Kaleyra announces changes in the management team: Nicola Junior Vitto departure and new appointment of Mauro Carobene

Kaleyra, Inc. , an enterprise Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS), announces certain management changes. 

As previously disclosed, on June 28, 2023, the Company entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the "Merger Agreement") with Tata Communications Limited, a company listed on BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited ("Tata Communications"), pursuant to which, at the closing, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth therein, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Communications will merge with and into the Company, with the Company surviving as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Communications. 

Nicola Vitto has announced his resignation from his position as Chief Product & Technology Officer of Kaleyra, Inc. (the "Company"), with such resignation to become effective on September 4, 2023.

In connection with the execution of the Merger Agreement, the Company has ceased its search for a new Chief Executive Officer. It is contemplated that Dario Calogero will continue to serve as Chief Executive Officer of the Company up to the closing of the Merger and Mauro Carobene, the Company's Chief Business Officer has recently entered into an agreement to become the Head of the Kaleyra Business.

Dario Calogero, CEO of the Company, commented: "I want to thank Nicola for his service with Kaleyra throughout these years for the outstanding work in building our platforms and services across our regions and I wish him all the best for his future endeavors. At the same time, I want to personally congratulate Mauro for the nomination as Head of the Kaleyra Business."

• All Thinkific customers will have the ability to get their own mobile app, customized in their own branding, built and maintained by Thinkific.

• Thinkific's Branded Mobile solution allows Creators to increase sales, course completion rates and overall student engagement, including more engaged communities.
  

• Branded Mobile now accessible as an add-on to Thinkific plans, at the competitive price of $199/month.

Thinkific Labs Inc. ("Thinkific" or the "Company") (TSX: THNC), a leading platform for creating, marketing, and selling online learning products, today announced the early expanded availability of its innovative 'Branded Mobile' solution, enabling all Creators across its platform to have their own fully customizable, branded mobile app.

"For our Creators, providing their students with an app-based learning environment that suits their lifestyle and is accessible on the devices they use most, leads to better engaged communities and higher sales, driving more revenue, " said Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific. "We're excited to release this feature to all Creators on our platform, and to continue delivering on our promise to provide our customers with the best tools to build, scale and earn from their remarkable online businesses, all under their own brand."

'Branded Mobile' is now accessible to all Thinkific 'self-serve' plans as an add-on, at a competitive price point of $199/month. Thinkific's Branded Mobile offering launched earlier this year and quickly built a waitlist of customers looking to have their own app under their own brand. Today this offer is open to any customer looking to leverage mobile to grow their business.

Branded Mobile transforms the way Creators are able to deliver courses and cultivate communities through mobile devices. App features include, in-app purchases, push notifications, on-the-go access to course materials including video, audio, PDF, text and downloadable lessons, dynamic activity feeds, and Creator's communities. Students can manage their own learning experiences, easily access new content and purchase new courses directly within the app, increasing Creator sales, course completion rates and community engagement.

Creators using the Branded Mobile solution are able to fully customize their mobile app listings on Google Play and Apple App Stores to reflect their unique brand identity, and can tailor in-app experiences to their specific audiences and course design. They also gain access to Thinkific's expert services to lead the process and ultimately receive a customized mobile app, without the headache of having to build it themselves.

Gartner recognized Casper Labs as a Sample Vendor for Web 2.5

Casper Labs, the enterprise blockchain software leader, announced today it has been recognized by Gartner as a Sample Vendor in the Open Source Software Hype Cycle, 2023.

According to the report, “2023 marks 40 years of free and open-source software as we know it, but powerful forces are still pushing modern OSS evolution. Software engineering leaders need to track changing usage rules, control supply chain risks, and tap into OSS communities to accelerate innovation and time to value.” Gartner recognized Casper Labs as a Sample Vendor for Web 2.5.

“We’re thrilled to be included in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Open Source Software, 2023, demonstrating the transformative power of decentralized technology in open source solutions,” said Mrinal Manohar, CEO of Casper Labs. “Businesses today are facing ongoing challenges to do more with less, requiring leaders to seek new solutions that will allow them to remain competitive. At Casper Labs, we’re delivering blockchain software and services that drive revenue and radical efficiency for companies.”

Casper Labs is an enterprise blockchain company that has designed the first layer-1 blockchain for the unique scale and operational needs for business. As institutions are adopting blockchain technology at higher rates than ever yet a knowledge gap persists between blockchain and cryptocurrency, Casper Labs provides solutions that drive efficiency, transparency and security for all business transactions.

Gartner states, “Gartner Hype Cycles provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities. Gartner Hype Cycle methodology gives you a view of how a technology or application will evolve over time, providing a sound source of insight to manage its deployment within the context of your specific business goals.”

Read the Hype Cycle for Open Source Software, 2023 report here (For Gartner Subscribers only).

Gartner, Hype Cycle for Open Source Software, 2023, By Oleksandr Matvitskyy, Mark Driver, Anne Thomas, and Nitish Tyagi, Published 21 July 2023.

Gartner, Gartner Hype Cycle

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and HYPE CYCLE is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Trust Stamp (Nasdaq: IDAI), the Privacy-First Identity Company^TM providing AI-powered trust and identity services used globally across multiple sectors, announces that on August 10, 2023 it received an Issue Notification from the United States Patent Office in respect of Patent # 11,741,263 entitled “Systems and Processes for Lossy Biometric Representation”. This patent will be the seventeenth issued to the company in addition to which the company has an additional fourteen patent applications pending, including one patent that has been approved but not yet issued.

Dr. Norman Poh, Chief Science Officer of the Company commented, “This patent further strengthens our intellectual property portfolio related to the tokenization of biometric data. Regulators, consumers and enterprises are becoming very aware of the risks associated with storing biometric images and templates and our proprietary tokenization technology avoids those risks while maintaining and indeed extending the utility of the data that is stored. This technology can be utilized as a component of our comprehensive identity validation services or overlaid on legacy biometric service providers." 

On August 1, 2023, Andrew Gowasack, President of Trust Stamp announced a 31% increase in the Company’s financial services customer base in the prior six-month period.

Trust Stamp will release its financial results for the second quarter of 2023, together with an overview of its business performance and strategy on August 14th, 2023.

New Partnership Makes HashiCorp Terraform and Vault Available to Federal, State and Local Government Agencies

HashiCorp, Inc. a leading provider of multi-cloud infrastructure automation software, and Carahsoft Technology Corp, the Trusted IT Solutions Provider^®, today announced that Carahsoft has added HashiCorp Terraform and Vault to its GSA Schedule, making HashiCorp’s solutions available to the Public Sector through Carahsoft and its reseller partners. Through this partnership, Federal, State and Local Government agencies will be able to use HashiCorp's offerings to automate infrastructure and secure application delivery across their hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

“As Public Sector agencies transition to the cloud to meet modernization requirements, they require new technologies to help them move to and operate in multi-cloud environments more securely and to achieve mission success,” said Melissa Palmer, President, HashiCorp Federal, Inc. “HashiCorp’s inclusion on Carahsoft’s GSA Schedule will enable us to provide agencies across the Public Sector with the tools and solutions necessary for successful multi-cloud transitions, including the introduction of zero trust and automation technologies.”

HashiCorp’s portfolio can help Government agencies accelerate innovation and exceed modernization goals through adoption of its zero trust security solution and automation workflows, helping agencies operate more efficiently and securely as they transition to multi-cloud. HashiCorp’s approach to zero trust security uses identity to secure applications, networks, and people across multiple clouds, on-premises, and hybrid environments, which reduces the attack surface and automates complex security workflows. This ensures people, machines, and services are authenticated, every action is authorized, and data is protected. HashiCorp Vault is one of the key products in HashiCorp’s approach to identity-based security.

“Carahsoft is committed to providing our Government customers with the best zero trust solutions available in the market, and we are thrilled to add HashiCorp's innovative encryption and identity-based security automation solutions to our GSA Schedule and our robust portfolio of Government contracts," said Natalie Gregory, Vice President of Open Source Solutions at Carahsoft. "We look forward to working with our reseller partners to provide HashiCorp's solutions to Government agencies to help them achieve greater efficiency, security, and agility in their IT operations.”

Carahsoft is offering Public Sector customers access to HashiCorp Terraform and Vault Enterprise through their GSA Schedule. HashiCorp Terraform can help the Public Sector reduce risk and increase mission effectiveness as they integrate cloud into their IT environments. HashiCorp Vault can help the Public Sector reduce the risk of breaches and data exposure with identity-based security automation and encryption as a service.

To strengthen the Public Sector’s cybersecurity defense, agencies need to implement Zero Trust principles that safeguard networks at every entry point. Carahsoft supports solutions that help Government organizations understand Zero Trust frameworks, develop a Zero Trust strategy and implement a Zero Trust architecture. Learn more about Carahsoft’s Zero Trust solutions here.

HashiCorp Terraform and Vault Enterprise are available through Carahsoft’s GSA Schedule No. 47QSWA18D008F, OMNIA Partners Contract #R191902, SEWP V contracts NNG15SC03B and NNG15SC27B, ITES-SW2 Contract W52P1J-20-D-0042 and additional State and Local Contracts. For more information, contact the HashiCorp team at Carahsoft at (703) 871-8570 or HashiCorp@carahsoft.com.

HashiCorp Vault
Identity is the foundation for zero trust security. HashiCorp Vault is the standard for identity-based security, brokering identity across any environment to automate secure access to secrets, data, and systems. Vault supports public clouds, private datacenters, and endpoint systems like databases, cloud platforms, SSH, and messaging queues. Teams can request secrets for any system through one consistent, audited, and secured workflow. HashiCorp Vault unifies host-based and service-based identities into a central platform and brokers them across all applications, networks, users, platforms, and datacenters, providing a modern security framework that trusts nothing and authenticates and authorizes everything. With Vault, users can create and secure access to tokens, passwords, certificates, and encryption keys. Vault is supported by a growing ecosystem of more than 100 technology partners.

HashiCorp Vault Enterprise has been evaluated as conformant with the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 standards and has achieved FIPS 140-2 Compliance.

HashiCorp Terraform
HashiCorp Terraform is the standard for infrastructure as code, enabling users to automate infrastructure deployments across multiple clouds and platforms. With Terraform, teams can use infrastructure as code (IaC) to automate the provisioning, compliance, and management of any cloud, datacenter, and service — including servers, databases, and firewall policies. Terraform is supported by a growing ecosystem of more than 200 technology partners, 2,000 infrastructure providers, and 10,000 modules available through the Terraform Registry. HashiCorp Terraform is available as open source, a managed service via Terraform Cloud, and a self-managed product via Terraform Enterprise.

Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP), a leading provider of cyber security solutions globally, signs a definitive agreement to acquire Perimeter 81, a pioneering Security Service Edge (SSE) company. With this acquisition, Check Point will help organizations accelerate the adoption of secure access across remote users, sites, cloud, datacentres, and the internet, all while aiming to deliver the most secure and fastest SSE solution in the market. Under the terms of the agreement, Check Point will acquire Perimeter 81 for approximately $490 million, on a cash free, debt free basis.

Hybrid work is now the standard of organizations globally, and digital transformation is continuously shifting data centers to the cloud. This major shift requires an advanced approach to network security that can seamlessly adapt and respond to the needs of the modern, distributed enterprise. Gartner sees the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) market hitting $20B+ by 2026, emphasizing the need for businesses to adopt a consolidated security architecture.

Perimeter 81, launched in 2018 with a team of over 200 employees, serves more than 3,000 customers worldwide. The company, recognized as a leader in the Forrester Zero Trust Wave, brings an innovative approach to SSE that combines cloud and on-device protection. Perimeter 81 is offering a unique suite of capabilities, including Zero Trust Access, full mesh connectivity between users, branches and applications. This allows remote users to benefit from fast, secure internet browsing everywhere they go, while addressing cloud privacy violations. Perimeter 81 also enables a simple and fast one-hour deployment vs. weeks with traditional solutions, emphasizing ease-of-use and streamlined management.

Check Point intends to leverage Perimeter 81’s capabilities and integrate them into Check Point Infinity’s architecture to deliver a unified security solution across the network, cloud, and remote users, powered by industry leading threat prevention. Perimeter 81 is ideally positioned to support Check Point’s vision of delivering the industry’s fastest, most secure SASE solution.

“With the advent of hybrid work and the rise of cloud transformation, the demand for security services that expand beyond the network perimeter is increasing,” says Gil Shwed, CEO at Check Point Software Technologies. "By leveraging Perimeter 81’s capabilities and integrating them into the Check Point Infinity platform we continue with our vision to deliver the best security through comprehensive, collaborative and consolidated solutions.”

“This strategic move marks an exciting period for our company, partners, and customers. By joining Check Point, a global leader in cyber security for over 30 years, we aim to deliver the premier SASE platform in the market,” says Amit Bareket, CEO at Perimeter 81. "Our interconnection represents a significant step towards a comprehensive and scalable security for the modern era. We look forward to the positive impact we will jointly create."

Check Point’s acquisition of Perimeter 81 is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023.

VersusMedia, a champion of grassroots artists for over two decades, proudly announces the launch of RoyaltyPoints.io, a groundbreaking platform designed to ensure that independent filmmakers and musicians are easily compensated for their creative endeavors.

Built on the idea conceived by VersusMedia's founder Ryan Vinson, RoyaltyPoints.io aims to utilize Bitcoin and the emerging Lightning Network to revolutionize the way royalties are paid to the artistic community. This platform marks a significant stride toward true financial equality in the fields of film and music.

Every play on VersusMedia's Roku and Apple TV apps and Nostr account will translate into rewards for the content creators. By utilizing the "Sats for Views" model, this innovative service enables instant and low-cost payouts in Satoshis, the smallest denomination of Bitcoin. The Lightning Network’s efficiency and growing adoption by retailers globally make this approach viable and attractive.

Ryan Vinson, the creator of this new service, said, “The Lightning Network, though still under development, has the potential to revolutionize the way we make payments. By leveraging it for our service, we empower anyone worldwide to be quickly paid for the views on their content. I am aware that there is still some stigma around Bitcoin, but people were once just as skeptical of the Internet itself. Look at how much it assists our day-to-day lifestyles now.”

How It Works

Creators must submit their media to VersusMedia to be included on their platforms. Once live, streaming plays will be recorded on RoyaltyPoints.io. Creators will have access to personal accounts where they can request payouts in Satoshis, requiring a Lightning Address for payment.

Ryan Vinson's vision is clear: "My hope is that this service helps revolutionize automated micropayments to content creators that can be split up among all who helped produce a song or film, the same way points are split up among major people involved in a film."

"We've had our streaming channels for several years and have typically gone with licensing deals to access content. This new method will help open the door to additional avenues for both the viewers and the creators." Ryan continues explaining, "And now within the past 6 months, decentralized social network protocol Nostr has massively expanded its userbase, so I saw a great opportunity to introduce our content to the Nostr community as well."

VersusMedia's Continued Commitment

Having once assisted over 1,000 films worldwide locate music to use in their films and even produced several films, VersusMedia continues to support indie filmmakers and musicians. During this time, Ryan has been involved in panels, events, judging music competitions, and authored books discussing industry changes. “Big names and companies have come and gone with the promise of making an impact, but we've always been there in the background, deep in the trenches, sticking to our goal: helping the little guys. Now we're taking a big step toward streamlining their pay,” says Ryan.

Next Steps for Filmmakers and Musicians

Content creators are encouraged to contact VersusMedia to add content or inquire about accessing RoyaltyPoints.io accounts

Affinitiv, the leading provider of data-driven marketing and software solutions to the automotive market, has upgraded its all-in-one data management console, DealerLens®. The console enables Affinitiv clients to easily measure and benchmark results across multiple solutions, which allows users to track productivity more effectively across all dealers within a group. Additionally, DealerLens® provides dealerships with a high-level overview of the performance of each Affinitiv product they are using and how it interacts with their business. With the latest enhancements, dealerships can now view even more dashboards and KPIs to drive success.

DealerLens® provides extensive oversight on a dealership and group’s operations, displaying data via customizable widgets based on the information each dealer wants to receive. The dealer can view an overall summary of their business and benchmark dealerships within the group by the entire industry or brand peers. In addition, the views are broken into key areas of the business with a customized heads-up display with the ability to pin favorite metrics. DealerLens® delivers a highly efficient way to digest data to meet the specific goals within a dealership and its group. The latest enhancements provide even more information at-a-glance, featuring new sales and service dashboards as well as 50+ KPIs.

Top features for Affinitiv DealerLens® include:

• NEW sales and service dashboards
• NEW and unique KPIs for dealers (50+)
• Multiple views of data across a group including summary, dealer benchmark, industry benchmark, and brand benchmark
• Actionable insights
• Data sets from multiple third-party integrations

“Our newest enhancements to DealerLens® help us provide dealerships and groups with even more data to optimize their performance,” said Matt Rodeghero, Chief Product Officer at Affinitiv. “The addition of sales and service dashboards along with over 50 KPIs give dealer groups in particular more insight and capability than has ever been provided in this industry. With all necessary data across internal and third-party tools in their hands, they can meet and exceed their goals, avoiding missed opportunities, cross-referencing, and data overload.”