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Sustain.Life Proudly Announces B Corp™ Certification

Sustain.Life, the SaaS platform helping companies across industries measure, manage, and report their environmental impact, today announced its certification as a B Corporation (B Corp). The certification reinforces Sustain.Life’s commitment to helping every industry future-proof by decarbonizing and forging a path to net-zero.

The B Corp verification process, administered by the nonprofit, B Lab, measures a company’s social and environmental performance. To become a Certified B Corporation, companies thoroughly review the impact of their operations and business model on their workers, customers, communities, and the environment and must score a minimum of 80 points on the assessment.

“Even before our inception in 2021, I knew that I wanted to build a Certified B-Corporation. It was vital that we aligned with B Corp early on—it provided effective tools and resources to ensure we started on the right path as a company,” said Annalee Bloomfield, chief executive officer at Sustain.Life. “We are very proud of receiving the B-Corp Certification, which cements our strategic vision for the future. It provides confidence for our team and current and future partners that want to make more informed business decisions with the environment in mind.”

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Geek+ robots picked 10 billion items in the past year

Geek+, the global leader in mobile robots, has announced that its combined worldwide fleet of robots picked ten billion pieces over the course of the past year. The company’s goods-to-person picking solutions deployed around the world have covered great distances, handled huge volumes of stocks, and, as a result, contributed greatly to the goals of making logistics more efficient and sustainable.

Yong Zheng, Founder and CEO of Geek+, said: “We are very proud of what we have achieved recently. The amount of merchandise that our robots have handled, coupled with the savings in time and energy, demonstrate that mobile robots are a technology for today’s problems and a brighter future.”

Geek+’s picking robots traveled more than 175 million kilometers throughout the year, which is more than the distance from the Earth to the sun. Each day, the number of items managed by Geek+ robots and warehouse management systems reached as much as 750 million.

These combined efforts saved Geek+ customers over 17,000 hours of laborious manual tasks during the year. By switching from manual operations to robotic automation, these Geek+ operators could replace inefficient logistics equipment with modern mobile robots that do not require electric lighting, heating, or air-conditioning. The result was a savings of over 16 million kilowatt hours of energy. This translates into 140 000 tons of carbon emissions: To transport the equivalent amount of coal would require 887 trains.

Over the past year, Geek+ has added new projects and expanded its collaboration with existing clients and continued to learn from its successes. The software behind Geek+’s warehouse management systems was optimized to boost robot efficiency by 15%. Geek+ will continue to improve and enhance its technology and expects further gains in sustainability and efficiency in 2023.

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SAP Startup Spotlight: Footprint Technologies

SAP invests in a lot of promising startups, and it’s sometimes hard to keep track of them all. E-3 Magazine has selected the most interesting companies to showcase in our SAP Startup Spotlight Series. In this article, we will take a look at Footprint Technologies, which has an app listed in the SAP store.

Matthias Brendel’s is the CEO and co-founder of Footprint Technologies. He founded his first company at the age of 17 and has been working as a “sidepreneur” ever since. After finishing his degree in environmental engineering, Brendel became interested in reducing carbon emissions in combustion engines and joined Audi in 2007. He later had the opportunity to create and lead an innovation unit for new business development in Berlin’s startup ecosystem from scratch: Audi Denkwerkstatt. In November 2020, he joined his early-stage start-up, Footprint Technologies. Since then, he has contributed to the transformation of online shoe shopping into a more individual and sustainable experience. In this interview, he mentions what Footprint Technologies has to offer, how his solution works, and what’s next for the startup.

What is Footprint Technologies and what do you offer?

Footprint Technologies transforms online shoe shopping into a sustainable and individual experience: our software enables online shoppers to precisely measure their feet via smartphone and receive our perfect size and fit recommendation for the selected shoe model. The whole process is seamlessly integrated into their shopping experience: it starts directly in their favorite shop and ends up with the perfectly fitting shoe in the shopping cart. Thus we are avoiding shoe returns for a more profitable and sustainable e-commerce. Our team is based in Berlin, Germany but serves clients from all over Europe, Japan, and the USA.

How does your solution work?

Our software enables people to measure their feet easily with their smartphone and a standard sheet of paper (DIN A4 or US Letter). Using the latest cloud-based computer vision technology, we can determine the length and width of the foot to the millimeter. But measuring the exact foot size is only half the solution. In order to give the best possible size recommendation for the chosen model, we use our unique shoe database. In cooperation with the shoe manufacturers, we have identified and stored the relevant size and fit information for each shoe model here. Knowing feet and shoe dimensions and integrating the latest scientific research from University of Gothenburg Sweden, we recommend a comfortable fit that makes the user happy and prevents returns.

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SAP.iO Foundry Taiwan Kicks Off to Empower Startups

SAP Taiwan announced the launch of the SAP.iO Foundry Taiwan, and will select 5 potential startups in Taiwan. The selected startups will have the opportunity to get SAP’s global and local resources and establish a long-term cooperation with SAP to explore business opportunities as well as entering the global market.

George Chen, Global Vice President and Managing Director, SAP Taiwan pointed out, “We are optimistic about Taiwan’s energy in innovation so we land the SAP.iO in Taiwan. We look forward to opening a window to the world for startups in Taiwan and expand business opportunities for them by matching Taiwan’s R&D capabilities with SAP’s world-class technology, rich industry experience, and global business resources. SAP will continue to invest resources in Taiwan and work with the ecosystem to solve industry pain points with the power of technology.”

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Yellow.ai recognized as a Challenger in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms

Yellow.ai, a leading enterprise-grade Conversational AI platform, today announced it has been recognized as a Challenger in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms. Recognized as a Niche Player in 2022, Yellow.ai’s recognition as a Challenger in this year’s report is based on the evaluation of its Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute.

Yellow.ai’s Dynamic AI agents handle over 2 billion interactions every quarter, automating customer and employee experiences across 35+ channels and 135+ languages on voice and chat. Yellow.ai’s Dynamic Automation Platform (DAP), powered by generative AI, enables businesses to reduce expenses by 60% and is complemented by a suite of solutions, including the recently launched Dynamic Conversation Designer, Yellow.ai Marketplace, Customer Data Platform (CDP) Engage, and Omnichannel Agent Assist Platform.

We’re humbled to have been recognized as a Challenger in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms. We believe this recognition is a testament to the strength of our platform capabilities. We think our improvement from a Niche Player to a Challenger underlines our dedication to delivering cutting-edge solutions to our customersOver the past year, we launched several cutting-edge products, including our proprietary DynamicNLP™, significantly improving time-to-market and ease of use for our customers while reducing their operational costs,” said Raghu Ravinutala, CEO and Co-founder, Yellow.ai.

 

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SXSW 2023 Conference


The SXSW Conference provides an opportunity for the global community of digital creatives to encounter cutting-edge ideas, discover new interests, and network with other professionals who share a similar appetite for forward-focused experiences. SAP.iO representatives attended the first portion of the conference that is centered around technology and the intersection between startups, investors and corporates.


Show Highlights​

SAP.iO startups featured in the following sessions:

SAP.iO team members attended many sessions to learn more about topics like responsibility in the generative AI age, simulating the world with quantum computing & AI, achieving America’s aspirations through science, technology and innovation, and Democratizing Venture Capital.


Quotes

“Absolutely incredible to hear from Arati Prabhakar, from the White House office of science and technology policy to understand the ways the federal government influences infrastructure for emerging technology.” – Kange Kaneene VP, SAP.iO Foundries NA & LAC


Media 

 

 

Censia Ranks Among Most Innovative Companies in Data Science

Fast Company Magazine named Censia to this year’s list of most innovative companies in Data Science for its AI and machine learning-driven talent intelligence solutions. Censia’s technology organizes and structures enormous amounts of talent, company, and industry data. It then delivers it through lightweight, easy-to-use solutions that deliver superior executive intelligence, talent, and workforce planning results.

“Censia’s mission is clear – we are committed to helping the world’s best organizations unlock their potential through transformative talent,” said Joanna Riley, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. “Our AI-driven talent intelligence solutions lead the industry in identifying and engaging outstanding executive talent and delivering critical insights for any organization’s talent landscape. We’re thrilled to have our efforts recognized by Fast Company.”

Censia provides talent technology solutions for all aspects of the talent lifecycle. Censia’s platform enables its best-in-class customers to build multidimensional search models to rapidly discover the most optimal candidates, substantially increasing the inclusion of diverse candidates while improving recruiting efficiency more than sixfold.

Censia’s Executive Intelligence solution dramatically improves the efficacy of the executive search, identifying the absolute best talent for a given need while reducing the executive search cycle by more than 60%.

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Specright Named to Fast Company’s List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2023

Specright a leader in Specification Management software, has been named to Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2023, honored at No. 3 in the Enterprise category. Specright participated in SAP.iO Foundry New York’s Sustainability & Consumer program and SAP.iO’s Rising stars program in 2022.

This year’s list highlights the businesses at the forefront of their respective industries, paving the way for the innovations of tomorrow. These companies are setting the standard with some of the greatest accomplishments of the modern world. In addition to the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, 540 organizations are recognized across 54 sectors and regions.

“At Specright, our vision is to live in a world without waste, and we believe the best opportunity to do so is to empower people and companies across the globe with the data needed to make products and packaging sustainably,” said Matthew Wright, Specright Founder and CEO. “It is such an honor for Specright to be named alongside so many incredible, innovative companies and this award is a testament to all of the great work our team has done in driving the Specright mission forward.”

Specright helps companies digitize product and packaging specification data and share and collaborate on that data with supply chain partners to reduce costs and errors, drive efficiency, and increase speed to market. This past year, the company surpassed two million products on its platform globally, supporting Fortune 500 and challenger brands and boasting a 99 percent customer retention rate. Specright also received a patent for its Specification Data Management™ platform, validating the uniqueness of Specright’s spec-first approach to product and packaging development, quality management, and above all – sustainability tracking and reporting. The patent also covers Specright Network, which enables brands, suppliers, retailers, and manufacturers to share live, digital specifications with one another.

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3 Innovative Solutions Shaping The Future Of Agriculture

Getting food from the field to the table is a complex process. Exposure to pests, disease, or harsh weather can impact the quality of the crops. At the same time, climate change is leading to soil degradation and loss of biodiversity while insufficient land increases the pressure to produce more on less space.

At the recent SAP.iO Foundries Sustainable Agriculture Latin America Demo Day, three startups presented solutions that can help farmers improve the quality of their crops, optimize farming strategies through personalization, and improve biological capital by managing soil more efficiently. These tactics can all play a role in successfully feeding 9 billion people for the next decades.

Improving the quality of raw materials

“In the agricultural industries production plans are based on the quality of raw materials,” said Madeleine Valderrama, CEO and Founder of AI Bruna, a supply chain planning solution powered by artificial intelligence developed by AltumLab Chile. She explained that producers expect the quality of raw materials to be consistent, but reality is different. Because it’s impossible to predict quality with complete accuracy, planners deal with variability by improvising, which can lead to increased use of water and energy and up to 20% loss in profitability.

After eight years working in Chile’s salmon farming industry, Valderrama knew what kind of tools would be required to tackle this issue. AI Bruna uses artificial intelligence and genetic algorithms to factor operational restrictions, deficiencies, and defects into strategic harvesting plans. It connects Planning, Harvesting and Commercial areas, providing a strategic view of the entire operation.

Valderrama used the example of Caña Brava, a sugar cane producer in Peru that is using the tool. In the first stage, months before the harvest, AI Bruna uses historical data such as climate, performance, soil type, water usage, and fertilization patterns to predict the expected concentration of sugar in the harvested cane.

Next, it suggests modifications in irrigation or fertilization as the plants are maturing to make sure the cane will satisfy the commercial contract after the harvest. Thanks to AI, Caña Brava was able to reduce water and energy consumption by over 4% and costs by 11%, and increase production capacity by 7%, and the value of the cane as raw material by 17%.

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Yellow.ai tackles conversational AI pain points with new design tool

An industry-wide shift to greater use of conversational AI, often in the form of chatbots and voice assistants, is clearly underway. However, the success of these interactions depends on the quality of conversation design, a new domain for most developers and one that may hinge on subpar or outdated tooling. This is the challenge San Mateo, CA-based Yellow.ai seeks to address with its conversational AI platform.

Yellow.ai suggests that problems in this burgeoning area often reside in the design process itself. Though design is a crucial step in developing conversational AI, the process is often hindered by the use of flowchart-based tools that result in clunky and complicated designs. This not only slows development, it creates a disjointed experience for users, who encounter inconsistent design choices and interactions across different conversational interfaces.

One of the key pain points in conversation design is in the basic approach. Most designers are relying on flowchart-based tools that are not optimized for designing conversations. This makes the design process time-consuming and cumbersome, leading to subpar outcomes. As well, replicating design flows in development is a tedious and inefficient process.

With the launch of its Dynamic Conversation Designer, Yellow.AI looks to improve the design process for chat and voice conversational workflows using generative AI. Integrated within the Yellow.ai conversational AI platform, this conversation design tool allows teams to design chatbot conversations without writing any code, saving significant development time and effort.

The Dynamic Conversation Designer creates development flows automatically from design flows, eliminating the need for developers to start from scratch. Moreover, there is instant auto-sync between design and development flows. With this, the company claims to deliver a 50% faster time to market, along with reduced development and training time.

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With AI, accurate demand forecasting is possible

Many businesses struggle with demand forecasting. Whether you run a small business or a large enterprise, the challenge of predicting customer behavior and stock levels never gets easier. Even major organizations like Target and Walmart that are able to afford teams of data scientists have recently reported struggles with excess inventory due to poor demand forecasting.

During this time of global uncertainty, many businesses have adopted a just-in-case mindset. They’ve relied on archaic methods of forecasting, scouring old data and drawing poor conclusions based on past problems.

But understanding demand accurately shouldn’t be so much of a struggle in 2023. Even as we battle post-pandemic turmoil, we now have clear alternatives to legacy forecasting tools — thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). And we don’t need endless reams of historical data to access the real-time patterns necessary to accurately forecast demand. In fact, AI-driven demand sensing has been shown to reduce inventory errors in supply chain management by up to 50%, according to McKinsey & Co.

Every company produces data, of course, but it’s almost all trapped in siloes and walled-point solutions that have evolved for specific tasks over many decades. Siloes emerge for noble reasons — they represent a business’s attempts to organize and become structured.

Truthfully, siloes are useful in many scenarios, but if the boundaries between them are too sturdy and there’s a lack of effective communication, siloes will negatively impact business, putting more pressure on processes. Inaccuracies are most common in silo-heavy organizations because teams and departments just don’t have enough of a shared language. Rigid siloes also make data, even good data, less credible.

When working with ThroughPut’s clients, I’ve seen AI make all the difference in demand forecasting. That’s because it can pull from disparate datasets, using real-time patterns to sense the demand around the corner rather than just assuming future demand from past events.

Using an AI-driven system will pick out time-stamped data — regardless of barriers — and rapidly stitch together a global vision of your virtual supply chain network. Supply chain AI processes the best signals from the noise that is constantly being generated by your disparate data systems and turns the din into a song you can understand.

Furthermore, AI is superior at analyzing and making sense of data in vast quantities; yet it also doesn’t need much information to learn. AI trained for real-world applications already intuits which data signals to extract from an ocean of noise, so it can solve needs before they cause problems.

The quality of data is most important, not the quantity, and delaying the use of AI to sense demand is only going to cause current supply challenges to stagnate and potentially get worse. From there, share prices and shareholders suffer. We are seeing this today across industries: innovation laggards and slow adopters paying the price for relying on old forecasting methods.

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VR platform aims to give retailers entry into the metaverse

Through a partnership with SAP, Obsess integrated the e-commerce platform within its virtual stores to create an interface that engages young consumers.

A virtual store platform looking to provide retailers with an entry point into the metaverse has partnered with e-commerce provider SAP.

The goal of Obsess, a New York City-based startup, is to change online shopping in a way that reaches the younger generation and enables retailers to sell most of their core products through virtual environments.

Obsess worked with SAP to integrate an e-commerce platform within its virtual stores and create a discovery interface that engages young consumers.

Through the partnership, Obsess and SAP customers can create digitalized shopping venues that could be different from or similar to actual stores. Consumers enter a 3D world online and can engage more immersively with a retailer in the comfort of their home or outside of their home.

“We are bringing that gamification-like interface to the shopping experience,” Obsess CEO and founder Neha Singh said.

Not all Obsess customers have 3D models of all their products. Instead, the company has a proprietary and patented technology that can take e-commerce images from Google APIs and create an immersive experience. Once a consumer clicks on a product, they get the same information they would see on a typical product detail page.

“The purpose of these virtual experiences primarily is to aid discovery,” Singh said. “If you think about when you go to a retail store, you are looking around — you’re immersed in the brand, you’re browsing. All of those elements are what we are trying to bring into the e-commerce experience, because today that discovery is typically not happening on a retailer’s e-commerce website.”

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SetSail Named One of G2’s Top 50 Sales Products of 2023

SetSail, the sales data platform that helps revenue teams do what wins, has been named to G2’s 2023 Best Software Awards on the Sales Products list. As the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace, G2 is visited by 80 million software buyers each year. Its annual Best Software Awards rank the world’s best software companies and products based on authentic, timely reviews from real users. SetSail received G2’s Best Software Award recognition for helping revenue teams see every rep activity, know what’s effective, and drive behaviors that accelerate growth.

“This award is a testament to the success our customers are having,” said Haggai Levi, CEO of SetSail. “With tougher selling environments, revenue teams have to maximize the performance of their sales teams. Using a sales data platform helps them see what wins and quickly build a formula for faster revenue.”

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Bidgely EV Solution singles out high peak-charging EV drivers for incentive programs

An increasing number of utilities are offering time-of-use rate plans and other incentives to encourage EV owners to do their charging during off-peak hours. But what if a utility had a way to single out the troublemakers, identifying individual EV drivers who often charge during peak times in order to educate them about available incentive programs?

That’s what software provider Bidgely is offering with its Active Managed Charging feature, part of its UtilityAI EV Solution. Active Managed Charging (direct load control) is now part of Bidgely’s end-to-end EV Solution, which also includes EV Detection and Targeting, EV Passive Managed Charging (behavioral load shift) and EV Grid Analytics.

The company says Active Managed Charging can be launched in just weeks without data integration, as a turnkey standalone application. Over 25 OEMs are available for data connection, and 7 are available for active control: Ford, Hyundai, Jaguar, Land Rover, Toyota, Tesla and VW.

Bidgely’s EV Solution targets high-peak charging customers for incentive programs using its proprietary EV disaggregation technology. The company says its system can identify customers with EVs on the grid with 90-percent accuracy, and provide behind-the-meter visibility into their charging behaviors. This allows utilities to target their highest-value customers for load-shifting programs.

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Sustainable Lab harnesses the power of data science

Yuki Kishi, the chief financial officer of Sustainable Lab, a financial technology startup that gathers companies’ ESG data and provides it to investors and banks, was the guest at The Japan Times Sustainable Roundtable No. 27, hosted by Ross Rowbury. Sustainable Lab participated in SAP.iO’s Foundry Tokyo Data & Analytics Program.

The company wants to become a recognized platform in the quest for worldwide sustainability and contribute in a meaningful way to sustainability-based decision-making. In the coming years, they hope to expand their business operations outside their base of Japan to include Singapore, Europe and the United States. Kishi and Rowbury discussed a range of topics including diversity, Sustainable Lab’s initiatives and issues facing the sustainability transition today.

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