Archive: November 3, 2022

Wind Energy From the North Sea: Evonik and Enbw Sign Long-term Contract for Power Supply From Offshore Wind Farm He Dreiht

Essen and Karlsruhe, Germany. Essen and Karlsruhe, Germany. Evonik is becoming less dependent on fossil fuels: The specialty chemicals company signed a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) for wind energy with the energy supplier EnBW. The PPA provides Evonik with
100 megawatts (MW) of electricity per year from the new 900-MW He Dreiht wind farm in the German North Sea. This agreement alone will enable Evonik to cover around a quarter of its electricity needs in Europe with renewable energy from 2026 on. EnBW will supply green electricity over a period of 15 years. Since chemical production requires a constant energy supply, Evonik will compensate for fluctuations of the wind energy feed-in through its own balancing group management.

“Together with EnBW, we are accelerating the implementation of our ambitious sustainability strategy. We are becoming less dependent on fossil fuels and their price fluctuations,” says Christian Kullmann, CEO of Evonik. “Clearly, the less fossil and more green energy we use, the better the future opportunities for our German and European sites will be.” The PPA with EnBW is just the beginning. Evonik is working on other agreements for green electricity purchased directly from producers to increase the company’s share of renewable energy usage. “The green electricity from the new offshore wind farm is a very important lever for our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” says Thomas Wessel, responsible for sustainability on the Executive Board. “Today, 27 percent of Evonik’s externally purchased electricity worldwide already comes from renewable sources. Implementing the PPA with EnBW significantly increases this share to more than 40 percent.”

At the same time, the cooperation reduces Evonik’s Scope 2 emissions (electricity from external sources) by 100,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. The company recently announced the goal of reducing its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from the current 6.5 million tons to 4.9 million tons by 2030. About one-third of this net reduction will be achieved by switching to renewable energy sources.

The He Dreiht wind farm will be built about 90 kilometers northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers west of Helgoland. It is scheduled to start operating at the end of 2025. In 2017, EnBW won the first tender in Germany with a zero-cent bid and thus initiated a new trend in the offshore market. The subsidy-free offshore wind farm is currently one of Europe’s largest energy transition projects. For the first time, 15-MW turbines will be deployed.

As a central instrument of the energy transition, PPAs are becoming increasingly important: “We can only achieve the energy transition together. PPAs are a tool for this. They help companies to achieve ambitious climate targets and enable developers of renewable energy projects to obtain reliable financing. This way, the economy and the climate both benefit,” explains EnBW management board member Georg Stamatelopoulos. “With Evonik, we have gained another strong partner for our He Dreiht offshore wind farm,” he adds. EnBW will make the final investment decision on the offshore wind farm in 2023.

Evonik offers a range of products for offshore wind turbines. Its crosslinkers ensure highly robust and long-lasting rotor blades. Silica and silanes strengthen the bonding of glass fibers and resin. Structural foam from Evonik will make the design of future rotor blades even more efficient at low weights. Coating additives and polyurethane foam parts protect wind turbine blades rotating at speeds of up to 400 kilometers per hour through rain, salt particles, and hail. Synthetic base oils from Evonik provide cost-effective lubrication of the turbines’ gearboxes and protect them from wear and corrosion.

Three more businesses to expand wings through Akasa Coworking spaces

One of the leading players in the modern-day office solution providers, Akasa Coworking is expanding its wing by offering its co-working space with three major companies – Khalsa EV, GNAP Service Pvt Ltd, and Avatar UX. Akasa Coworking has witnessed exponential growth in recent years. Especially during the pandemic, when most businesses went on hybrid modes, Akasa Coworking provided businesses with smart choices of remote working.

Akasa Coworking has leased out its shared office spaces to the three companies at its Noida co-working center, facilitating them with the ease of remote working while expanding their businesses. Khalsa EV is originally based out of Muzaffarnagar of Uttar Pradesh and has been in the manufacturing of pollution-free Electric Vehicles E-Rickshaw and E-Cart for the last six years. The company has dealerships in almost every state and has more than 100 Dealers along with its trade certificate; which is why leasing co-working space from Akasa will significantly help it expand its business even further.

GNAP Services Pvt Ltd is an HR outsourcing company engaged in providing external resourcing and task-based services. The company offers a host of services to help organizations manage their activities in the areas of workforce management, general staffing, IT staffing, and Employee Background Verification Services (BGV) across industries, and leveraging shared working space will help the company grow further.

Avatar UX has become a leading gaming studio launching several award-winning games like CherryPopä, TikiPopä, and HippoPopä.AvatarUX is driven by a knowledgeable and well-experienced senior team with extensive expertise in the iGaming industry, who can use the co-working spaces to become a market-leading game studio, with global recognition for creating award-winning slot games.

“What makes Akasa Coworking stand out in the market is our commitment towards providing 100 percent solution-oriented services. Through our co-working and managed office solutions, we accommodate the needs of all measures of businesses from startups to corporates and make them available with the utmost level of service to make working a jubilant experience. The three major companies from diverse fields entrusting us to continue operations from our co-working spaces are a testament to our trustworthiness in the market,” said CEO and Co-Founder of Akasa Coworking, Mr. Aditya Mehta.

Pure Storage Helps Financial Services Firms Harness the Power of Data to Drive Better Customer Experiences

Bengaluru, India – November 3, 2022 – Pure Storage® (NYSE: PSTG), the IT pioneer that delivers the world’s most advanced data storage technology and services, today announced continued momentum within the financial services industry as global banks, asset management firms and financial technology organizations modernize and embrace a digital-first approach.

The financial services industry is entrusted with massive amounts of critical customer data. However, new technologies, competition, regulations and evolving market demands are challenging firms to modernize, leverage data as a valuable strategic resource, or become irrelevant. Legacy storage is no longer sufficient to sustain the diverse, data-hungry workloads supporting the customer experience, real-time analytics, fraud prevention, risk and compliance.

Pure Storage’s industry-leading solutions and services meet data-intensive demands while powering innovation with robust all-flash storage solutions.

FlashArray™: Pure Storage’s FlashArray solves application performance challenges with superior IOPS for use cases such as high-frequency trading, performance-critical databases, and always-on digital banking. FlashArray//XL™ enables business-critical apps with 150µs latencies and 36 GB/sec of throughput.

FlashBlade®: FlashBlade provides the performance, flexibility and scalability to support multiple, disparate workloads concurrently for use cases such as AI for fraud detection, portfolio risk, chatbots and regulatory reporting. FlashBlade//S™ delivers double the performance, density, and capacity of our previous FlashBlade, and enables up to 60 GB/sec of throughput per chassis.

Evergreen™: Pure Storage’s Evergreen architecture eliminates risky, time-consuming upgrades, data migrations, or expensive leases, while its Evergreen Subscriptions – Evergreen//Forever, Evergreen//Flex, and Evergreen//One – offer financial firms financial and operational agility and continuous innovation, with choices ranging from traditional ownership to Storage as-a-Service with SLA guarantees. Ninety seven percent of Pure Storage arrays over five years old are still in service via Evergreen modernization.

To date, 9 of the top 10 global investment banks, 7 of the top 10 asset management companies, and 5 of the top 10 insurance organizations rely on Pure Storage to improve data performance, reduce TCO, and achieve greater agility while reducing downtime, ultimately driving an elevated customer experience. As a result, Pure Storage’s Financial Services business reached an all-time high last year, growing more than 30 percent year-over-year in FY’22.

“As a financial organization operating more than 150 branches and 1,200 ATMs throughout Texas, IT and storage infrastructure continue to play a critical role in Frost Bank’s success. At Frost, virtually every application is running on Pure Storage FlashArray, enabling maximum uptime and faster backups. The single biggest factor in our decision to leverage Pure was its Evergreen Storage model. With the Evergreen model, we’re able to easily avoid complex, risky and expensive forklift upgrades and data migrations, which would typically take place every three to five years.” – David Coindreau, Manager of Server and Storage Services, Frost Bank

“At Admiral, data is the core of our business operations. The ability to process and analyze data at speed underpins everything from the initial customer contact to the claims process and pricing on aggregator websites. Pure Storage has been a critical business enabler for us through FlashArray, FlashBlade, Pure1 and Evergreen//Forever™. With FlashArray//X™, insurance rate change calculations are 98% faster, giving customers the best pricing and improving our chance of listing in the top 10 on aggregation sites. With FlashBlade, we’ve reduced the time it takes to complete backups from 30 hours to less than 40 minutes. Lastly, Pure’s Evergreen//Forever subscription has allowed us to save more than 50% on traditional forklift upgrades.” – Chris Bevan, Head of Platform Services, Admiral Group

“After challenges with sluggish, legacy storage systems that were complex to manage and expensive to scale, we’ve been running a reliable, fast, and easy to use storage environment with Pure Storage for several years now. We recently upgraded our original Pure Storage system with no downtime. With faster speeds and less frustration than our legacy storage systems, Pure enables us to spend more time on projects that truly move the needle and drive a competitive advantage in the finance market.” – Darren Wiseman, IT Manager at Toyota Finance New Zealand

“Česká spořitelna has traditionally operated under a very complex IT environment. As data plays an increasingly critical role in the development and rollout of new financial products and services for us, we selected Pure Storage to help us simplify storage infrastructure to serve as the backbone for future innovation and scale. By migrating to Pure’s FlashArray//X and leveraging the AI-driven Pure1®, we have reduced the amount of effort and maintenance involved in storage management by approximately 30%, while reducing power consumption by 20% by only using half of our original data center space.” – Milan Novák, Infrastructure, Platform, and Cloud Services Lead, Česká Spořitelna

Latest SonicWall Intelligence Reveals Unstable Cyber Threat Landscape, amplifying concerns for Security Professionals

Bangalore 3 November 2022: SonicWall, publisher of the world’s most quoted ransomware threat intelligence, today released new threat data through the third quarter of 2022. SonicWall recorded more than 4 billion malware attempts globally while year-to-date ransomware attempts in 2022 have already exceeded full-year totals from four of the last five years. In the recent 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Mindset Survey, 91% of organizations reported that they are most concerned about ransomware attacks, indicating a rise in anxiety among security professionals.

“Being a security professional has never been more difficult,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bob VanKirk. “The cyber warfare battlefront continues to shift, posing dangerous threats to organizations of all sizes. With expanding attack surfaces, growing numbers of threats, and the current geopolitical landscape, it should be no surprise that even the most seasoned IT professional can feel overwhelmed. Armed with the latest cybersecurity tools, SonicWall partners can play a vital role in helping customers stay secure in even the most dynamic threat environments.”

“Regardless of the organization’s size or the industry, everybody is a target of cyberattacks,” said Debasish Mukherjee, Vice President, Regional Sales APJ at SonicWall Inc. “Additionally, digital attacks are not just targeting the enterprise; they are attacking governments, MSPs, retail and other organization types. These cybercriminals are confident that these organizations have limited recovery resources, and as such will be more willing to pay after a ransomware attack.”

Ransomware Attacks Shift, Tactics Intensify, Diversify

After a record-breaking 2021, overall ransomware attacks have trended down in the first three quarters of 2022 — especially in the United States (-51%). However, attack locations have continued to shift, as ransomware attempts jumped in the U.K. (20%), EMEA (38%), and APJ (56%) compared to the same time frame last year. Proprietary SonicWall threat intelligence also found that Q3 2022 was the lowest quarterly ransomware volume since Q3 2020. Even in decline, SonicWall recorded 338.4 million ransomware attempts since the beginning of the year.

It is easier than ever to perform ransomware attacks. With Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) offerings, even less technical cybercriminals can purchase ransomware kits on the dark web and target organizations with minimal experience.

Ransomware actors also are diversifying their business models and broadening their networks as demand for their services continues to grow, leading to an explosion in the variety of different tools and resources being offered via illicit marketplaces. According to SonicWall survey data, organizations are concerned with how easily ransomware attacks can be launched and 89% cited concern about financially motivated threats.

“Ransomware has evolved at an alarming rate, particularly in the past five years — not only in volume but in attack vectors,” said SonicWall Emerging Threat Expert Immanuel Chavoya. “The latest Q3 data shows how bad actors are getting smarter in the development of evolutionary strains and more targeted in their assaults.”

Crypto-jacking, IoT Malware Volume Continue Upward Trend

Hackers are increasingly targeting financial firms, such as banks and trading houses, with cyberattacks designed to maliciously use computer systems to illegally mine cryptocurrencies. Cryptojacking numbers jumped 35% globally through three quarters, including a 377% spike in EMEA and a 160% increase in APJ.

With more smart devices entering the digital space every day there is a growing need for Internet of things (IoT) security. IoT devices have multiple ways to connect to a network, offering multiple attack vectors to exploit. IoT malware climbed 92% globally, with 82% and 200% jumps in APJ and North America, respectively.

“With over 1.4 million endpoints collecting data around the globe, SonicWall has more data to uncover emerging threat trends and provide a true depiction of what is happening in the cyber threat landscape,” said Solutions Granted (SGI) CEO Michael Crean. “They say knowledge is power and SonicWall’s proprietary data helps SGI stay informed, which in turn helps us educate our customer base. Leveraging SonicWall’s research helps SGI create actionable steps to help us keep our customers safer!”

Machine Learning Uncovering ‘Never-before-seen’ Malware Variants

SonicWall’s patented Real-Time Deep Memory InspectionTM (RTDMI) technology identified 373,756 never-before-seen malware variants during the first three quarters of 2022 — a 22% increase year-to-date.

One of these never-before-seen malware variants was Spyder Loader, which was observed targeting government organizations in Hong Kong in October 2022. SonicWall RTDMI proactively detected this malware strain and SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers were the first to publish their analysis in a March 2021 SonicAlert — a showcase of RTDMI’s machine learning-powered capabilities.

SonicWall Capture ATP Showcases Perfect Threat Detection

In October 2022, SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with RTDMI earned its seventh consecutive 100% threat detection score in ICSA Labs Advanced Threat Defense (ATD) testing for Q3 2022, the solution’s 11th consecutive certification. ICSA Labs is an independent third party that tested SonicWall’s solutions using never-before-seen malware samples, many just hours old.

Mikael Lundgren new VP for Fluid Power Technology at Dacke Industri

With the last years of solid performance and growth at Dacke Industri, we can take further steps towards greater expansion. We are streamlining and optimizing our divisions for Fluid Power Technology, Air Technology & Electromechanics, Special Technology, Electronics, and Building Systems and Products.

As Vice President for the division Fluid Power Technology, Dacke Industri is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Mikael Lundgren, effective 1st November 2022.

In parallel to the role as VP of Fluid Power Technology, he is continuing his current and important role as CEO for PMC Hydraulics Group, the Nordic leader of innovative hydraulic systems and components for customers in the industrial, energy, mobile and marine sectors.

Mikael has a long history in the group and started as President of one of the subsidiaries in Sweden in 2005. After some years, Mikael took the position of VP Key Accounts with responsibility for the global OEM customers in the group and being a part of the Group Management team. Before joining PMC in 2005, Mikael held several MD positions in a broad variety of industrial businesses and large production management roles at Cardo Group and other industries.

Mikael Lundgren said, “With the long history within PMC and being a part of the foundation of Dacke Industri when Nordstjernan acquired PMC Group, it is very exciting to continue the journey and the development of Fluid Power Technology division. There is a logic to creating a division with a clear focus on hydraulics together with the subsidiaries Arcos Hydraulik, PMC Cylinders, and PMC Hydraulics in the division. I look forward to working with the division to continue to develop the existing companies within Power, Motion and Control.”

“I’m confident in Mikael’s contribution with experience and competence in the field of hydraulics to continue to develop our existing companies, as well as we see great potential for more acquisitions and business growth ahead,” says Lars Fredin, Group CEO at Dacke Industri.

This is Dacke Industri

Dacke Industri is a long-term owner that invests in innovative technology companies within selected niches with potential for development. We provide expertise and strategic guidance to build sustainable companies over time.

We follow a decentralized model where our companies have a high degree of autonomy and are run independently.

Our companies have their own products or systems with a strong technical focus, development- and design expertise, and quality execution. The companies use existing platforms for innovation and work towards environmentally sustainable products and production.

Dacke Industri is owned by Nordstjernan since January 2016.

Today Dacke Industri has 17 subsidiaries, over 1600 employees worldwide, and a net sales exceeding SEK 4 billion.

Mastercard elevates Joseph Fernandes to Head of Human Resources for South Asia

New Delhi, 03 November 2022: Mastercard today announced the elevation of Joseph Fernandes as Senior Vice President & Head, People & Capability for South Asia. Joseph joined the company in 2017 and since then, has been leading HR for the India Tech Hub in Pune. He succeeds Priti Singh, who served in the position for over four years and has taken on a larger mandate to lead Mastercard’s People and Capability function for Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

In his new role, Joseph will lead the team responsible for nurturing Mastercard’s talent pool in India and other South Asian markets (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal). He will drive the values of diversity, equality, and inclusion, and further, strengthen the company’s position as the “most valued to work for”.

With over 8000 employees, India is the largest employee base for Mastercard, outside of the U.S., spanning Technology, Products & Innovation, Cyber & Intelligence, Data & Services, International Markets, and other verticals.

Nikhil Sahni, Division President, South Asia, Mastercard, said, “At Mastercard, the constant endeavor is to build a culture of inclusion and growth. Joseph has been a key advocate of this culture as evidenced by his work at the India Tech Hub where he drove a tremendous sense of objectivity and urgency into the talent management and development process. His elevation from within the company’s ranks is a result of Mastercard’s leadership development process.”

Commenting on the role, Joseph said, “Quality of talent is the cornerstone of success for a world-leading technology company such as Mastercard. I’m excited to lead the People & Capability function in South Asia where my focus will remain on deepening the inclusive work culture of the company and enhancing capabilities.”

With a career spanning over 20 years, Joseph has worked with JP Morgan Chase & Co., HSBC Software (India) Development Centre, and Tata Technologies. He holds a Master’s degree in Personnel Management from Pune University.

Mastercard in India has been certified as a ‘Great Place to Work for five years in a row since 2018. The company has been consistently ranked among the best organizations for working women owing to its inclusive hiring and talent-building policies and programs.

Forescout Expands in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) with New Singapore HQ and India Customer Support Hub

India, November 03, 2022 – Forescout Technologies Inc., the global leader in automated cybersecurity, today announced the creation of a new Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore as well as a new support center in Pune, India which will serve both global customer support and regional operations.

“Singapore has become a huge cybersecurity hub for the region with a mature understanding of the global threat landscape,” said Dave Patnaik, regional vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan, Forescout. “Our customers are looking at very specific IT spending as cyber threats in the region have increased. Forescout’s platform offers tools to understand their assets and associated risks and by expanding our presence across the region and providing localized support and operations, we can support our customers during this time of immense digital transformation.”

While Singapore has become a central hub and model of good cyber hygiene for other countries in the region, additional countries like India and South Asia are also investing more heavily in cybersecurity as the APJ region continues to see unprecedented levels of threats in recent years. Organizations are looking for ways to increase the visibility of assets on their networks, through automation, to address the growing number of threats and support critical industries such as financial services, healthcare and manufacturing. Having a focused support center will enable Forescout to provide critical support to organizations across the region.

In addition to the opening of its new office in Singapore, Forescout also opened a new base in Pune, India. The office will be a regional and global support hub providing 24×7 first line response for customers as well as a local specialist team to provide regional service to APJ based organizations.

“India’s fast developing economy and country wide investment into technical training and education provides a great base for us to onboard our new team and invest in regional sales growth,” continued Dave Patnaik, regional vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan, Forescout.
”We have built an amazing team to deliver a high standard of customer care to our customers and partners globally and regionally and I am excited about the expansion of this regional development.”

Forescout has also engaged several global system integrator partners in India such as TCS, Infosys, HCL, Wipro, and L&T to consolidate global support and customer engagement.

“We are seeing huge demand for our platform to provide data-driven insights on threat detection and risk for organisations so they can drive better visibility and automate decision-making,” said Keith Weatherford, VP, WW Channel, Forescout. “It was key that we worked with core partners that could help scale our customer support and integration program and our new GSI partners will allow us to support global and regional initiatives at scale and across industry.”

Creative on every level, LEVEL 03 of Zayn’s creative collab with ARNETTE is set to play-out in full color: ART-WORLD is live.

Inspired by the experimental creativity and bright, abstract colors of contemporary art, Zayn rewinds to fast-forward in the next level of his game-on journey with ARNETTE.

And it’s all about creating a new approach to street culture. Keeping the tone upbeat, fun and always unexpected, the third ZAYN X ARNETTE capsule adds color and a load of attitude to a classic. Zayn reworks a nostalgic retro-square shape with unexpected angles, and hypes old-school havanas with the season’s freshest tones to frame the playful, positive look of his multifaceted style. Plus, exclusive new mineral bioacetates and dedicated sustainable packaging make sure it’s as cool to look at as it is kind to the earth. ART-WORLD
Are you ready to take your look to the next level? Follow us @arnette or head over to www.arnette.com and get ready to play!

POLL-OCK – AN4303 Whichever way you look at it, creative is the new hype, and Poll-ock has it framed. With its fresh angles and new pop-goes-street color concept, this retro-goescontemporary sun shape is anything but oldschool. Pair up new custom bio-acetates, including four colorful reworks of classic havanas or super trendy crystal frames, with new blue-purple mirror, musthave yellow and dark lens shades for a total ZAYN x ARNETTE look.

POLL-OCK – AN7211 Born to create, Zayn knows exactly how to color-up smart with every tone of cool. Softening a retro square with unexpected angles and custom, color-flecked havanas or trendy crystal, this personality-packed optical shape gets smart ready to play. And it’s more than just hype – new sustainabile bio-based acetates and packaging make sure it’s as easy on the eye as it is on the earth.

Devx Launches 2nd Co-Working Space In Pune

Pune, November 3, 2022: DevX, Gujarat’s largest Managed Office Space provider, today announced the launch of its 2nd Coworking space in Pune. To further expand its national presence, DevX plans to double its India portfolio by investing Rs 60 crore.

Recently feted as Gujarat’s leader in the Managed office space segment, DevX is a co-working space cum accelerator founded in September 2017 by 3 entrepreneurs Rushit, Umesh Parth (the RUPaiyya trio as they are known in the ecosystem) and one listed entity: Dev Information Technology Ltd. The company was envisioned as a Startup Accelerator focussed on nurturing innovative startups by providing them with all requirements. Positioning DevX as an equal partner in growth, the company supports through its allied strategic partnerships and services. The different initiatives of DevX are thus structured to build synergies, enabling the cross-pollination of ideas as a means of collaborative growth and development. The company’s initiatives address different requirements across the value chain.

Speaking on the launch, Mr Umesh Uttamchandani, Co-Founder – of DevX said, “Launching our 2ndrd center in Pune helps us deepen our Maharashtra presence and reaffirms our core values of offering world-class office infrastructure with an immersive experience. We are proud to have global firms like Aarete at the 2nd center, helping us set standards for the segment to aspire to. With our stated business goal of being the partner of choice for GCCs & ODCs, I am excited about the future of the Industry. Growth-centric corporates are increasingly opting for managed workspaces, which perfectly meshes with our philosophy of offering best-in-class work-space experiences at competitive pricing. With 25 centers across India, DevX will double its India portfolio by investing 60 crores.”

Reaffirming these views & commenting on their experience, Mr. Nilesh Gandhi, Vice President, Arete, said, “With this new Pune office, we envision to provide our team a surreal work experience, be it in terms of ergonomics, a non-monotonous work environment with flexibility and to also enable them to refresh & re-energize with amenities like Yoga and Meditation Areas.

We were looking for a Managed Office partner who takes care of all office requirements, while we focus on our work, the partner takes care of all administration and upkeep, and a partner who helps in scaling up and down too. And, with DevX we got just that, a really good customized office solution with our own branding and the best office environment.”

As a core part of the ecosystem, DevX also provides, around the year, a platform for industry, academia, professionals, and companies to hold hackathons, seminars, events, etc…to address trends and issues. The company is planning further expansion and thus consolidating its pan-India presence by 2022 end.