EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
Azenta | November 09, 2022
Azenta, Inc. (Nasdaq: AZTA) and the Government of Luxembourg today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU") to facilitate continued healthcare technology development in Luxembourg. The Minister of the Economy of Luxembourg, Mr. Franz Fayot, and the President and CEO of Azenta, Steve Schwartz, signed the MoU at Azenta's Massachusetts-based global headquarters. Azenta, Inc. had recently acquired B Medical Systems, a leading global vaccine, and medical cold chain provider, based in Luxembourg.
The MoU signing ceremony was attended by several senior dignitaries from the Ministry of the Economy of Luxembourg, Ministry of Higher Education and Research of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office in New York, Luxinnovation and Azenta, Inc. Mr. Luc Provost, CEO of B Medical Systems, and Mr. Jesal Doshi, Deputy CEO of B Medical Systems, represented B Medical Systems, a subsidiary of Azenta, during the ceremony.
Confirming Azenta's desire to preserve the production activities of its subsidiary in Luxembourg, B Medical Systems, and to continue the projects undertaken by the subsidiary until then, the memorandum of understanding confirms the intention of the Ministry of the Economy to continue to support the development of the company in Luxembourg. The acquisition by Azenta should also give B Medical Systems access to new markets, thanks to the group's extensive network of customers in countries where B Medical Systems has not previously had a significant presence.
The MoU signing ceremony was followed by a visit to Azenta's genomics lab in Waltham, Massachusetts by the delegation of the Ministry of Health led by the Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Health, Ms. Paulette Lenert, and the delegation of the Ministry of the Economy led by the Minister of Economy, Mr. Franz Fayot.
"The fact that a world-renowned company such as Azenta has acquired B Medical Systems, one of our industrial flagships, demonstrates the dynamism of the Luxembourg health technology sector, which is one of the pillars of Luxembourg's economic diversification strategy. Through this memorandum of understanding, our objective is to continue the good collaboration that already existed with B Medical Systems, particularly in its future research, development and innovation projects, as well as to identify possible synergies."
-Franz Fayot The Minister of the Economy.
We look forward to continued partnership and engagement with the Government of Luxembourg. B Medical Systems, which recently became a part of Azenta, has a long history of operations in Luxembourg, and we intend to build upon this already strong track record of growth and innovation, said Steve Schwartz, President and CEO of Azenta.
About Azenta Life Sciences:
Azenta, Inc. (Nasdaq: AZTA) is a leading provider of life sciences solutions worldwide, enabling impactful breakthroughs and therapies to market faster. Azenta provides a full suite of reliable cold-chain sample management solutions and genomic services across areas such as drug development, clinical research and advanced cell therapies for the industry's top pharmaceutical, biotech, academic and healthcare institutions globally. Azenta recently acquired B Medical Systems, a leading global vaccine, and medical cold chain provider, based in Luxembourg.
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GOVERNMENT BUSINESS
Yellow.ai | November 23, 2022
With countries in the Middle East working to enable broad-scaled digital transformation, government agencies are increasingly gravitating towards the adoption of Conversational AI solutions to redefine the citizen experience. According to data released by Yellow.ai, a leading enterprise-grade Conversational AI platform, the company has served over 222K unique users for its government sector clientele in the region.
Recently mentioned in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Government Services, 2022, under the chatbot category, the company works with key government departments across the Middle East. The Yellow.ai platform has recorded an exchange of over 13M messages focused on citizen delivery services in the last two quarters, exchanged between its Dynamic AI agents and end-users during over 233K sessions.
"Public sector organizations need to address numerous queries daily, and doing so manually is a time-consuming task. At the same time, citizens have a growing expectation of being able to conveniently avail government services. That's where Conversational AI can step in to improve efficiency and human productivity, streamlining the process of delivering citizen services digitally while keeping humans in the loop. We have seen a huge surge in traction from Middle Eastern government agencies , and our deployments are helping address some very unique use cases by bringing power to citizens' fingertips on channels that they actively use. With continued emphasis on digitization, we expect Conversational AI to soon become an integral pillar in delivering stellar services to citizens."
-Raghu Ravinutala, CEO & Co-founder, Yellow.ai.
For instance, Yellow.ai works with one of the largest government entities in the UAE, where over 4000 users interact with its Dynamic AI agent in a single day. The AI agent has a 99.7 percent accuracy rate, delivering a CSAT score of 4.56 out of 5. While text-based messaging channels are the preferred medium for citizen delivery services, the company is also seeing voice-based Conversational AI solutions gain momentum. The major use-cases, as observed, are for automating customer support, filing documentation related to government entities, booking services, raising complaints, making payments, and locating branches and offices, where the most traction is being witnessed on WhatsApp.
About Yellow.ai:
Yellow.ai is a leading enterprise-grade Conversational AI platform, enabling enterprises to unlock business potential at scale. The platform is trusted across 85+ countries by 1000+ enterprises, including Domino's, Sephora, Hyundai, Carrefour, Kuwait Food Company (Americana), Choithrams, Amouage Oman, Arabian Radio Network and MG Motors. Powered by Dynamic AI agents for enterprises, the company aims to deliver human-like interactions that boost customer satisfaction and increase employee engagement at scale, through its no-code platform. Recognised by Frost & Sullivan, Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and G2 as a leader, the company has raised more than $102M from blue-chip investors and has offices across six countries.
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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
SES Space & Defense | December 12, 2022
SES Government Solutions (SES GS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, announced today that it will begin operating under the new name SES Space & Defense effective immediately. The name change comes after combining SES Government Solutions with the recently acquired DRS Global Enterprise Solutions (DRS GES). The SES Space & Defense brand reflects the organization’s new positioning and expanded offering serving the needs of the U.S. Government customers.
Over the past four months, SES Space & Defense saw the appointment of its new leadership team, as well as the integration of capabilities that reflect the newly combined organization and differentiated value proposition. The company is focused on building, managing and supporting the most advanced satellite network solutions for the U.S. Government and Department of Defense (DoD). SES Space & Defense has been restructured to serve its customers across two integral markets - space and defense – by creating two business units, Space Initiatives and Defense Networks, to provide best-in-class satellite network solutions.
The Space Initiatives unit targets fleet-centric projects leveraging SES's global multi-orbit satellite fleet, infrastructure, and assets. The Defense Networks unit is centered on multi-operator managed services and end-to-end mission-critical communications.
SES Space & Defense’s customers will benefit from new integration capabilities with the addition of the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) Ecosystem and ICT Portal which provides a single pane glass view into network performance, as well as essential tools in cybersecurity.
“This is a major milestone for us, and more importantly for our U.S. DoD customers, In August we consolidated two best-in-class organizations focused on the U.S. Government satellite communications needs, and we remain fully committed to providing innovative world-class space solutions to our most tactical customers. With SES Space & Defense as our new name, we would like our strategic vision and focus to come through brightly.”
-SES Space & Defense President and CEO David Fields.
About SES Space & Defense:
SES Space & Defense is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, the leader in global content connectivity solutions, and is exclusively focused on building, managing, and supporting the most advanced satellite network solutions for the U.S. Government. SES Space & Defense leverages a proven multi-operator network integration and management capability, an extensive global terrestrial network, as well as access to SES’s multi-orbit satellite fleet. It also offers U.S. Department of Defense customers the essential tools in cybersecurity for mission-critical operations, coupled with a proven track record in governance and compliance. SES Space & Defense operates under a proxy board, enabling it to support classified projects, and it has been present in the U.S. Government satcom market for over four decades.
About SES:
SES has a bold vision to deliver amazing experiences everywhere on earth by distributing the highest quality video content and providing seamless connectivity around the world. As the leader in global content connectivity solutions, SES operates the world’s only multi-orbit constellation of satellites with the unique combination of global coverage and high performance, including the commercially-proven, low-latency Medium Earth Orbit O3b system. By leveraging a vast and intelligent, cloud-enabled network, SES is able to deliver high-quality connectivity solutions anywhere on land, at sea or in the air, and is a trusted partner to the world’s leading telecommunications companies, mobile network operators, governments, connectivity and cloud service providers, broadcasters, video platform operators and content owners. SES’s video network carries ~8,000 channels and has an unparalleled reach of 366 million households, delivering managed media services for both linear and non-linear content.
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CYBERSECURITY
Splunk | December 15, 2022
Public sector organizations are more likely to struggle with leveraging data to detect and prevent threats than their private sector counterparts (63% to 49%), ultimately affecting their cybersecurity readiness. That’s according to a survey commissioned by Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK), the data platform leader for security and observability.
The survey found two-thirds (66%) of public sector agencies have difficulties leveraging data to mitigate and recover from cybersecurity incidents and half (52%) of the sector have issues leveraging data to inform cybersecurity decisions. This visibility challenge was also relatively high within the private sector, sharing a similar majority opinion (56% and 50%), showcasing consistency across industries. Another area of concern, both private and public sector respondents noted disparate data sets inhibit agility and real-time response to security events (84% private sector and 56% of public sector).
These data challenges also directly impact partnerships between the public and private sectors and their ability to share intelligence. For example, nearly half of public sector organizations (44%) believe the shared intelligence available to them is lacking for their cybersecurity needs. However, both public and private sector organizations agree on three benefits of intelligence sharing:
Improved agility (36% public & 44% private)
Greater visibility (32% public & 34% private)
Targeted preventative and proactive measures (29% public & 23% private)
There is also alignment on what is most important to share [insights or information on]:
Threat intelligence and actors (69% public and 63% private)
Real-time information on security events (60% public and 69% private)
Cybersecurity training materials and best practices (79% public and 68% private)
Benchmarked data (36% public and 31% private)
In light of this, the public and private sectors share similar cybersecurity priorities, including:
Improving threat response/remediation (55% public and 53% private)
Improving detection of emerging threats (49% public and 47% private)
Improving user security awareness (46% public and 50% private)
“At the core, security is a data problem and organizations are missing a foundational piece of their security strategy when they cannot leverage their data, All organizations — both private and public — have a responsibility to citizens and customers to enable cyber resiliency and that can be done by having clear visibility and understanding of data. These shared challenges and priorities should translate into better threat intelligence sharing and security practices across all sectors.”
-Bill Rowan, VP Public Sector, Splunk.
When looking ahead, both public and private sector organizations plan a wide-array of investments to address these cybersecurity priorities. The top investments include:
Monitoring/alerting (60% public and 59% private)
Threat intelligence (44% public and 46% private), and
Security assessments (40% public and 45% private)
However, it is important to note private sector respondents are more likely to be planning investments in security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), centralized log management, and observability.
About Splunk, Inc:
Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLK) helps organizations around the world turn data into doing. Splunk technology is designed to investigate, monitor, analyze and act on data at any scale.
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