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DFA Awards 2021 Winners Announcement

Hong Kong Design Centre

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach - 19 October 2021 - The DFA Awards is a flagship programme of the Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC). It is comprised of five major awards to acknowledge leaders for their outstanding contributions to the design industry and celebrate projects at the forefront of design excellence with Asian perspectives. Three trailblazers in the world of design have been awarded in 2021: Patrick Whitney, Professor in Residence of Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health - DFA Lifetime Achievement Award (DFA LAA), Min-Liang Tan, CEO & Co-founder of Razer Inc. - DFA Design Leadership Award (DFA DLA), and Freeman Lau, Founder of KL&K Creative Strategics - DFA World's Outstanding Chinese Designer (DFA WOCD). In addition, 180 awards were conferred under the DFA Design for Asia Awards (DFA DFAA). Organised by the Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC) with Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government as the lead sponsor, the DFA Awards was launched in 2003 to underpin the role of designers within society, celebrate design excellence with positive influence and impacts in Asia. Upon reflection of this year's awards, Professor Eric Yim, Chairman of HKDC states: "Design is a vital part of Hong Kong, a city that brings people, culture and ideas together. This is especially critical at a time when the world has witnessed so much uncertainty brought on by the pandemic. This year, I am delighted to honour three exceptional leaders: Patrick Whitney, Min-Liang Tan, and Freeman Lau, all have shown through their work, dedication and leadership how design can be used to inspire communities, unite people from all walks of life through one singularity, and contribute to the betterment of society in Asia and beyond." DFA Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 (DFA LAA) Patrick Whitney - Professor in Residence, Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health Patrick Whitney is the Professor in Residence of D-lab in the Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health, a leading laboratory that explores and demonstrates how design methods and frameworks can improve human well-being. He is widely regarded as a thought leader for pioneering the notions of human-centred design and strategic design. He is a highly esteemed speaker at multiple international design events, on topics such as innovation, sustainability and human well-being. Global Entrepreneur Magazine named him as one of 25 people worldwide contributing the most in bringing new ideas to businesses in China. DFA Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 honours Whitney's vast contribution to the design industry through design strategy development, education programmes, and his advisory work to governing design bodies, actively strengthening the relationship between design theory and practice. DFA Design Leadership Award 2021 (DFA DLA) Min-Liang Tan - CEO & Co-founder, Razer Inc. As the pioneer of e-sports hardware, former lawyer Min-Liang Tan is seen as a trailblazer for the younger generation, of someone following their dream and at the same time adding valuable contributions to society. As CEO, Co-founder and Creative Director of the world's leading lifestyle brand for gamers – Razer Inc., Tan has demonstrated how forward-thinking and innovative design can disrupt the gaming industry. DFA Design Leadership Award 2021 honours his leadership throughout the years in pushing the boundaries of the gaming industry and driving industry innovation through design. Under Tan's strategic and creative direction, Razer has gone from a two-man startup to a multinational market leader and Unicorn in the technology world. DFA World's Outstanding Chinese Designer 2021 (DFA WOCD) Freeman Lau - Founder, KL&L Creative Strategics Freeman Lau is a Hong Kong designer, renowned for his art and design innovations. He is the brains behind some of Hong Kong's most iconic designs such as the Watson Water bottle, which earned him multiple awards. The design aesthetics and its functionality has lauded a critical breakthrough in the history of bottled water. In addition, Lau has been tirelessly promoting the development of design in Hong Kong, Greater China and Asia. Lau's creative prowess spans across the entire design spectrum, from graphic design, packaging design, to fine arts. His contributions are widely recognised in society His creative contributions have a significant, cultural impact in Asia, which is best demonstrated by his 'Chairplay' series. The series includes a range of furniture and sculptures, which has been shown worldwide at different exhibitions. The notion of Chairplay is a metaphor for the exploration of different human centric issues and is one of Lau's signature works. DFA World's Outstanding Chinese Designer 2021 honours his devotion and contribution to promoting the design, creative industry and culture of Hong Kong and Asia. DFA Design for Asia Awards 2021 (DFA DFAA) Since its launch in 2003, the DFA Design for Asia Awards has served to celebrate design excellence and acknowledge outstanding designs with Asian perspectives. It has been a stage upon which design talents and corporations can showcase their design projects internationally. It consists of the Grand Award and Category Award. Category Award entries are recruited by open submission to one of 24 categories under four key design disciplines, namely Apparel & Accessory Design, Communication Design, Environmental Design, and Product & Industrial Design; Gold, Silver, Bronze and Merit awards are presented to the outstanding projects. Gold award winners from the Category Award and other nominated design projects will be considered for the Grand Award. Dr Joseph Wong, Executive Director of Hong Kong Design Centre mentions that: "Amidst the pandemic, creativity and innovation proves to be the remedy for improving our quality of life. We are pleased to award projects that meaningfully address critical issues such as humanitarian needs, environmental, cultural and sustainable development, revitalisation through technological advancements, and marriage of functionality and aesthetics." The Awards' international judging panel comprises experienced design professionals and experts. Entries were judged and 180 winners through rounds of judging and deliberation were conferred. These awards include 12 Grand Awards, six Grand Award with Special Mention and 162 Gold, Silver, Bronze and Merit under the Category Award. This year, companies from Mainland China and Japan are at the top of leaderboard with 52 awards, followed by Hong Kong awardees claiming 41 awards. For more information and the DFA Awards 2021 full list of awardees, please visit www.dfaawards.com. About DFA Awards ( www.dfaawards.com ) In 2003, the Hong Kong Design Centre launched the DFA Awards to underpin the role of designers in society, to celebrate design leadership and exemplary designs and projects with impact in Asia, as well as to recognise the rising force of emerging Hong Kong designers since 2005. The DFA Award, through its five major award programmes, has grown in its international influence in Asia. The five award programmes include DFA Lifetime Achievement Award, DFA Design Leadership Award, DFA World's Outstanding Chinese Designer, DFA Design for Asia Awards and DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award. #DFA About Hong Kong Design Centre ( www.hkdesigncentre.org ) Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC) is a non-governmental organisation, and was founded in 2001 as a strategic partner of the HKSAR Government in establishing Hong Kong as an international centre of design excellence in Asia. Our public mission is to promote wider and strategic use of design and design thinking to create business value and improve societal well-being. HKDC's flagship programmes include Business of Design Week (BODW; since 2002) – Asia's leading annual event on design, innovation and brands; DFA Awards (since 2003) – a well-recognised annual awards that celebrate outstanding designs with Asian perspectives; and Knowledge of Design Week (KODW; since 2006) – an annual thematic programme that gathers the global design community to explore how design can solve complex challenges of our society. We also manage a Design Incubation Programme and Fashion Incubation Programme (since 2012 and 2016) – 2-year programmes to nurture future design and fashion entrepreneurs; and launched FASHION ASIA HONG KONG (since 2016) – an initiative combining conversations, interactions and cultural exchanges to position the city as an Asian hub for fashion trade and business development. #HongKongDesignCentre #HKDC About Create Hong Kong ( www.createhk.gov.hk ) Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) is a dedicated agency set up by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in June 2009. It is under the Communications and Creative Industries Branch of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau and dedicated to spearheading the development of creative industries in Hong Kong. Its strategic focuses are nurturing talent and facilitating start-ups, exploring markets, and promoting Hong Kong as Asia's creative capital and fostering a creative atmosphere in the community. CreateHK sponsors the Hong Kong Design Centre to organise the DFA Awards for years and other projects to promote Hong Kong design. Disclaimer: The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region provides funding support to the project only, and does not otherwise take part in the project. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials/events (or by members of the project team) are those of the project organizers only and do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Communications and Creative Industries Branch of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, Create Hong Kong, the CreateSmart Initiative Secretariat or the CreateSmart Initiative Vetting Committee. Contact Details Keith Yip keith.yip@hkdesigncentre.org

October 19, 2021 11:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Agora Data to Present at 2021 NIADA/NABD Convention

Agora

Agora Data’s Senior Vice President of Sales, Chris Barry, is slated to speak at the 2021 NIADA/NABD Automotive Finance & BHPH Expo. Barry will present “Groundbreaking Changes in Auto Financing to Fuel Growth” at 2:15 p.m. on November 2 in Orlando, Florida. Barry will share how new and revolutionary ways of accessing capital can help dealers compete with online retailers and large used-car superstores. Agora is pioneering change in the auto finance industry by completing the first-ever crowdsourced subprime securitizations in December 2020 and May 2021. Agora plans to execute these transactions regularly thereby permitting more and more dealers to tap into the capital markets. “Unlike any other time in history, independent and Buy Here Pay Here dealers are competing with mega-sized auto retailers who have the advantage of abundant capital with low rates and attractive terms. They may not know they have access to their competitors’ “secret sauce,” said Barry, who has more than 30 years of experience in auto lending, servicing, and ancillary products. “That’s why I’m excited to present at this year’s NIADA/NABD convention. I plan to spell out the most beneficial funding opportunities for independent and Buy Here Pay Here dealers, along with some bonus tips on leveraging robust data to improve loan portfolio performance.” At the convention, Barry will also participate in the BHPH Contract Purchasers Capital Panel, moderated by Ken Shilson. During this panel discussion, Barry and other industry experts will reveal the pros and cons of obtaining funding via securitization, bulk purchase or point of sale. Afterward, dealers can talk directly with Barry and the Agora team at the convention’s Finance Fair. “It’s extremely rewarding to see the looks on dealers’ faces when they find out they can now enjoy the same financial advantages typically reserved for big retail operations,” Barry said. “Much like their customers, Buy Here Pay Here dealers are underserved and underbanked. But Agora is here to change that.” Dealers are invited to drop by Agora’s booth #423 any day during the show to discuss the company’s groundbreaking capital solutions and learn how to access Agora’s completely free-of-charge, comprehensive portfolio analytics. About Agora Data, Inc: Founded in 2017, Agora Data’s platform delivers a suite of tools to empower Buy Here Pay Here dealers and finance companies to maximize their success. Agora is disrupting and influencing the industry by connecting its dealers and finance company members to Wall Street and other capital resources previously only available to large dealer groups. Agora Data’s family of auto finance products provides a wide range of critical funding paths so originators can obtain the cash they need to fuel growth. Powered by Agora’s proprietary, radical, AI-infused technology platform, originators now have access to robust data analytics and planning resources to help optimize the performance of their portfolio. Agora Data made history by closing the first-ever Crowdsourced Subprime Auto Securitization in 2020 and followed that up with its second transaction in early 2021. For more information, visit agoradata.com or contact us at 877-592-4672. Contact Details Shelly Vandeven +1 682-282-4130 media@agoradata.com Company Website https://agoradata.com/

October 19, 2021 09:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time

ElementalTV Surpasses 1B+ CTV Ad Impressions in First Year of Business; Company Debuts ELM, a New Proprietary CTV Ad Platform, to Accelerate Expansion

ElementalTV

ElementalTV, an emerging media technology company and a division of Adoppler, has generated more than one billion connected TV (CTV) advanced ad impressions in its first year in the market, as the company pursues its mission to provide leading brands, advertisers and publishers with the tools necessary to unlock the full potential of the CTV ad experience. Today, ElementalTV immersive ad experiences reach 57% of CTV households in the U.S. and, after just one year of providing its proven CTV advertising solutions to some of the world’s top brands and content partners, ElementalTV is now debuting its new, proprietary Engagement Lift Media (ELM) platform to a wider marketplace. The ELM platform is the first and only fully vertically integrated platform, offering advanced ad decisioning, a demand-side platform (DSP), creative optimization, transcoding and stitching capabilities. This unified offering enables ElementalTV’s partners to deliver cost-effective, next generation CTV ad experiences, from localizing national video ad creatives via its innovative SmartFrame technology, to adding dynamic messaging within ad units, and contextual ad targeting. “CTV is the fastest growing medium today, but its ad experience is suboptimal,” says Omer Latif, CEO at ElementalTV. “We built our platform to reimagine the future of CTV advertising -- to create innovative and smart tech solutions for brands, to help publishers realize the full value of their content, and to pioneer a new and improved viewing experience for growing CTV audiences worldwide. Our approach is bold and breaks barriers. Through the ELM platform’s product suite, we enable our partners to leverage the addressability of digital to evolve audience engagement to a new standard.” The success over the past year and increasing demand for the new ELM platform are behind ElementalTV’s decision to accelerate the scaling of its business, including broadening its strategic partnership with top programmatic firm MPW Digital. The partnership with MPW Digital expands the company's efforts to introduce advertisers to the next generation of advanced CTV advertising capabilities and formats. “Our next phase of growth requires having the right partners who share our vision of being true pioneers and innovators in CTV advertising technology,” says Albert Yu, VP Analytics & Monetization at ElementalTV. “MPW Digital has been on this journey with us and we’re excited to have them play a critical role in our expansion.” “Over the past year we've seen ElementalTV’s ability to rapidly innovate and grow. It has been exciting to see their SmartFrame technology add value to advertisers' CTV campaigns,” says Marcus Weiss, COO at MPW Digital. “This is just the beginning and we’re looking forward to serving as a close extension of their team as they advance into the next phase of commercialization of ELM and continue to transform the CTV ad experience.” ElementalTV, a division of Adoppler, was started in 2020 to focus on technology solutions for CTV, creating breakthrough ad experiences for CTV audiences while delivering innovation and added value to advertisers and publishers. Today, through the ELM platform, ElementalTV is delivering more than 100 million advanced ad impressions per month. To learn more about ElementalTV and its solutions, visit www.elementaltv.com. About ElementalTV: Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Pasadena, CA, ElementalTV is pioneering the next generation of CTV ad innovation. ElementalTV pushes the boundaries of how technology can immerse an audience’s advertisement experience. Its proprietary vertically integrated platform, ELM, combines a wide range of capabilities including advanced ad decisioning, demand-side platform (DSP), creative optimization, transcoding, and stitching to allow for seamless, next generation ad experience. To learn more, visit elementaltv.com. Contact Details Kite Hill PR Angelina Kaliszak angelina@kitehillpr.com Company Website https://www.elementaltv.com/

October 19, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Charlie Pesti Increases Bespoke Logistics and Supply Chain Media & PR Offerings with Addition of Hariesh Manaadiar

CHARLIE PESTI

Logistics and Supply Chain Media & PR Company Charlie Pesti has announced the addition of Hariesh Manaadiar as Director, Market & Data Intelligence. Manaadiar joined the company effective October 1 and will be actively executing the company’s vision of becoming the world's best publicist of logistics and supply chain technologies. “ We have had a strong and long-standing relationship with Hariesh through Shipping and Freight Resource (SFR) and are very excited about what this partnership will bring. Through the collaboration, we will continue to regularly bring our clients in front of thousands of decision makers, creating millions of dollars worth of business, while receiving invaluable insights from the ever growing and highly engaged SFR community. As owner of our data and market intelligence efforts, Hariesh will be working closely with customers to turn their operational data into market intelligence and actionable insights that can be presented to industry and mainstream media on a regular basis. We will also be expanding into market reports and research to continue providing stakeholders with crucial data sets essential for their business operations, ” said Charlie Pesti, Founder and Executive Director at CHARLIE PESTI. Hariesh Manaadiar, brings with him 3 decades of experience in global shipping, maritime, logistics, freight, and supply chain management. He holds a Masters in Shipping & Logistics, a Diploma in Journalism and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers and a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. Hariesh has been educating Joe Public globally on the various requirements and vagaries of the industry since 2008 through his hugely popular Shipping and Freight Resource. The site is popular for its educational content, Executive Insights, and Product Reviews. Hariesh is a regular speaker at container seminars and has engaged with entities such as the FMC on matters relating to critical issues such as demurrage and detention and port congestion. “ I have always been passionate about assisting customers in the logistics and supply chain space with their pain points and aiding them in their efforts to find innovative solutions. CHARLIE PESTI was a good fit for me to pursue this passion based on their involvement and experience in working with LogTech companies. Working with start-ups, unicorns and scale-ups, CHARLIE PESTI has tripled their revenue and quadrupled profit in the past year alone. I am definitely excited to be part of this growing team and add my expertise to the business, ” adds Hariesh Manaadiar. CHARLIE PESTI covers the supply chain and logistics markets in the geographies of US, EU, APAC & South Africa. About CHARLIE PESTI Charlie Pesti is focused on and obsessed with being the world's best publicist of logistics technologies. They bring their clients to decision-makers, who are eager to engage with them, pay them, and talk about them. The Charlie Pesti team is expert in content creation, industry and mainstream media relations, lead generation, and conferences. Learn more at — www.pesti.io Contact Details CHARLIE PESTI Priyanka Ann Saini +91 98332 68264 priyanka@pesti.io

October 12, 2021 03:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Facebook and Disney execs raise $4.5m for 100ms to build live video infrastructure for the world

100ms

Live video infrastructure platform 100ms has announced a $4.5M seed round of funding led by Accel with participation from Strive.vc. 100ms provides infrastructure that allows any company to add Zoom-style video conferencing inside their app within hours. It was founded by the team that built live video infrastructure powering billions of video minutes a day at Facebook and Disney. In the pandemic, people’s lives moved to Zoom for studying, consulting doctors, meetings, even hanging out. However, users’ experience remained broken as consumers had to juggle between different apps and Zoom. As a result developers rushed to try and add live video inside their apps to provide a seamless user experience. However, adding live video to apps with current developer platforms is a long, cumbersome and expensive process. Current developer platforms that enable live video take months to integrate. And video still doesn’t work at Zoom-quality. Kshitij Gupta, Aniket Behera and Sarvesh Dwivedi solved these problems while building some of the world’s largest live video infrastructure deployments at Facebook and Disney. They launched 100ms in October 2020 with a view to democratise access to live video infrastructure for everyone. Having operated in beta for a long period, they launched powerful but fully customizable software development kits (SDKs) that allow developers to add Zoom-quality video to their apps in hours, instead of months. 100ms has quickly signed up clients like Paytm Insider, BookMyShow Townscript, Circle among others and were voted #1 product of the day on producthunt. “Being a video engineer all my life, I understand the complexity of adding live video at scale. For a long time, this infrastructure has only been available to very few developers. We started 100ms to build live video infrastructure for the world. Our SDKs are supported on all platforms including ios/android/web and are equipped to build high quality video along with all the edge cases in just a few lines of code. Our infrastructure is designed to handle the scale and offers super low latency across the world," commented Kshitij, co- founder and CEO, 100ms. The market for live audio/video infrastructure services is forecast to grow from $4.2B in 2019 to $17.7B in 2024. The rapid growth is being driven by enterprises across industries who are unbundling Zoom - edtech, telehealth, retail, gaming, fitness, social networks, virtual events. Audio rooms - which is all the rage after clubhouse, didn’t exist as a category before the pandemic. Aniket, co-founder and COO added: “Zoom is getting unbundled. Huge markets are being unlocked which are now leveraging white labelled video/audio - edtech, telehealth, gaming retail, fitness, audio rooms among others. 100ms aims to be the infrastructure layer for all these industries.” The funds raised will be used to build the world’s best video engineering team and product enhancement creating 100s of templates of live use cases, simplifying video access for companies across the world. On leading the investment round Abhinav Chaturvedi, Partner at Accel, said, “We believe all apps in the future will have video and audio embedded in them. 100ms is the best team to create the best in class developer product to enable this.” "An open extendable platform, built by experts in audio/video streaming, and supported by a budding engaged community instantly convinced us that the 100ms team is building a global-leading dev infra company,”said, Nikhil Kapur, Partner at STRIVE.vc who also participated in the investment round. About 100ms 100ms provides infrastructure that allows any company to add Zoom-style video conferencing inside their app in hours. The founding team built live video infrastructure powering billions of minutes a day at Facebook and Disney. About Accel Accel is a global venture capital firm that is the first partner to exceptional teams everywhere, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Accel has been operating in India since 2008, and its investments include companies like BookMyShow, Browserstack, Flipkart, Freshworks, FalconX, Chargebee, Clevertap, Cure Fit, Musigma, Moneyview, Myntra, Moglix, Ninjacart, Swiggy, Stanza Living, Urban Company, Zetwerk, and Zenoti, among many others. We help ambitious entrepreneurs build iconic global businesses. For more, visit www.accel.com or https://twitter.com/Accel_India. About Strive.vc STRIVE is a B2B/SaaS-focused fund with over 80 investments across India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, and managing over $200M in AUM. The firm has invested in several dev infra and SaaS companies in India including Hasura, Testsigma, and Classplus. Contact Details 100ms Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com

October 05, 2021 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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News Direct Introduces DB Direct, an In-Platform Global Media Database

News Direct

News Direct, the state-of-the-art news and content distribution service designed to meet the demands of modern media outreach, now offers clients the ability to augment their distribution and amplify their message with DB Direct, an in-platform global media database powered by Agility PR Solutions, a subsidiary of Innodata Inc. (NASDAQ: INOD). The partnership provides subscribers with a seamless workflow integration that maximizes potential visibility and engagement opportunities. Featuring more than one million contacts and outlets from around the globe, DB Direct enables PR and communications professionals to identify key journalists, online influencers, analysts, and bloggers, resulting in more effective and targeted campaigns. Agility has consistently earned top honors for its comprehensiveness, ease of use, and customer support. "News Direct's robust global distribution combined with the convenient, in-platform access to the high-performance DB Direct media database significantly enhances efficiency and ROI opportunities for our clients," observed Gregg Castano, founder and CEO of News Direct. "DB Direct is another example of News Direct's synergistic approach to PR solutions, illustrating our commitment to introduce clients to best-in-class service providers." The intuitive database platform provides numerous tools to facilitate list creation. Keyword search functionality draws results from billions of past articles to surface the most relevant influencers. Additional search criteria include by beat, media type, and location, among other variables. Backed by Agility’s research team that leverages AI to makes 2 million annual updates, DB Direct includes phone, email, and social media details. Agility's dedicated customer success team provides training sessions, tutorials, as well as chat, phone, and email support. To learn more about News Direct, please visit https://newsdirect.com. About News Direct News Direct provides news and content distribution for PR, IR, Corporate Communications and Marketing professionals. Our automated platform delivers a completely-reimagined, intuitive workflow, industry-leading security, transparent, flat-rate pricing and actionable analytics. Further, News Direct has deployed an array of innovation including advanced automation, isolation cloud technology and custom software for the most dynamic, efficient and flexible platform available today. To learn more visit newsdirect.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. About Innodata and Agility Innodata (NASDAQ: INOD) is a leading data engineering company. Prestigious companies across the globe turn to Innodata for help with their biggest data challenges. By combining advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) technologies, a global workforce of over 3,500 subject matter experts, and a high-security infrastructure, we're helping usher in the promise of digital data and ubiquitous AI. Agility is Innodata's AI-enabled, SaaS industry platform for PR and communications professionals. Visit www.innodata.com and www.agilitypr.com to learn more. Contact Details Kevin Pryor +1 212-334-9753 newsdirect@n6a.com

September 29, 2021 09:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Minuteman Press Bethesda Partners with In America Flags to Remember COVID-19 Victims

Minuteman Press International Inc

In America: Remember is a public art exhibition being held at the National Mall that displays 660,000 white flags to honor the people in America who have been lost due to COVID-19. Minuteman Press in Bethesda, Maryland, is a partner for the exhibition, providing printed message cards from people all over the country who are paying tribute to loved ones through the In America website. “We are glad to be able to do our part to help this art exhibition,” says Leslie Klein, owner, Minuteman Press, Bethesda. “Every day, we receive all of the messages that were submitted through the In America website and we print them 8 up on 11 x 17 sheets to create 4.25 x 5.5 cards. Every night, I drop off the finished cards to one of the volunteers, and then they are transcribed onto the flags by another group of volunteers.” Leslie adds, “This is a total team effort and we are proud to be partners in such an important and moving exhibition. Our hearts go out to those who have been lost and their families.” The In America: Remember exhibition was designed by artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg. The exhibition is open for public participation now through October 3 rd, 2021. Hours are Weekdays from 10 AM – Sunset and Weekends from 9 AM – Sunset. For more information, visit https://www.inamericaflags.org. Minuteman Press in Bethesda is located at 8210 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814. For more information, call 301-656-1188 or visit their website: https://minuteman.com/us/locations/md/bethesda Learn more about Minuteman Press products and services at https://minuteman.com Contact Details Minuteman Press International Chris Biscuiti +1 631-249-1370 cbiscuiti@mpihq.com Company Website https://minutemanpressfranchise.com

September 28, 2021 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Velocity Global launches next-gen technology to power its global work platform

Velocity Global

Platform eliminates friction to manage any talent anywhere, anytime in a single click Proprietary technology delivers a seamless cloud experience for clients and talent Velocity Global scales its leading global work platform with the launch of its next-generation technology. Built on proprietary code and best-in-breed cloud solutions, the latest version streamlines the client and talent experience to deliver real-time insights to compliantly manage distributed teams. Velocity Global unveiled the technology experience at the HR Technology Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas. “Our global work platform delivers compliance, accuracy, flexibility, and customization, which inspired our next-generation technology for a seamless client and talent experience,” said Dave Martelon, Velocity Global chief technology officer. Velocity Global’s next-generation technology introduces several features including: Streamlined Supported Employee Onboarding: New team members are guided through a seamless step-by-step experience customized to their country of employment. Interactive Global Dashboard: Clients can view all of their supported employees and their employment status across the globe at a glance, and drill down into details at the country level. Simple Time Off Management: Clients view and approve time off requests for all supported employees in one place. Flexible Payroll Requests: Clients generate, view, and manage recurring and one-time payment requests based on their custom payroll schedule with ease. Consolidated Invoicing and Payments: The platform generates consolidated invoices so clients can pay their talent with a single click of a button. 3rd Party Integrations: The platform is built to reduce the overhead of manual data entry through integrations with clients’ internal systems. “Our team makes the complex simple,” said Martelon. “We built a proprietary infrastructure that connects with leading talent management systems and removes friction for clients and HR departments. The underlying infrastructure is flexible and enables the future of work.” Velocity Global’s work platform combines the company’s proprietary cloud-based workforce management technology, personalized expertise, and unmatched global scale to build globally distributed teams. More than 1,000 clients rely on Velocity Global’s platform without the need to set up their own legal entities in other countries or other states. Velocity Global is exhibiting at HR Technology Conference and Exposition at booth #5514. About Velocity Global Velocity Global accelerates the future of work beyond borders. Its global work platform simplifies the employer and employee experience to employ any talent anywhere with just a click through its proprietary cloud-based workforce management technology, backed by personalized expertise and unmatched global scale. As the largest global Employer of Record (also known as International PEO) in 185 countries and all 50 United States, more than 1,000 brands rely on Velocity Global to build global teams without the cost or complexity of setting up foreign legal entities or state registrations. The company offers additional services including Independent Contractor Compliance to assess a workforce, and Agent of Record (AoR) to streamline payments to contractors. Velocity Global was named a “Leader” in Global Employer of Record services by prominent analyst firm NelsonHall. Founded in 2014, the company has hundreds of employees across six continents. For more information visit velocityglobal.com. Contact Details Velocity Global Eli Rice +1 720-650-4348 news@velocityglobal.com Company Website https://velocityglobal.com/

September 28, 2021 06:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time

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Pollen VC announces new financial tools to level the playing field among mobile ad networks

Pollen VC

Fintech lender Pollen VC, a leading provider of revolving credit facilities to app and game developers, today announced a new online calculator to compare CPMs (cost per thousand impressions of an advert) from different advertising networks on a level playing field based on their payment terms. The payment terms of mobile ad networks differ vastly, with most networks offering terms between Net 15 and Net 60 days. In other words, depending on the network, app and game publishers receive payment between 15 and 60 days from the end of the month when the impression was served. Publishers are rightly focused on achieving the highest CPMs for their ad inventory but are consistently overlooking the financial impact on their business caused by the lengthy and non-standard payment cycles. Specifically, the opportunity cost of not being able to reinvest proceeds from ad revenue into additional user acquisition. This can result in money being left on the table for publishers and missed revenues for advertising networks. Martin Macmillan, CEO & Founder at Pollen VC commented: “Real time app bidding is a big step forward for the mobile app industry. The mobile ads market is evolving from one historically plagued by lack of transparency and manual operational overhead, to a new world order which moves towards a real-time bidding auction for ad impressions which squeezes out many of the inefficiencies out of the previous model.” “But as the bidding model continues to evolve, savvy media buyers and ad monetization managers need to better understand their underlying financial dynamics, and how they can better optimize their growth opportunities. Many publishers are leaving money on the table by not taking the time to understand these underlying financial dynamics.” Time value of money A $10 CPM that pays out in 90 days is less valuable than a $10 CPM that pays out in 7 days. If a publisher has to wait an additional 83 days, they are missing out on the opportunity to reinvest that cash into customer/traffic acquisitions that could generate a positive ROI. In order to compare ad CPMs on a level playing field, the actual days until payment needs to be taken into account. This is achieved by applying a discount factor based on days until funds will be received and a known cost of capital. The resulting number – the discounted CPM or dCPM - is the value to the company today, assuming it had to pay to borrow the money until the ad networks ultimately paid out. Martin Macmillan added: “The dCPM calculator will allow publishers to compare ad networks on a level playing field and look beyond just the headline CPM, applying some financial discipline to look more rigorously at the true CPMs generated at a financial level.The most important factor to consider is the opportunity cost to the publishers. It may only be a few cents difference in headline CPM but could make a huge difference to the publisher who is kept waiting before reinvesting back into more user acquisition or traffic to their website.” In the new world of real time bidding, publishers are focussed on achieving the highest CPMs but are often disconnected from their finance teams, they focus on the headline CPMs as opposed to considering when their “trade” will actually settle, thus not seeing the full picture. Understanding dCPM as a metric can help publishers make better informed choices about whose ads they prioritize when using dCPM as their primary metric. Bridging the Gap Financially savvy publishers often put in place revolving credit facilities which can effectively accelerate the payout terms of the advertising networks onto a weekly cycle, allowing them to increase their pace of customer acquisition without relying on external capital. This helps to effectively normalise the payment terms across networks and drastically reduce inertia caused by long payment delays, enabling faster reinvestment and capital efficient growth. About Pollen VC Pollen VC provides flexible credit facilities to app and game developers using a data-driven lending model which is designed from the ground up for the app economy. Based in San Francisco and London, we help developers all over the world to take control of their finances and grow their business in a capital efficient way. Our team includes structured credit, capital markets and performance marketing specialists with in-depth knowledge of the mobile app and gaming market and the growth challenges faced. Pollen VC is backed by a group of leading private and institutional fintech investors, and has diverse sources of liquidity spanning private and institutional capital providers in Europe and North America. Contact Details www.pollen.vc Bilal Mahmoood +44 7714 007257 bilal@pollen.vc Company Website https://pollen.vc

September 20, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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