Charles Rizzo Gifts The Children’s Charity Over $5,000 to Assist in Their Efforts to Provide Bikes for Children

Detroit, MI, July 26, 2023 –– Variety The Children’s Charity was gifted well over $5,000 in children’s bikes to aid in their efforts to provide bikes to special needs and differently-abled children. With the help of generous donors, the charity gives away bikes and safety gear to over 150 children each year. Chuck Rizzo, being the father of a son with special needs, has an intimate understanding of the challenges that these children face, and has consistently committed to helping in any way that he can.

“We have been supporters of Variety for a number of years now,” says Chuck Rizzo, Jr. “Being parents of a special needs child ourselves, we are better able to appreciate what other families deal with. One of the main reasons that we decided to become active donors with Variety was the Bikes for kids program. We all know the joy that comes over any child’s face when they are able to cruise on their very own bike with the wind in their hair & the sun on their face… this sense of mobility and freedom is amplified when the child has had to deal with so many limitations in their young lives.”

The Charles Rizzo family donation to the charity allows the organization to purchase dozens upon dozens of new bikes of all types to add a bit more joy to a number of children’s lives. “In childhood, there are few things as independent as being able to move about freely under your own power,” added Rizzo.

The GivingTuesday Data Commons Launches Rethinking Resilience: Insights from the Giving Ecosystem

New York, NY, July 26, 2023 – The GivingTuesday Data Commons today released Rethinking Resilience: Insights from the Giving Ecosystem, in which the Data Commons continues its data-driven efforts to deepen the social sector’s understanding of the giving ecosystem.

In this report, the Data Commons presents a holistic view of global giving in 2022, reflecting the full breadth of the Data Commons’ initiatives, partnerships, data, and analysis. The Data Commons has mapped a wide variety of giving behavior metrics across global regions and communities, including the USA, India, Brazil, Kenya, the UK, and other countries. This year’s report also offers a window into the many ways that giving cultures vary from region to region.

The 2022 Lookback Report goes beyond narrow philanthropic metrics that exclude most giving and givers. In addition to measuring financial donations to charities, it also reports on giving money, time, items and voice in many different contexts, including giving to community groups and non-family individuals, in addition to nonprofits.

As the report underscores, as the map of the global giving ecosystem evolves so too will the ability to learn how to best cultivate radical generosity.

Highlights from this year’s report include:

– Globally, the vast majority of people gave to others. 84% of people worldwide donated time, money, items, or voice to others last year. Remarkably, most people (56%) gave in at least 3 of those ways.

– Giving behaviors are highly culturally dependent, with radically different giving ecosystems in different places. Of the countries surveyed, Kenya was by far the most generous across all metrics.

– Younger generations were more generous than older generations globally. The research shows that younger generations gave more often and in more ways in 2022. Older generations still donate more dollars in some countries, but younger generations are the most financially generous in others.

– In the USA, both donors (of money) and dollars were down. This double-whammy returns in 2022 for the first time since 2010. This alarming trend highlights the need for nonprofits to invest in resiliency by diversifying their donor base and tapping into the powerful cross-generational willingness to give that is present in nearly every community.

In addition to offering an analysis of giving trends, the 2022 Lookback Report also includes a suggested set of high-level strategic responses to the observed trends. However, to ensure that the reports and dashboards are as actionable as possible, the GivingTuesday Data Commons will soon be launching a complementary initiative that will provide a steady stream of practical and timely tools and tactics to increase giving and maximize organizational resiliency and impact.

This report could not have been produced without the support of many partners and their contributions. The GivingTuesday Data Commons operates within an exciting research context and is fortunate to work in collaboration – and in collegial conversation with – many of the most rigorous researchers in the field.

“Here at the GivingTuesday Data Commons,” says Chief Data Officer Woodrow Rosenbaum, “we aim to bring the same sorts of data-driven tools to the social sector that the business sector has had for decades. We’re working to enable the development and implementation of far more effective evidence-based campaigns and creating opportunities to move beyond outdated transactional models and explore more diverse, distributed, responsive, and enduring relational strategies.”

Guidewire Celebrates First Year of Bengaluru Office

Guidewire (NYSE: GWRE) celebrated the one-year anniversary of its office in Bengaluru, India. The staff in the Bengaluru office exemplify Guidewire’s commitment to global innovative research and development and strive to redefine excellence in the insurance industry. Guidewire is providing its 128 employees with a state-of-the- art work environment, while also offering remote and flexible working practices and wellness benefits. The office expects to grow, is actively hiring across multiple product development teams, and is ideally situated to take advantage of access to top new engineering and IT graduates from the top Indian universities. Open positions can be found on the Guidewire Careers website.

“In a very short time, ‘Team Bengaluru’ had an impressive impact, with many new capabilities designed, built and delivered to production,” said Guidewire Chief Product Development Officer Diego Devalle. “I look forward to seeing what the team will continue to accomplish working with the most advanced cloud stack.”

Guidewire Vice President of Engineering for Cloud Infrastructure Anoop Gopalakrishnan commented, “Marking the remarkable first anniversary of our Bengaluru office, we take immense pride in showcasing the exceptional achievements of our Cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) teams. With an unwavering dedication to secure supply chain, enhanced developer experience, and cutting-edge platform  engineering, these teams have been instrumental in pushing the boundaries of innovation. By harnessing the power of the latest technologies from the open-source world and actively contributing to the community, they are forging a path towards revolutionizing the PaaS landscape and driving remarkable growth for Guidewire.”

“The Bengaluru team, led by Director of Engineering for Cloud Data Platform Raman Venkateswaran, is actively building a cloud-native, enterprise-grade data and analytics platform,” added Guidewire Vice President of Engineering for Cloud Data Platform Premjith Rayaroth. “The big data platform is built on the latest tech stack, processes petabyte-scale data, and provides a rich set of artificial intelligence and machine learning software-as-a-service applications. I am amazed and thrilled to see how this team built and delivered many platform capabilities to production in such a short period of time!”

“Player vs. Environment,” by May Berchon, Continues to Garner Fans as It Barrels Through the Literary Community and Festival Circuit

Casper, WY, July 26, 2023 — It’s the novel that’s proving to be the little engine that could in 2023. While moviegoers are clamoring to get a taste of the Barbenheimer phenomenon, savvy readers are making their way to author May Berchon’s steamy ode to gamer culture, skateboarding, and interracial romance.

To date, “Player vs. Environment,” by May Berchon, has competed in or was an official selection of several prestigious literary contests including the 2023 International Book Awards and even the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in the Literature category.

“The feedback from readers has been so exciting,” Berchon says. “The other day, someone slid into my DMs and asked if I was really the author of my book and then told me how it was their favorite summer read. It was both strange and flattering.”

The hip literati and those looking for what’s new-now-next are loving Berchon’s debut novel for its audacious views on affirmative action, sex, and romance, as well as its incendiary rebuke of women losing agency when it comes to their bodies. “Player vs. Environment” is a controversial read from preface to epilogue. However, in Berchon’s mind, she wouldn’t have it any other way:

“I knew I was taking a massive risk addressing gender politics, race, and antisemitism the way that I do in the book. But all you hear nowadays is people talking about, ‘Let’s have a conversation,’ and then they proceed to fire off the same old tired perspectives while not offering any kind of realistically enforceable recommendation or resolution. People are scared to confront the issue of racism in the same way that, say, Spike Lee did when he hit the scene. Like, intellectualizing it. Stylizing it. Or the way Tarantino has lambasted the stupidity of antisemitism in his recent works. There’s barely any fire anymore. Just a few people puffing smoke or idiots trying to be hateful or bullying to curry favor with people that they’re scared to challenge. I wanted to just come out and address the real elephant in the room: there are factions that want to drive a wedge between minority groups and sadly, many of us are falling for it. PVE is a call to action to be more mindful about looking after each other.”

Berchon’s love of cinema and her inspiration from it motivated her to revise a small-screen adaptation of the work. She is also currently penning the sequel to PVE.

“’Player vs. Environment’ in its first iteration was meant to be a TV series,” she notes. “But retooling it as a novel during the pandemic allowed me more freedom with my storytelling and has really been the perfect glue for all the things I didn’t love when I initially wrote and started pitching the series back in 2016.”

It seems that recalculating the ingredients has created the perfect guilty pleasure for those who dare to partake.

“Player vs. Environment” is available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.

Kitman Labs Inks Deal with Iowa State University for Combined Medical Data and Performance Analytics Platform to Support Student Athletes

Menlo Park, California (July 25, 2023) – Kitman Labs, the global enterprise SaaS platform providing the only single, centralized operating system for performance intelligence in Sports, today announced that Iowa State University will be deploying Kitman Labs’ iP: Intelligence Platform across all men’s and women’s varsity sports. They become the third current Big 12 Conference school to partner with Kitman labs, joining Baylor University and Texas Tech University.

Iowa State University will use the platform to centralize and combine student-athlete medical and performance data, providing appropriate Departmental Staff with a secure, comprehensive and real-time view of all athletes from a physical and mental health and wellness perspective. The platform will also enable collaboration between staff in the design and execution of individual rehab and training programs to unlock student-athlete progress and performance.

Beyond compliance, the Performance Medicine solution being deployed at Iowa State will help inform decision-making around medical assessments, diagnosis, treatment and return to play strategies. Iowa State University joins approximately 80 other NCAA universities who are currently using the technology from Kitman Labs.

“Like many other NCAA universities – Iowa State understands the urgency and critical nature of monitoring the physical and mental well being of its student-athletes and to ensure it’s utilizing every tool and resource necessary to support the holistic development of those students during their college tenure, while also developing them for life after school – either inside or outside of Sport,” said Kitman Labs Founder & CEO, Stephen Smith.

“At Iowa State, we realize that ultimate success includes the ability to communicate and share relevant information across all departments that impact student-athlete health, performance, and well-being as well as incorporating the various aspects of sports science which can allow for more informed decision making,” said Mark Coberley, Iowa State’s Associate Athletics Director for Sports Medicine.

“We performed a lengthy analysis of our options to incorporate a system that allows us to meet this vision,” he added. “We needed an all-encompassing system that was sensitive to our particular needs, desired outcomes and nuances across departments. We believe Kitman Labs was the leader in this area and will provide solutions for our vision. We are extremely pleased to partner with them.”

Kitman Labs has an established track record of working with top teams and athletes across a variety of sports, including soccer, basketball, rugby, and American football. The company’s technology is being used by some of the world’s most elite collegiate sports organizations, such as Michigan State University, Clemson University, University of Colorado among many others.

This expansion into NCAA institutions follows other recent business strategy moves Kitman Labs has undertaken. That includes the successful close of a $52M Series C funding round led by Guggenheim Investments, a global asset investment and advisory firm with more than $259 billion in assets under management and two strategic acquisitions of The Sports Office and Presagia Sports, both made in the last two years. The combined companies represent the industry’s largest network of elite and youth organizations (700+) and created the industry’s largest dataset of talent, performance, and medical data for all stages of the athlete lifecycle.

Saudi Arabia Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources Releases April 2023 Monthly Bulletin to Provide Insights into The Kingdom’s Industrial and Mining Sectors

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – The Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia has released its latest April 2023 Monthly Bulletin of Industry and Mining, aimed at providing key insights into the Kingdom’s industrial and mining sectors. The bulletin is published monthly and covers the latest developments, trends, and investments in these sectors, proving a vital tool for investors.

The bulletin issued by the National Industrial and Mining Information Center indicated that during the period from January to April 2023, 385 new industrial licenses were issued with investments amounting to 14 billion riyals, while 314 factories started production with investments exceeding 8.105 billion riyals, enabling the sector to create more than 29,000 job opportunities, 15,000 of these jobs being for Saudis, Indicating a total workforce of 726,750 workers by the end of April.

In addition, the total number of factories in the Kingdom at the end of last April reached 10,873 factories, with investments amounting to 1.4 trillion riyals (373.251 billion USD).

As for the mining sector, the bulletin indicated that the total number of mining licenses in force in the sector until the end of April 2023 amounted to 2,336 licenses, including 1,454 building materials quarry licenses, 634 exploration licenses, 180 exploitation and small mine licenses, 36 reconnaissance licenses, and 32 surplus mineral ores licenses.

The Monthly Bulletin of Industry and Mining is part of Saudi Arabia’s broader industry and mineral resources strategy. The Kingdom has been actively diversifying its economy and reducing its dependence on oil for revenue. The development of the industrial and mining sectors is a key component of this strategy, and the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources has been leading the efforts to achieve this goal.

The Saudi Arabian government has been encouraging investment in the industrial and mining sectors by offering various incentives, including tax exemptions, land grants, and streamlined licensing processes. The data presented in the bulletin highlights the success of these efforts, and the growth of Saudi Arabia’s industrial and mining sectors is expected to benefit the country’s overall economy.

TSG Hotels & Resorts organized beach clean-up drive at Marina Park, Port Blair for environmental and marine conservation

TSG Hotels & Resorts organized a beach clean-up drive on 22nd July at the seashore area of Marina Park, Port Blair with an objective of spreading awareness among the people on depleting flora of the beaches and how such beach clean-up activities can help in protecting marine life.

Around 25 staff from TSG Grand and TSG Emerald View participated in this cleanliness drive. They spread all around the beach with disposable bags and collected dry waste in the form of plastic cups, wrappers, empty bottles, and other debris.

Mr. Chiranjeet Das, Corporate General Manager coordinated the entire programme under the guidance of Mr. Mohinder Bhatia, Promiller.

The Staffs were happy to be part of the campaign and it was their active and enthusiastic participation that made the beach clean-up drive an inspiring success.

The Drive ended with handing over the waste to the PBMC Staff for further disposal and leaving behind a clean beach.

Speaking to the media Mr. Chiranjeet said, “It was a wholesome experience to make a move for the betterment of society and it gave a feeling of fulfillment to take a step in eradicating the mistakes of mankind and saving nature from huge disasters”.

He also emphasised the importance of preserving the pristine environment of A&N Islands for future generations.

IBM Report: Average cost of a data breach in India touched INR 179 million in 2023

Bengaluru, July 25, 2023 — IBM (NYSE: IBM) Security today released its annual Cost of a Data Breach Report,[1] showing the average cost of a data breach in India reached INR 179 million in 2023 – an all-time high for the report and almost a 28% increase since 2020. Detection and escalation costs jumped 45% over this same time frame, representing the highest portion of breach costs, and indicating a shift towards more complex breach investigations.

At nearly 22%, the most common attack type in India was phishing, followed by stolen or compromised credentials (16%). Social engineering was the costliest root cause of breaches at INR 191 million, followed by malicious insider threats, which amounted to approximately INR 188 million.

According to the 2023 IBM report, globally businesses are divided in how they plan to handle the increasing cost and frequency of data breaches. The report found that while 95% of organizations studied globally have experienced more than one breach, these breached organizations were more likely to pass incident costs onto consumers (57%) than to increase security investments (51%).

“With cyberattacks growing in pace and cost in India, businesses must invest in modern security strategies and solutions to stay resilient. The report shows that security AI and automation had the biggest impact on keeping breach costs down and cutting time off the investigation – and yet a majority of organizations in India still haven’t deployed these technologies. It’s clear that there is still considerable opportunity for businesses to boost detection and response speeds and help stop the ongoing trend of growing breach costs,” said Viswanath Ramaswamy, Vice President, Technology, IBM India & South Asia.

Breaching data across environments

In India, 28% of data breaches studied resulted in the loss of data spanning multiple types of environments (i.e., public cloud, private cloud, on-prem) – indicating that attackers were able to compromise multiple environments while avoiding detection. When breached data was stored across multiple environments, it also had the highest associated breach costs (INR 188 million) and took the longest to identify and contain (327 days).

Need for AI and automation to pick up speed in India

AI and automation had the biggest impact on the speed of breach identification and containment for studied organizations. In India, companies with extensive use of AI and automation experienced a data breach lifecycle that was 153 days shorter compared to studied organizations that have not deployed these technologies (225 days versus 378 days). In fact, studied organizations that deployed security AI and automation extensively saw nearly INR 95 million lower data breach costs than organizations that didn’t deploy these technologies – the biggest cost saver identified in the report. In this context, it is important to note that 80% of studied organizations in India have limited (37%) or no use (43%) of AI and automation.