• The Value Chain Navigator helps companies transition to a more sustainable future

• Survey shows only 53% of companies are collecting and monitoring scope 3 emissions data

Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, and Economist Impact, an arm of The Economist Group that works with organisations globally to further their missions, today announced the launch of the Value Chain Navigator (VCN) to help businesses understand and address their scope 3 emissions.

Scope 3 includes all indirect emissions that occur in the upstream and downstream activities of an organisation's value chain. These can include emissions from purchased goods and services, business travel, employee commuting, waste disposal, use of sold products, transportation, distribution, investments and leased assets and franchises. Up to 95% of a business's carbon footprint consists of scope 3 emissions, but only a quarter of businesses account for them in their net zero plans. 

The VCN is an open digital platform that helps businesses understand the complex nature of their scope 3 emissions through interactive tracking, tools and tailored recommendations. The tool will be featured on The Sustainability Project, the award-winning content and community platform created by Economist Impact and built by Infosys as digital innovation partner, to advance sustainable solutions and drive world-changing impact through a new business-to-business model.

The Value Chain Navigator platform allows business leaders to:

• Explore scope 3 emissions data across seven different business activity levers as defined by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), including supplier engagement, product and service design and investment strategy
• Discover how companies worldwide are tackling scope 3 emissions through a global survey of 1,250 companies; results can be segmented by region, sector and business size
• Get personalised recommendations for reducing scope 3 emissions through a self-assessment tool that asks about business specific challenges and opportunities
• Track the latest trends through a tool that surfaces the latest media coverage of scope 3 innovation and regulation
• Understand the challenges and decisions of business leaders as they talk about their personal scope 3 journeys in the spotlight film series

According to the VCN survey, only 53% of companies are currently collecting and monitoring their scope 3 emissions data. Technological innovations can help businesses monitor, manage and reduce emissions in their upstream and downstream value chains. The research showed that companies are least likely to focus on engaging suppliers, but they are most likely to be engaging with customers to reduce their scope 3 emissions. A healthy 97% of companies across all sectors have undertaken at least one initiative to engage customers. Out of all possible initiatives companies could take, the research showed that business-model innovation is, on average, believed to be one of the most effective ways to reduce emissions in a relatively short period of time.

Ashiss Kumar Dash, EVP & Global Head - Services, Utilities, Resources and Energy, Infosys, said, "The Value Chain Navigator will be pivotal in driving collaborative action at scale to tackle scope 3 emissions, supporting businesses along their value chains to reduce their carbon footprint. With this solution, we further strengthen the tools delivered through The Sustainability Project to empower stakeholders to navigate a changing landscape through data and insights and chart their course for a better future."

Claudia Malley, President of Economist Impact, said, "At Economist Impact we focus on addressing pressing issues and providing the necessary insights to advance sustainable solutions. Our work with Infosys to create The Sustainability Project and now, the Value Chain Navigator, exemplifies the impact we can make in the world."

Alteryx partners with TechVets to offer real-world analytics training to help United Kingdom military service members, veterans, and their families transition to civilian careers

Alteryx, Inc., the Analytics Cloud Platform company, today announced its partnership with TechVets, a non-profit in the United Kingdom that provides a bridge to careers in information technology to veterans, service leaders, reservists, and their families. Together, Alteryx and TechVets will help veterans and active-duty service members transition to civilian careers by providing them with real-world industry training and certifications in data analytics, as part of the Alteryx SparkED no-cost education program.

This partnership builds on Alteryx's commitment to military service members globally. Earlier this year, Alteryx announced its partnership with the United States' Department of Defense SkillBridge program, which helps over 200,000 service members each year transition to careers outside of the military. Kenneth Govens, a U.S. Air Force Aerospace Propulsion, Jet Engines & Turboprop/Turboshaft Prop Enlisted, shares his experience with the Alteryx SparkED DoD SkillBridge program.

"Organizations across all industries are striving to manage and analyze massive amounts of data. The Alteryx SparkED DoD SkillBridge program is perfect for the in-demand market. I am being equipped with leading edge training within the Alteryx automation platform." said Govens. "The Alteryx platform is easy to navigate through and its simplistic design makes it user friendly for any level user. My goal is to pair my Business MA in Analytics, along with a Core Certification attained through the Alteryx SparkED DoD SkillBridge program to market myself, and help leaders optimize their performance by making strategically guided decisions."

"We are thrilled to help drive the analytics movement in the United Kingdom through partnering with TechVets. With the new partnership, we will be able to help companies in the region close the analytics skills gap and boost data literacy in their organizations while simultaneously supporting service members into the next phase of their careers whether that be in supply chain management, resource forecasting, human resources, or something else entirely," said Olivia Duane Adams, co-founder and chief advocacy officer at Alteryx. "Our goal with the SparkED program and the partnership with TechVets is to provide comprehensive data science education, as well as hands on training with Alteryx, so veterans and active-duty service members can transform data into business insights with employable skills now."

Through the program, participants receive a free Alteryx Designer license, interactive learning paths, and access to the Alteryx Community to guide their training at no cost to them.

"In the UK, we have a significant issue with underemployment in the Forces community. Many of those leaving the military every year move into employment that does not make use of the in-demand skills they have developed during their military service," said James Murphy, director of TechVets, The Forces Employment Charity program. "TechVets is a program with a mission to create a bridge into information technology careers for the Forces community, and this cannot be achieved alone. I'm extremely excited to be partnering with the Alteryx SparkED program, so we can shape the future of employment for all our veterans and their families."

BlackBerry Limited today provided an update regarding the previously announced review of its portfolio of businesses that the Board of Directors commenced on May 1, 2023 ("Project Imperium"). 

Strategic Review of Portfolio

The Board, together with its advisors, Morgan Stanley and Perella Weinberg Partners, has been evaluating a comprehensive range of strategic alternatives to drive enhanced shareholder value, including a possible separation of businesses and a range of potential sale structures. Based on input from the current process and with the support of management, the Board has determined that separating the IoT and Cybersecurity business units into two independently-operated entities is the optimal strategic direction for BlackBerry. 

The chief objective of the separation is to pursue a subsidiary initial public offering for the IoT business, the market leader for high-performance, safety-critical foundational software in automotive and other verticals, with a launch targeted in the first half of the next fiscal year. BlackBerry believes that a separately-traded IoT subsidiary will enable shareholders to more clearly evaluate the performance and future potential of BlackBerry's principal businesses on a standalone basis, while allowing each business to pursue its own distinct strategy and capital allocation policy.

Project Imperium objectives will continue to be pursued as the company launches activities to separate our principal businesses.

"The Board and management believe that separating our principal businesses will improve our ability to create value for all our stakeholders," said John Chen, Executive Chair & CEO, BlackBerry. "Both the IoT and Cyber businesses have leading technology and talent and address large and growing market opportunities. This new proposed structure will further increase both their operational agility and ability to focus on delivering exceptional solutions to their customers."

Gadd will focus on driving growth in the region; Brings 25 years of industry experience including a strong track record of success at Cohesity and Hitachi Vantara

Commvault, an enterprise data protection leader for today's global businesses, has today announced the appointment of Richard Gadd as Senior Vice President of Commvault's EMEA and India (EMEAI) region. Gadd will lead the region in empowering global organisations with industry-leading cyber resilience offerings that protect and recover data from today's biggest cyber threats.

Gadd brings 25 years of sales experience in the technology industry to Commvault. He most recently held the role of VP and General Manager, EMEA at Cohesity, building his experience in the storage and data management industry. Prior to this, he also held senior roles at Hitachi Vantara, EMC, and Computacenter.

In these previous roles, he was successful in growing Hitachi Vantara's EMEA business to become the company's largest region worldwide, as well as leading on Cohesity's EMEA portfolio to make it the organization's fastest-growing region. Gadd plans to bring this experience into Commvault and achieve similar go-to-market successes within the EMEAI region.

"To join one of the longest-established companies in the industry is incredibly exciting," said Richard Gadd, Senior Vice President EMEAI. "With its strong pedigree in innovation and ground-breaking technology, I'm looking forward to being able to lead and contribute to the Commvault team's excellent work in empowering global organizations' cyber resilience going forward. I am very excited to begin this new challenge."

Riccardo Di Blasio, Chief Revenue Officer at Commvault, said: "Recognizing the tremendous potential and the dynamic momentum within the EMEAI region, it was important to onboard a leader of the right caliber, business insight, and engaging persona. In appointing Richard, we are incredibly confident that we have made the right choice. His distinguished track record of guiding several large-scale organisations to accomplish remarkable growth and market share aligns perfectly with the vision and potential we see in him spearheading Commvault's team in EMEAI."

• Nephio has been inducted into the LF Networking as a Graduated project to accelerate collaboration and automated cloud native deployments across Telecom, Cloud Service Providers and Enterprises

• End- to -end open network stack fully realized across Linux Foundation, LF Networking and LF Edge communities, accelerating development and deployment of next-gen network technology with one of the largest global networking community

• Community to host Nephio R2 Technical Summit October 9-10 to gather Nephio developers for discussion across strategy, roadmap and operational aspects of cloud native automation

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization focused on fostering innovation through open source, today announced that its Project Nephio, an open source initiative of partners across the telecommunications industry working towards true cloud-native automation, has joined the LF Networking (LFN) project umbrella. Under the auspices of the Linux Foundation's LF Networking – the facilitator of collaboration and operational excellence across open source networking projects – Nephio joins other leading network ecosystem projects and initiatives including ONAP, 5G Super Blue Print, Anuket, L3AF, OpenDaylight, ODIM, FD.io and more.

"LF Networking is thrilled to welcome Nephio to its project portfolio," said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT at the Linux Foundation. "Having just issued its first milestone release, Nephio's role in enabling telecoms to automate entire networks more efficiently is part and parcel to the other project communities hosted under LFN that make up the end-to-end open networking stack."

Launched in 2022 in partnership with Google Cloud, Nephio delivers carrier-grade, simple, open, Kubernetes-based cloud native intent automation and common automation templates that materially simplify the deployment and management of multi-vendor cloud infrastructure and network functions across large-scale edge deployments. It brings zero-touch provisioning of cloud infrastructure and network functions, which can offer increased network availability and resiliency while reducing maintenance downtime.

Nephio recently issued its first release, Nephio R1, community further expanded the seed code provided by Google Cloud and introduced features to empower telecoms to efficiently configure and manage cloud infrastructure and network functions using Kubernetes-based intent automation.

"Nephio's induction into LFN will bring a more integrated governance structure to both communities," said Kandan Kathirvel, Nephio Technical Steering Committee (TSC) chair and Group Product Manager, Google Cloud. "With similar goals and a large number of organizations actively participating in both communities, the move will simplify cross-stack integration and streamline infrastructure. The technical community is eager to work more closely with peers and colleagues to accelerate deployments of cloud-native automed networks."

Nephio's induction into LFN will bring closer collaboration, an expansion of shared resources, and more simplified and streamlined governance. Nephio joins LFN at the "graduated" lifecycle tier, meaning it has met specified criteria for lifecycle maturity, alongside other graduated LFN projects Anuket, ONAP, OpenDaylight and FD.io.

• More than half of leadership teams are 'actively involved' in decision-making on preventing attacks

• One in five respondents said their company suffered an attack in 2023

Nearly 60% of companies are 'very' to 'extremely' concerned about ransomware attacks, according to latest research from leading cybersecurity provider Hornetsecurity. The company released the survey results at IT-SA 2023, Europe's largest IT security trade show, where it is exhibiting.

In its annual Ransomware Survey, Hornetsecurity revealed that more than nine in ten (92.5%) businesses are aware of ransomware's potential for negative impact, but just 54% of respondents said their leadership is 'actively involved in conversations and decision-making' around preventing such attacks. Four in ten (39.7%) said they were happy to 'leave it to IT to deal with the issue'.

Commenting on the findings, Hornetsecurity CEO Daniel Hofmann, said: "Our annual Ransomware Survey is a timely reminder that ransomware protection is key to ongoing success. Organizations cannot afford to become victims –ongoing security awareness training and multi-layered ransomware protection is critical to ensure there are no insurmountable losses."

Ransomware protection is a necessity

Reassuringly, 93.2% of respondents rank ransomware protection as 'very' to 'extremely' important in terms of IT priorities for their organization, and 87.8% of respondents confirmed they have a disaster recovery plan in place for a ransomware attack.

However, that leaves more than one in eight organizations (12.2%) without a disaster recovery plan. Of those companies, more than half cited a 'lack of resources or time' as the primary reason. Additionally, one-third of respondents said a disaster recovery plan is 'not considered a priority by management'.

Comparing Ransomware Survey results in 2021-2023

This survey has been conducted annually over the past three years and has included asking respondents if their organization has fallen victim to a ransomware attack.

Since 2021, Hornetsecurity has found relatively small changes in the percentage of respondents saying their organizations have fallen victim to a ransomware attack: 21.1% in 2021, 23.9% in 2022, but a new low of 19.7% in 2023.

Additionally, companies that reported paying a ransom are down from 9.1% in 2021 to 6.9% in 2023.

Some of the data in this survey show positive results, with a majority of respondents reporting they understand the importance of protection, and a drop in ransomware attack victims in 2023, showing companies are becoming more vigilant in their data protection.

Ransomware attacks continue to evolve, though, so organizations must maintain this vigilance. In 2023, 81% of respondents reported they are receiving end-user training in comparison to 2021, when only 71.2% reported they had received training.

"Although organizations have reported fewer ransomware attacks in 2023, the threats haven't necessarily decreased," Hofmann said. "Cybersecurity awareness among all users remains a crucial element to further decrease the risk of falling for these threats, especially as attacks become more sophisticated with new technologies."

Security tools to combat ransomware attacks

The survey also revealed the most used tools to combat potential threats:

• 87.8% used to end-point detection software with anti-ransomware capabilities
• 84.4% cited 'email filtration and threat analysis'
• 22.4% mentioned 'AI-enabled security solutions' as a tool they are now using to combat ransomware within their organization.

The most common primary security feature to protect backups from ransomware is:

• Immutable storage (40.6% of respondents)
• Tight control of user and application permissions (38.3%)
• Air-gapped storage (27.8%).

Given the unpredictable nature of ransomware attacks, 76.2% of respondents said their business has changed the way it backs up its data. The 73.6% of respondents who have a recovery plan in place for their Microsoft 365 data are 'very' to 'extremely' confident in their chosen solution, while 55.1% of respondents are 'very' to 'extremely' confident that their data backups would be safe from a ransomware attack today.

Global Think Tanks and Collaboration to Drive Innovation and Empowerment in Women's Health

Frost & Sullivan, a renowned leader in fostering innovation and driving transformative change, proudly announces the launch of its groundbreaking "EmpowerHer" Growth Council Think Tank series. This initiative, launched in July 2023, is dedicated to tackling the monumental growth gap in women's health, which currently stands at a staggering $17 trillion. To address this complex issue, Frost & Sullivan has brought together a diverse array of stakeholders, including experts, thought leaders, industry professionals, and key policymakers.

The growth gap in women's health is a multifaceted challenge rooted in three critical areas: a lack of comprehensive clinical research, limited access to healthcare, and insufficient funding for women's health technology. This formidable gap poses a significant obstacle to delivering effective care to women worldwide.

Burdens of Health: Cost We Can't Ignore?

Recognizing that closing this gap requires a collective effort from society as a whole, Frost & Sullivan has taken a bold step forward with its Growth Council Think Tanks.

Growth Council Think Tanks: A Dynamic Platform for Change

Frost & Sullivan's Growth Council Think Tank series is designed to serve as a dynamic platform for addressing these pressing issues. Over 12 months, these Think Tanks will provide a forum for experts and stakeholders to share knowledge, foster innovation, and empower women.

Reenita Das, Growth Coach & Senior Vice President at Frost & Sullivan, expressed the program's vision, stating, "Through our Growth Council Think Tanks, we aim to empower women, improve access to quality healthcare, and contribute to the overall well-being of women across the world. By bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise, we are confident that we will create tangible outcomes and establish new benchmarks for the industry."

Key Perspectives from the Think Tank on "Top Growth Opportunities in Accelerating Women's Health"

Reenita Das, Growth Coach & Senior Vice President at Frost & Sullivan, presented transformative perspectives on the Top Growth Opportunities in Women's Health, including:

• Tailored Approaches for Different Age Groups: Recognizing the evolving roles and priorities of women in various age groups is crucial for effective engagement and segment positioning.
• Gender Disparities in Heart Disease: Addressing gender disparities in heart disease requires a nuanced approach, involving research into sex-specific variations in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
• Addressing Obesity as a Neurobehavioral Disease: The future of obesity management demands a transformation in healthcare models to better support long-term strategies.
• Innovations in Women's Mental Health: Beyond 2030, innovative interventions will be required to address women's mental health, necessitating novel partnerships and groundbreaking solutions.

Key Perspectives from the Think Tank on "FDA's Bold Vision for Women's Health"

Reenita Das, along with Terri Cornelison, Chief Medical Officer and Director, Health of Women, Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), collaborated to craft transformative perspectives, including:

• Sex and Gender-Specific Clinical Trials: Clinical trials for chronic diseases should incorporate criteria tailored to the unique characteristics and needs of both men and women.
• Early-stage Endometriosis Diagnosis: Early tracking of menstruation cycles and expanding registries for conditions such as endometriosis are essential for improving healthcare outcomes.
• Advancing Women's Health through Data: A focus on science and gender, alongside the development of longitudinal studies, will lay the foundation for holistic and personalized care for women.

Frost & Sullivan invites individuals, organizations, and industry stakeholders to actively participate in this groundbreaking initiative. Together, we can pave the way for advancements in women's health, shape the future of healthcare delivery, and make a lasting difference in the lives of women everywhere.

CloudAEye Launches Semantic Observability Solution with AI-Powered Log Management

CloudAEye, a leading provider of AIOps, today announced the launch of the first set of services for its semantic observability solution.

CloudAEye is focused on taking observability to the next level by providing greater insights and visualizations from the vast amount of customers’ observability data. With the latest breakthrough in generative AI, CloudAEye is pioneering the era of semantic observability, where customers are able to use the CloudAEye Assistant that can understand and respond to their questions and give the necessary context. CloudAEye’s Log Management service is paving the way for this new age of observability. Built on the latest AI research, the Log Management service provides customers with an in-depth look into log discovery, log pattern analysis, exception insights, and state-of-the-art AI-driven log anomaly detection solutions. The service provides enterprise-grade tiered log storage, alerting, and notification mechanisms that are very easy to set up. Additionally, the Logs Lite service provides serverless application logging, an ideal service for early-stage startup founders. CloudAEye is announcing its free tier service today by offering the first application in Logs Lite free. 

“Imagine AI models that can detect an anomaly and generate a hypothesis about it by doing a root-cause analysis. By finding the needle in the haystack, CloudAEye enables customers to test fixes as soon as the problem arises,” said Nazrul Islam, Founder & CEO of CloudAEye. Badrul Sarwar, Co-founder and CTO of CloudAEye, added, “At CloudAEye, we are founder-friendly. We believe in answering the what/why/how questions regarding customer's cloud operations. We focus on saving countless SRE work hours by providing a conversational generative AI interface to make observability human-readable. Our assistant provides answers and detailed analysis, automates tasks, and generates content in seconds that would have otherwise taken hours to complete.”