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Spotlight Sports Group Announces Title Sponsorship of the FSGA Winter Conference

Spotlight Sports Group

Spotlight Sports Group, a world-leading technology, content and media company specializing in sports betting and fantasy sports, announced the company will be the title sponsor of the upcoming Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association (FSGA) Winter Conference at the LINQ Hotel in Las Vegas on Feb. 15-16. The FSGA Winter Conference brings together fantasy sports, sports betting and gaming executives from across the world to network and discuss major trends in the marketplace, new technologies and emerging legislation and regulation impacting the entire sports gaming industry. In addition to breakout panels and keynotes, the conference features an awards ceremony and an innovation pitch competition. Spotlight Sports Group’s SVP of Business Development, Rick Wolf is a founding member of the FSGA and will co-host the event. As the title sponsor of the event, Wolf will also provide the opening remarks to start the conference focused on the massive expansion of sports betting and gaming set to take place for 2022. “With the emerging legalization of sports betting across America, specifically in states with large populations like California and Texas, companies have a limited time to take advantage of the gold rush. In 2022 alone, we’re predicting the number of American sports bettors with legal access to sports betting could double, from less than 40% to close to 75%,” said Wolf. “This year’s conference will explore all the ways businesses can innovate and create sustainable revenue streams before it's too late to scale efficiently.” In addition to the title sponsorship, the company will co-sponsor a free-to-play game for all attendees alongside the FSGA. Spotlight developed the free-to-play game through its self-service game engine. The game concept provides the FSGA audience a proof of concept of how companies can quickly bring to market a coveted user engagement tool like free-to-play games. The prop-style free-to-play game will be available to all attendees and will feature a prize of an autographed NFL jersey. “For more than 20 years, the FSGA has been at the forefront of progress for the fantasy, sports betting and gaming industries,” said Harry von Behr, Spotlight’s managing director of sport and co-US CEO. “Spotlight is one of the only companies to provide a full-service technology and content offering across the entire fantasy sports, sports betting and gaming industries. The sponsorship is a natural extension of our capabilities, providing value and insights to all those in attendance.” For more information regarding the conference and other attendees here: https://thefsga.org/fsga-winter-conference/ ABOUT SPOTLIGHT SPORTS GROUP Spotlight Sports Group (owned by Exponent Private Equity) is a leading technology, content and media business specializing in sports betting. Evolved from the Racing Post Group, Spotlight Sports Group engages millions of people directly through Racing Post, Pickswise, Free Super Tips, Fantasy Alarm and myracing. The company also has decades of experience in powering growth and conversion for the world’s biggest sportsbooks and media companies, delivering best-in-class technology and expert scalable content experiences in more than 70 languages. Contact Details Michael Adorno +1 212-931-6143 madorno@hotpaperlantern.com Company Website https://www.spotlightsportsgroup.com/en_us/

January 20, 2022 12:08 PM Eastern Standard Time

DistroTV Launches Free-to-Stream DistroTV Español Channel Bundle

DistroTV

DistroTV, the largest, independent, free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platform, today debuted DistroTV Español. The new free-to-stream channel bundle features 20+ Spanish-speaking channels and will be available to Spanish speakers in the U.S., as well as Spanish speakers in Latin America. This comes on the heels of the streaming platform’s push to expand its global audience footprint into both territories. This signals the start of what will be a strong 2022 for DistroTV, with more milestones on the horizon, including the FAST platform’s very first original movie premiere. “Our mission is to provide free-to-stream content to our growing and increasingly diverse global audience,” said Navdeep Saini, co-founder and CEO of DistroScale, parent company of DistroTV. “Given the fact that roughly more than 53 million people speak Spanish in the U.S., we could not be more excited to extend our free-to-stream content to this important, often under-served audience, as well as in Latin America. 2022 is all about breaking ground, and with that, breaking down content barriers so that the most viewers globally can consume content that is thought-provoking, stimulating, inclusive, and enjoyable.” DistroTV Español brings both Spanish- and English-speaking channels to new countries, such as Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Bolivia and Ecuador, and expands upon the streaming platform’s current Spanish offerings in the US, Canada, and Europe. "The decision to bring DistroTV to Latin America presents a novel and innovative proposal,” said Ricardo Alarcón, chairman of Mexican-Colombian production firm TRIPTIC. “It means a significant amount of content produced in Latin America will be made easily available to audiences in the region. The current state of the market and audiences is right for an ad-supported OTT to achieve great success in Colombia and Latin America." “We are thrilled to partner with DistroTV as we continue to expand our digital footprint in the U.S. and Latin America,” said Victor Montilla, president of Olympusat International. “The addition of Olympusat’s free, ad-supported streaming TV channels to DistroTV’s platform provide a vast variety of scripted series, movies, and content from around the world, as well as multi-genre HD programming to Hispanic households across the Americas.” DistroTV Español currently includes the following channels, and is forecast to grow: Movies Cine Real: Focuses on award-winning and independently produced movies and series from Spain and Latin America, presented in their original Spanish-language format. Cine Sureño: Top-notch contemporary films and series from around the world, dubbed or produced in Spanish. Focuses on dramas with some action. Horrorfy: A channel dedicated to the most suspenseful and nail-biting horror, sci-fi, and thrillers from Spain, Latin America and around the world. Juntos: Family-oriented programming produced exclusively from the Hispanic audience Top Cine: A premium selection of the best scripted series and miniseries from around the globe. Features a thought-after library of original productions and exclusive fiction series appealing to the US Hispanic audience. Entertainment & Lifestyle Chiquilines: Fun and educational programming from around the world, as well as interactive entertainment that the whole family can enjoy. WappTV: Creates cultural change via gender perspective, participation and collaboration, moving to a more open, friendly community. Canela TV: Free Latino TV - with over 8000 hours of premium Spanish and English Content, it is the premier destination for US Hispanics! News & Opinion Euronews Español DistroTV continues to grow and diversify its 150+ channel content library. The platform’s strong programming lineup includes a mix of popular film and television shows, such Bloomberg, EuroNews, People TV, Magellan TV and TD Ameritrade network, as well as independent channels like Black Enterprise, as well as Kweli TV, which spotlights the rich history and global diversity of the Black community; and Desi TV, the premiere South Asian free channels. Audiences can enjoy these channels for free anywhere across a wide array of CTV and mobile devices, as well as on the web by visiting Distro.tv -- no registration, credit cards, or signup required to stream for FREE. To become a viewer and / or understand which channels are available for live and / or Video-on-Demand (VoD) access in the various countries, visit https://www.distro.tv or install DistroTV for free on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV, LG TV, Samsung TV, Sony TV, iOS, or Android. To access DistroTV Español, visit https://www.distro.tv/espanol/. About DistroTV DistroTV is the largest, independent, free, ad-supported streaming television service on the market. Launched in 2019 by parent company DistroScale, the platform caters to a multicultural, rapidly expanding, globally-minded audience of passionate viewers in the US, Canada, and UK. Satisfying the growing demand for premium video content in multiple languages, DistroTV delivers premium video content from producers globally across North America, the UK, Bollywood, Latin America, China, Southeast Asia, and growing. With more than 150 channels plus thousands of Video on Demand (VOD) shows, DistroTV cultivates content that covers a broad spectrum of topics to connect with people’s passion points around Entertainment, Lifestyle, Sports, News, Documentaries and International Content in live, linear and video-on-demand formats. DistroTV is available on the web, as well as through Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV, LG TV, Samsung TV, Sony TV, and iOS and Android devices. About DistroScale DistroTV is the first direct-to-consumer offering from DistroScale, a technology company founded in 2013 and known for providing a global clientele of thousands of media properties with the industry’s most comprehensive video platform for web, apps, and streaming. DistroScale is an all-in-one solution providing infrastructure, content delivery, curation, analytics and a full suite of monetization options. Video enabled by DistroScale reaches more than 250 million visitors per month. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. To become a DistroTV viewer, visit www.distro.tv. More information on DistroScale & DistroTV is available at www.distroscale.com. Contact Details Mackenzie Gavel +1 631-739-5716 mackenzie@kitehillpr.com Company Website https://www.distro.tv

January 20, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

iTradeNetwork Launches Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) Solution to Enable Faster, More Collaborative, Data-Driven Food and Beverage Supply Chains

iTradeNetwork

iTradeNetwork, the industry’s largest perishables network with over 8,000 food and beverage trading partners, proudly announces the launch of its Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), a new way for companies to collaborate, transact, and drive more profitable supply chains. Network-as-a-Service quickly establishes trading connections between any two companies in the food and beverage industry to meet the evolving and timely demands of today’s environment. In the last two months, more than 60 new enterprises—including industry giants Trader Joe’s, Aldi and MBM/McLane—have joined iTradeNetwork’s industry-leading network to trade with the thousands of companies already on the network. NaaS offers more than just trading connections. It includes capabilities for buyer-mandated Advance Ship Notices (ASN); allows adherence to regulatory mandates in the U.S. and Canada like the recent Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard and the Safe Food for Canadians Act; provides superior quality via fresh inspection and reduces transportation costs through enhanced freight capabilities. To remain competitive and improve resilience, buyers and sellers need the simplicity of one trading network and a single supply chain analytics hub. This eliminates second-guessing and back-office rework. Network-as-a-Service provides all this and more: Immediate connectivity to any retail grocer or foodservice distributor. Get paid faster and reduce back-office rework: benefit from industry-best invoice matching rates in excess of 97 percent and eliminate manual reconciliation that delays payment. Be more responsive: quickly meet emerging regulations or buyer mandates such as Advanced Ship Notices, the U.S. Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, Safe Food for Canadians Act, FSMA 204 and more. Analytics and insights: take decisive action with supply chain health monitoring, opportunity and trend identification, anomaly management, and contract and pricing evaluations. Collaboration with trading partners: communicate with in-app real-time messaging instead of phone calls and emails. Act quickly on P.O. changes, complete with audit trails. “Today’s supply chains are more complex than ever, but they should not require equally complex tech stacks to manage them. Network-as-a-Service not only connects suppliers and buyers quickly so they can start transacting, but it also provides add-on modules for traceability, freight and other solutions to help suppliers compete and achieve supply chain resiliency,” said Nathan Romney, Chief Product Officer of iTradeNetwork. To learn more about Network-as-a-Service, contact sales@itradnetwork.com. ABOUT ITRADENETWORK iTradeNetwork, Inc. (ITN) is the leading global provider of supply chain management solutions for the food and beverage industry. Built upon deep industry expertise, a rich data foundation and the industry’s most extensive trading partner network, iTradeNetwork’s collaborative solutions allow distributors, manufacturers, operators, retailers, suppliers and wholesalers of all sizes to reduce cost, grow revenue and strengthen trading partner relationships. Today, iTradeNetwork’s growing customer list includes thousands of global companies. For more information, visit: www.itradenetwork.com. Contact Details Landis Communications Inc. Robin Carr +1 415-971-3991 itn@landispr.com Company Website https://www.itradenetwork.com/

January 19, 2022 06:01 AM Pacific Standard Time

Osmo From BYJU’s Names Peter Glovin Senior Vice President of Educational Sales

Osmo for Schools

Award-winning STEAM brand, Osmo from BYJU’S, announces Peter Glovin’s appointment as Senior VP of Educational Sales, effective immediately. In this role, Glovin, a seasoned senior edtech sales executive, will develop and implement a U.S. sales strategy for the brand’s educational sales division, Osmo Education, as well as expand its sales team, targeting the Pre-K to Grade 5 education market. Osmo Education celebrated its fifth anniversary last March. “Peter’s proven background in edtech sales and business development will undoubtedly help open doors for Osmo in the education field,” says Cherian Thomas, Senior Vice President of International Business at Osmo from BYJU’S. “While we’ve seen tremendous support from kindergarten and elementary teachers in the past five years who individually purchased Osmo to use inside classrooms across the country, we’d love to build sales and begin support for the education community at the district level.” Glovin’s remarkable track record of success and longevity in sales is defined by his expertise in creating and implementing innovative sales programs, and providing targeted solutions for high-level customers. He was previously Senior Vice President of Sales at MIDAS Education where he led sales efforts for K-12, Higher Ed and Workforce development markets. “I see enormous growth potential for Osmo in the education market,” says Glovin. “The combination of tactile exploration and innovative technology is a powerful package that will help transform the way students learn while in school, and I’m energized by the shared vision that its learning system will be used by many more school kids in the near term, in addition to the focus and dedication of the team leading Osmo. I’m very excited to be part of the worldwide growth of BYJU’S.” Prior to MIDAS Education, Glovin was Vice President of District Relations at BrainPOP, where he led sales efforts for the K-12 supplemental content segment, increasing sales 500% between 2008 and 2019, and helping to expand the company’s domestic K-12 market share to 35%, plus building presence in key states like Texas, New York, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and California. He was also closely involved in STEM-related product launches and liaising with industry advocacy groups. Before BrainPOP, Glovin held a number of business development roles for educational technology companies. In his early career, he held marketing roles with a number of media and publishing companies. Glovin has a B.A. from Hobart College. About Osmo from BYJU’S Osmo is an award-winning STEAM brand, wholly owned by BYJU’S, the leading global edtech company. Osmo from BYJU’s and Osmo Education products are used in over 2.5 million homes and 50,000 classrooms, respectively. Osmo builds a universe of hands-on, curriculum-based learning experiences that nourish the minds of children by unleashing the power of imagination. The brand brings physical tools into the digital world through augmented reality and its proprietary reflective artificial intelligence. Learn more at PlayOsmo.com and Osmo Education. Contact Details Osmo Lisa Fujioka lisa@tangibleplay.com Company Website http://schools.playosmo.com

January 18, 2022 05:00 AM Pacific Standard Time

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Velocity Global and Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks gives respite and relief to Marshall Fire victims

Velocity Global

$30,000 donation to relief fund VIP tickets to Red Rocks for those affected by the fire Velocity Global has partnered with Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks to donate $30,0000 to the Boulder County Wildfire Fund to assist with recovery from the Marshall Fire, as well as a special VIP Red Rocks experience for those affected by the worst wildfire in Colorado history. “Our hearts go out to our neighbors who lost all of their possessions and precious life in the blink of an eye,” said Ben Wright, Velocity Global founder and CEO. “Money helps in times like this, but so does a brief escape from the realities of recovery. We chatted with our partners at Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks to find a way to provide that getaway, even for just a night at Red Rocks.” Denver-based Velocity Global, the leading platform for global talent solutions, is a presenting sponsor of Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks, a partnership between Icelantic Skis, The Pinecone Project, and AEG Presents Rocky Mountain. The group is donating VIP tickets to those affected by the Marshall Fire. “Music and community can help heal and we’re thrilled to be in a position to offer both to those impacted by this tragedy,” said Sam Warren, director and founder of Winter on the Rocks. “We’re asking anyone who knows someone affected to let us know and we’ll give them a night at Red Rocks.” The only winter concert at Red Rocks is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year with Diplo, Sofi Tukker, Talib Kweli, DJ Matt Cassidy, and JACOBY on January 28th. Velocity Global will distribute tickets to those affected through its social media accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram starting today. About Velocity Global Velocity Global accelerates the future of work beyond borders. Its global work platform simplifies the employer and employee experience to employ any talent anywhere with just a click through its proprietary cloud-based workforce management technology, backed by personalized expertise and unmatched global scale. As the largest global Employer of Record (also known as International PEO) in 185 countries and all 50 United States, more than 1,000 brands rely on Velocity Global to build global teams without the cost or complexity of setting up foreign legal entities or state registrations. The company offers additional services including Independent Contractor Compliance to assess a workforce, and Agent of Record (AoR) to streamline payments to contractors. Velocity Global was named a “Leader” in Global Employer of Record services by prominent analyst firm NelsonHall. Founded in 2014, the company has hundreds of employees across six continents. For more information visit velocityglobal.com. Contact Details Velocity Global John Hall +1 720-650-4348 news@velocityglobal.com Company Website https://velocityglobal.com/

January 13, 2022 07:01 AM Mountain Standard Time

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Democracy Think Tank, Section 1, Announces Release of Founder, Peter Biro’s, “Conscience-Shocking” First Music video of his Dramatic Rock Ballad, “Just History Now”

Section 1

Peter Biro, the founder of Section 1, a democracy think tank, has announced the release of a music video to accompany a powerful conscience-raising rock ballad, “Just History Now”. Biro hopes to attract the attention of politicians, educators, journalists and the civil society sectors to the song’s urgent and compelling message for the world of today. Biro calls it “a love letter to humanity in a dark age. A lament for the human condition. An irrefutable case for pessimism. An eternal reason for hope.” “This is us! This is about who we are”, says Biro. “Humanity is not divided into the good ones and the bad ones. We are each possessed of benign and evil inclinations. We seem condemned to both revisit and repeat our past atrocities, even as we atone and take stock of our own immortality. Every politician should watch. Every activist will want to share. Every high school should set aside 6 minutes and 22 seconds at its morning assembly for this.” Lawyer, writer, educator, think-tank founder, democracy activist, Chair Emeritus of the Jane Goodall Institute Global, and songwriter, Peter L. Biro, pays tribute to his late father and Holocaust survivor, George Biro, while calling us all “to look honestly at the hard truths about the nature of human nature!” “What have we done since Bergen Belsen? What have we learned from Birkenau? Where are the desaparecidos? It’s all just history now”. Beautifully conceived, performed and recorded in 2000, but never released, Biro decided that, tragically, the song was even more relevant and timely today than when he wrote it over two decades ago. JUST HISTORY NOW, and other songs by Peter, can be streamed at http://itunes.apple.com/album/id1601499105?ls=1&app=itunes http://itunes.apple.com/album/id/1601499105 https://open.spotify.com/artist/5D9wk6ZDyqCDKtm12gJXlo?4, and most online music stores. About Peter Biro: http://www.section1.ca/the-team/ and at https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-l-biro-2438919/ Watch it. Share it. Broadcast it. Discuss it. Review it. And reach out to Peter at peter.biro@section1.ca with feedback and interview requests. www.section1.ca Contact Details Peter Biro peter.biro@section1.ca

January 12, 2022 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

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Entertainment Industry Leader Jed Weitzman joins Logitix as Head of Music

Logitix

Logitix, the leader in live event ticketing technology and analytics, announced they have named Jed Weitzman as their Head of Music. Weitzman brings over 25 years of experience as an executive in the entertainment industry, specializing in talent management, technology, and ticketing. Through this newly created position, Weitzman will lead the music division for Logitix to optimize concert ticket sales through real-time data, dynamic pricing, and distribution. “Jed is one of the most respected leaders in our industry,” said Logitix CEO Stuart Halberg. “He has a proven track record of helping artists and promoters navigate their ticketing strategy and increase revenue. He is joining an all-star team at Logitix that continues to prove that we are the most trusted solution to optimize ticket sales for live events.” Before joining Logitix, Weitzman built the music division for Ticket Evolution and consulted for over 60 major concert tours. He worked directly with agencies, promoters, venues, and managers to create revenue. Earlier in his career, Weitzman oversaw world tours and licensing deals, working with many of the world’s top artists, including Prince, Dave Matthews, Billy Joel, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, James Taylor, Jane’s Addiction, and Morrissey. “Throughout my career, I have always taken the approach to consider the artist first,” said Weitzman. “There is nobody helping artists, teams, and promoters more in the ticketing space than Logitix. They represent the present and future of the ticketing industry, and I’m thrilled to lead their music division.” Weitzman’s career started in television, working on shows like Saturday Night Live and Late Night with Conan O’Brien before becoming a sought-after talent manager and TV development executive. He spent nearly 10 years managing careers of comedic talents, including Zach Galifianakis, Stephen Colbert, and Steven Carell. During his time at Brillstein Grey Entertainment, he worked with the writing and production staff of The Larry Sanders Show, Mr. Show, and The Dana Carvey Show. From Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2021, Logitix managed 2.4 million tickets that sold for over $300 million through teams across the NFL, NBA, and NHL, plus NCAA events and live event properties. Logitix optimizes ticket sale outcomes for all of its partners through proprietary dynamic pricing and distribution. Its unique platform analyzes millions of real-time data points, providing up-to-the-minute insights within the live event marketplace. About Logitix Logitix is the preeminent monetization engine and ticketing platform for the live event industry, combining optimized pricing, distribution, and inventory management with real-time insights to help sellers and buyers respond to a rapidly changing market environment. The Logitix vision is to automate the entire ticket life cycle and provide data-driven insights to serve the diverse needs of its clients. The company is backed by ZMC and is privately held. For more information about Logitix, visit Logitix.com or find them on LinkedIn. Contact Details Eric Nemeth nemeth@ericpr.com Company Website https://logitix.com/

January 12, 2022 11:03 AM Eastern Standard Time

iTradeNetwork Introduces OrderMaestro — The Food Industry’s Best-In-Class E-Commerce Platform That Gives Foodservice Distributors a Competitive Advantage

iTradeNetwork

iTradeNetwork, the food and beverage industry’s largest network with over 8,000 food and beverage trading partners, is proud to announce the launch of OrderMaestro for distributors — a mobile e-commerce solution that automates and streamlines the ordering process for their customers. OrderMaestro enables distributors to create powerful loyalty programs, easily promote specific products, increase sales opportunities and deliver a best-in-class mobile ordering experience that customers love. Over the last 18 months, distributors have had to evaluate business operations to survive in an ever-changing foodservice climate. Small and independent restaurants have closed their doors for good, forcing distributors to pivot to find new customers and explore different channels for revenue. Meanwhile, COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation and technology adoption by three to four years 1, pressuring distributors to quickly adapt to new technologies to meet customer needs. Customers are expecting more — and faster — than ever before. In order to compete with the thousands of distributors on the market, they need to deliver a seamless mobile ordering experience that will attract customers — and keep them coming back. Introducing OrderMaestro OrderMaestro is a branded e-commerce platform that catapults distributors into the digital age and allows them to do more with less. iTradeNetwork designed OrderMaestro to offer a personalized experience for customers. Distributors will not only grow sales revenue, but they will also provide an intuitive and scalable ordering experience for their customers. This best-in-class solution provides clear order guides across units, auto-generates orders from past purchases and offers configurable workflows to streamline purchase order (PO) approvals — but that scratches the surface of what OrderMaestro is capable of doing: Create Powerful Loyalty Programs That Attract and Engage Customers: Build a loyal customer base and increase revenue with in-app promotions. With OrderMaestro, distributors can create loyalty programs, drive volume to specific products, get rid of excess inventory quickly, run holiday and seasonal promotions and more. Gift Your Customers with Effortless Onboarding in an Easy-to-Use Mobile App: With widespread labor shortages, onboarding and ease-of-use is top of mind for distributors and their customers. OrderMaestro is simple to manage and requires no formal training — customers can submit POs from their mobile devices in minutes. 3-Touch “Scan-To-Search'' Smart Barcode Scanning: Now, customers can place an order or take inventory in as little as three taps. OrderMaestro’s barcode scanning and voice recognition functionality allow users to auto-populate product information right from their mobile devices. Collaborate In Real-Time and Increase Customer Satisfaction: With alerts, distributors can notify their customers about when to expect delays based on weather conditions, changes in account cut-off times and more. Gain Visibility into Customer Purchases, So You Can Grow Your Business: With barcode scanning and voice recognition technology, collect rich, comprehensive data on the products customers are purchasing from other suppliers. “In a very competitive foodservice distribution market, OrderMaestro is the key to differentiating yourself,” said Wills McMahon, senior product manager at iTradeNetwork. “Distributors will be able to increase sales through our in-app promotions while delivering a best-in-class mobile ordering solution to their customers. It’s a win-win.” The OrderMaestro mobile app is currently available for foodservice distributors on the Apple and Android app stores. About iTradeNetwork iTradeNetwork, Inc. is the leading global provider of supply chain management solutions for the food and beverage industry. Built upon deep industry expertise, a rich data foundation and the industries’ most extensive trading partner network, iTradeNetwork’s collaborative solutions allow distributors, manufacturers, operators, retailers, suppliers and wholesalers of all sizes to reduce cost, grow revenue and strengthen trading partner relationships. Today, iTradeNetwork’s growing customer list includes more than 8,000 companies globally. For more information, visit: https://www.itradenetwork.com/. 1 https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever Contact Details Landis Communications Inc. Robin Carr +1 415-971-3991 itn@landispr.com Company Website https://www.itradenetwork.com/

January 12, 2022 06:02 AM Pacific Standard Time

Duality Robotics awarded DARPA project for photorealistic environmental simulation and sensing for autonomous UGVs

Duality Robotics

DARPA’s RACER-Sim program leverages advanced simulation to accelerate development of autonomous off-road vehicles that strive to match soldier driving abilities Duality to provide 20 km x 4 km photoreal and tunable virtual environment to simulate vehicle’s diverse operating conditions Precise digital twin of the vehicle is capable of streaming high fidelity, real time synthetic data from virtual sensors Duality and Neya Systems to close the loop between real and virtual worlds for virtualized validation in complex terrain Duality Robotics has been selected as a provider of advanced environmental simulation technology to help bridge the gap from virtual to real-world environments as part of DARPA’s (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) RACER-Sim program. Over the next four years, the goal of DARPA’s Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency – Simulation (RACER-Sim) program is to ensure that algorithms can be developed, validated and deployed more efficiently to enable autonomous unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) that meet or exceed soldier driving abilities in diverse terrains and operating conditions. To help meet this goal, Duality Robotics will leverage its expertise in bridging the physical and virtual worlds, as well as its Falcon platform for advanced digital twin simulation. The Duality Robotics team is also tasked with building a 80 km 2 realistic environment wherein autonomous vehicle systems can be designed and validated, ensuring their ability to maneuver off-road landscapes as precisely as humans. To capture the natural variations of a physical environment, no two square meters of this environment will be identical. In addition, the environment can be tuned to increase or decrease vegetation cover, rock sizes and other operating conditions using Pixar’s open-source Universal Scene Description (USD) format — the interoperable 3D data model that forms the backbone of Duality’s platform. The other key building block of Duality’s platform is the Unreal Engine from Epic Games which functions as a 3D operating system for the Falcon simulator as well as an authoring ecosystem with readily available 3D assets and talent. Duality has partnered with Neya Systems, a division of Applied Research Associates, to leverage Neya’s autonomy expertise to validate the developed technologies through testing, data collection, machine modeling, and integration with autonomy stacks. By connecting to the data streams from virtual sensors in Falcon, the autonomy algorithms will make complex driving decisions in real time and pass back machine actuation commands to the digital twin of the UGV. This closed loop simulation will also allow RACER participants to more quickly understand the implications of algorithm and code changes in their autonomy software, run regressions to ensure system stability, and collect synthetic data to train their machine learning (ML) models. “In partnership with DARPA and the other RACER program participants, Duality Robotics and Neya Systems will help accelerate innovation in environmental simulation and autonomy software for mission critical UGV applications,” said Michael Taylor, Chief Product Officer, Duality Robotics. “Duality is building foundational infrastructure for improving automated unmanned vehicles’ safety, reliability and adaptability in and around complex operating environments.” “With these tools and capabilities, Neya can quickly create a range of scenarios, validate new software builds and measure system performance parameters at a fraction of the cost,” said Mike Formica, Division Manager, Neya Systems. About DARPA’s Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency – Simulation (RACER-Sim) Program The RACER-Sim program is seeking to develop technologies that bridge the gap from simulation to the real world and significantly reduce the cost of off-road autonomy development. While the past decade has seen increased use of simulation in developing field robotics, the military off-road environment is especially challenging and complex. Requirements include re-creating three-dimensional surfaces, compliant soils and vegetation, hundreds of obstacle classes, and unique platform-surface interactions. In addition, modeling the high speed off-road performance of sensors/modalities and their interaction with the environment remains a software and processing challenge. Over a four year timeline, RACER-Sim will develop technologies that are applicable to the off-road environment in the areas of algorithm development, simulation element technologies, and simulator content generation. About Neya Systems Neya Systems, a division of Applied Research Associates, is a leader in advanced off-road autonomy and high-level multi-robot mission planning. Neya provides innovative solutions to customers in the defense, mining, construction, and security industries. Neya’s full-stack autonomy includes capabilities in low-level control, perception, safeguarded teleoperation, full autonomy, and multi-agent mission planning. To learn more, visit www.neyarobotics.com About Duality Robotics With over 50 patents across robotics, simulation and visualization, Duality’s multidisciplinary team is building the enterprise Metaverse for solving real world problems. Accurate digital twins of environments and operating systems result in high-fidelity data and predictive behavior modeling that enables Duality’s customers to deploy automated systems robustly and at scale. For more information, visit www.duality.ai. Contact Details Jenna Beaucage press@duality.ai Company Website https://www.duality.ai

January 10, 2022 08:07 AM Eastern Standard Time

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