PotionLabs Kicks Off Auction for ‘Potion Unlock’ — a Novel NFT Game to Open Source a DeFi Protocol

The Potion Unlock game is a social experiment to bootstrap a decentralized community around a DeFi protocol.

Barcelona, Spain, March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — (via Blockchain WirePotionLabs, the developers of the new risk management layer Potion Protocol, have announced the launch of the Potion Unlock NFT auction. Those who purchase NFTs in the auction will be able to participate in the Potion Unlock game, working with other community members to release the Potion Protocol into the public domain. With this one-of-a-kind strategy based on “aggressive decentralization”, Potion Labs seeks to avoid the dangers of a traditional project launch and to maximize community involvement.

The mechanics of the game are simple. The codebase of the entire project has been stored in IPFS and protected with a strong password. This password has then been split into segments of various lengths and will be distributed across 10,000 unique NFTs.

In order for the code to be finally decrypted and made public, participants will have to collaborate to bring enough of the pieces together. The game itself is totally open-ended: players will have to self-coordinate – without the input of Potion Labs – to find their own solution to the problem.

Once the protocol’s file is decrypted and released into the public domain, a community with ‘skin in the game’ and web3 operational capabilities will have been formed. This community will then have power and stewardship over the future of the Potion Protocol as a public good.

How Can Players Participate in the Potion Unlock Game? 

The majority of Potion NFTs will be sold to the public via a Dutch-style Potion NFT auction, from March 14 until March 24 starting February 28th, where high profile DeFi and NFT participants are expected to take part. Whitelisting is already live.

To strengthen the participating community, two Potion NFT rarities (Kelly Knights and Wise Wizards), have already been distributed through a $12M private sale last January. These were bought by prominent DeFi players such as Polychain, Placeholder, Maven 11, Pantera, The LAO, MetaCartel, Parafi, Spartan, Robert Leshner, Fernando Martinelli, Synthetix founders, Crypto Plaza, Roble VC, CULTUR3, Lemniscap, Zee, and beToken Capital, among others.

Finally, Potion’s early community members (OGs or Original Gangsters), also received a generous allocation of Potion OG NFTs at no cost, in recognition for their early community support and inspiration. A significant number of OG NFTs have also been made available in the form of airdrops to 1,000 leading members of prominent DAOs, with the goal of building a high-quality community around the project.

What is the Symbolism of the Potion NFT Design? 

Potion Unlock NFTs commemorate the release of the Lab’s Kelly Machine and its key technical breakthrough: the synthesis of the Kelly Criterion into a bonding curve. To celebrate this, each NFT symbolically and artistically represents a different insurance contract. Various characteristic artifacts are used in each NFT to represent the specific parameters of an insurance contract.

The collection of NFTs is made up of 10,000 unique pieces, which together embody one of the first artistic renderings of a financial product as well as providing a dictionary of Kelly Criterion bonding curves. Importantly, Potion NFTs are digital collectibles, not financial instruments: only the original NFT minters can participate in the Potion Unlock game.

What are Potion NFT Rarities?

There are 6 NFT types or “rarities” in the game, each with a different “decryption power”, giving the various players different capabilities and powers. Each NFT rarity will also have a different “redundancy” level, so no single holder can block the resolution of the game.

What is The Motivation Behind the Project?

PotionLabs is seeking to accomplish several goals with this launch model. The developers are deep believers in decentralization and designed Potion Unlock to transfer control of the Potion Protocol to the community. In this way, the approach delivers “aggressive decentralization’ and avoids power becoming concentrated in the hands of the few, ensuring that it is instead spread across the community.

This form of protocol release is also meant to create a commercially viable way for PotionLabs to continue to finance its research work while operating within clear regulatory guidelines. PotionLabs also hopes this novel release model can be of use for other Web3 projects.

What Does the Team Have to Say?

“We are excited about the opportunity to introduce a new class of services built from the ground up by the community for the community. We believe in a community-first approach to creating radically new technology aimed at helping users in DeFi manage the risk of their assets in a simple and reliable way,” said Guillem Mosquera, PotionLabs Co-founder, and CTO.

“We are deeply grateful to the community around the project who decided to support our vision and team. We are experimenting with new approaches to open source development for web3 and are lucky to have a visionary community willing to fuel and support our exploration. We are excited for them to continue playing a key role in the project’s community,” said Jordi Muñoz, PotionLabs Co-founder and CEO.

“Extremely sophisticated on the backend, surprisingly simple on the frontend, Potion ushers in a new era of risk management for DeFi liquidity providers (LPs) and consumers. By using the Kelly Criterion, Potion allows LPs to optimally price options according to their desired risk and yield parameters. Then, by aggregating all individual LP curves, Potion offers the best-priced options to the consumer. When people say DeFi 2.0, Potion sits at the top of that list”, said Chris Burniske, Partner at Placeholder.

About Potion Labs

PotionLabs is a web3-native research and software development company that has developed a robust risk management layer for crypto assets, the Potion Protocol. It pioneers a new risk pricing model based on the Kelly Criterion, that results in long-term survival mathematical expectations for LPs and deeper, more reliable liquidity markets for users. The release of the Protocol’s code is launching shortly through the Potion NFT Unlock game. More on Potion.Finance here: https://potion.fi & https://potion.auction

PotionLabs Contact
press (at) potion.fi

 

Organizations Looking to Stem Resignations and Address Labor Shortages Should Invest More in Women

New research from Potential Project confirms that women leaders drive the best organizational outcomes for employees and the business

Featured Image for Potential Project

Featured Image for Potential Project

NEW YORK, March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As millions resign from their jobs to seek opportunities elsewhere and organizations face a 15-year high in talent shortages, companies are racing to offer creative new perks and benefits to avoid the cost of losing talent. The better answer is to invest more in women leaders.

The latest study by Potential Project found that women leaders are more likely to embody “wise compassion”, the leadership style most likely to drive engaged, happy and productive teams and reduce the negative human capital costs that companies want to avoid. Wise compassion means the ability of leaders to do the hard things that come with their jobs while still remaining good human beings.

The Human Leader study, which surveyed over 2,000 participants from more than a dozen industries, found that:

  • 55% of the women leaders in the study were ranked by their followers as being wise and compassionate, compared to only 27% of the men. Conversely, 56% of the male leaders in our study ranked poorly on wise compassion, landing in a quadrant called Ineffective Indifference.
  • When leaders leverage wise compassion at work, employee job satisfaction increases by 86%, job performance increases by 20%, and burnout improves by 64%.
  • Employee disengagement translates into significant organizational expense (due to absenteeism and lower productivity). Women leaders drive more engaged employees and save their organizations $1.4MM for every 1,000 employees (assuming an average salary of $60,000).

“The pandemic delivered a crushing blow to women in the workforce, driving labor force exits and setting gender parity back by decades. This alone is problematic, but as organizations lose women leaders, they also risk losing the engagement and commitment of their workforce,” said Jacqueline Carter, Partner and North American Director at Potential Project. Marissa Afton, Potential Project’s Head of Global Accounts, added, “Our research shone a spotlight on women’s strengths as leaders, and their ability to do hard things in a human way, but this type of leadership is available to anyone who is motivated to change. Compassion can be learned.”

Jacqueline Carter and Marissa Afton are authors (along with Rasmus Hougaard and Moses Mohan) of Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way. The book — published by the Harvard Business Review Press — provides proprietary research and case studies exploring how leaders can build their own capacity for wisdom and compassion to boost their companies’ productivity and support sustainable cultures. To learn more or to order, visit Compassionate Leadership book.

About Potential Project

Potential Project is a global research, leadership development and consulting firm that partners with organizations to uncover the power of the mind – how it is wired and how to rewire it for new behaviors and different outcomes. Potential Project is present in 28 countries with a network of 200 consultants and facilitators and serves hundreds of forward-thinking companies like Disney, IKEA, Unilever, Cisco, LEGO, and Microsoft.

For more information on Potential Project, visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn.

Contact: Paula Kelley, Global Marketing Director: paula.kelley@potentialproject.com

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Call for Entries Issued for The 19th Annual International Business Awards®

New Categories Include Achievement in Social Media and Thought Leadership

FAIRFAX, Va., March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Stevie Awards are now accepting nominations for The 19th Annual International Business Awards®, the world’s premier business awards competition, which attracts nominations from organizations in more than 60 nations and territories each year.

All individuals and organizations worldwide – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small – may submit nominations to The International Business Awards. The early-bird entry deadline, with reduced entry fees, is 6 April. The final entry deadline is 11 May, but late entries will be accepted through 15 June with payment of a late fee. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

Juries featuring more than 150 executives around the world will determine the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners. Winners will be announced on 15 August and celebrated at a gala banquet in Europe in October.

The International Business Awards recognize achievement in every facet of the workplace. Categories include:

There are many new and revised features of The International Business Awards for 2022:

  • Nine new event awards categories, ten new innovation in social media categories, three thought leadership categories, three video categories, three mobile site & app categories, two new product categories, and categories for Achievement in Diversity & Inclusion and Influencer Marketing Campaign of the Year
  • Nominations that won in the 2021 IBAs may be resubmitted for consideration in the 2022 IBAs. If they have been updated with recent achievements, they may be submitted to the same categories in which they won. If they have not been updated, they must be submitted to categories different from those in which they won.
  • In many of the category groups and categories you may now submit a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, illustrating the nominee’s achievements, instead of the traditional Stevie Awards written essay.

Stevie Award winners in the 2021 IBAs included Ayala Land (Philippines), Cvent (USA), Ernst & Young Global Limited (UK), Etihad Airways Group (UAE), IBM (USA), Halkbank (Turkey), HP Inc. (USA), Google (USA), Nestle India (India), PJ Lhuillier, Inc (Philippines), Rufus & Coco (Australia), Philip Morris International (Switzerland), Polish Railway Lines (Poland), SAP SE (Germany), and many more.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

Contact:
Nina Moore
+1 (703) 547-8389
Nina@StevieAwards.com

 

INVNT® Higher Ed Bolsters Team, Welcoming Josh Johns as Vice President of Creative Strategy

The Former Executive Vice President of Strategy at August Jackson Brings Over 10 Years of Industry Experience and Insights to INVNT Higher Ed

New York, March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — INVNT® Higher Ed, the live and experiential higher education storytelling division of INVNT and global umbrella enterprise [INVNT GROUP]®, announces Josh Johns as new Vice President of Creative Strategy.

Johns has spent the last ten years leading branding, communications, and launch strategies for new initiatives and fundraising campaigns with many of the top universities, health care systems, and non-profit institutions across the United States. Throughout his career, Johns has helped institutions launch fundraising campaigns of $500 million to $5 billion for higher education and healthcare institutions.

Prior to joining the INVNT Higher Ed Team, Johns held the role of Chief Creative Officer at Feats Inc., and led branding, communications, and launch strategies for a multitude of prestigious institutions including Duke University, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, the University of California, Irvine, New York University, and M.I.T. Johns has also worked as a creative director in film and advertising, and served in product marketing management roles at internet start-ups, and across the software industry.

Tapping into a powerful stack of omnichannel engagement strategies, creative direction, and deep networks in the higher education realm, Johns will leverage his expertise to expand the reach of INVNT Higher Ed.

“Among the most impressive of Josh’s talents is his creativity and commitment to challenging the way colleges and universities engage with their audiences across all platforms. His thought leadership and deep industry knowledge align perfectly with INVNT Higher Ed’s position as the go-to partner for the most forward-thinking schools,” said Sarah Winkler, Senior Vice President of INVNT Higher Ed.

INVNT Higher Ed is dedicated to providing universities and colleges with strategically and creatively led physical and virtual experiences that challenge convention, while engaging and uniting communities. The division – part of the global live brand story telling agency INVNT – is led by industry veterans Sarah Winkler, Senior Vice President, and JoAnn Peroutka, Vice President. They each bring more than 25 years’ experience to the agency. Over the course of their careers, they have successfully designed and delivered higher education events including campaign launches, regional tours, centennial and sesquicentennial celebrations, and presidential transitions for internationally renowned institutions.

“We first introduced our INVNT Higher Ed offering at a time when the world was experiencing a seismic shift in how we connected to one another. Globally, we saw our universities, colleges, and other institutions grappling with world concerns – many of which continue to evolve. The expansion of the INVNT Higher Ed division is a testament to the transformative power of storytelling and community building. We are proud of the deep partnerships cultivating alongside the global ‘challenge everything’ brands and institutions that put their trust in us,” said Kristina McCoobery, CEO of INVNT and COO of [INVNT GROUP].

As Vice President of Creative Strategy, Johns will articulate INVNT Higher Ed’s vision through strategic engagement-driven campaigns, powered by INVNT’s ‘Challenge Everything’ mantra, to deliver compelling, innovative, and authentic brand storytelling.

“Higher Ed is going through a period of tremendous change, and there’s a lot of opportunity for institutions to rethink and reimagine how they’re telling their stories. I’m excited to be able to leverage the expertise and creativity across the INVNT Group to explore new models for engagement and break new ground in how universities use innovation and technology to reach their most important audiences,” said Josh Johns.

To learn more about the INVNT Higher Ed team and their mission to create innovative strategies and live events for higher education, please visit our website.

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About INVNT® Higher Ed
A division of award-winning global live brand storytelling agency, INVNT™, INVNT Higher Ed specializes in providing colleges and universities with strategically and creatively led physical and virtual experiences that challenge convention and unite and excite audiences. Led by Senior Vice-President, Sarah Winkler,  JoAnn Peroutka, Vice-President, the division draws on INVNT’s award-winning challenger positioning and approach and their combined experience in higher ed to curate tailored solutions that communicate institutions’ mission and purpose and engage and mobilize entire communities. Visit www.invnt.com/highered for more.

About INVNT
Founded in 2008 by Scott Cullather and Kristina McCoobery, INVNT uses the craft of live brand storytelling to Challenge Everything, producing live experiences that excite and unite physical and virtual audiences, globally. The company’s ‘challenge everything’ positioning statement helps clients including General Motors, Microsoft, Merck, PepsiCo., and Samsung share their stories with every audience that matters. Part of [INVNT GROUP], THE GLOBAL BRANDSTORY PROJECT™, INVNT’s offices are strategically located in New York – where its INVNT Higher Ed division is also based – London, Sydney, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Stockholm, and Singapore. Visit www.invnt.com for more.

About [INVNT GROUP]
[INVNT GROUP] was established in 2020, as an evolution of the founding global live brand storytelling agency INVNT in 2008, with a vision to provide consistent, meaningful, well-articulated BrandStory across all platforms. Headed by President and CEO, Scott Cullather, [INVNT GROUP], THE GLOBAL BRANDSTORY PROJECT™ represents a growing portfolio of complementary disciplines designed to help forward-thinking organizations everywhere, impact the audiences that matter, anywhere. The GROUP consists of modern brand strategy firm, Folk Hero; creative-led culture consultancy, Meaning; branded content studio and content marketing agency HEVĒ, INVNT Higher Ed; events for colleges and universities, and the original live brand storytelling agency, INVNT. Visit www.invntgroup.com for more.

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Jhonathan Mendez de Leon
INVNT GROUP
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jmendezdeleon@invnt.com

Peplink Becomes AWS Transit Gateway Connect Partner

VILNIUS, Lithuania, March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Peplink, a company that makes connectivity reliable, is now an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Transit Gateway Connect Partner. Peplink joins a group of leading SD-WAN partners that help AWS customers simplify and automate connections to AWS Transit Gateway.

Peplink’s SpeedFusion technology gives customers powerful tools to improve connectivity quality and cost at any location. The integration with AWS Transit Gateway Connect helps Peplink customers achieve high speed and low latency connections to AWS Transit Gateway at the edge of the AWS global network. Once connected to AWS Transit Gateway, customers can connect to their Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (VPC) in any AWS Region, or between their on-premises data centers using AWS Cloud WAN (Preview).

Being an AWS Transit Gateway Connect Partner gives Peplink’s customers confidence that they can leverage advanced SpeedFusion capabilities in a manner that is optimal and secure. This also gives customers a streamlined way to deploy SpeedFusion solution, so they can achieve an Enterprise-grade global deployment seamlessly, allowing them to simplify what would otherwise be a complicated, manual setup.

Keith Chau, General Manager of Peplink, said, “With AWS Transit Gateway Connect, users can now build faster, more responsive and more secure SpeedFusion connections to the edge of the AWS network. Coupled with Peplink’s strong wireless SD-WAN capability, businesses of all sizes can now use 4G and 5G networks to enhance or replace wired connections at their edge locations. We will continue to improve our product stack through further collaboration.”

About Peplink: Peplink makes connectivity reliable. Peplink’s ecosystem, SpeedFusion technology, and SD-WAN routers are deployed around the world, helping thousands of customers from many industries increase bandwidth, enhance Internet reliability, reduce connectivity cost, or enable new deployment possibilities. Learn more about Peplink.

Cassy Mak
Marketing Manager
marketing@peplink.com

Uhnder Launches Industry’s First 4D Digital Imaging Radar

Uhnder’s Digital Radar-on-Chip

Uhnder’s digital radar-on-chip will be fully automotive qualified in April 2022. Shown here are the front and back of chip.

  • Uhnder digital radar to be automotive qualified in April 2022.
  • Digital radar provides improved sensing critical for safety in ADAS and autonomous vehicles.
  • Uhnder digital radar will debut on consumer vehicles in production in 2022.

AUSTIN, Texas, March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Uhnder, the leader in digital imaging radar technology for automotive and next-generation mobility applications, will soon become the first company to mass produce a fully automotive qualified, 4D digital imaging radar-on-chip that will transform our roadways, making possible next-generation ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems), autonomous vehicles (AVs), and automated mobility applications.

Uhnder’s Digital Radar-on-Chip

Uhnder’s digital radar-on-chip will be fully automotive qualified in April 2022. Shown here are the front and back of chip.

“Uhnder’s 4D digital imaging radar-on-chip is a next-generation product that demonstrates new ways to advance automotive safety to save lives,” said Douglas Campbell, president, Automotive Safety Council. “Fatalities of vulnerable road users are now 20 percent of all roadway deaths in the US and even more in developing countries. ADAS technologies, such as pedestrian automatic emergency braking (P-AEB) that can reliably operate at night, can help reduce pedestrian fatalities per the latest report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Improved high-resolution perception sensors, such as Uhnder’s radar-on-chip, can potentially help reduce this rising fatality category.”

Uhnder’s technology delivers the industry’s first digital radar solution with better accuracy and the power to sense moving or standing objects, large or small, at both short and long distances in all weather and lighting conditions, all while mitigating mutual interference between other radars. Uhnder’s digital radar can clearly identify a pedestrian crossing the road, a child entering the street from beside a parked car, or a bicyclist next to a guard rail, at levels of accuracy that legacy analog radar systems cannot achieve.

Demonstration of Uhnder’s Digital Radar

Uhnder’s digital radar can clearly identify a motorcycle between two trucks, a pedestrian crossing the road, a child entering the street from beside a parked car, or a bicyclist next to a guard rail, at levels of accuracy that legacy analog radar systems cannot achieve.

“Digital radar provides 16 times better resolution, 24 times more power on target, and 30 times better contrast than today’s analog offerings, improving detection capabilities for better road safety for all users – drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians,” said Manju Hegde, CEO and cofounder, Uhnder, Inc. “As more and more radars are fitted onto vehicles and other mobility solutions, interference among adjacent radar becomes problematic. Our radar, based on Digital Code Modulation, mitigates this problem.”

Automotive Qualification Milestones

In April 2022, Uhnder will release its S80 radar-on-chip to mass production. The device will be the first 4D digital imaging radar solution and will have completed stringent automotive requirements:

  • Automotive Electronics Council (AEC) Q104 qualification
  • ISO 26262 Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL-B) rating
  • Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) with its first Tier 1 automotive customer, Magna

With these milestones completed, the automotive industry will be another step closer to improving road safety for all.

Uhnder’s Digital Radar-on-Chip

Digital radar provides 16 times better resolution, 24 times more power on target, and 30 times better contrast than today’s analog offerings, improving detection capabilities for better road safety for all users.

“Uhnder is a leader in digital imaging radar and a trusted partner in bringing the best innovations forward,” said Swamy Kotagiri, CEO, Magna International. “I am excited with the progress made over the years and ready for the entire ecosystem to experience what we already know to be true – that digital radar is fundamental for next-generation ADAS.”

Uhnder’s Digital Radar Hits the Road in 2022

Uhnder’s radar-on-chip, used in Magna’s ICON Digital Radar, will debut on vehicles in 2022.

About Uhnder
Uhnder is the leader in digital imaging radar technology for automotive and next-generation mobility applications. Based on Digital Code Modulation (DCM), Uhnder’s fully software-defined radar-on-chip and sensor modules enable highest-resolution digital perception for ADAS, AV, and logistics automation systems. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Uhnder is the only supplier of digital imaging radar chips and modules. For more information, visit www.uhnder.com and follow Uhnder on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
press@uhnder.com

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a89593af-afdf-46fb-80e9-1f737e25815d

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A video accompanying this announcement is available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8a25b675-4736-4eb1-85f5-09169ae94232

Accellion, Now Kiteworks, Shows Commitment to the Australia and New Zealand Market One Year After Its Breach by Achieving IRAP Certification for PROTECTED Level Data

Retirement of compromised FTA product was achieved in full for all Australian and New Zealand clients in 2020-21. IRAP certification for Kiteworks demonstrates company’s commitment to clients in the Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) market.

SYDNEY, Australia, March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Kiteworks, the leading platform for ensuring regulatory compliance and effectively managing risk with every send, share, receive, and save of sensitive content, announced today it completed and achieved compliance with the Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessed for up to PROTECTED level data classification. This certification further extends Kiteworks’ extensive compliance with global industry standards overseen by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). The IRAP certification demonstrates Kiteworks’ commitment to a defense-in-depth security approach and emergence from the breach of its retired File Transfer Administration (FTA) product.

Kiteworks’ IRAP-hosted environment is delivered as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) secure cloud with premium support on AWS and is available to federal, state, and local Australian agencies as well as any company in the world conducting business with Australian federal and state agencies. The IRAP-hosted environment is single tenant and delivers geographic sovereignty of data governance, ensuring that customers are the only entities able to access their data. Kiteworks Secure Cloud Hosting With Premium Support also includes patching and update services, named service representatives, enhanced service-level agreements (SLAs), and other high-touch services.

“While the cyberattack only affected our retired FTA product, we sought to take lessons learned to further enhance the security architecture for the Kiteworks platform,” said Jonathan Yaron, Chairman and CEO of Kiteworks. “We hardened different areas of the security architecture such as key encryption and management and implemented proactive defense-in-depth measures to ensure real-time alerts, an embedded WAF, and incident response in the event that an attack does occur.”

IRAP Certification by the Australian Cyber Security Centre

Australian agencies use IRAP to validate that appropriate controls are in place to address requirements established by the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) that are published by the ACSC. For federal and state agencies conducting business with third parties like contractors, vendors, and suppliers, IRAP compliance helps protect those agencies against supply chain cyberattacks that can have far-reaching and malicious impact. To achieve IRAP compliance, a certified independent assessor reviewed Kiteworks’ people, processes, and technology in over 800 risk areas against requirements of the ISM.

Kiteworks is the only global vendor in the sensitive content communications solutions space with IRAP certification. Federal and state agencies in Australia and private sector businesses in ANZ conducting business with those agencies know that they retain control of privacy of their data that is hosted in single-tenancy clouds via Kiteworks—meaning there is no intermingling of data, metadata, or shared application resources.

“Cyber criminals and nation-states see the multiplication value of the supply chain and have reaped significant rewards via supply chain attacks over the past year,” said Yaron. “Industry standards like IRAP enable public sector agencies to vet and manage their supply chain based on a codified list of security and governance controls that mitigates risks. Kiteworks already adheres to numerous global industry standards, and the addition of IRAP compliance extends our coverage even more. We are fully committed to the Australian market, with a local office in Sydney for over 12 years and hundreds of federal and state government customers, and we take compliance standards like IRAP very seriously. We see the certification as a confirmation of our commitment to our Australian customers, enabling them to track, control, and secure their sensitive content communications.”

Realizing the Value of Kiteworks and IRAP Compliance

The Kiteworks platform empowers public and private sector organizations to manage every send, share, receive, and store of sensitive content across numerous communication channels—email, file sharing, managed file transfer, web forms, and application programming interfaces (APIs). This minimizes risk while creating a detailed record of sensitive content communications as data moves within, into, and out of an organization.

“We’ve relied on the Kiteworks platform to exchange sensitive content with our public and private sector clients for several years,” said Sunil Saale, the Head of Cyber and Information Security at MinterEllison, Australia’s largest law firm providing legal and consulting services through a global network of affiliated firms and associated companies. “Using Kiteworks and other IRAP compliant solutions makes it easier for us to do business with Australian government agencies, as it provides assurance that the platform has appropriate and effective controls and that it has been validated independently against Australian government policies and guidelines. Kiteworks also minimizes onboarding friction for new clients and improves operational efficiencies for our team. Kiteworks IRAP certification demonstrates its commitment to us and the Australian market in general.”

“Achieving IRAP compliance demonstrates Kiteworks’ ongoing commitment to the Australian market as an investment in its security posture and confirmation that Kiteworks has instituted rigorous governance controls and tracking that adhere to global risk standards,” said Kieran O’Shaughnessy, VP of ANZ Sales and Operations at Kiteworks. “Government agencies and companies conducting business with federal and state agencies can purchase and begin using the IRAP-compliant Kiteworks platform today.”

IRAP compliance is the latest achievement in a long list of global compliance standards met by the Kiteworks platform. These include, but are not limited to, FedRAMP, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-171, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Additional Resources
Kiteworks Webpage on IRAP: Click Here
Fact Sheet: Click Here

About Kiteworks
Kiteworks’ mission is to empower organizations to effectively manage risk in every send, share, receive, and save of sensitive content. To this end, we created a platform that delivers content governance, compliance, and protection to customers. The platform unifies, tracks, controls, and secures sensitive content moving within, into, and out of their organization, significantly improving risk management and ensuring regulatory compliance on all sensitive content communications.

Media Contacts
Jennifer Blacker
DEC PR
+61 432 351 551
j.blacker@decpr.com.au

Verisk and Ford partner to offer standardised, insurance-ready connected car data in Europe

The agreement gives Verisk license to supply connected car data to insurers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain

LONDON, U.K., March 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Verisk (Nasdaq:VRSK), a leading global data analytics provider, is pleased to announce an agreement with Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F). As part of the agreement, Verisk can offer standardised, insurance-ready telematics data from connected Ford vehicles in Europe to assist insurers with assessing driving behaviour, developing usage-based insurance programmes, and potentially rewarding customers who drive safely with discounted rates. This service will be available in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The agreement will offer insurers a more accurate view of driver risk and offer consumers the opportunity to receive tailored insurance offerings for their Ford vehicles. With drivers’ given consent, insurers will be able to access standardised metrics that Verisk generates from connected Ford vehicles, providing them with valuable insights into their customers’ driving behaviour. The data will be available through Verisk’s Data Insight Hub, an ever-evolving source of insurance datasets and analytics accessible at any part of the customer journey, including the point of quote.

Usage-based insurance uses an individual’s driving behaviour to assess the risk of a future claim and can be highly predictive as part of a balanced framework of premium-rating factors.

“We are delighted to extend our agreement with Verisk into Europe,” said Mark Harvey, director of business operations, Enterprise Connectivity, Ford of Europe. “Through their innovative analytics solutions, we are able to make sure that our customers receive the most accurate and budget-friendly insurance plan options, rewarding safe driving behaviour.”

The agreement between Ford and Verisk in Europe follows a similar agreement between the two companies in the United States announced last year. In October 2020, Ford joined the Verisk Data Exchange, a leading Internet of Things (IoT) and telematics platform helping commercial and personal lines insurers in the United States make more informed decisions. Verisk works with leading automakers, telematics service providers (TSPs) and property-based data sources to deliver insurance-ready insights on the Exchange.

“Verisk has pioneered the use of data from connected cars for insurance, helping thousands of drivers receive insurance that is tailored to their driving,” said Joe Wodark, General Manager of Telematics, Verisk. “Through our agreement with Ford, we’re expanding our telematics solutions into Europe and helping bring innovative products to a broader market of safety-conscious drivers.”

Learn more about how the Verisk Data Exchange™ and Data Insight Hub can benefit your telematics programme.

About Verisk 

Verisk (Nasdaq:VRSK) provides predictive analytics and decision support solutions to customers in the insurance, energy and specialized markets, and financial services industries. More than 70 percent of the FORTUNE 100 relies on the company’s advanced technologies to manage risks, make better decisions and improve operating efficiency. The company’s analytic solutions address insurance underwriting and claims, fraud, regulatory compliance, natural resources, catastrophes, economic forecasting, geopolitical risks, as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the company continues to make the world better, safer and stronger, and fosters an inclusive and diverse culture where all team members feel they belong. With more than 100 offices in nearly 35 countries, Verisk consistently earns certification by Great Place to Work. For more: Verisk.comLinkedInTwitterFacebook, and YouTube.

Michelle Pantina
Verisk Public Relations
+1 201-469-3177
michelle.pantina@verisk.com