ready for what comes next, we need to meet them where they are — earlier, more creatively, and with a willingness to rethink how we teach. The interest is already there. Our job is to make sure the opportunity is there as well.
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6, Aug 2026
Digital Savings Gets a Boost as PhonePe Launches FD Booking Facility
New Delhi, Aug 6: Digital payments platform PhonePe has expanded its financial services portfolio by launching fixed deposit (FD) distribution on its app, allowing users to compare and book deposits from partner banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) through a fully digital process.
The new feature enables customers to explore multiple fixed deposit options, compare interest rates and investment periods, and complete the booking process without paperwork. The move aims to make traditional savings products more accessible and convenient for digital users.
Along with fixed deposits, PhonePe has introduced a Daily Recurring Deposit (RD) facility in partnership with Shivalik Small Finance Bank, allowing users to build savings through daily investments starting from ₹100.
The Daily RD product is designed to encourage small and regular savings by allowing users to automate daily contributions through UPI Autopay. Customers can invest between ₹100 and ₹1,000 per day based on their financial goals.
PhonePe said users will have flexibility with the Daily RD option, including the ability to withdraw funds after seven days and manage their UPI mandate according to their requirements. A grace period for missed investments has also been introduced to provide additional convenience.
Under the FD facility, customers can manage deposits from multiple partner institutions through a single platform. Deposits placed with eligible partner banks will receive insurance coverage of up to ₹5 lakh under the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) framework, subject to applicable guidelines.
Users can access the FD and Daily RD services through the “Mutual Funds & Deposit” section on the PhonePe application. The process includes selecting a financial institution, choosing the deposit amount and tenure, completing digital verification and making payments through online payment options.
The launch reflects the growing shift towards digital financial services in India, where consumers are increasingly adopting online platforms for savings, investments and personal finance management.
With the introduction of digital fixed deposits and small-ticket savings solutions, PhonePe aims to strengthen its role in expanding access to financial products and encouraging a culture of convenient digital savings.
6, Aug 2026
Skorecard Marketing Unveils Strategic Communications and Growth Advisory Services in Hyderabad
Hyderabad, Aug 6: As Hyderabad strengthens its position as one of India’s business destinations, Skorecard Marketing has officially launched with a mission to help organisations navigate growth through strategic communications, brand positioning, stakeholder engagement and market intelligence through an integrated approach that brings together diverse strategic capabilities to address evolving business needs.
The city’s transformation has been fuelled by the rapid expansion of Global Capability Centres , alongside sustained growth in real estate, life sciences and allied industries. Together, these sectors have attracted global investments, generated employment and strengthened Hyderabad’s reputation as a centre for innovation and enterprise.
As businesses scale, they face challenges that extend beyond operations. Building credibility, communicating innovation, strengthening stakeholder relationships and establishing a distinct market position have become essential for long-term growth. Skorecard Marketing has been established to address these evolving needs by providing integrated communications and strategic advisory services to organisations operating in high-growth sectors.
Skorecard Marketing offers expertise in strategic communications, corporate reputation management, thought leadership, market positioning and growth advisory, helping businesses engage the audiences that matter most, including customers, investors, policymakers, partners and employees.
“Hyderabad’s economic growth is being shaped by a diverse set of industries that are transforming the city into a global business hub. As organisations grow, they need more than operational excellence – they need a clear market position, a strong reputation and meaningful stakeholder engagement. Our role is to help businesses communicate their vision with clarity and build lasting influence in their respective sectors,” said Anurag Kumar, Managing Partner, Skorecard Marketing.
Speaking on the launch, Murli Muktapuram, Managing Partner, Skorecard Marketing, said,
“Today’s businesses require far more than visibility; they need trust, credibility and a compelling narrative that resonates with stakeholders. At Skorecard Marketing, we combine market intelligence with strategic communications to help organisations strengthen their reputation, establish thought leadership and create long-term business value. Our focus is to become a trusted growth partner for companies contributing to Hyderabad’s evolving economy.”
Ms. Mukta Kumar, Managing Partner, Skorecard Marketing, added
“Today’s business leaders recognise that reputation is built through consistent, strategic communication. Hyderabad’s dynamic business landscape demands partners who understand both industry nuances and the evolving expectations of stakeholders. Skorecard brings together deep communications expertise with market insight to help organisations build influence, navigate change, and create lasting brand value”.
With Hyderabad continuing to attract investment across technology, life sciences, real estate and other emerging industries, Skorecard Marketing partners with organisations seeking to strengthen their market presence, build stakeholder confidence and support sustainable business growth.
