Month: September 2023

FARMINGTON, Conn., September 7, 2023 /3BL/ – In many communities around the globe, green and recreational spaces – critical for global public health and sustainability – remain inaccessible. In the fourth year of the Made to Move Communities competition, Otis (NYSE: OTIS) volunteers will mentor hundreds of students across 18 countries and territories to help break down physical, geographic, and socioeconomic barriers residents face today in finding suitable and sustainable green spaces.

In this era of urbanization, with more than 50% of the world’s population living in cities and that number expected to grow to nearly 70% by 2050, there’s urgency to preserve and provide green spaces for the benefit of all residents’ health and well-being. This is the focus of the latest Otis’ Made to Move Communities program, which brings together local students and Otis volunteer mentors to encourage creative thinking and problem-solving based on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) methodology and skills to create mobility solutions for some of society’s most urgent issues.

“Otis’ role in creating a taller and faster world comes with an opportunity to help ensure everyone in urban spaces can connect and thrive,” says Otis Vice President & Chief Communications Officer Randi Tanguay. “With the help and support of our colleagues, these bright young minds will design innovative solutions that improve access to green space which will enable local residents to reap the health and wellbeing benefits of these recreational spaces.”

During an eight-week challenge, students will identify ways to safely enable access for all to nearby green spaces. Teams will then present their STEM-based proposals to a panel of Otis judges who will award varying levels of grants to advance STEM programming at the schools of participating teams.

Since 2020, this annual global student competition has engaged hundreds of Otis colleagues as mentors to over 500 students developing and presenting mobility solutions to some of society’s most critical challenges. As part of this program, Otis has provided over $600,000 in total financial support to further STEM learning through grants awarded to each year’s participating schools. Through their passion, skills, and coaching, Otis mentors also help students nurture a love of STEM learning and inspire the pursuit of related careers.

About Otis
Otis is the world’s leading elevator and escalator manufacturing, installation and service company. We move 2 billion people a day and maintain approximately 2.2 million customer units worldwide, the industry’s largest Service portfolio. Headquartered in Connecticut, USA, Otis is 69,000 people strong, including 41,000 field professionals, all committed to meeting the diverse needs of our customers and passengers in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. For more information, visit www.otis.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @OtisElevatorCo.

Media Contact:
Justin Herndon
813-957-0255
Justin.Herndon@otis.com

Abbott

As a global company with a broad range of businesses, operations in over 160 countries and 115,000 people around the world, diversity is inherent to our business and organization.

The Billion Dollar Roundtable (BDR) is an organization dedicated to inspiring America’s leading companies to expand and grow their work with diverse businesses across the country. They set a high bar – to join the BDR, companies need to spend $1 billion or more with diverse suppliers, every year. It’s an important benchmark for demonstrating the positive impact that businesses can have in improving lives and advancing opportunity in diverse communities.

At the annual BDR Summit recently held in Chicago, Abbott was proud to be inducted into the exclusive group of Billion Dollar Roundtable members. We’ve made significant progress in expanding our work with diverse suppliers in recent years. We currently work with more than 1,300 diverse suppliers, including certified minority-, women-, disabled-, LGBTQ-, and veteran-owned businesses, spending $1.7 billion in 2022, an increase of 63% from the prior year.

Supplier diversity is an integral part of our broader work to build a resilient and sustainable supply chain, and our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. A wider pool of potential suppliers helps strengthen supply chain resilience and ensure business continuity, and also promotes competition in the supply chain, which can enhance products and services and decrease costs.

This work is having a significant economic impact as well. A recent analysis showed that our supplier diversity efforts have supported over 7,500 jobs and generated over $4.5 billion in economic impact in the communities where we operate across the U.S.

Delivering Even Greater Impact in the Years Ahead

Our inclusion in the Billion Dollar Roundtable is an important milestone. But we know it’s not just about purchasing more products and services from diverse companies.

Diverse owners of small companies face real barriers in growing their businesses. Half of diverse businesses can’t get a loan. And in healthcare, strict regulations and systemic budget challenges make it hard to compete with bigger, more established rivals.

That’s why we’re working with others to help address these gaps. One example: the Abbott-LISC Initiative to Support Diverse Businesses in Health is investing more than $37 million to provide diverse small businesses with the resources and support they need to compete, grow and create jobs in the healthcare industry. For more on these efforts, please see our story on the LISC collaboration.