Month: September 2023

As published in Qualcomm’s 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report

We are bringing economic benefits of wireless connectivity to entrepreneurial ventures around the world by encouraging solutions that promote capacity building, scalability and longevity with micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

In Senegal, where 30 percent of rural household’s experience food insecurity, fish are a critical source of nutrition. The fishery industry employs 17 percent of Senegal’s workforce (more than 600,000 people), and approximately 90 percent of the country’s fish are caught by small-scale fishers who are reliant on traditional methods1. Their catch is typically sold to wholesale fish markets and small-scale fish processors, who are predominantly women.

The Wireless Solutions for Fisheries in Senegal (WISE) program was launched, in collaboration with FHI 360, to use advanced wireless technology to improve fish catch and processing practices in the country’s artisanal fish industry. The program is designed to make the practices of fishermen and fish processors safer and more efficient and can positively impacted the income and lives of those in the sector. WISE developed a mobile application that offers daily information on fish market prices, weather forecasts, navigation resources, microfinance and health insurance calculators and information on fishing and fish processing best practices, among other features.

In 2022, the Senegalese government announced it will be officially adopting and expanding the program nationwide. Senegal’s ministries of fisheries and maritime economy and digital economy and telecommunications plan to institutionalize the WISE platform and support it in fishing regions across the country. At scale, WISE can provide services and resources to 52,000 artisanal fishers and 20,000 women fish processors throughout the country and be a valuable tool in advancing Digital Senegal 2025, the government’s strategy to increase GDP and create jobs by leveraging digital technology2.

According to a February 2022 report by fhi3602, our collaboration has supported more than 200 low-income economic interest groups (EIGs), serving more than 6,486 fishermen and fish processors by providing smartphones and Internet access to enable them to use WISE services. A third-party final assessment demonstrated that fishers and fish processors increased their annual income by an average of West African CFA franc (XOF) 176,923-235,400 (US$300$400), respectively, as a result of using WISE.

Learn more in Qualcomm’s 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report

1 The Importance of Wild Fisheries For Local Food Security

2 Improving the Lives of Men and Women in the Senegalese Artisanal Fishery Value Chain

PORTLAND, Ore., September 20, 2023 /3BL/ – KeyBank’s Key4Women program, Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon (MESO), and the Portland Thorns FC today announced 10 finalists have been selected to compete in a business pitch contest for women-owned businesses located in Oregon and SW Washington.

Selected from a pool of 210 applicants and judged by a panel of qualified representatives, the finalists will compete for cash awards totaling $50,000. The grand prize winner will earn $20,000.

Finalists include:

Ventura Home Loans LLCAmaza SuperfoodsBlue Elderberry Farm LLCCrisp NWEl Paraiso 100% Natural LLCYuri’s Certified ChildcareL&M Hair CompanySauvie ShrubsPrelude, LLCBreakaway Bookkeeping & Advising

“We are excited to announce our finalists today, so much to be proud of,” said Rachael Sampson, chair, Key4Women. “Women business owners and leaders positively impact our economy and communities in powerful ways every day, which is evident based on the strength and diversity of the applications we received. We thank all of those who applied and wish them the best of luck on their business ventures.”

“MESO has always known women entrepreneurs have the power to change the small business landscape,” said MESO Executive Director Cobi Lewis. “We are honored to be part of an event that will provide a chance for others to experience that passion, innovation and determination.”

“The Portland Thorns are proud to support this innovative program,” said Todd Spear, SVP of Corporate Partnerships for the Portland Timbers & Thorns. “We know women in business bring exciting innovation and we wish all ten finalists the best of luck with their pitches.”

MESO provided application support and mentorship to women-owned businesses throughout the application process. They will also provide workshops and mentoring to the finalists to help them prepare their pitches.

To be eligible, businesses had to be 51 percent owned, controlled, operated, and managed by a woman or women. They must also be headquartered in one of the following Oregon counties: Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Columbia, Hood River, Yamhill, Marion, OR one of the following Washington counties: Clark, Cowlitz, or Skamania. Applicants can be an entrepreneur with a new business idea or an existing business with a new product or service that expands their current business with annual sales of less than $3 million.

The finalists will present a 4-minute pitch and field questions for 6 minutes on November 16th at Providence Park in Portland, Oregon. The event, which is open to the public, will also be livestreamed by the Thorns. To learn more visit https://www.mesopdx.org/key4women

Final awards will be chosen by a panel of five judges, used to determine winners include the quality of the presentation, clarity of business vision and mission, economic impact of the idea and the soundness of value proposition.

ABOUT MESO

Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon (MESO) elevates and empowers under-resourced and excluded entrepreneurs to build resilience, equity, and thriving communities through access to capital, tailored business assistance, and education. Founded in 2005 to assist Black-owned small businesses that were experiencing challenges in the wake of gentrification in North and Northeast Portland, the nonprofit now serves more than 600 entrepreneurs and small businesses in Oregon and Southwest Washington each year. MESO is a designated SBA microlender, an IDA fiduciary, and a Certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).

ABOUT PORTLAND THORNS FC

Portland Thorns FC is an American professional women’s soccer team based in Portland, Oregon that plays their home matches at the iconic Providence Park. Established in 2012, the team began play in 2013 as one of the founding teams of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) – the top-ranked professional women’s soccer league in the United States. Thorns FC rank among the best globally in attendance across male and female professional soccer clubs. The team has won eight trophies – three NWSL Championships (2013, 2017, 2022), two NWSL Shields (2016, 2021), NWSL Challenge Cup (2021), Women’s International Champions Cup (2021), NWSL Community Shield (2020).

ABOUT KEYCORP 
KeyCorp’s roots trace back nearly 200 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $195 billion at June 30, 2023. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,000 branches and approximately 1,300 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC.

ABOUT KEY4WOMEN 
Key4Women started in 2005 as a campaign to lend $1 billion to qualified women-owned businesses within three years. The program achieved that in two years and has now generated more than $12 billion in loans to women-owned businesses. Membership in Key4Women is free. In addition to helping women business leaders and owners tap into capital to build and grow their businesses, Key4Women members gain valuable access to a team of local Certified Key4Wome Advisors who advocate, connect and empower women on their journey to financial wellness. For more information, visit key.com/key4women.

The Curiosity Cube, a 22×10-foot shipping container turned mobile science lab from MilliporeSigma, the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, has been hard at work sparking kids’ interest in STEM careers on its fifth annual U.S tour. The Curiosity Cube’s mission is to provide tomorrow’s scientists with access to hands-on science education. In fact, of the schools the Curiosity Cube will visit this year, the aim is that 95% will be classified as Title 1. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the Title 1 program provides financial assistance to schools with a high number percentage of children from low-income families, ensuring that all children meet challenging state academic standards. This year, the Curiosity Cube’s experiments focus on contamination. 

Now halfway through the 2023 tour, the Curiosity Cube has visited 51 communities in the U.S., hosted 76 events out of the total 124 planned and has sparked interest in STEM in more than 13,600 young minds.

The 2023 tour started in San Diego, where Curiosity Cube Coordinators worked alongside MilliporeSigma employee volunteers from the company’s viral vector manufacturing facility in Carlsbad. The tour stopped at the San Diego Festival of Science & Engineering and several local middle schools. The Curiosity Cube then headed to Tempe the following week, where it made a stop at Ostrich Fest.

Following a short break, the Curiosity Cube made a cross-country journey to Cincinnati to spark curiosity in students from the Buckeye State. Scientists walked elementary school students through the experiments with WLWT-TV stopping by to talk with Coordinator Danielle Chavis at the Highland Park Garden about what she enjoys most about the Curiosity Cube. The tour then headed West to Indianapolis before rolling to Pennsylvania.

Landing in Allentown, a new tour stop in 2023, WFMZ-TV covered the action and spoke to students and teachers from the Lehigh Valley Academy about their experience. Continuing its tour through the Keystone State, the Curiosity Cube stopped in Bellefonte to visit a handful of local schools, with WTAJ-TV stopping by to see the experiments in action.

Moving to Rockville, Maryland, the Curiosity Cube visited a few schools with the help of employee volunteers from the company’s contract testing facility in the area. BioBuzz learned more about the tour’s goal of reaching more than 45,000 students. Now two months into the tour, the next stop for the Curiosity Cube was Lake Erie in Cleveland, where WKYC-TV spoke with MilliporeSigma volunteers about the importance of STEM education. 

Following a break for Memorial Day, the Curiosity Cube stopped in Illinois and sparked curiosity in kids across the state. In Kankakee, the Daily Journal stopped by an event with a local nonprofit, Still I Rise, to discuss the need for more exposure to STEM education. WCIA-TV in Urbana spoke to local visitors about what they took away from the tour’s stop in the area.

The Curiosity Cube spent the rest of June and into early July touring I-70 and making an impact in St. Louis and Kansas City. In St. Louis, with the help of MilliporeSigma interns from Harris-Stowe University, KMOV-TV explored the three interactive experiments alongside Coordinator Audra DiMariano. While in St. Louis, the Curiosity Cube was also featured at Pride Fest and Busch Stadium, reaching over 2,200 visitors in that city. When the Curiosity Cube worked its way to Kansas City, 27 volunteers from the company’s Lenexa, Kansas facility helped over 1,000 visitors access hands-on science education. 

Rounding out the month of July, the Curiosity Cube visited Laramie, Wyoming and the Laramie Boomerang wrote about local families experiencing hands-on science at the University of Wyoming. 

The Curiosity Cube’s U.S. tour isn’t over yet, in fact, it still has 11 cities to visit before wrapping up in November. The tour will be headed up and down the West Coast from Seattle to San Diego before returning to the East Coast. To learn more about upcoming stops and request a visit to your town, go to. Want to keep up with the tour? Follow the Curiosity Cube on Instagram at @curiositycube_milliporesigma.

The ZDHC South Asia Conference in Bengaluru, India facilitated high-level conversations on sustainability, including a panel discussion on chemical management. Moderated by Prasad Pant, South Asia Director and Competence Centre Director for the ZDHC Foundation’s Roadmap to Zero Program, “The Need for Collaboration in Accelerating Sustainable Chemical Management” panel included Dhawal Mane, SAC Director of Verification, Training & Insights. Fellow panelists included Klaehn Gundolf, Head of Environmental Component, Responsible Industrial Practices in the Clothing Industry in Asia (FABRIC), Shivam Gusain, Innovation Analyst at Fashion for Good, Vidhesh Kadam, Standards & Recycled Materials Specialist at Textile Exchange, and Edga Melan, General Manager Engineering & Sustainability, Teejay Sri Lanka, Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) and Fabric Apparel Accessory Manufacturers Association (FAAMA) in Sri Lanka.

Mane emphasized the deep collaborations that drive SAC action on chemical management, including a close partnership with ZDHC to align their Supplier to Zero Program with the Higg Facility Environment Module (FEM); similarly, the alignment of FEM with the RtZ and StZ programs is rooted in the apparel alliance, which was formed by the Apparel Impact Institute, Textile Exchange, ZDHC Foundation, and the SAC in order to align tools and programs to achieve greater alignment and avoid duplicating efforts. Complementary tools are the bedrock of the apparel alliance’s goal of creating a connected, end-to-end path to action for the entire apparel and footwear industry as we work together to achieve a minimum goal of 45% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030.

Mane talked about SAC’s updated strategic plan, and its focus on aligning the facility’s journey geared towards impact. “With about 8000 factories completing the Higg FEM verifications, we recognise the several touch points facilities have with various supply chain sustainability programs and collaborative organizations.”

One of the key outputs will be an industry-wide standardized environment performance framework and factory journey, which will provide clarity and insight on how brands and their supply chains can best utilize different programs to drive continuous improvement on environmental performance at the factory level, and how these programs are connected and can facilitate the most impact. His final call to action was for continued collaboration with industry stakeholders to address the challenges we face as an industry.