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CMMC Center of Excellence Announces Engagement Agreement with Capitol Technology University

Interoperability Clearinghouse

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Center of Excellence (CMMC-COE), hosted by the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (IT-AAC), a public-private partnership serving the public and private sectors for more than 15 years, is proud to announce a Memorandum of Understanding & Engagement Agreement with Capitol Technology University. This unique partnership will extend efforts to advance the goals and objectives for improving the training and education of the workforce in support of cybersecurity protection and resilience along with supply chain risk management on behalf of the US Department of Defense (DoD) global Defense Industrial Base (DIB) network of contractors, suppliers, and vendors. The CMMC-COE partner network will share a wide range of capabilities from member organizations, including cyber standards frameworks, education, solution architectures, cyber mentoring, workforce, and other elements needed to scale to the demands of the entire DIB marketplace in the US and abroad consisting of over 400,000 contractors. “This is exciting opportunity for us”, said Mr. John Weiler, Chairman of the Board at CMMC Center of Excellence, “This new partnership will further help advance the goals and objectives for improving the supply chain security and resilience of the US Department of Defense (DoD)”. "As a leader in cyber education, Capitol Technology University is excited to partner with the CMMC- COE," said Dr. Bradford Sims, President of Capitol Technology University. "This partnership will allow us to further CMMC implementation through enhanced education, training, and mentoring programs. These programs will advance CMMC implementation guidance issued by the DoD and will allow us to achieve the goals established in the National Defense Authorization Act." Capitol Technology University, located in Laurel, Maryland, is an independent institution that has focused on STEM education since 1927. Capitol Tech, the national winner of the 2020 SC Media Award for Best Cybersecurity Higher Education Program, offers hands-on courses taught by industry experts that lead to undergraduate and graduate degrees in emerging fields such as Mechatronics Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. In addition, Dr. Ron Martin, a Professor of Practice at Capitol Tech in a variety of fields including Access and Identity Management, has been appointed to the CMMC-COE Board of Advisors as Capitol Technology University's representative. Dr. Martin's expertise in identity credentialing will afford the organization access to an expert in this unique aspect of cybersecurity while the leadership position will also benefit Capitol Tech by providing the university a voice during meetings. For more information on the CMMC COE, please visit http://cmmc-coe.org email info@cmmc-coe.org or call 703-863-3766 For more information on Capitol Technology University, please visit https://www.captechu.edu/ About Us ---------- CMMC-COE.ORG is a unique non-profit public-private partnership, with a vision to accelerate Cybersecurity Maturity Model (CMM) adoption, and reduce time & cost for security compliance for our partners by leveraging commercial best practices, CMMC standards, and innovative solutions for a measurable success. Our mission, focused on DOD mission objectives, cost containment and expeditious CMMC compliance, is to help the DIB improve cyber posture and resilience, and simplify its acquisition. The CMMC-COE is hosted by the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (IT-AAC), a public/private partnership (P3) chartered in 2007 as an honest broker to reach outside the confines of the Federal IT advisories that lack dynamic reach into the Global IT Market, and dedicated to the adoption of commercial IT management standards of practice and innovations emanating from the Global IT market. Team IT-AAC has already demonstrated the value of its decade long investment, and provides a unique value to agencies seeking to achieve accelerate the transformation of legacy processes and systems. Our Just-in-Time SMEs apply an innovative suite of Technology Business Management and Agile Acquisition Processes needed to assure the business value of commercial IT. The Interoperability Clearinghouse (ICH), is the managing partner that make up the 24 NGO/SDO organizations that make up the IT-AAC. ICH provides the contract vehicles, clearances, and critical resources proven to guide sustainable, measurable and repeatable processes needed to drive better investment decisions as the speed of mission need, while aligning existing processes, methods and workforce with IT reform mandates contained in Clinger Cohen Act, FITARA, IT MGT Act, EO13838. Contact Details Bob Dix +1 703-975-6633 bob.dix@it-aac.org Company Website https://cmmc-coe.org

January 11, 2021 06:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Agora Data Closes Breakthrough Crowdsourced Auto Securitization

Agora

Agora Data, Inc. announced the successful closing on December 29, 2020, of the first-ever crowdsourced auto securitization. This revolutionary development to the world of structured finance represents a quantum leap for Buy Here Pay Here dealers and smaller finance companies and their access to capital markets funding. Through its use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Agora Data aggregated numerous originators with portfolios ranging in size from $11,000 to more than $20 million into a single capital markets securitization. Prior to Agora Data’s technology, direct access to the capital markets with more favorable financing terms was limited to only the largest institutional lenders and auto dealers. With an AgoraCapital crowdsourced securitization, subprime originators of all sizes now have a unique and viable financing option to obtain lower-cost capital providing liquidity and fueling growth. “AgoraCapital has revolutionized access to affordable and abundant capital for the BHPH dealer and small to mid-tier finance companies,” said Steve Burke, CEO, Agora Data, Inc. “This type of transaction has never been accomplished before due to the complexity of different originators and lack of technology. We have overcome all of these obstacles and we are energized by this achievement that will unquestionably shape the future for dealers, finance companies, capital markets, and consumers.” “We effectively aligned numerous Buy Here Pay Here dealers and finance companies into a single transaction,” said Chris Hawke, Chief Revenue Officer, Agora Data, Inc. “This successful transaction further validates Agora Data’s mission to develop financial solutions that advance the growth of BHPH dealers and finance companies in ways previously unimaginable.” About Agora Data, Inc: Agora is re-inventing auto finance for Buy Here Pay Here dealers and finance companies with a crowdsourcing platform that bridges access to the capital market. Easy to use and analytically robust business tools empower the untapped and diverse portfolios of the BHPH auto market connecting dealers, sub-prime buyers, and capital market lenders with results-driven resources to enhance financial growth. Founded in 2017 by a best-in-class team of top professionals in auto finance and leading data scientists, the company has successfully combined billions in historical loan performance data to develop its AI-Infused predictive loan technology and machine learning models. www.agoradata.com. For more information, please contact Agora at (877) 592-4672 or contactus@agoradata.com. Contact Details Shelly Vandeven +1 682-282-4130 media@agoradata.com Eric Nemeth +1 602-502-2793 nemeth@ericpr.com Company Website https://agoradata.com/

January 06, 2021 08:07 AM Eastern Standard Time

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CMMC Center of Excellence Announces Engagement Agreement with SideChannel

Interoperability Clearinghouse

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Center of Excellence ( CMMC COE ), hosted by the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (IT-AAC), a public-private partnership serving the public and private sectors for more than 15 years, is excited to announce a partnership with SideChannel, an innovative tech-enabled advisory firm providing a wide range of risk management and cybersecurity capabilities working with small businesses, mid-market companies, non-profit corporations, venture capitalist portfolios, startups, municipalities and governments on how to protect their digital assets and bolster their cybersecurity posture. This unique partnership will extend efforts to advance the goals and objectives for improving supply chain security and cyber resilience of the US Department of Defense (DoD) global Defense Industrial Base (DIB) network of contractors, partners, and vendors. The executed Engagement Agreement establishes a collaborative partnership between SideChannel and CMMC COE to partner in the furthering of their respective and complementary missions and objectives regarding the adoption, use, and expansion of CMMC based cybersecurity practices, risk management, and compliance for the DIB contractor community and the information and communications technology community creating a broader CMMC ecosystem globally to improve security and resilience. Specific actions will include: The co-development of CMMC advisory services, cyber training and education programs to accelerate CMMC certification, increase cyber adoption and improve cyber protection & resilience. Co-sponsor symposiums, training programs and podcasts leveraging their combined cyber and IT expertise. Host regular working groups, with other partners, to enable collaboration and communications. Source qualified CMMC/ cyber professionals to serve as advocates. Establish an independent Industry Cyber Security Advisory Council with peer organizations to advise and educate leaders across government and industry on the continued evolution and effectiveness of CMMC. The CMMC-COE ( http://cmmc-coe.org ) and SideChannel partnership will focus on bringing together the many disparate cyber and national security communities of interest to reduce complexity, improve awareness, and accelerate industry effort to become more cyber resilient against the growing threats from nation states and criminal enterprises. The range of capabilities offered by SideChannel, including its virtual and fractional Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO) service, further strengthens the portfolio of technology partner providers supporting the CMMC Center of Excellence. SideChannel’s focus is on the delivery of vCISO services and expert level advisory, from former CISOs, to organizations that cannot attract, fund or retain a full-time employee. Their model provides a subscription to industry recognized experts that will build, guide, and mature any organization’s security program. SideChannel’s adoption by both large and smaller clients has led to significantly reduced risk, better aligned prioritization of resourcing and corrected budgets without sacrificing capabilities. “This is exciting opportunity for us”, said Mr. John Weiler, Chairman of the Board at CMMC Center of Excellence, “This new partnership will further help advance the goals and objectives for improving the supply chain security and resilience of the US Department of Defense (DoD)”. “We are honored and excited about the opportunity to partner with the CMMC COE and support the critical efforts to protect our supply chain, to improve cybersecurity protection and better the resilience across the Defense Industrial Base globally,” said Brian Haugli, Managing Partner, SideChannel. The CMMC-COE establishes both a Market Place and Knowledge Clearinghouse that includes resources and supports the overall effort including white papers; tutorials; recorded webcasts; presentations; and more. This will help reduce the cost and burden on small and medium size contractors already struggling from the impact of COVID. For more information on the CMMC COE, please visit http://cmmc-coe.org email info@cmmc-coe.org or call 703-863-3766 For more information on SideChannel, please visit https://www.sidechannel.com About Us ---------- CMMC-COE.ORG is a unique non-profit public-private partnership, with a vision to accelerate Cybersecurity Maturity Model (CMM) adoption, and reduce time & cost for security compliance for our partners by leveraging commercial best practices, CMMC standards, and innovative solutions for a measurable success. Our mission, focused on DOD mission objectives, cost containment and expeditious CMMC compliance, is to help the DIB improve cyber posture and resilience, and simplify its acquisition. The CMMC-COE is hosted by the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (IT-AAC), a public/private partnership (P3) chartered in 2007 as an honest broker to reach outside the confines of the Federal IT advisories that lack dynamic reach into the Global IT Market, and dedicated to the adoption of commercial IT management standards of practice and innovations emanating from the Global IT market. Team IT-AAC has already demonstrated the value of its decade long investment, and provides a unique value to agencies seeking to achieve accelerate the transformation of legacy processes and systems. Our Just-in-Time SMEs apply an innovative suite of Technology Business Management and Agile Acquisition Processes needed to assure the business value of commercial IT. The Interoperability Clearinghouse (ICH), is the managing partner that make up the 24 NGO/SDO organizations that make up the IT-AAC. ICH provides the contract vehicles, clearances, and critical resources proven to guide sustainable, measurable and repeatable processes needed to drive better investment decisions as the speed of mission need, while aligning existing processes, methods and workforce with IT reform mandates contained in Clinger Cohen Act, FITARA, IT MGT Act, EO13838. Contact Details Bob Dix +1 703-975-6633 bob.dix@it-aac.org Company Website https://cmmc-coe.org

January 06, 2021 06:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Minuteman Press Printing Franchise in Beaver Falls, PA Wins Small Business of the Year

Minuteman Press International Inc

Karl and Nancy Chapple first bought their Minuteman Press franchise located at 920 7th Ave., Beaver Falls, PA in June 2007. Their full-service design, printing, and marketing center has remained open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as an essential business. As a result of their continued hard work and dedication to the local business community over the years, Karl and Nancy have been awarded Small Business of the Year by the Beaver County Chamber of Commerce. “Winning small business of the year is a great honor,” says Karl Chapple. “It is a confirmation that we are fulfilling our promise to provide an Awesome Customer Experience.” According to the Beaver County Chamber of Commerce website, award winners such as Minuteman Press Beaver Falls are “being recognized for exceptional contributions as business people and community leaders” as well as working “well beyond their own self-interests, in collaboration with others in the community, to improve the quality of place and lives of all residents in our region.” Since the pandemic first took hold in March, Minuteman Press Beaver Falls has been there for their clients. Karl reflects, “In March and April, many of our customers were calling to ask if we were still open for business, and they were thrilled to hear that we were. While we offer COVID-19-related products to promote safety and social distancing, it was obvious that our ability to deliver the printed products that our customers depend on to keep their businesses going was a welcome relief, and that we were one constant during a time of turmoil and uncertainty.” As a local business leader with over 13 years of experience, many other small business owners have turned to Karl for advice in addition to his products. Karl explains, “My advice to small businesses at the start of the pandemic was to 1) conserve cash; and 2) continue to market. While those still apply as strongly as ever, it is time to look ahead. The pandemic will not last forever, but many businesses will see a lasting paradigm shift. It will be important to understand what things need to change and what things need to stay the same. Be careful to avoid ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ as you chart your course forward.” Minuteman Press Beaver Falls is locally owned and operated by Karl and Nancy and yet they are part of the larger Minuteman Press International franchise network. Karl credits his franchisor for providing ongoing support over the years including during the pandemic. “We took over our franchise on June 1, 2007. My wife Nancy came from a customer service background. Previously, I was an operations manager for Xerox Business Services (XBS) in-plant customers, and in sales as a Production Print Specialist for Konica Minolta and for Ricoh. While we both brought industry skills to the business, the ongoing support and systems Minuteman Press provides has been a great help.” “I’d like to congratulate Karl and Nancy Chapple for winning Small Business of the Year for all of the fantastic work they do for their clients and in their community,” says Bob Heimbuch, Regional Vice President (Mid-Atlantic and Pittsburgh), Minuteman Press International. “Minuteman Press Beaver Falls is a real asset to both their local community as well as the Minuteman Press franchise family.” For more information on Minuteman Press Beaver Falls, visit https://www.beaverfalls.minutemanpress.com. Learn more about #1 rated Minuteman Press franchise opportunities and Minuteman Press franchise reviews at https://minutemanpressfranchise.com. Contact Details Chris Biscuiti +1 631-249-1370 cbiscuiti@mpihq.com Company Website https://minutemanpressfranchise.com

January 05, 2021 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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Observability platform LOGIQ raises US$1.8 million in seed funding from Leo Capital

Stockwood Strategy

LOGIQ, an observability platform for IT administrators and DevOps teams, announced that it has raised US$1.8 million in its first institutional seed funding round, led by Leo Capital. The funding will be used to expand its AI/ML capabilities and onboard more customers. LOGIQ solves the ubiquitous problem enterprises are faced with when handling the variety and volume of data in the organisation, while running their IT infrastructure and applications. Half of all organizations* process more than 100GB of log data in different formats every day, and the numbers continue to rise. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is such a flood of data available from APIs, databases, data lakes, etc. The lack of a unified platform that can converge this data has long been a pain point for IT practitioners, DevOps users, and developers alike. LOGIQ's mission is to make all IT data accessible and analyzable. By unifying data types, such as logs, metrics, databases, and APIs, LOGIQ's Observability platform enables them to harness the power of machine data analytics for applications and infrastructure in a single platform with 1-Click simplicity. Users can aggregate log data, gather performance metrics, access API's and connect databases such as Elastic, Mongo, Postgres, Druid, and Mysql for real-time visibility into the health of their IT infrastructure and application environments. Commenting on the fundraise Ranjan Parthasarathy, CEO and Co-Founder, at LOGIQ, said, “We started with the goal of helping enterprises transition from managing their data in silos to a more unified manner in which they can harness their data. With LOGIQ, we want to empower developers and administrators in keeping their infrastructure and applications always running. The funding raised will enable us to widen our reach and also enhance our AI/ML capabilities.” Tito George, Co-Founder, LOGIQ, said, “Data is the new oil across enterprises. However, there is also a need for a solution that helps them manage this data efficiently without hampering their operational efficiency or infrastructure. This is what LOGIQ has set out to do with its products and offerings. This funding will help us take our solutions to more industry stakeholders.” Commenting on the investment, Rajul Garg, Managing Partner, at Leo Capital, said, “There is a huge amount of data being generated across all sectors today. Consequently, the need of the hour is a platform like LOGIQ that can help enterprises organize, manage, and categorize this data without affecting their processes and infrastructure. We are thrilled to back them and have tremendous faith in both the company and its leadership.” LOGIQ can be hosted as a self-service or managed SaaS, providing maximum flexibility to the user. LOGIQ’s support for industry standards ensures full compatibility with legacy infrastructures like bare-metal servers, VM's, switches, and more modern cloud-native environments like Kubernetes and public cloud infrastructure. Some of their USPs include unified view, predictable pricing, one-click set-up, and zero tax storage management tax. LOGIQ has a strong and motivated team with over 100 years of expertise in production engineering, building and running IT, DevOps, and DevSecOps in private and public cloud environments. LOGIQ plans to democratize the observability space and make it more accessible for organizations of all sizes. Ends * International Data Corporation (IDC) survey, The Pivotal Role of Log Analytics in Modern IT Infrastructures Notes to the editor About LOGIQ LOGIQ is the creator of the LOGIQ platform, a converged data analysis software that brings ingest, indexing, search, SQL, and streaming capabilities backed by any S3 compatible object-store. LOGIQ Log Insights is built on this converged architecture bringing scalability and simplicity to your IT operations analytics projects. The converged architecture enables rapid integration with AI platforms for gaining valuable business insights from your data. About Leo Capital Leo Capital, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology investments, has built a portfolio of over 20 companies since its launch in 2018. Tech is the common denominator for the venture capital fund that has invested in software-as-a-service companies, consumer internet, logistics, health tech, ed-tech, and fintech startups. Its portfolio includes automation testing tool Lambdatest, cloud PC Workspot, diabetes management app BeatO, logistics startup Vahak, gaming platform – Bombay Play, video shopping app Bulbul and ed-tech startup Edureka. Contact Details Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://logiq.ai/

December 16, 2020 08:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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Hashnode funding round attracts marquee tech investors as traction gathers pace

Stockwood Strategy

Global blogging community for developers Hashnode, today announced it has raised US$2.1m in funding led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge. A range of marquee investors* also participated including Naval Ravikant (early investor in Twitter, Uber and co-founder of AngelList), Ritesh Arora and Nakul Aggarwal (founders of BrowserStack) as well as Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur (founders at Razorpay). Founded just 6 months ago in June 2020 by Sandeep Panda and Syed Fazle Rahman, Hashnode helps developers and engineering teams start technical blogs and share them with the broader developer community. The platform is growing at a rate of 25% month-on-month in. More than 20,000 new developer blogs have been created on the platform in a few months and over 500,000 readers visit https://hashnode.com every month. Developer blogs are the heart of many developer communities that share, learn, and drive innovation around specific products, projects, hacks, and code branches. The rapid growth of the API economy, which is underpinning the tech sector's growth, has been fuelled by these developer communities. Currently, there are two types of blogging solutions. Publishing networks (like Medium) help a blogger with social media credibility and reach at the cost of content ownership and customization. There are self-hosting solutions, like WordPress, but distributing the content is difficult, which makes it hard to create large, active communities. The cost of running the software also keeps increasing. Hashnode helps writers focus on writing and gives them the freedom to blog without the risk of losing their content or losing control of traffic and SEO. Fazle Rahman, CEO at Hashnode commented: “We realised many writers just want a platform that helps them focus on writing and gives them the freedom to blog without losing control over their content or thinking about traffic and SEO. Hashnode allows developers and businesses to create a blog on a custom domain and stay connected with a central community for content distribution. This solves both the problem of content ownership and distribution.” Hashnode powered blogs are easy to use, set up, configure, highly optimised for SEO, and have built-in community interaction functionalities like reactions, comments, bookmarks, and more. “Hashnode allows developers and businesses that want to build developer communities to create a blog on a custom domain, and stay connected with a central dev community for content distribution. The platform also allows publishing articles directly from Github, a feature not available on other publishing tools,” added Fazle Sandeep and Fazle are avid developers, bloggers and authors who have both published several books on various web technologies. They graduated together from IIIT Bhubaneswar in Computer Science Engineering and have a shared passion for building products for the web and teaching developers online. * Angel investors in the round include: Naval Ravikant (AngelList, Uber, Twitter, Stack Overflow, Yammer), Ed Roman (Pluralsight and Hack Summit), Shashank Kumar (Razorpay), Harshil Mathur (Razorpay), Ritesh Arora (BrowserStack), Nakul Aggarwal (BrowserStack), Christopher Golda (BlackType, acquired by Twitter), Girish Mathrubootham (Freshworks), Salil Deshpande Uncorrelated Ventures) and Guillermo Rauch (Vercel). Ends About Hashnode Hashnode is a free content creation platform and community that allows people to publish articles on their own domain and helps them stay connected with a growing developer community. Contact Details Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://hashnode.com/

December 15, 2020 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

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Red Cross Receives Toyota Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Cars

Energy Independence Now

The American Red Cross Los Angeles Region is excited to announce that DriveH2, in collaboration with Toyota, has donated five Mirai hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles to the Red Cross blood services and disaster fleet. DriveH2 is the new public service initiative by Energy Independence Now (EIN), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and educating the world about the benefits of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. The Toyota Mirai creates electricity by converting hydrogen in an advanced fuel cell, leaving water vapor as the only tailpipe emissions. The EPA rates the Mirai among the most fuel-efficient hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with one of the longest driving ranges. With a refueling time of just 3-5 minutes, the Mirai can travel more than 300 miles on a single tank, with a combined city/highway fuel economy rating of more than 60mpg equivalent. The addition of these cars to the Red Cross fleet aligns with Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order moving California towards zero emissions vehicles by 2035. The Red Cross, in partnership with DriveH2, is passionately pursuing that challenge as the dangers of climate change in the form of wildfires has steadily increased during the past few years, causing 2020 to be the most disastrous hurricane and wildfire season to date. The Red Cross uses its fleet to execute its mission of responding to disasters and providing shelter and resources to those affected. The fleet also helps to transport blood between collection drives and health providers. Just this past year, Los Angeles Region Red Crossers drove more than 104,500 miles. “For the past few years, the Red Cross Los Angeles has been on the ground responding to a growing number of wildfires and home fires,” said David Englin, chief operating officer of the Red Cross Los Angeles Region. “Adding these zero-emission vehicles to our fleet is aligned with our fundamental principles, one of which is humanity -- our commitment to protect life and alleviate suffering.” “We’re delighted to be able to donate these vehicles to the Red Cross Los Angeles,” said Brian Goldstein, executive director of DriveH2/EIN. "This donation of fuel cell electric vehicles aligns perfectly with DriveH2's mission to raise awareness for hydrogen technology, a vital part of the zero emissions ecosystem. The vehicles' extended range and quick refueling time are a particularly good fit for the organization's operations, and we are honored to kick off this program alongside Toyota and the American Red Cross." EDITOR’S NOTE You can view and share the official video here: youtu.be/KgBaguM9CEQ A selection of high-resolution images are available here: dropbox.com/sh/x9l9ra0tgspu0ih/AACWBJ5mONSSirLMhI4MtsFXa?dl=0 Video B roll is available to media here: dropbox.com/sh/ttjxwt5m7gakif1/AABJITQWPD9UfDUeHTn8apXca?dl=0 AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW American Red Cross Los Angeles RegionDavid Englin, Chief Operating OfficerLeslie Moore, Facilities and Fleet DirectorTim Hokanson, Volunteer Driver & Fleet CoordinatorMartin C Gutierrez, Fleet Coordinator II DriveH2/EINBrian Goldstein, Executive Director, Energy Independence Now / DriveH2 Please use the Media Contacts below if you wish to interview any of the representatives listed here ABOUT THE AMERICAN RED CROSS The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org/la or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCrossLA or @CruzRojaLA ABOUT DriveH2 DriveH2 is a public service initiative by Energy Independence Now, an environmental non-profit committed to educating the world about the benefits of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. The organization engages in comprehensive research, policy advocacy and public outreach to promote the widespread adoption of a diverse zero emissions portfolio. Learn more at driveh2.org, and follow our story and updates across all social media platforms at @DriveH2 ABOUT TOYOTA Toyota (NYSE:TM), creator of the Prius hybrid and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to building vehicles for the way people live through our Toyota and Lexus brands. Over the past 60 years, Toyota has built more than 40 million cars and trucks in North America, where they have 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama (10 in the US), and directly employ more than 47000 people (over 36000 in the US). Their 1800 North American dealerships (nearly 1500 in the US) sold nearly 2.8 million cars and trucks (nearly 2.4 million in the US) in 2019. MEDIA CONTACTS Marium Mohiuddin at Red Cross: marium.mohiuddin@redcross.org Liisa Kaufman at DriveH2/EIN: liisa@einow.org Greg Emmerson at ID Agency: greg@theidagency.com Contact Details Greg Emmerson at ID Agency +1 213-443-8001 greg@theidagency.com

December 11, 2020 06:04 AM Pacific Standard Time

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China Dynamics Launches Electric Buses in Davao, Philippines

Media Outreach

Expands SEA Markets Highlights its Technological Edge in New Energy Vehicles HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach - 11 December 2020 - China Dynamics (Holdings) Limited (the "Company"; (Stock Code: 476), together with its subsidiaries, collectively “China Dynamics” or the "Group"), a provider of new energy vehicles and technology integrated solutions, today launched its electric buses in Davao, the Philippines’ third largest city, marking the official use of the electric buses that it delivered earlier, as well as the expansion of the Group’s sales network in Southeast Asia and the implementation of its internationalization strategy. The Group also launched its electric buses in Pasay City in Metro Manila at the beginning of this month. Davao City Mayor Ms. Sara Z. Duterte, Mr. Rodger Velasco, President of Davao Light and Power, Mr. Freddie Tinga, President of Global Electric Transport (“GET Philippines”), the first electric bus operator in the Philippines, and Mr. Miguel Valldecabres Polop, CEO of China Dynamics, attended the launch ceremony and witnessed how China Dynamics pioneered public transportation in Davao with its electric buses that are tailor-made for the Philippine market, thus protecting the environment and helping improve traffic in the city. The electric bus, running on fast-charging lithium ion batteries, is equipped with full air-conditioning and a retractable ramp that has been specially designed to meet the needs of persons with disabilities and the elderly. Leveraging the Group’s advanced cloud-based software, which monitors the vehicle’s diagnostics to determine potential maintenance issue, thus significantly improving the vehicle safety and performance, the electric bus will be able to deliver efficient, reliable and comfortable transport service to the public. Mr. Miguel Valldecabres Polop, CEO of China Dynamics, said, “The comprehensive development blueprint formulated by the Philippine Government will present enormous opportunities to the new energy vehicles market. Given this, along with the rapid growth of our electric bus and electric vehicles business in other Southeast Asian countries, the Group is expected to obtain more orders for electric buses accordingly. We are accelerating the pace of the Group’s sales in other ASEAN countries in a bid to take our business to the next level.” Mr. Cheung Ngan, Chairman of China Dynamics, said, “Development of green transportation has become a global focus. China Dynamics will ride on the global trend in the continuing development of new energy industry and will respond to the needs of the international community by drawing on our technological advantages in new energy vehicles. We will also capture opportunities arising from the environmental protection market to further expand our business to overseas markets. After the launch of the first electric accessible minibus in Hong Kong and the introduction of our electric buses in the Philippines, we will soon deliver 12-metre complete chassis for electric buses to Latin America and logistics vehicles to Europe, thus fulfilling the Group’s commitment to contributing to environmental protection and to society.” About China Dynamics (Holdings) Limited (Stock Code: 476) China Dynamics (Holdings) Limited is a pioneer and practitioner in the field of new energy commercial vehicles in China and a whole vehicle manufacturer of specialty passenger vehicles and new energy passenger vehicles. It is an integrated driving and logistics solutions provider, with a solid technological foundation in areas including new energy platform power system and its key components, light structural design, fuel cell system integration technology and intelligent network technology. The Group has two production bases in Chongqing, one in Wulong and the other in Qijiang. Moreover, the Group will actively develop the Hong Kong and overseas bus markets. It has different models of new energy commercial vehicles launched to the market for sale as permitted and announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Contact Details Vicky Lee +852 2864 4834 vicky.lee@sprg.com.hk Phoebe Leung +852 2114 4172 phoebe.leung@sprg.com.hk Carrie Leung +852 2114 4912 carrie.leung@sprg.com.hk Company Website http://www.chinadynamics.hk/

December 11, 2020 05:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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Richpanel raises funding to eliminate customer service tickets for ecommerce

Stockwood Strategy

Richpanel, a revolutionary customer service platform for the ecommerce industry, has raised an undisclosed investment as part of Sequoia Capital India’s Surge with the aim to eliminate customer service tickets with an “Amazon-like” customer account section. Founded in January 2019 and headquartered in both India and the US, Richpanel was created with the purpose of helping ecommerce companies scale business without hiring more agents. The platform allows merchants to design an account page on their online storefront where they can automate order tracking, exchanges, returns, cancellations, and any other scenario which would otherwise result in a support ticket. While tech giants like Amazon and Uber have made massive investments to automate their purchase & post purchase flows like “where is my order” and “change trip destination”, these kinds of queries result in support tickets for every other business. They rely on a team of agents and a ticketing system to handle them, creating costs and inefficiencies. Richpanel’s platform helps these businesses launch a self-service portal on their stores, allowing customers to perform actions without ever having to contact a support agent. This means businesses can scale their operations without constantly expanding their support team. “The first time I disputed a cancellation fee on a ride-sharing platform, I mentally prepared myself for a 15-minute-long chat with a support rep, but I was pleasantly surprised when the entire process took less than 60 seconds. This automated customer service support technology can save ecommerce businesses millions of dollars, and we felt there was a real need to productize this for everyone else,” said Amit RG, CEO at Richpanel “At Richpanel, our goal is to help clients eliminate unnecessary support tickets. Businesses have tried chatbots, FAQs and help center solutions, but what they need is a solution that does not ‘deflect’ customers but ‘resolves’ their issues. Currently, our platform is able to resolve 40-50% of incoming queries and we will take this up to 80% over the coming months,” Amit RG added. Richpanel is the next generation in customer service support and seeks to disrupt the help desk software market as well as customer care outsourcing services, where businesses are expected to spend $110b by 20241. The platform provides a seamless experience for both visiting customers and businesses to handle cases where customers need to speak with a human. The ‘agent inbox’ helps brands manage all their support channels - email, live chat, social media & phone - from one place. The integration with ecommerce platforms help agents see complete purchase history, take order actions and respond to customers from one screen. Clients such as US-based apparel company Pawz.com are seeing positive results with Richpanel. “As one of Richpanel’s early adopters, we have been extremely happy with the platform and the team’s ability to deliver well on projects. Currently, our self-service flows powered by Richpanel are able to close nearly 60% of all incoming queries or tickets, without the need to interact with an agent,” said Julian Quintães, CEO at Pawz.com. Ends Notes to the editor 1 Radian Insights, Outsourced customer care services market worth $84.7 billion by 2020 Richpanel is a customer service solutions platform, purpose-built for the ecommerce industry. Founded in January 2019 with headquarters in both India and the US, Richpanel’s self-service platform allows merchants to design an Amazon-style account page on their store, where they can automate order tracking, returns, exchanges, cancellations, order changes and more. The platform also has an agent help desk to help customer support agents manage incoming queries across various touch points such as email, live chat, social media and phone. Today, over 1,000 merchants all over the world use Richpanel every day to support their customers. Contact Details Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://richpanel.com/

December 09, 2020 10:30 AM Eastern Standard Time

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