ANNOUNCING CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN CRISIS PREPAREDNESS

Toronto Centre’s Centre of Excellence in Crisis Preparedness strengthens supervisor and regulator crisis management response

TORONTO, March 27 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Since the 2008 financial crisis, Toronto Centre has trained over 3,600 financial supervisors and regulators in crisis preparedness in over 120 crisis preparedness simulation programs worldwide, with a focus on developing countries and emerging markets. In 2019, Toronto Centre delivered the first-ever regional multi-jurisdiction virtual real-time crisis simulation exercise. Toronto Centre’s Centre of Excellence in Crisis Preparedness (CECP) provides simulation-based bespoke crisis management training for supervisors and regulators.

In the face of current uncertainties, the Centre’s alumni are better prepared to deal with the unanticipated global crisis of COVID-19.

The Centre of Excellence in Crisis Preparedness facilitates the organization’s network of global industry experts in the delivery of high-quality programming and publications. The CECP provides action-oriented training for supervisors and regulators’ increasing preparedness in responding to emergency events. A new generation of real-time simulations will help to prepare participants in managing the financial sector implications of cyberattacks, pandemics, and climate change events, ranging from national to global contagion scenarios. Future participants will be equipped with core crisis response tools to effectively assess and respond to crisis events. A focus on leadership skills such as business continuity planning, communication, coordination and issue management among financial safety net participants ensures our alumni are ready to lead in a crisis.

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Hong Kong Science Park Virtual Career Expo offers over 1,100 jobs from 160 companies

KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 -- The Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) is hosting the Hong Kong Science Park Virtual Career Expo 2020, offering over 1,100 jobs from 160 tech companies.

According to a statement, the expo, from March 25 until April 21, is attracting more global talent to build a robust talent pool in the city.

During the first day, the city’s first and largest virtual career fair for innovation and technology reported an overwhelming response from 15,000 visitations from talent worldwide and 60,000 page views.

A total of 2,000 CVs were submitted through the fair for the job opportunities being offered from four major technology fields - biomedical technology, artificial intelligence and robotics, smart city and fintech.

The majority of jobs at the fair are in technology and R&D, such as information and communication technology, engineering and biomedical science. About one-third of those roles are looking for fresh college graduates.

Seventy-five per cent of the positions are open for bachelor degree holders and 20 per cent are for post graduates or those with doctoral degrees and above.

Companies that are hiring include Hong Kong Science Park companies, current incubatees and graduates from HKSTP’s incubation programmes, SMEs and multinationals.

 The companies use virtual exhibition booths to share career-related information, and hold on-demand live chats, webcasts and presentations to converse with potential hires. Job applicants can submit their resumes and documents in a seamless virtual environment.

-- BERNAMA

TA Associates completes strategic growth investment in Accion Labs

KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 -- TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm has completed a strategic growth investment to join Basil Technology Partners as an investor in Accion Labs (Accion), a digital-focused software product engineering company.

According to a statement, the financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Accion’s expertise ranges across advanced UX, artificial intelligence and machine learning, big-data/analytics, migration to cloud/SaaS and re-engineering of legacy platforms, process automation, mobility, augmented reality and IOT.

“Spending in the digital engineering market is being driven by technology and business model innovations, growth in technology companies, including start-ups, and the emergence of a global digital ecosystem,” said TA Associates Advisory Private Limited managing director, Dhiraj Poddar.

“With its innovative and solutions-driven approach, we believe that Accion is well-positioned to continue capitalising on these trends and further grow its market share in this vibrant industry.”

“We welcome the opportunity to work with TA, leveraging their deep US market experience to help scale Accion organically and through M&A,” said Basil Technology Partners chief executive officer & partner, Sameer Kanwar.

Aditya Sharma, Principal at TA Associates Advisory Private Limited and Poddar will join the Board of Directors of Accion Labs.

More details at www.ta.com.

-- BERNAMA

SNOMED CT global clinical terminology introduced in Germany via Medical Informatics Initiative

KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 -- The Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) has formally announced a relationship with SNOMED International, supporting the use of SNOMED CT throughout Germany.

According to a statement, as of last week, the Federal Ministry of Research has given MII participants nationwide a licence to use SNOMED CT, the world’s largest clinical terminology, representing over 350,000 clinical concepts.

With the help of SNOMED CT, programmes can translate different medical terms into an internationally standardised numerical code.

In this way, clinical data from different countries can be compared and used for research, creating the prerequisites for treating diseases more effectively in the future, recognising them faster and supporting prevention.

The networking of routine care data and top medical research has great potential - for better medical treatment and strengthening Germany as a business and science location.

With strong presence in Europe, MII’s licence joins the initiative with 24 Members across Europe in the adoption and use of SNOMED CT.

Currently within Germany, there also exist a large number of additional SNOMED CT affiliate licensees, representing a mixture of large vendors and local development licences which have been provided free of charge for the time limited period of a project.

-- BERNAMA

Hytera's intelligent manufacturing centre in Shenzhen, China sticks to business amid COVID-19

KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 -- Hytera Communications, a global private professional communications solutions provider is running normal manufacturing systems, despite the threat posed to global supply chains caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a statement, the key to this capability is Hytera’s intelligent manufacturing centre in Shenzhen, China, boasting high levels of smart manufacturing technology and automation.

Intelligent manufacturing and management systems, automated dispensing, assembly and functional testing are designed to guarantee production precision and high levels of efficiency.

This is augmented by an automated packaging system and the ability to remotely monitor products.

The production line is so flexible that it can be re-organised to manufacture many different products, ensuring fast response to changing markets and customer demands.

The flexibility of Hytera’s intelligent manufacturing processes has also enabled the company to switch some production lines to the manufacture of disposable face masks to help combat the global shortage caused by the COVID-19.

The company has also immediately set up a national emergency support team and got in contact with health committees, prevention and control departments, medical institutions, and non-profit organisations throughout China to help coordinate all aspects of support, including equipment donations, communications support and field services.

-- BERNAMA

HP Neverstop Laser helps business professionals stay productive working at home

KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 -- HP Inc recently announced the global availability of HP Neverstop Laser, the world’s first toner tank.

“As business people shift to work from home, they need technology that is easy to use and printing with fewer interruptions – HP Neverstop delivers both,” said HP Inc president (Printing), Tuan Tran in a statement.

“This means printing for months, without having to refill toner, at the lowest cost per page.”

The HP Neverstop Laser offers no cartridge replacement interruptions with up to 5,000 pages of printing included before first toner reload.

The HP Toner Reload Kits cost less, with up to 2.5 times more pages compared to in-class HP cartridges.  It can restore toner levels with up to 2,500 pages quickly with no mess, no stress.

It also provides easy mobile scanning and printing, secure fax sending, seamless Toner Reload Kit ordering and Smart Tasks document organisation with the HP Smart App, which allows on-the-go access from virtually anywhere.

Pricing and more information at hp.com/neverstop

-- BERNAMA

Infant Formula Evolves And Advances In Nutrition

Conagen develops unprecedented critical lactoferrin protein produced via fermentation worldwide

Bedford, Mass., March 25 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Conagen announced today the discovery and development of a sustainable proprietary lactoferrin protein that mirrors the nutritional properties of lactoferrin from breast milk. The first-of-its-kind natural lactoferrin protein is produced via fermentation process at commercial-scale.

Mother’s milk is the best nutrition because it is the ideal way to bind and deliver iron for infant nutrition, but it is not sourceable at large-scale. Yet, lactoferrin is necessary as it plays an important role in the newborn immune system and contributes to healthy infant digestion and nutrition.

Lactoferrin found in cow’s milk has been useful for producing certain specialized infant formula in many countries, but its performance is not optimal as it takes more time for the protein to bind with iron than breast milk and it is not sustainable. The nutritional needs of an infant could be even better met with proteins that more closely match those in breast milk, like Conagen’s lactoferrin.

Another supporting factor for Conagen’s lactoferrin is an increased consumer awareness of nutritional benefits in food, which is carrying over to the global infant formula market. As a result, manufacturers are embarking on designing formulations that closely replicate the composition of breast milk.

To meet both consumers’ demands and manufacturers’ quests, Conagen produced a lactoferrin by advanced fermentation for the use in infant formula and other nutritional products that can now be fortified naturally and sustainably worldwide.

“Nourishing the world’s children is a priority for infant formula manufacturers. We want to support them for providing a lactoferrin as similar to breast milk lactoferrin as is possible with a low cost sourceable solution,” said Vice President of Research and Development, Casey Lippmeier.

Conagen’s lactoferrin will give infant formula manufacturers a more scalable, sustainable, and lower cost-in-use solutions than sourcing from cow’s milk. In anticipation of FDA GRAS, manufacturers can begin testing the proprietary ingredient in the formulation processes. The powerful protein may also be used in pharmaceutical and dietary supplement applications too.

Consumer demand for infant nutrition products is growing and is expected to reach a global market value of $103 billion by 2026. In 2018, the global infant formula market size was valued at approximately $45 billion.

For more than half a century, infant formula has remained static until now when consumers are becoming more food and nutrition conscious.  The protein was first isolated from cow’s milk in 1939. Twenty years later, it was recognized as the main iron binding protein in breast milk, although different forms of lactoferrin are found both in cow’s milk and breast.

“The time has arrived to take a closer look at nutrition because it is such a critical part of our lives and the future of our children. Conagen is advancing in this space by developing functional and sustainable ingredients for improved human development and reduced environmental impact,” said Lippmeier.

Crucial to the natural development of a newborn’s immune system, lactoferrin is linked to linked several physiological and protective functions, including: anti-infective and anti-inflammatory activities, and as its name implies, regulation of iron absorption in the infant gut. The ingestion of lactoferrin in breast milk has a probiotic effect to the infant gastrointestinal system, which cannot be fully matched by bovine lactoferrin.

About Conagen
Conagen is an accomplished biotechnology company located in the greater Boston biotech corridor.

We innovate and develop synthetic biology solutions for supporting global partners across a spectrum of current and developing markets.

From our proprietary strain development to fermentation and scaling up, Conagen impacts partners’ abilities to sell and market products in the food, nutrition, flavor and fragrance, pharmaceutical, and renewable materials industries.

Attachments

• Conagen lactoferrin protein baby formula
• conagen-white logo

Ana Arakelian
Conagen
+1.949.750.6812
ana.arakelian@conagen.com

SOURCE: Conagen

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NETSFERE OFFERS FREE SECURE ENTERPRISE MESSAGING SERVICES FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND FIRST RESPONDERS DURING COVID-19

CHICAGO, March 20 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NetSfere, an award-winning, global secure mobile messaging service and a collaboration platform from Infinite Convergence Solutions, Inc., today announced its secure enterprise messaging services are offered free of charge to hospitals, healthcare providers, first responders and government entities world-wide in an effort to offset the impact of COVID-19, effective immediately.

This offer applies to new customers only. Free services will be offered through June 30th, 2020 and this offer is valid globally. To inquire about NetSfere’s offer of free enterprise messaging services contact COVID-19Support@netsfere.com.

NetSfere’s cloud-based platform includes end-to-end encryption that complies with HIPAA and other global regulatory requirements such as GDPR, providing healthcare providers, first responders and government workers with a secure communication option that offers the immediacy of instant messaging across multiple devices. Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals are able to communicate and consult with one another simultaneously regarding patient diagnoses or test results while streamlining communications and operations.

“Healthcare providers and first responders are currently on the front lines protecting the safety of people across the world during the COVID-19 global pandemic and we felt the need to offer them assistance any way we can,” said Anurag Lal, president and CEO of Infinite Convergence. “We hope that by offering our enterprise messaging services free of charge to these healthcare providers it will help improve internal communications, eliminating any existing pain points and enabling them to perform their jobs more efficiently.”

NetSfere’s enterprise messaging plan includes global cloud-based service availability, industry-leading security algorithms that support device-to-device encryption, location-based features, administrative controls and collaboration tools including high definition one-to-one and group voice calling, video streaming and screen sharing.
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CSOP USD Money Market ETF rated 'AAAf' by Fitch Ratings

KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 -- Fitch Ratings (Fitch) recently assigned a first-time Fund Credit Quality Rating of 'AAAf', the highest rating within the rating agency, to CSOP US Dollar Money Market ETF (stock code: 9096.HK), managed by CSOP Asset Management Limited (CSOP).

According to a statement, it is also the first Hong Kong-listed ETF that has received the rating from Fitch in Hong Kong.

As the first USD Money Market ETF in Hong Kong investing in USD denominated deposits and deposit certificates issued by high rating financial institutions, 9096.HK was listed on May 8, 2019 and has achieved a total return of 2.08 per cent with US$104.5 million under management, as of Jan 31, 2020. (US$1 = RM4.38)

With listed share class and unlisted share class, 9096.HK provides investors with a flexible and efficient cash management tool to sail through the turbulent market.

The AAAf assigned by Fitch indicates the underlying assets of 9096.HK have high credit quality, low interest rate-risk and low quality spread - 9096.HK predominately invests in time deposits.

About 90 per cent of the counterparties were rated in the ‘A’ category at February-end. The fund's exposure to interest-rate and spread risk is low given its short maturity profile.

On the other hand, Fitch regards the investment manager - CSOP as suitably qualified, competent and capable of managing the fund consistently with the rating, with sufficient operational resources and expertise.

Besides 9096.HK, CSOP provides investors with diversified cash management tools denominated in HKD and RMB - CSOP HKD Money ETF (3035.HK) and CSOP RMB Money Market ETF (3122.HK).

-- BERNAMA

COVID-19 SCARE? WORK FROM HOME WITH SUPERCEED

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 (Bernama) -- Emotion Artificial Intelligence company, Superceed (M) Sdn Bhd has launched HOMEWORK, a novel product that supports work from home via Virtual Call Management and Omnichannel Platform. Designed from Day One to support a distributed agent approach, Superceed enables calls to be managed by staff working from home. Businesses can benefit from real-time supervisory and reporting.

With Virtual Call Management, companies can manage calls virtually as though their staff are in the same office. Staff working from home can use Superceed’s softphone installed on laptop or PC to answer calls.  Supervisors and managers can monitor calls in real-time and keep tabs of staff call activities. Supervisors can also spy, whisper or barge. Supervisors can listen to a call conversation, or whisper to an agent without the caller listening, or participate in a 3-party conference call to resolve a customer issue. In terms of quality control, call recordings are available online for internal evaluation and scoring. Managers can also gain insights into the virtual call center performance by generating performance reports online. “All it takes for businesses to work from home is a good internet connection and PC or laptop, and they can access feature-rich applications online. The call management capabilities of Superceed are unmatched in the market. ”, says Mr Matthew Barsing, Chief Executive Officer of Superceed.

With Superceed Omnichannel Platform, businesses can take customer interactions to the next level. Superceed brings the power of omnichannel, coherence and flow into customer engagement.  Businesses can receive and respond to customer issues via a single unified ticketing interface, easily relate a customer’s issue across multiple channels, and orchestrate customer issues seamlessly across any support hierarchy. Superceed’s omnichannel platform combines multi-lingual, mixed languages chatbot, feature-rich live chat, omnichannel ticketing, unified email, unified social media and unified mobile messaging.

Priced between USD9 and USD40 per user per month, Superceed offers affordable on-demand work-from-home plans that every business has dreamed of using. Superceed is committed to bring the power of customer engagement solutions to multi-national corporations and SMEs alike.

For more information and online purchase of Superceed work-from-home technologies, visit https://www.superceed.com/homework/

As former Head of Foreign Direct Investment of MDeC, Matthew is confident of the prospect of Superceed in rejuvenating the contact center industry and helping SMEs make the leap into digital transformation. “The Superceed Omnichannel platform empowers business process outsourcing and shared services outsourcing companies to operate on a lean model, making key shifts from CAPEX-based to OPEX-based model, and from headcount-based to value-based service delivery.  In addition, Superceed is equally powerful to be used as an effective customer engagement tool for SMEs.”

Apart from work-from-home technologies, Chief Visionary Officer, Mr Jeffrey C. P. Tan shared further excitement on the prospect of adding Artificial Intelligence on top of the omnichannel platform: “As the leader of Emotion AI in Asia Pacific, Superceed has combined voice emotional intelligence, natural language understanding, facial emotional intelligence and predictive AI into a unified platform. This will bring Emotion AI to an unprecedented level of adoption in businesses.”

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. We are talking about massive transformation with Emotion AI. First, we consolidate interaction journey of customers across different interaction channels. Then, we track the emotional journey of customers with Emotion AI technologies. Next, we help businesses to monetize the emotional journey of customers. We provide AI tools that augment and automate customer engagement processes.” he added.


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Proximus extends 3-year contract of Synchronoss Personal Cloud platform

KUALA LUMPUR, March 18 -- Synchronoss Technologies Inc has renewed its contract to provide Proximus with the Synchronoss Personal Cloud platform.

According to a statement, the three-year contract extension means Proximus will continue to deliver the Synchronoss Personal Cloud through its existing freemium model.

Subscribers are able to securely back up, store and sync content from their laptops, tablets, PCs and smartphones to their own accounts in the cloud.

Broadband subscribers are given 10 gigabytes in free storage, as well as the option to pay €2.95 monthly for 100 gigabytes of storage or €9.95 for one terabyte. (€1 = RM4.80)

Subscribers decide whether backup happens automatically or manually, and they choose which file types – photos, videos, documents or all three – to include in their backups.

As Belgium’s largest telecommunications operator, Proximus has offered the Synchronoss platform to its broadband customers since 2015, via a white-label cloud offering.

Synchronoss Technologies Inc is a global leader and innovator of cloud, messaging, digital and IoT products. More details at https://synchronoss.com/solutions/cloud/

-- BERNAMA

Symphony Health partners Datavant for industry's deepest view of patient journey

KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 -- PRA Health Sciences has announced a partnership between its wholly-owned subsidiary, Symphony Health and Datavant, resulting in the deepest and most holistic view of the patient journey in the commercial market. 

According to a statement, life sciences customers will gain flexibility to build bespoke, fit-for-purpose data assets and strategies to support the development and delivery of life-enhancing drugs.

Symphony Health’s proprietary Synoma® de-identification engine enables integration of complementary data sets from across the health ecosystem using a unique token. 

By working closely with Datavant, Symphony Health gives its customers the flexibility to connect data integrated via Synoma to the hundreds of unique data sets available via Datavant.

By leveraging best-in-class de-identification and integration with Symphony Health’s proprietary Synoma engine, customers will be able to connect, expand and analyse all relevant data types.

Leveraging these integrated data sets, customers can then build bespoke, fit-for-purpose data assets, custom data strategies and develop unique insights for their business with support from PRA and Symphony data experts.
​
-- BERNAMA

GCP APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES SIGNS VERIFI® DEAL WITH SINGAPORE CONCRETE TECHNOLOGY INNOVATOR PAN-UNITED CONCRETE PTE. LTD.

Extends global position of VERIFI^® in-transit concrete management system through expanded partnership with Singapore’s largest concrete and cement provider

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 11 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GCP Applied Technologies Inc. (NYSE: GCP), a leading global provider of construction products technologies, today announced that it has reached an agreement with Pan-United Concrete Pte. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore-listed Pan-United Corporation Ltd., the country’s largest concrete and cement provider. The agreement implements GCP’s VERIFI^® in-transit concrete management system for use in more than 300 of Pan-United’s fleet of concrete mixer trucks in the Singapore market.

“Our agreement with Pan-United is an important step in expanding the global reach of our VERIFI^® in-transit concrete management system and strengthening our position in the Asia Pacific market,” said Dr. Boudewijn Van Lent, GCP’s EVP of Specialty Construction Chemicals. "Pan-United is a global leader and proven concrete technology innovator, and we are pleased to build our partnership and continue to improve the quality, consistency and efficiency of how concrete is delivered."

The VERIFI^® in-transit concrete management system provides sophisticated, automated process monitoring and control during transit from the ready-mix concrete plant to the jobsite by using sensors installed on concrete mixer trucks to monitor, measure and manage concrete properties in-transit. The VERIFI^® system offers a new level of concrete quality control and helps increase product consistency from one truck to the next to reduce rejected loads, increase jobsite efficiency and minimize costly project delays. In addition, the technology offers several environmental benefits including the potential for less cement usage and reduced waste as well as increased fuel efficiency.

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Synchronoss solution enhances AT&T subscriber's overall experience

KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 -- Synchronoss Technologies Inc is powering AT&T Personal Cloud, a new service for AT&T Mobility wireless customers to safely back up valuable personal content from any Android smartphone.

According to a statement, the Synchronoss solution will integrate into a suite of selected AT&T services, using the cloud to vastly improve the subscriber’s overall experience.

AT&T will offer its version of the Synchronoss Personal Cloud solution as a standalone value-added service that will integrate with the following AT&T cloud-based services, namely AT&T Mobile Transfer and AT&T Setup & Transfer (Out Of Box Experience).

Synchronoss president and chief executive officer, Glenn Lurie said: “Operators today must provide their customers with enhanced products and services that will continually improve their overall experience.

“The Synchronoss Personal Cloud solution accomplishes this by automating device backup and simplifying how customers manage and interact with their content. This allows AT&T the ability to bring new services to customers.”

More details on the Synchronoss’ Personal Cloud solution at https://synchronoss.com/solutions/cloud/

-- BERNAMA

Abracadabra! Zynga announces soft launch of Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells

KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 -- Zynga Inc, a global leader in interactive entertainment has announced the soft launch of Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells in select markets.

According to a statement, the game weaves innovative match-3 puzzle gameplay with the iconic characters, narrative, settings, spell-casting and magical mischief of the Wizarding World.

In the game, players create their own persona and experience the excitement and mysteries of the Wizarding World in an enchanting new way.

Unlocking Wizarding World elements, including new spells and brewing potions as they progress, players will encounter the most iconic moments and memorable faces from the original Harry Potter films.

Utilising magic abilities and objects to prevail, players will face matching puzzles populated with Chocolate Frogs and other obstacles as they ‘swish and flick’ through fanciful levels.

From Daily Events to interactive puzzles, players will earn XP to gain new magical abilities and rewards, level up their skills and spells, as well as customise their unique, in-game personas.

Players will also have the option to form clubs and join forces with other fans to socialise, participate in special in-game cooperative activities and experience the camaraderie of the Wizarding World.

Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells is officially licensed from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and published under the Portkey Games label.

-- BERNAMA

SmartStream, ZILLIONe provide reconciliations solution to Sri Lankan bank

KUALA LUMPUR, March 4 -- ZILLIONe, the internationally networked enterprise solutions provider, recently completed the implementation of the latest reconciliation software by SmartStream for a bank in Sri Lanka.

The Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solution has been deployed for the People’s Bank of Colombo, enabling the bank to have a consolidated view for all electronic transactions.

According to a statement, SmartStream’s reconciliation solution offers an agile packaged approach that addresses the operational challenges faced by financial institutions.

Its high degree of automation incorporated into a seamlessly integrated exceptional management solution gives a consolidated view of operational processes in one scalable platform.

This enables enterprises to identify exceptions as they occur so that it can be escalated and resolved immediately.

As one of the leading financial institutions of the country that handles millions of transactions daily, the enhanced system further improves the bank’s bid to offer seamless service to its customers.

SmartStream chief executive officer, Haytham Kaddoura said: “We are confident that People’s Bank now have greater visibility into their reconciliations processes and outstanding positions with a pre-emptive approach to managing exceptions as they occur throughout the lifecycle.”

-- BERNAMA

India’s GIC Re outlooks revised to negative - AM Best

KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 -- AM Best has revised the outlooks to negative from stable and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A- (excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of ‘a-’ of General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC Re) India.

These Credit Ratings reflect GIC Re’s balance sheet strength, which AM Best categorised as very strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, favourable business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

The negative outlooks reflect GIC Re’s persisting underwriting losses, which have grown in magnitude in recent years and increasingly have begun to hamper overall operating profitability, according to a statement.

While investment operations historically have offset technical losses, deteriorating underwriting results and an increased reliance on investment activities to support overall earnings are placing pressure on AM Best’s current operating performance assessment.

GIC Re’s risk-adjusted capitalisation, as measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio is categorised as strongest at fiscal year-end 2019, underpinned by relatively low underwriting leverage, a liquid investment portfolio and retrocession counterparties of high credit quality.

Going forward, AM Best expects elevated new business growth, which is forecast to outstrip the rate of internal capital generation, to result in risk-adjusted capitalisation trending lower, albeit remaining at the strongest level over the near term.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. More details at www.ambest.com.

-- BERNAMA

Onward Security bags 7 awards at Cybersecurity Excellence Awards 2020

KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 -- Onward Security, a leader in IoT cybersecurity assessment solutions stood out from more than 500 entries and won six gold and one silver awards at the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards 2020.

The company was granted the Gold Award for the Best Cybersecurity Company in Asia, while its automatic vulnerability assessment device (SecDevice) won three gold awards for Embedded Security, ICS / SCADA Security and Internet of Things Security.

In addition, its product security management system (SecFlow) won two gold awards for Vulnerability Management and Incident Response and one silver award for Risk Management.

Global Market Insights estimated the size of the cybersecurity market will reach US$300 billion by 2024, due to increasing cyber attacks and unprotected IoT devices. (US$1 = RM4.19)

“With the increasing demand for teleworking, using products with cybersecurity vulnerabilities will expose customers to losses caused by cyber attacks, brand and business damages, and even lengthy legal proceedings,” said GM of Onward Security, Morgan Hong.

“IoT device manufacturers should introduce the Secure Software Development Life Cycle (SSDLC) immediately to meet the cybersecurity requirements of governments, cybersecurity standards and buyers.”

In this competition, Onward Security displayed the AI features of the products. With the core technology of machine learning, SecFlow and SecDevice can assist the secure software development and product security test more accurately and effectively.

-- BERNAMA

Energous receives regulatory approval for WattUp wireless charging technology in Japan

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 27 -- Energous Corporation, the developer of revolutionary wireless charging 2.0 technology WattUp®, has received regulatory approval for its WattUp Near Field wireless charging technology in Japan.

“Having secured regulatory approval for our WattUp wireless charging technology in Japan is a major regulatory milestone for Energous. This opens the door to sell WattUp-enabled products in a major Asia Pacific market,” said Energous Corporation's president and chief executive officer, Stephen R. Rizzone.

Energous’ WattUp wireless charging technology underwent testing by independent, accredited test labs and was determined to be compliant with all regulatory requirements in Japan, according to a statement.

“With this breakthrough, Energous continues to show progress in advancing its WattUp technology to meet the needs of partner and customer companies,” said Dinesh Kithany, lead industry analyst, wireless power and power supply at Omdia.

Some of the benefits of Energous’ WattUp technology for manufacturers include a small footprint allowing WattUp to be integrated into products of various form factors, as well as orientation freedom and 90-degree angle support.

To date, Energous has secured regulatory approval for its WattUp wireless charging technology in numerous countries. The company anticipates it will receive regulatory approval in additional markets later this year.

More details at https://energous.com.

-- BERNAMA