Month: May 2024

Mastercard

From digitization and AI to climate change and collaboration, here are a dozen insights into today’s pressing challenges and potential solutions from the world leaders, CEOs, academics, activists and others who gathered in Washington, D.C., last week for the Global Inclusion Growth Summit, hosted by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.

On the power of collaboration and connection

“If you think about the great moments when America leapt forward, it always involved some form of public-private partnership. If you think about it, moonshot moments in America have resulted from academia, business and government working together. If you think, as I do, that the scourge on this country’s democracy is division, public-private partnerships bring people together, literally shoulder to shoulder.”

— Gina Raimondo, U.S. Commerce Secretary, in conversation with Jon Huntsman Jr., Mastercard vice chairman and president, Strategic Growth.

“The greatest revolutionaries, people who have moved our society, are the people who have managed to bring us together, not try to exploit our differences.”

— Ade Adepitan, Paralympic medalist and TV presenter who co-hosted the 2024 summit.

“There’s always something that you can do, there’s always … an intersection of privilege where you stand where other people maybe don’t, so find those places, find the something you can do.”

— Megan Rapinoe, World Cup soccer champion and social justice activist.

“The message of love and compassion is so important. Put your arms around people and show them there’s hope.”

— Music icon and AIDS crusader Elton John, in a keynote discussion with Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth president Shamina Singh about advancing an inclusive society.

On technology as an equalizer — with an asterisk

“We want every single person to have access to [financial insights], no matter how much they have in their savings account, or how much credit they have. We want them to have the best possible advice and information to help them make the best decisions at any point.”

— Cristina Junqueira, the co-founder and chief growth officer of Nubank, the Brazil-based digital financial services platform, about how technology and digitization can democratize financial planning.

“Technology is an amplifier of human intent and capacity, not a substitute.”

— Manu Chopra, the co-founder and CEO of Karya, a nonprofit that employs Indian workers to train AI systems, on engaging people, particularly from low-income communities, to understand their needs and desires when developing technological solutions for them.

On opportunities for investment

“I think the biggest challenge facing the continent is that so many people unfortunately have an outdated picture of [Africa] and that it’s time to change that narrative … It’s a massive talent opportunity for every single industry which is facing a shortage. But that takes an investment in education, skills and knowledge transfer.”

— Reeta Roy, the president and CEO of the Mastercard Foundation, which is focused on advancing education and financial inclusion among young people in Africa.

“What philanthropy can do is, where we have the leverage and the opportunity, to de-risk ideas and to demonstrate the viability in places where it ultimately has been hard for companies to get comfortable. Leadership is about using the capital to do more than make grants, but also to be a part of the capital stack and enable capital.”

— Greg Shell, head of Goldman Sachs’ inclusive growth strategy.

On using AI for inclusion

“The ‘eyes’ of AI have the ability to penetrate the data, to study situations in ways beyond human capability, allowing to also make connections between disparate social determinants, for instance, that impact health outcomes. Through the lens of AI, one is about to stitch together the ability to do new cures, new treatments that might not have been possible.”

— Ben Vinson III, the president of Howard University, on how AI is already having an inclusive impact on health care.

“Don’t talk about AI. Engage with AI. I think that’s really important, because AI literacy is one of the biggest gaps we are actually seeing in actually building responsible and inclusive AI systems. Everyone here should be actually testing and playing around with these AI systems.”

— Navrina Singh, the founder and CEO of Credo AI, the AI governance platform that helps businesses adopt AI fast and safely.

On the need for new approaches to climate action

“The world talks a lot about carbon neutrality, but we need to talk more about nature-positive solutions.”

— Iván Duque, the former president of Colombia.

“Indigenous peoples are already leading by example. We do not wait for anyone; we’re already protecting 80% of the world’s biodiversity and we do that just as duty … We know the importance of nature, the interconnectivity between all the ecosystems, and that’s where we need the collaboration, where we need to sit all together.”

— Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, the president of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad.

Originally published by Mastercard

Follow the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth’s journey to advance equitable and sustainable economic growth and financial inclusion around the world by following us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Originally published on LinkedIn

“Self-advocacy means standing up for your interest in a system that may not have been designed for you.”

“The ‘not-perfect idea’ is often the close cousin of the ‘amazing idea.’”

“When you share what you’re good at and share what you’re working on, it opens up opportunity.”

Words of wisdom from best-selling author and award-winning Columbia Law School professor Alexandra Carter and her daughter Caroline Carter Lembrich.

In partnership with the Kohler Foundation, our Women@Work, Bold Ability, and Parents and Caregivers business resource groups hosted Alex and Caroline at our global headquarters last week for three days of insights and discussion on building self-confidence, the power of allyship, and embracing opportunity.

Together, the mother-daughter duo shared their unique experience addressing the United Nations on gender equity, where they explored the importance of finding and using your voice to advocate for yourself and others.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., May 7, 2024 /3BL/ — Black & Veatch, a global leader in critical infrastructure solutions, has been selected by Capital Power to remotely monitor seven of the Canada-based wholesale power producer’s generation facilities across the United States and Canada over the course of three years.

Black & Veatch’s role includes streaming data, including flows, pressures, temperatures and vibrations from Capital Power plants, where it then will be monitored remotely by Black & Veatch asset monitoring teams in Kansas, Michigan and North Carolina, as well as the India city of Pune. The four interconnected teams use artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose potential problems before they occur using advanced data analytics. The teams use that data to provide actionable intelligence to the facilities providing innovative asset management solutions.

“Black & Veatch works to advance innovative technologies that improve operations for our clients, and our remote monitoring service is a key example of this,” said Ali Assaf, vice president and managing director for Black & Veatch’s energy and process industries business. “Using AI to detect potential issues early before they become big problems ensures that our clients such as Capital Power focus their time and resources on high-value work.”

The solution leverages AI to detect issues that could impact reliability, efficiency and production and proactively mitigate or eliminate potential problems, effectively saving companies time and money.

“Black & Veatch’s remote monitoring services help us achieve our high reliability goals and focus on being net zero by 2045. We value their expertise in applying AI to optimize our assets and prevent issues. Capital Power is grateful for their partnership,” said Lori Nickifor, vice president of engineering for Capital Power.

Contact Black & Veatch for more information.

Editor’s Notes: 

To learn more about Black & Veatch’s asset management services, click here.

About Black & Veatch 
Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.

About Capital Power 
Capital Power is a growth-oriented power producer committed to net zero by 2045, with approximately 9,300 MW of power generation at 32 facilities across North America. We prioritize delivering reliable, affordable and decarbonized power that communities can depend on, building decarbonized power systems needed for tomorrow, and creating real net zero solutions for customers. We are powering change by changing power.

Media Contact Information:

MEGHAN LOCKNER | +1 201-977-1628 | locknerm@bv.com 
24-HOUR MEDIA CONTACT | Media@bv.com

Originally published by WBUR (NPR), listen to the full segment here.

In Modesto, California, a Dorito is born.

Millions of chips roll out of Frito-Lay’s factory every day, riding miles of conveyor belts through deep fryers, flavor dusters and bagging machines. Once they’re finished, they make the first leg of their journey to corner stores and groceries all over the world on electric trucks.

This 500,000-square-foot factory, one of Frito-Lay’s biggest, replaced its entire diesel-burning fleet with cleaner vehicles last year, from battery-powered forklifts to electric semis, built by Tesla.

Eric Tutorow hauls trailers full of Doritos and Cheetos from Modesto to distribution centers in the region. Inside the cab of his electric truck, the loudest thing besides the radio is the turn signal.

“You don’t hear the engine noise,” Tutorow says. “After driving this many years, it’s kind of nice not to go home with a headache from road noise.”

Continue reading here.