Tag: 3BL

MetLife

MetLife’s responsible investments seek to achieve a market financial return while considering social and/or environmental benefits that help create healthier communities and a more sustainable environment. Responsible investments focus on the core areas of infrastructure investments, green investments, municipal bonds, affordable housing and impact investments.

Affordable Housing

MetLife invests in high-quality housing projects that seek to build financial health and bring benefits to communities. These housing investments involve partnering with nonprofit organizations that provide below-market rental homes to low-income earners.

Affordable housing is not just for social good—it is a financially material and strategically aligned investment category that can help enhance community well‑being while delivering stable long‑term value for investors. This relevance is reflected in MetLife’s financing of a portfolio of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-supported affordable housing properties across several states. Proceeds from the transaction were used to maintain and support ongoing operations of existing properties, and funded critical preservation needs to help maintain long-term affordability for residents.

Infrastructure

MetLife invests in infrastructure projects that create jobs, support resilient communities and provide economic benefits. These projects could include building or upgrading airports, ports, roads, pipelines, transmission lines and power generation. The impact of this strategy is illustrated through projects that demonstrate how long‑term infrastructure investments can strengthen connectivity, accelerate the clean‑energy transition and deliver tangible benefits for communities.

Infrastructure investment examples include:

• MetLife is helping to finance Portugal’s first high‑speed rail between the country’s two largest cities, Lisbon and Porto. The line is expected to significantly reduce travel time while improving regional connectivity for millions of passengers annually.⁴ The project seeks to deliver meaningful social, economic and environmental benefits, including lower emissions, as it is expected to encourage demand to shift from road and air travel to more sustainable rail.
• MetLife was also a major lender in Project Aurora, a large solar and battery storage initiative in Chile’s Tarapacá Region. The project aims to advance the country’s clean energy transition by replacing coal‑based generation with renewable power and strengthening grid reliability through storage that enables solar energy delivery, even after sunset.

Municipal Bonds

MetLife’s municipal bond investments support infrastructure, education and community services spanning 46 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. The proceeds of these investments can be used to finance or refinance environmental, water and clean energy projects, as well as projects with anticipated positive social outcomes, such as affordable public housing and school building revitalization.

• MetLife invested in the Idaho Housing and Finance Association (IHFA), a self‑supporting financial institution that expands affordable housing and strengthens Idaho communities by providing homeownership lending, rental assistance, homelessness support and multifamily finance. With deep expertise in real estate development, finance and tenant services, IHFA is committed to making safe, stable and affordable housing accessible to all Idahoans.

Green Investments

MetLife invests in companies and projects that focus on the conservation of natural resources, the production and discovery of alternative energy sources, the implementation of clean air and water projects and other environmentally conscious business practices. These investments demonstrate how MetLife advances our New Frontier strategy by deploying capital into projects that seek to strengthen environmental resilience, reduce long‑term risk and support sustainable value creation.

For example:

• MetLife installed solar panels on the rooftop of its Fairmont Hotel investment in Washington, D.C. The solar panels generate renewable electricity that supplies the local power grid and decreases reliance on fossil fuels. The installation supports MetLife’s broader efforts to reduce its overall carbon footprint by contributing to a greener grid.
• As part of a financing agreement, MetLife partnered with Resource Management Service, LLC, on behalf of investors to enroll thousands of acres in a Working Forest Conservation Easement (WFCE) funded by the U.S. Forest Service in partnership with South Carolina Forest Commission. The WFCE preserves sensitive lands vital to clean water, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, while also supporting rural economies dependent on timber resources for economic development.

Impact Investments

Since the MetLife Impact Investment program’s inception in 1984, MetLife has committed approximately $1 billion, with an average of $40.9 million annually for the past 10 years. The program’s investments are made with the intent to generate positive financial returns alongside measurable social and environmental outcomes, such as supporting financial health and climate resilience. These impact investments are originated solely for MetLife and MetLife Foundation. See For Our Communities for more information about MetLife Foundation’s work.

• Through our General Account (GA) portfolio, MetLife is a lender to the Lendable Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Fintech Credit Fund II, which aims to expand financing for micro, small and medium enterprises and consumers by lending to fintechs in frontier and emerging markets. Lendable’s work supports access to fair financial resources that unlock consistent access to food, clean water, electricity, shelter, education and income.

Read more about our responsible investments in MetLife’s 2025 Sustainability Report.

 

^{1 At estimated fair value as of December 31, 2025. See the Glossary for responsible investments definitions.}

^{2 Green investments include MetLife Real Estate and Agriculture investments.}

^{3 Represents impact investments originated solely for MetLife’s GA investment portfolio and MetLife Foundation.}

^{4 Railway News (July 2025). https://railwaynews.net/portugal-high-speed-rail-lisbon-porto-line-funding-impact.html. Accessed February 2026.}

Originally published on Whispp

The project brought Whispp’s audio-to-audio Voice Reconstruction AI together with the on-device processing capabilities of Snapdragon X Elite. Thirty participants across nine countries used the technology during everyday calls and online conversations, providing practical feedback on performance, usability, privacy and communication quality.

Download the white paper

Bringing real-time Voice Reconstruction AI onto the device

Live voice communication leaves little room for delay, unstable processing or interruptions. For Voice Reconstruction AI to feel natural in conversation, the system needs to process audio continuously and respond almost immediately.

Whispp reconstructs whispered or affected speech into a clear, natural voice without first converting it into text. By keeping the process audio-to-audio and running it locally, the technology is designed to preserve conversational timing, expression and elements of the speaker’s identity.

For the pilot, Whispp was optimized to run on the Snapdragon X Elite platform, using its dedicated Neural Processing Unit to support real-time Voice Reconstruction AI inference.

Why the NPU matters

Running Voice Reconstruction AI on a dedicated NPU can improve both performance stability and energy efficiency. This is especially relevant for technology that needs to operate continuously during calls rather than process a single prompt or isolated task.

Testing conducted during the pilot showed that Whispp maintained processing latency of approximately 48 to 50 milliseconds when running on the NPU. CPU-based execution showed greater variation, including latency spikes and disruptions during sustained processing.

The NPU also delivered substantially longer battery runtime in the test setup. Whispp ran for approximately 310 minutes on the NPU, compared with around 130 minutes during CPU-based processing under the same conditions.

“This collaboration with Qualcomm allowed us to test Whispp where the technology ultimately needs to perform: in real conversations, on the devices people already use. Running Voice Reconstruction AI efficiently on Snapdragon X Elite shows what becomes possible when this technology moves directly onto the device.”

Joris Castermans, Founder and CEO of Whispp

Click here to read more on Whispp

Francia Páramo, Director of Freight Forwarding in DP World in Mexico, was recognized in T21’s “100 Women in Transportation and Logistics 2026,” an annual list celebrating women who are shaping the future of Mexico’s transportation, logistics, and supply chain sectors through leadership, innovation, and professional excellence.

Published by T21, one of Mexico’s leading business media outlets covering transportation, logistics, supply chains, ports, and international trade, the recognition celebrates business leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and supply chain professionals whose careers have helped advance both their organizations and the broader logistics industry.

With more than 25 years of experience in logistics and international trade, Páramo has built a distinguished career in freight forwarding, business development, and strategic account management. Before joining DP World, she held leadership positions at global logistics companies including Kuehne+Nagel, Damco (Maersk), and CEVA Logistics, helping customers strengthen supply chains and expand international trade opportunities.

Today, as Director of Freight Forwarding at DP World in Mexico, Páramo leads the company’s freight forwarding business through an integrated end-to-end logistics model, providing solutions spanning air, ocean, and ground transportation, customs services, and supply chain management. Her leadership has strengthened DP World’s presence in strategic trade corridors supporting nearshoring and international commerce while delivering tailored logistics solutions for industries including automotive, retail, technology and consumer goods.

“Receiving this recognition is an honor because it reflects the incredible progress women are making across the logistics industry,” said Páramo. “As our industry continues to evolve, diverse perspectives and strong collaboration will be essential to building more resilient supply chains and creating opportunities for the next generation of leaders.”

Francia Páramo’s recognition reflects DP World’s broader commitment to fostering diverse leadership and creating opportunities for women across the logistics industry. By investing in talent and empowering leaders, DP World continues to strengthen the teams driving smarter, more connected global trade.

Learn more about the people driving innovation and shaping the future of logistics at DP World.

Purpose. Profit. Politics. Few business leaders have spent more time at the intersection of all three than Matthew McCarthy.

As former CEO of Ben & Jerry’s and a longtime leader at Unilever, he’s spent decades navigating the collision of competing stakeholder expectations, public pressure, and business performance.

On ‘It Shouldn’t Be This Hard’, we talk to business leaders, sustainability professionals, and social impact entrepreneurs working at the intersection of purpose and performance—hosting lively, playful (and often provocative) discussions around why sometimes it’s so hard to do the right thing… and do the right things.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Matthew McCarthy, we tackle anti-woke backlash, the monetization of conflict, the collapse of trust, and the difficult reality of leadership in a world where outrage is increasingly stoked over collaboration and progress.

Listen to Part 2 of the interview here.

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Grounded is a multi-award-winning, B Corp certified brand activation agency — thriving at the intersection of brand experience, commercial innovation, sustainability and social impact. They work with brands, retailers, startups and nonprofits all over the world, helping them transform purpose into profit, commercialize sustainability and drive positive behavior change at scale. Learn more.

NEW YORK, July 21, 2026 /3BL/ – The 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report was released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and UNICEF. The report is the leading annual benchmark on global hunger, food access, and the affordability of healthy diets. Rotimy Djossaya, Chief Impact Officer with Action Against Hunger, available for interviews to discuss the findings.

The 2026 SOFI report, “Understanding and Addressing the High Costs of a Healthy Diet,” puts global hunger at 645 million people, 7.8% of the world’s population. This is a decrease of just 14 million from 2025’s estimate of 720 million. That decline is concentrated in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia; it does not reflect what is happening in Africa, where 309 million people, or 1 in 5, are hungry and 66.6% cannot afford a healthy diet. Without a sharp course correction, which includes reversing aid cuts, addressing conflict, and investing in climate-resilient food systems, the modest gains recorded elsewhere will not hold, and Africa’s trajectory will continue to worsen.

This year’s report also lands amid a prolonged funding crisis for humanitarian nutrition programs. In early 2025, the United States terminated roughly 90% of its foreign aid contracts, including $1.4 billion in emergency nutrition funding, and the effects are still unfolding. More than 13 million children across West and Central Africa alone are projected to suffer from malnutrition in 2026 as aid cuts push millions deeper into hunger. Supply chains for treatments like ready-to-use therapeutic food remain disrupted, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to push up global food prices, adding further risk for children already on the edge.

Key findings:

• For the first time on record, Africa has more hungry people than Asia: 309 million, or 1 in 5 people, compared with 292 million (6%) in Asia. Latin America and the Caribbean stand at 4.8% (32 million); Oceania at 8% (3.7 million).
• Africa’s hunger population has nearly doubled since 2010, from 171 million to 309 million in 2025, driven by conflict, displacement, climate shocks, and economic instability in countries including Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Nigeria.
• Nearly one in three people worldwide (32.7%) cannot afford a healthy diet. In Africa, that figure is two in three (66.6%) – more than double the rate in Asia (28.9%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (25.7%).
• Official Development Assistance from DAC donor countries fell 23.1% in 2025 compared with 2024. Action Against Hunger was forced to close more than 50 projects across 20 countries as a result, cutting services to hundreds of thousands of people, most of them in Africa. In Madagascar, the organization closed 3 of its 5 sub-bases and 10 mobile clinics stopped operating, affecting treatment for over 5,000 children with acute malnutrition. In Burkina Faso, 6 of 8 bases closed between 2025 and 2026.

“When 645 million people are hungry, that’s cause for concern. Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that this figure doesn’t yet count the ways that rising inflation, current conflicts, El Niño and other climate shocks are making hunger even worse,” said Rotimy Djossaya, Chief Impact Officer for Action Against Hunger USA.

***

Action Against Hunger leads the global movement to end hunger. We innovate solutions, advocate for change, and reach 26.5 million people every year with proven hunger prevention and treatment programs. As a nonprofit that works across over 55 countries, our 8,500+ dedicated staff members partner with communities to address the root causes of hunger, including climate change, conflict, inequity, and emergencies. We strive to create a world free from hunger, for everyone, for good.

Spokesperson available. 

CONTACT:
Kara Green
kgreen@actionagainsthunger.org

This article is authored by Santiago Martinez, Lab Manager & Core Refrigeration Lead, Trane Technologies.

If something still works, I don’t throw it away and buy something new. So, when I joined the Thermo King laboratory in Barcelona and saw that we were buying new refrigerant, running tests and then sending the used refrigerant to be destroyed, it didn’t sit right. It wasn’t sustainable, environmentally or financially.

We were paying twice — once for the new refrigerant and again to destroy the old one. Each time I signed off on another order, I thought: We’re throwing away something that still has value.

I knew something had to change.

The hidden waste problem in refrigerant testing

In engineering, we’re taught that system performance depends on the purity of the working fluid. As refrigerant circulates through a system, it picks up contaminants — mainly oil from the compressor and moisture from small leaks. Oil, in particular, degrades performance. It doesn’t transfer heat the way refrigerant does, so a contaminated charge won’t deliver the precision needed for certification testing.

That’s why the standard practice has always been to use new refrigerant. Clean input, reliable output. However, I’d seen a different approach work before. In an earlier role at Thermo King, I worked on marine refrigeration systems, where we routinely recovered and reused refrigerant. Marine compressors have very low oil circulation rates, so what you recover is almost clean. Road transport systems are different. Those compressors push much more oil into the system, so the recovered refrigerant is genuinely contaminated. That’s why we defaulted to buying new. Once I understood that, the next question was simple: what would it take to clean it properly?

Finding the solution in existing technology

I started talking to colleagues and suppliers and found that the technology already existed. Industrial processes can clean refrigerant and restore its chemical composition if it has shifted during recovery. That matters because refrigerant blends can separate. The most volatile components are recovered first, so unless you achieve a full recovery, the composition changes. Regeneration corrects for that.

There was some initial skepticism, but my team was open to trying something new, especially as it contributed to more sustainable practices. Together, we partnered with specialists who could remove contaminants, verify the composition and return the refrigerant for reuse. And so, our new system was born.

How the regenerative process works

Our process is straightforward, but technically rigorous at each step.

Before adopting this system as standard practice, we ran extensive side-by-side comparisons — new refrigerant against regenerated refrigerant, across multiple units and conditions. We only moved forward once the technicians working with these systems every day confirmed it performed to the same standard as new.

VIDEO: How Regenerative Refrigerant is Driving Circularity in Barcelona

Refrigerant regeneration process

1. Filling the units
The units are filled with refrigerant, using regenerated stock when available.

2. Recovery
After testing, the used refrigerant is collected, stored in 50 kg cylinders, and sent to our supplier once full.

3. Industrial cleaning
Our specialist partner removes oil, moisture and other contaminants using industrial separation equipment.

4. Composition calibration
If minor variations occur, the composition can be adjusted to match the original specifications.

5. Chromatography verification
A full chemical analysis confirms the refrigerant meets AHRI 700 standards’ purity levels. Any that do not must be destroyed, though none have failed since the process was implemented.

6. Reuse
The refrigerant is returned to the lab and reused in the testing cycle as new.

The cost and emissions impact of refrigerant regeneration

The shift to regenerative refrigerant delivered measurable benefits across three closely tracked areas.

• 5-10% – Loss per cycle, the rest stays in circulation
• 80% – Less expensive per kg than new refrigerant
• CO2e – Significantly lower emissions, we only buy new once

We now handle around 200–300 kg of refrigerant per year in the Barcelona lab. That’s a modest volume in the grand scheme of things. But the impact is visible. There’s a clear reduction in both cost and in the kilograms of new refrigerant purchased, contributing to Trane Technologies’ Gigaton Challenge — our commitment to reduce one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from customers’ carbon footprints by 2030.

Sustainability beyond the lab

Of course, our lab is one small part of a much larger, global sustainability effort. But this work shows that meaningful change doesn’t always require a mandate or breakthrough technology. For our team in Barcelona, it started by noticing something wasteful and asking whether there was a better way.

To me, this is what circularity looks like in practice. Not as a single initiative, but as something built into our daily work, decision by decision, to challenge what’s possible for a more sustainable world.

See how we’re making sustainability scalable – Read our latest Sustainability Report

This article is authored by Santiago Martinez, Lab Manager & Core Refrigeration Lead, Trane Technologies.

If something still works, I don’t throw it away and buy something new. So, when I joined the Thermo King laboratory in Barcelona and saw that we were buying new refrigerant, running tests and then sending the used refrigerant to be destroyed, it didn’t sit right. It wasn’t sustainable, environmentally or financially.

We were paying twice — once for the new refrigerant and again to destroy the old one. Each time I signed off on another order, I thought: We’re throwing away something that still has value.

I knew something had to change.

The hidden waste problem in refrigerant testing

In engineering, we’re taught that system performance depends on the purity of the working fluid. As refrigerant circulates through a system, it picks up contaminants — mainly oil from the compressor and moisture from small leaks. Oil, in particular, degrades performance. It doesn’t transfer heat the way refrigerant does, so a contaminated charge won’t deliver the precision needed for certification testing.

That’s why the standard practice has always been to use new refrigerant. Clean input, reliable output. However, I’d seen a different approach work before. In an earlier role at Thermo King, I worked on marine refrigeration systems, where we routinely recovered and reused refrigerant. Marine compressors have very low oil circulation rates, so what you recover is almost clean. Road transport systems are different. Those compressors push much more oil into the system, so the recovered refrigerant is genuinely contaminated. That’s why we defaulted to buying new. Once I understood that, the next question was simple: what would it take to clean it properly?

Finding the solution in existing technology

I started talking to colleagues and suppliers and found that the technology already existed. Industrial processes can clean refrigerant and restore its chemical composition if it has shifted during recovery. That matters because refrigerant blends can separate. The most volatile components are recovered first, so unless you achieve a full recovery, the composition changes. Regeneration corrects for that.

There was some initial skepticism, but my team was open to trying something new, especially as it contributed to more sustainable practices. Together, we partnered with specialists who could remove contaminants, verify the composition and return the refrigerant for reuse. And so, our new system was born.

How the regenerative process works

Our process is straightforward, but technically rigorous at each step.

Before adopting this system as standard practice, we ran extensive side-by-side comparisons — new refrigerant against regenerated refrigerant, across multiple units and conditions. We only moved forward once the technicians working with these systems every day confirmed it performed to the same standard as new.

VIDEO: How Regenerative Refrigerant is Driving Circularity in Barcelona

Refrigerant regeneration process

1. Filling the units
The units are filled with refrigerant, using regenerated stock when available.

2. Recovery
After testing, the used refrigerant is collected, stored in 50 kg cylinders, and sent to our supplier once full.

3. Industrial cleaning
Our specialist partner removes oil, moisture and other contaminants using industrial separation equipment.

4. Composition calibration
If minor variations occur, the composition can be adjusted to match the original specifications.

5. Chromatography verification
A full chemical analysis confirms the refrigerant meets AHRI 700 standards’ purity levels. Any that do not must be destroyed, though none have failed since the process was implemented.

6. Reuse
The refrigerant is returned to the lab and reused in the testing cycle as new.

The cost and emissions impact of refrigerant regeneration

The shift to regenerative refrigerant delivered measurable benefits across three closely tracked areas.

• 5-10% – Loss per cycle, the rest stays in circulation
• 80% – Less expensive per kg than new refrigerant
• CO2e – Significantly lower emissions, we only buy new once

We now handle around 200–300 kg of refrigerant per year in the Barcelona lab. That’s a modest volume in the grand scheme of things. But the impact is visible. There’s a clear reduction in both cost and in the kilograms of new refrigerant purchased, contributing to Trane Technologies’ Gigaton Challenge — our commitment to reduce one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from customers’ carbon footprints by 2030.

Sustainability beyond the lab

Of course, our lab is one small part of a much larger, global sustainability effort. But this work shows that meaningful change doesn’t always require a mandate or breakthrough technology. For our team in Barcelona, it started by noticing something wasteful and asking whether there was a better way.

To me, this is what circularity looks like in practice. Not as a single initiative, but as something built into our daily work, decision by decision, to challenge what’s possible for a more sustainable world.

See how we’re making sustainability scalable – Read our latest Sustainability Report

NEW YORK, July 20, 2026 /3BL/ – In recognition of World Cleft Awareness Day, Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona are celebrating a major milestone in their partnership—the 7,000th cleft surgery enabled since 2021—and sharing new data that quantifies its impact well beyond the operating room.

Behind that single number sits a wider story the partners are telling for the first time. Alongside the surgeries themselves, Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona are now sharing the long-term economic and human impact of this work as clear evidence that restoring a child’s smile reverberates through families, communities, and economies for decades.

Impact that outlasts the operating room

Using the framework of Smile Train’s Economic Impact Report, the surgeries enabled by Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona between 2021 and 2025 are projected to generate more than $470 million in economic value over the patients’ lifetimes. The figure reflects a straightforward truth: a child who can eat, speak, and breathe normally can go to school, find work, and contribute fully to their family and community—opportunities an untreated cleft can quietly foreclose.

The same surgeries are estimated to have averted more than 45,000 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)—a standard global-health measure in which one DALY represents one year of healthy life lost to disease or disability. Put simply, this work has restored the equivalent of more than 45,000 years of healthy living to children who might otherwise have spent them struggling to eat, speak, or breathe.

“When you give a child cleft care, you give them back their childhood,” said Susannah Schaefer, President and CEO of Smile Train. “On top of that, you give a community a future contributor. The economic impact we’re sharing today puts a value on how a healed cleft changes a life, and changed lives change the world around them.”

An impact built to last

Founded in 2021, the five-year partnership between Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona is focused on advancing digital cleft care globally, combining Smile Train’s global network of trained local providers with Dentsply Sirona’s digital dental technologies and know-how. Rather than delivering care through short-term surgical missions, the partners invest in local clinicians and equipment so that safe, high-quality, comprehensive cleft care is available in communities year-round.

“Behind every one of these 7,000 surgeries is a child who can now eat, speak, and smile without barriers, and a family whose future just changed,” said Rainer Seemann, VP, Chief Clinical Officer at Dentsply Sirona. “What moves me most is that this is not charity in the traditional sense. By equipping local clinicians with digital solutions and training, we’re building care that takes root in the community and stays there. That’s the kind of impact our people are proud to stand behind.”

The milestone is being marked on World Cleft Awareness Day, observed July 20, which spotlights the diverse experiences of the global cleft community and the importance of comprehensive medical, emotional, and social support. Cleft conditions are common—impacting roughly one in every 700 children worldwide—yet remain widely misunderstood, and in many regions timely, comprehensive care is still difficult to access even though proven solutions exist.

About Smile Train

Smile Train empowers local medical professionals with training, funding, and resources to provide free cleft surgery and comprehensive cleft care to children globally. We advance a sustainable solution and scalable global health model for cleft treatment, drastically improving children’s lives, including their ability to eat, breathe, speak and ultimately thrive. To learn more about how Smile Train’s sustainable approach means donations have both an immediate and long-term impact, please visit smiletrain.org.

About Dentsply Sirona

Dentsply Sirona is the world’s largest diversified manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, with over a century of innovation and service to the dental industry and patients worldwide. Dentsply Sirona develops, manufactures, and markets a comprehensive solutions offering including dental and oral health products as well as other consumable medical devices under a strong portfolio of world-class brands. Dentsply Sirona’s innovative products provide high-quality, effective and connected solutions to advance patient care and deliver better and safer dental care. Dentsply Sirona is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Company’s shares are listed in the United States on Nasdaq under the symbol XRAY. Visit www.dentsplysirona.com for more information about Dentsply Sirona and its products.

Media Contact

Emily Gay | Public Relations
egay@smiletrain.org | (561) 308-0089

NEW YORK, July 20, 2026 /3BL/ – Lenovo Foundation and Street Child United (SCU) celebrated two exceptional young leaders, Samantha Richards and Deyna Mamani Meji, with the presentation of tickets to the FIFA World Cup 2026™ Final, recognizing their leadership, resilience and commitment to creating positive change in their communities. The special presentation took place in New York and featured Sir David Beckham, alongside Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang, Gina Qiao, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Strategy Officer at Lenovo, SCU President and Founder John Wroe and SCU Head of Sponsorship Devin Moss.

The experience highlights Lenovo Foundation’s partnership with Street Child United, an organization that uses the power of sport to ensure street-connected young people are seen, heard and able to influence the decisions that affect their lives.

As part of the partnership, Lenovo Foundation is supporting Street Child United’s mission through technology access, digital skills development and funding initiatives designed to help young people develop critical skills for the future. Support includes donations of Motorola smartphones to help participants stay connected and share their stories, Lenovo PCs for SCU Young Leaders and staff, and funding for AI digital literacy training.

The two Young Leaders honored today were selected from Street Child United’s Young Leaders Program, which supports former participants who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and a deep commitment to their communities. As champions for the rights of street-connected young people, they represent the voices and experiences of their communities on national and international stages.

“At Lenovo Foundation, we believe that access to technology and education can unlock opportunity and transform lives,” said Calvin J. Crosslin, Vice President, Chief Inclusion Officer and President of Lenovo Foundation. “These two young leaders represent the extraordinary potential that exists in young people everywhere when they are given the tools, support and opportunity to succeed. Through our partnership with Street Child United, we are helping equip young leaders with the skills and technology they need to tell their stories, strengthen their communities and shape their futures. It is an honor to celebrate their achievements on one of the world’s biggest stages.”

John Wroe, CEO of Street Child United said: “We are delighted that Lenovo Foundation are providing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to our Young Leaders. Partnerships like this are vital in helping us turn create opportunity for street-connected young people.”

The recognition builds on Lenovo Foundation’s broader support of Street Child United, including the donation of Lenovo PCs and Motorola smartphones and $25,000 in funding support for AI digital literacy training for SCU Young Leaders.

The partnership aligns with Lenovo Foundation’s mission to provide access to technology and education for communities that need it most while demonstrating how sport has the power to enable inclusion, opportunity and social impact around the world.

By combining the global reach of sport with access to technology and digital skills, Lenovo Foundation and Street Child United are helping ensure that young people from underserved communities have the opportunity to develop as leaders, advocates and changemakers.

Read more here about Lenovo’s partnership with FIFA and the FIFA World Cup 2026™.

Authors: Tannaz Daruwalla, Leonardo Tibaquira, Miquel Jordana (republished with permission of Accion)

Every morning in El Alto, Bolivia, Yoselin has dozens of financial considerations to think about before her first customer arrives. How much oil should she buy this week? Will rising food prices cut into her profits again? Will there be enough left at the end of the month to support her family?

At just 26 years old, Yoselin runs a small storefront where she serves salchipapas — a local dish of sausage and fries — and hamburgers to her customers, primarily young people from the surrounding community. She started the business to generate additional income for her family, but like many first-time entrepreneurs, she quickly discovered that hard work alone is not always enough to sustain and grow a business.

Managing and tracking inventory was time-consuming, producing high-quality food for her growing customer base was demanding, and she also had to contend with rising costs for her ingredients, making planning unpredictable. And like many small business owners operating informally, she relied mostly on instinct to manage expenses and cash flow.

That began to change when she connected with BancoSol, Accion’s longtime partner in Bolivia. Through BancoSol, Yoselin accessed a small business loan that helped stabilize her operations and invest more confidently in her business. She also participated in Ovante, Accion’s digital financial capability program supported by FedEx, designed for microentrepreneurs to strengthen financial skills and decision-making through practical, accessible learning.

These may sound like small changes, but for entrepreneurs operating on very thin margins, understanding cash flow and planning ahead can make the difference between surviving week to week and building long-term stability. The Ovante modules, offered to BancoSol’s customers via an online mobile platform and delivered in workshops, have had immediate benefits for women entrepreneurs like Yoselin. It has also proved beneficial for her family, including Yoselin’s mother, who was unfamiliar with the concept of formal budgeting for her household and business finances. 

Digital tools have further expanded Yoselin’s reach. Through WhatsApp groups, she now communicates with her customers to let them know when she’s open and what’s on the menu. Recently, Yoselin started experimenting with TikTok to attract new customers and build her brand. 

In communities like El Alto, where many women entrepreneurs operate informally and face constant economic uncertainty, access to practical financial tools can have a huge impact. The challenge is often not lack of ambition, but lack of access to tools, systems, and support that help microentrepreneurs make informed decisions and plan for growth. That is where programs like Ovante can play an important role. By combining financial education with digital accessibility, the platform helps entrepreneurs build not only technical knowledge, but also confidence and agency. 

With improved confidence and decision-making power, women entrepreneurs are better able to contribute to their household income and plan for the future. Yoselin is setting an example for other women in her community, demonstrating that small changes in financial habits can build resilience against economic uncertainty.

Ovante’s digital financial education, delivered in partnership with BancoSol, is more than just a learning platform; it’s a catalyst for positive change. Since 2020, Accion has launched Ovante in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, and India, reaching over 150,000 customers — two-thirds of whom are women.

Equipping microentrepreneurs with practical skills, confidence, and accessible tools enables them to thrive, adapt, and dream bigger in the face of adversity. For Yoselin, the transformation is deeply personal. She still faces rising costs and uncertainty, but today she approaches those challenges differently: with greater confidence, stronger financial habits, and a clearer vision for what her business, and her future, could become.

Click here to learn about FedEx Cares, our global community engagement program.