Month: June 2023

In honor of National Cybersecurity Education Month, IBM proudly announces Education Security Grants with IBM Security. The grants include enhanced training in cybersecurity and AI through IBM SkillsBuild.

IBM will provide $5 million in-kind to help address cybersecurity resiliency in schools and institutions across the world while providing schools enhanced training on AI and cyber through IBM SkillsBuild. 350,000 students globally have already benefited from these security grants.

Applications for schools are now open globally. Grants valued at $500,000 each will be awarded to six school districts in the US with an additional four around the world. Volunteers, through IBM Service Corps, will use their professional skills to help schools establish programs to address cybersecurity resiliency. Each selected school will receive:

incident response plans and ransomware playbooks,programs to help address the need for updating operating systems,strategic communication plans to use in response to cyber incidents, andtraining and digital credentials through IBM SkillsBuild on topics including AI and cybersecurity, and additional benefits such as enhanced access to IBM mentors, teacher training and toolkits, and customized learning pathways.

Applications for the 2023 IBM Education Security Preparedness Grants are now open. Apply by June 23.

As part of Juneteenth Festival celebrations in Buffalo, New York, KeyBank is offering three financial wellness workshops covering mortgage, small business and wealth building.

The seminars will take place on the following dates and times:

Wednesday June 7, 2023   
Mortgage Workshop with Saleem Shabazz – KeyBank Community Development Loan Officer   
5:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.   
Community Resource Building at Buffalo Urban League – 1359 Jefferson Avenue
 Wednesday June 14, 2023   
5:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.   
Small Business Workshop with Omar Overstreet – KeyBank Broadway Branch Manager   
Open Buffalo – 1327 Jefferson Avenue
 Wednesday June 28, 2023   
Wealth Building Workshop with Andrew Cheatham – KeyBank Delaware-Hertel Branch Manager   
Community Resource Building at Buffalo Urban League – 1359 Jefferson Avenue

KeyBank is a proud sponsor of the 2023 Juneteenth Festival in Buffalo.

KeyBank Member FDIC. NMLS #399797. Mortgage and Home Equity Lending products offered by KeyBank are not FDIC insured or guaranteed. KeyBank extends credit secured by residential real estate without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, handicap, or familial status. All credit products are subject to collateral and/or credit approval, terms, conditions, availability and are subject to change. 

SBA Preferred Lender. SBA loans subject to SBA eligibility.

Key Private Bank is part of KeyBank National Association. Banking products and trust services provided by KeyBank National Association, Member FDIC, and Equal Housing Lender. 

Investment products are: 

NOT FDIC INSURED * NOT BANK GUARANTEED * MAY LOSE VALUE * NOT A DEPOSIT * NOT INSURED BY ANY FEDERAL OR STATE GOVERNMENT AGENCY.

© 2023 KeyCorp. CFMA #230531-2105733

Two years ago, for Pride Month, T‑Mobile helped spread the word of a small community photo project titled “Proud to Be” created by one of its frontline employees. With the need for inclusivity and understanding never more important, the project is once again being embraced by a company that truly believes we are all stronger together. Take a look!

In 2021, T-Mobile Stories introduced you to Joe Richards, the employee and artist behind a companywide community photo project entitled “Proud to Be,” which invited employees to visually showcase who they are and how they are embracing that identity during Pride Month.

In a video interview, Joe explained why he first created the participatory photo project six years ago at the Charleston Customer Experience Center where he was a Customer Resolution Expert, and served as the lead for the company’s Pride Employee Resource Group in the local Diversity, Equity & Inclusion chapter. While Pride season offers members of the LGBTQ+ community a moment to advocate and celebrate their identities together, Joe told us he was inspired by T-Mobile’s year-round “Be You” motto to search for a way to open up Pride — and the experience of being “seen” — to everyone. (The company is also embracing the motto “Stronger Together” for this Pride Month, a perfect accompaniment to Joe’s ongoing “Proud to Be” project.)

With the simple directive to employees to write down what they’re proud to be on a chalkboard, Joe captured dozens of inspiring photographs of smiling sign-bearers and built an art installation to display them in the call center. T-Mobile supported Joe’s vision and two years ago helped him bring the project to a companywide scale by offering an internal virtual platform for employees all around the country to upload their “Proud to Be” images. From humble beginnings, with 44 people participating that first year, the project saw more than 200 people participate by 2020. Now a Mobile Expert in Charleston, Joe says watching his art evolve and take space alongside T-Mobile’s own growth these last few years has been incredible.

Here we will share even more of what T-Mobile employees are saying this year as they participate in the 2023 installation of the art project, by showcasing new images and video of the many who are submitting their “Proud to Be” statements throughout the month.

P.S. If you watched the video above, you know the first day of Pride Month is also Joe’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Joe! 

Check back every week throughout June to see new and updated images and videos from those who have submitted their own “Proud to Be” moments. Any questions? Email us at: Stories-Tools@T-Mobile.com

Originally published on Rayonier.com

GLENNVILLE, Georgia—How do you convince a tree it’s years—maybe even decades—older than it really is? Rayonier’s genetics research team does it by using a technique called top grafting.

The process shaves a massive amount of time off our advances in tree genetics research.

Rather than waiting for a new seedling to mature to seed-producing age (about 7 years), our seed production team grafts our most promising trees with older trees.

Top Grafting in the Treetops

Climbing into aerial lifts to reach the treetops, the team fuses shoots (branch ends) from genetically superior young trees onto the end of the older trees’ branches at the top of the crown. The young tree shoots then perform as though they are the age of the older trees.

This leads the promising new trees to produce seeds within the year, allowing us to plant and research how their progeny perform. The best performers from the seeds we plant will be selected for mass planting in our seed orchards.

Pot Grafting Promising Trees

Similar grafting techniques are then used on smaller rootstocks in a method called pot grafting. Once we select the ideal trees to use in an orchard, we want to get a whole lot of these trees in a short period of time so we can plant them and generate seeds that will be used throughout our ownership. We do this by attaching the shoots of the superior trees to potted trees, allowing our team to make hundreds of copies of the best trees in a matter of days. These will then be planted in the orchard, where trees are spaced farther apart to allow more branching—and thus, more pinecones—to produce millions of seeds.