WEBWIRE – Tuesday, September 19, 2023
September is Guide Dog Access Awareness Month, a time to celebrate the important role that guide dogs play. Whether its avoiding obstacles, stopping at curbs and steps, or negotiating traffic, a guide dog fosters independence for someone who is blind or partially sighted. Its also a time for us at Uber to think about the best way for all Canadians to easily access a ride.
We believe in equal access to transportation for all. Thats why we are proud to continue our work with the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) Foundation to raise this important issue and create more awareness on our platform so everyone has equal access to transportation with Uber.
This year, free CNIB blankets, lint rollers, and decals for vehicles will be available for drivers on the Uber platform across the country at select Greenlight Hubs and CNIB community offices while supplies last. We are also sharing new awareness videos with drivers like the one below:
It is against the law for drivers to discriminate against riders with service animals. Drivers can be fined by local law enforcement, or they can be subject to proceedings at provincial human rights tribunals. And we do not tolerate discrimination on the Uber platform. Drivers who knowingly refuse a rider because of their service animal or assistive devices will lose access to their Uber account.
We have a specialized team devoted to investigating complaints of service animal denials, and they will speak with every rider and driver when looking into a complaint. If a rider is denied a ride or faces an issue related to their service animal like harassment or improper cleaning fees, we encourage the rider to please report the issue to Uber through Support in the app. We will investigate and take appropriate action.
There is still much more work to do. Were committed to working with partners and listening to riders as we develop and implement more inclusive ways to ride with Uber.
VIDEO: Equal access to transportation for all | Uber
Written byUber Canada
May 24, 2023 | Business
Access Accelerated, a pioneering collective of leading biopharmaceutical and life science companies dedicated to confronting the growing global noncommunicable disease (NCD) crisis, announced the release of a six-year report: Key Lessons in Advancing Access to NCD Care: Collaboration, Connectivity, Community.
This milestone report highlights the initiative’s outcomes, impact, and collective learnings between 2017 and 2022 and serves as a retrospective, a showcase for the initiative’s success stories and challenges, and a much-needed vision for the future.
Michael Fredrich, Lead Access to Medicine Non-Communicable Diseases at Bayer Pharmaceuticals and Chair of the Access Accelerated Board, commented, “With the 2030 deadline for the UN Sustainable Development Goals approaching fast, which include Universal Health Coverage, it’s more important than ever that we make the most out of our resources and approach this fight strategically. This report gives us the opportunity to critically evaluate our past and use key learnings for the future. It is essential that we share insights and learn from our collective efforts. Much work lies ahead, but this report serves as a valuable foundation for effectively addressing NCDs.”
This initiative’s impact has already been felt widely. Access Accelerated and its strategic partners – the City Cancer Challenge Foundation, NCD Alliance, PATH, the World Bank and the World Heart Federation – have helped improve access to NCD screening, diagnosis, and treatment around the world, reaching over 700 million people through 54 partner projects in 37 countries and catalyzing $US1.6 billion in investment in 2022 alone. By the end of phase 2 (2020-2022), this number totalled $US3.7 billion. In the same period, Access Accelerated partner projects contributed to policy change in 35 countries and 13 projects were scaled to national level, moving away from pilot phase to locally embedded projects.
Six years since its founding, the initiative has accumulated a wealth of hard-won knowledge and experience. The report highlights those learnings, including the crucial role of open, transparent communication in measuring intangible impact of partnerships, the ways flexible long-term funding can open the way for locally embedded solutions, and why community- and patient-centric approaches are essential to sustainability. By capturing impacts beyond hard numbers, the report demonstrates the importance of local engagement, trust, and social capital in improving NCD outcomes over time.
According to Dr. Juan Pablo Uribe, World Bank’s Global Director for Health, Nutrition & Population and Director of the Global Financing Facility, the report demonstrates the importance of rigorous monitoring and reporting. “Learning from our successes and challenges is absolutely necessary if we are going to shape more efficient and effective initiatives that can respond to the growing NCD burden on countries around the world. That’s why we’re excited to have the insights offered by this report to inform future initiatives and are grateful to the partnership with Access Accelerated which has led to meaningful action in creating sustainable change.”
Visit www.accessaccelerated.org to download the report.
About Access Accelerated
Founded in 2017, Access Accelerated is an unprecedented industry-led collective of life science companies united by the belief that no person should die from a preventable and treatable disease. Through the power of collaboration and a proven framework for cooperation, Access Accelerated brings together stakeholders across the private, public and social sectors, including implementers, decision-makers and financiers, in a shared mission of advancing action against the escalating challenge of NCDs in low- and middle-income countries and underserved communities.
Contact Information
Thuy Khuc-Bilon
Communications Manager
info@accessaccelerated.org
+41 79 473 0341
Topic: Press release summary
Dec 9, 2022 | Business
WEBWIRE – Thursday, December 8, 2022
During November and the start of this month, Ukie teamed up with Barclays to deliver three Access to Finance sessions, bringing together financial experts and games businesses to think about their investments, access to funding and resilience for the upcoming year.
Our first session hosted online was simply access to finance. For many games businesses, especially those early in their growth, it can be difficult to know where funding can be accessed and how to apply. Barclays explained how to access VGTR while Harbottle & Lewis discussed Angel, Venture Capital and governmental funding. We then had a fantastic panel of three studios Arrogant Pixel, Glitchers and Sketchbook Games who discussed their journey with business funding, which by they end they ended up helping each other in addition to the audience! Certainly one of the most entertaining panels youll probably find on the internet about business funding for games.
Check out the full webinar here: https://youtube.com/live/wJnQkCi41UU?feature=share
Our second session hosted in Barclays Moorgate London, focussed on long-term investments. We had talks from the London Stock Exchange about floating on the stock exchange, Barclays and Harbottle & Lewis discussed one of the biggest topics in the industry mergers and acquisitions. Our session finished with a cosy chat with Nick Button-Brown from Laughing Pig.
If you couldnt attend, never fear, you can watch the whole session here: https://youtube.com/live/6XQNx4ojunA?feature=share
Finally, we went back online to discuss how potential economic turmoil may affect games business. We invited Savills who discussed the future of a physical office, spoiler, location is more important than ever when thinking hybrid work. Before moving onto Connor Broadly who discussed how businesses could use employee benefits to increase staff financial and general wellbeing. Finally, Barclays and Kriya (previously Market Finance) talked about debt management and FX.
Check out the full session here: https://youtube.com/live/TmiawOFkCvM?feature=share
Thank you to everyone who attended. A key take away from this series is dont be afraid to talk about finances. There are many companies out there to assist when you dont know where to start or what do, certainly reach out if you need assistance or guidance. Coming soon is an Access to Finance guide from Harbottle & Lewis which will be shared widely on Ukie networks.
May 6, 2022 | Business
AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki offers fully integrated network and security tools for convenient, high-performing, and protected access from anywhere
WEBWIRE – Friday, May 6, 2022
Whats the news?
AT&T* is introducing AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki designed to provide businesses of nearly any size and industry with a powerful networking and security offering. This new managed service helps organizations improve network performance, enable resilient access and defend sensitive data. The service also helps protect against unauthorized use and loss. It does this while delivering flexibility for customers as their networking environments evolve due to business growth, location expansion and changes in strategy.
Why is this important?
The need for reliable, high-performance connectivity has never been greater. The growth of hybrid work environments means organizations are connecting people, places and devices, enabling users to connect and collaborate at nearly any time, from nearly anywhere. Organizations also rely on a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) devices to drive efficiency, from security cameras to medical devices and manufacturing equipment. This explosion of connectivity makes preparing for and addressing cybersecurity threats a critical challenge, especially for sophisticated enterprises.
But small and medium-sized businesses are also common targets for cybercriminals, and a lack of expertise and resources make them particularly vulnerable. In fact, 60% of SMBs cease operations within 6 months following a cyberattack.
AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki combines leading services to provide businesses of nearly any size with an effective way to achieve highly secure and reliable access and with cloud-based security and SD-WAN capabilities to help protect users from malicious web-based threats.
These services include AT&T Business Wi-Fi with Cisco Meraki for a cloud-managed networking solution; AT&T Secure Remote Access with Cisco for zero-trust network access; and AT&T Secure Web Gateway with Cisco for secure internet and cloud app access.
What makes AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki different?
AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki further expands the AT&T SASE portfolio, creating a solution that also includes indoor/outdoor access points, network switches, cellular gateways, and teleworker appliances.
The managed security service allows almost any business to connect, protect, manage, and scale its network without the in-house expertise typically needed to achieve this level of security. The scalability of the solution is critical for growing businesses that need to rapidly expand to different data centers and branch locations or add more devices to their network. This solution also helps businesses defend their sensitive data against unauthorized use and theft.
Customers also receive access to the leading AT&T Managed Services and our specialists who can assist with deployment, policy design, configuration, and 24/7 monitoring and support.
Where can I get it?
AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki is available today. For more information, please visit here.
What are people saying?
In network connectivity and security, there is often little margin for error. For many businesses, the expertise to get it right is hard to come by. AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki is a completely managed service that puts our experts in the drivers seat giving growth-oriented businesses an integrated solution that can address their needs today, and scale up right alongside them going forward.- Danessa Lambdin, Vice President, AT&T Cybersecurity
Businesses looking to deploy cloud security across distributed locations must be able to do so in a simple, scalable, and reliable way. The AT&T SASE with Cisco Meraki service offers customers a seamless onramp to their SASE journey with a fully integrated networking and security offering, ultimately protecting users against internet-based threats both on and off the network. – Lawrence Huang, Vice President, Product Management at Cisco Meraki
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