St. Louis’ largest fireworks show supports AGAPE and Wags & Whiskers
(St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 12, 2021) Sky Wars recently held its 16th annual invitational fireworks championship that collected canned food and raised more than $5,000 for two Warren County nonprofit organizations.
AGAPE collected 800 pounds of food, as well as held a raffle that raised $1,400 for the nonprofit. Dennis Holtzmann of Troy, Mo. won AGAPE’s raffle to help shoot one of the event’s signature fireballs.
Wags & Whiskers, formerly the Concerned Citizens for Animal Care of Warren County, raised $3,800 for its “Raise the Woof” campaign through event sponsorships and its fireball raffle.
AGAPE was founded in 1996 and provides food to individuals and families who face food insecurity. It is the only full-service nonprofit agency dedicated to hunger and poverty issues in Warren County, Mo. For more information, visit http://www.agapemo.org. Founded in 2001, Wags & Whiskers is working to establish a new no-kill animal shelter for the area. For more information, visit https://wags-whiskers.org.
“This is the second year Sky Wars partnered with nonprofits that are making a difference in their communities,” said Missouri Pyrotechnics Association (MOPyro) Vice President Rob Cima. “We are proud to support these two agencies and their contributions to Warren County.”
Pictured in the first row from left to right are Wags & Whiskers’ fireball winners Samantha Boyd with her mother Kathryn Hillenburg from Warren County, Mo. They are pictured with Elliot Moss and Fireball Dudes’ Scott Key and Bill Corbett.
Sky Wars, which is presented by the nonprofit Missouri Pyrotechnics Association, is the nation’s largest fireworks competition and one of the only pyrotechnic competitions in the U.S. Sky Wars features invitation-only pyrotechnicians who are among the nation’s top fireworks choreographers. For more information, call (314) 730-0793 or visit www.skywarsevent.com.
Mumbai, October 12, 2021: Primarc Pecan Retail Pvt Ltd is India’s only end-to-end E-commerce Service Provider that offers brand partners the scope to amplify their online business offering.
These business solutions combined with marketplace specific marketing services, warehousing and fulfilment alongside data analytics help brands increase sales and enhance customer experiences. The wide spectrum of e-commerce marketplace management services that Primarc Pecan offers brand partners includes managing marketplace relationships, marketplace-specific listing, cataloguing, promotions, selling strategy, digital marketing, content enhancement, brand store creation etc.
Primarc Pecan’s marketplace management services are complemented by the host of fulfilment services that include warehousing, inventory optimisation, flex services, customer service and order tracking to name a few.
Primarc Pecan offers its brand partners digital marketing services like social media content and creatives, performance marketing and search engine optimization that help in enhancing brand awareness and visibility on search engines, enabling brands to not only reach wider audiences but also give them countless opportunities to connect with their customers. They also provide expertise on marketplace specific marketing and advertising services and end-to-end D2C site management facilities that include technical and operational support, management and optimization, customer service and analytics.
The services offered have been designed to enable brand partners to drive sales, increase order values, conversion rates, and repeat business, by leveraging relevant technological tools. Besides harnessing the powerful tool of technology, some of the roadmap features that support brands to scale up business among peers include multiple online marketplaces, micro-management, plug-and-play models, and end-to-end solutions.
Ankur Dayal, CEO & Co-Founder – Primarc Pecan Pvt Ltd adds, I believe we have only scratched the surface as of now, and that there is a lot more to be done in terms of the quantum of work and innovation for long-term industry growth. Considering the industry’s massive scope, an integrated approach has been a key strategic goal for the company. We intend to spend time and resources developing analytical and operational tools that are technology-driven and more automated to offer the highest level of efficiency to our clients. By availing these services, brands associated with our integrated marketing solutions will be able to offer consistent and personalized experiences to their end users”.
About Primarc Pecan:
Primarc Pecan Retail Pvt Ltd is India’s only end-to-end E-commerce Service Provider. Offering E-Commerce Business Solutions across geographies, the Mumbai-headquartered Primarc Pecan partners with brands to increase the scope of their online business: providing Ecommerce management services, fulfilment solutions, and digital marketing services. Primarc Pecan, presently handles Marketplace Management for over 70 brands, of different services in this domain which includes marketplaces & D2C. The organisation offers its e-commerce management expertise to help brands reach a much larger potential customer base across online marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, PayTM, Snapdeal, Myntra, Nykaa and others.
Mumbai, October 12, 2021: Agrim Housing Finance Company, India’s only housing finance company which is 100% dedicated to providing home loans to the informal, self-employed lower income group, has launched www.apnagharkhoj.com, a dedicated website for affordable homes in the range of Rs 5 to Rs 50 lakhs. The website was unveiled by a customer of Agrim Housing Finance from Kalyan, Ajay Kumar Pandey.
The multilingual website lists projects and homes by builders specialising in affordable housing solutions to those seeking to invest in their dream home on a relatively low budget. It presently features over 300 properties from 250 builders in 4 locations namely Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Indore. The platform plans to host more than 10,000 builder projects who are not part of the formal ecosystem of digital property search, by December 2022.
Speaking on the launch, Dr. Malcolm Athaide, CEO and co-founder of Agrim HFC said “ApnaGharKhoj is our endeavour to reach the maximum number of customers and give them an easily accessible service to fulfil their dream of owing a home. We are also able to provide smaller builders, who are not able to showcase their properties on other larger platforms, an avenue to reach out to their target audience.”
AphaGharKhoj offers a GREEN rating to projects, which enable the home buyers to understand the environment consciousness of the project they are investing in.
Agrim HFC has disrupted the housing loan market with its unique service standards catering exclusively to the informal and self-employed sector in India. It operates on three important pillars i.e. Find My Home, Finance My Home & Improve my Livelihood. ApnaGharKhoj, address the needs of the first pillar, where any homebuyer looking exclusively for an affordable home, can find a home of his choice easily on the website and then has an option to finance the purchase through Agrim HFC and improve his livelihood with better access to opportunities.
Background:
Agrim Housing Finance Company (Agrim HFC), registered under The Reserve Bank of India and regulated by National Housing Board, is India’s first housing finance company which is 100% dedicated to providing home loans to the informal, self-employed lower income group. Adopting new age technology to provide easy and quick access to home loans Agrim HFC aims to fulfil the home ownership dream of the millions of Indians who have thus far faced difficulties accessing finance. Agrim HFC is able to provide easy housing finance solutions to individuals who are unable to prove their creditworthiness under the formal financial matrix. (i.e. small business owners, employees, blue collar workers etc.)
Using 42 algorithm-based scorecards at present, with supervised machine learning, our application works on B2C model with easy-to-follow process that takes into the account the income of all the earning members in a family, which enhances the edibility of getting a home loan. The company has presence in 4 cities, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and in Indore.
Hyderabad, October 12, 2021: Telangana Chamber of Events Industry (TCEI) a not-for-profit professional organization formed by the representatives of various stakeholders in the Event and Entertainment industry presented TCEI’s 4th Stri Shakti Awards 2021 to Women achievers from the most unusual fields, in the events industry vertical.
The 40 awards were presented in a glittering ceremony held on Tuesday evening at HICC to both professionals and entrepreneurs who are contributing to the Event, Culture, Entertainment and related industries. The awards were presented in three categories: Stri Murthy, Stri Shakthi and Stri Ratna.
Smt. Kalvakuntla Kavitha, Smt S. Vani Devi, MLC; graced as the Chief Guest.Ms Smita Sabharwal IAS, Secretary to Chief Minister, Telangana State; Ms. Karuna Vakati, IAS, Commissioner of Public Health and Family Welfare, Telangana Stage, Ms. Deepthi Ravula, CEO of We Hub and Dr. S. Shantha Kumari, President FOGSI were guests of honour.
Speaking on the occasion after inaugurating the awards function by lighting the lamp and unveiling the logo of the TCEI-WE Hub Mentor Me Program, Kavitha said Women entrepreneurs of Telangana have been making study contributions to the development of Telangana State. The number of enterprises including MSME in India is around 6 crores. Only 15% are owned by women. 80% of women, fund their own enterprises. A small portion of 20% had access to funding. Access to funding is crucial to success. So she asked all those present in the hall to think about how we can help more women entrepreneurs’ access funding. Ms. Kavitha also told women to share their stories, their struggles, who knows they may inspire some, she added.
Kavitha Kalvakunta seen present TCEI Stri Murthi Award to Anusha Asst Engineer
Ms. Kavitha gave away awards to Mrs. Vinobha Devi, the first Chief Engineer of Mission Bhageeratha; Anusha, an Engineer and Ms. Pushpalatha, Executive Engineer Mission Bhagiratha, who supplied water to many households in Khammam and others. Mas. Smita Sabharwal and Ms. Vani Devi and others gave away awards to the other recipients.
Earlier Kavitha joined 20 women from Sri Mallikarjuna Swamy Mahila Shivasatthual Bonala Kolatam Brundam from Jangaom and played Bathukamma. They played bathukamma to the beat of 5 Dappu Artists.
Speaking on the occasion Ms. Smita Sabharwal said it is an excellent way of celebrating women’s achievements. The recognition must be extended to different professions in the future editions. Please also pick up few farmers for the awards she said.
Welcoming the gathering and giving her opening remarks, Ms. Rakhi Kankaria, President of TCEI said 40 distinguished women from across India are bestowed with the honours in three different categories–Stri Murti Awards, Stri Ratna and Stri Shakti Awards.
The awards are presented every year on the eve of Bathukamma, a cultural festival of Telangana State to celebrate the spirit of women, she added.
Rakhi Kankaria further said it is the most sought after honour to the deserving women of our industry as there is no platform to recognize their talent exclusively in the event industry.
Though women comprise 30 per cent of the event industry, they are the most creative brains behind many successful events and the creativity, still, recognition eludes them, she added.
The Events Industry in India and globally has undergone major changes in the past two decades. The Indian events industry is expected to cross Rs 10,000 crore by 2020-21 as per reports of CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate). However, I feel that this number is much larger as we are yet to streamline the data collection in this diverse and largely unorganized industry.
The event industry shares excellent synergies with Tourism, Culture and Entertainment sectors. It enhances destination profile, creates platforms for business and society partnerships, builds vibrant community, enhances visitor economy and stimulates infrastructure.
TCEI was launched in 2015 by Shri KT Rama Rao to bring all the diverse industry stakeholders into events under one platform. We are now a 7 years old nonprofit association, with 200 plus members and 7 representing allied associations.
We are also launching chronicling TCEI’s journey.
One of the areas of our focus is to strengthen women leadership in events.
The awards have been selected by a professional jury member, after a 2 levels of screening. Out of 150 plus applications, TCEI selected 40 across the awards segments – StriShatji, Stri Murti and StriRatna. The award winners represent both entrepreneurs and professionals.
TCEI- WE HUB Mentor Me program which was launch was aimed at grooming more women leadership in the event industry.
We need to mentor them and guide them. We needed mentors who just don’t give them the tasks to complete but to take extra moments of the action or decision so that they can better educate themselves towards professional advancement informed Rakhi.
Kruti Parekh mentalist gave her performance. She is India’s first test-tube baby at birth.
TCEI is an umbrella organization of Event Management, Wedding Planners, Entertainers, Exhibitions, Sound /Light/Video, Production, Venues, Caterers and other facilitators. Under its fold are 6 Associations viz., Telangana Event Managers Association (TEMA), Telangana Sound Light Video Association (TSLVA), and Telangana Facilitators Association (TFA), Telangana Event Caterers Association (TECA), Telangana Event Venues Association (TEVA) and Telangana Entertainers Association (TEA)
Mumbai, 12th October 2021: To deliver essential banking services conveniently to a larger section of consumers living in relatively far-off areas, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd (KMBL) today announced the launch of Micro ATMs across the country. Customers of all banks who possess a debit card can use a Kotak Micro ATM for key banking services such as cash withdrawals and checking account balances. A mini version of an ATM, micro ATMs are small handheld devices.
KMBL is using its extensive Business Correspondents (BC) network to launch micro ATMs. The Business Correspondent could be a shopkeeper for instance, who will act as a convenient touchpoint for customers and assist them with the transaction. Using their debit card and PIN, customers can conduct transactions instantly through the Kotak micro ATM. The micro ATM is connected to the core banking network using the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology.
Puneet Kapoor, President – Products, Alternate Channels and Customer Experience Delivery, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “The micro ATM is a simple, innovative and highly effective solution to deliver essential banking services such as cash withdrawals in a convenient manner to people residing in relatively remote locations. It is a viable alternative to a regular ATM, allowing for faster expansion and increasing banking touchpoints for consumers. Kotak’s network of micro ATMs across the country will help customers of all banks (Kotak and non-Kotak customers) get easy access to their bank accounts and promote financial inclusion.”
In the first phase, KMBL is introducing micro ATMs in the outskirts of the top 8 metro cities – locations where the demand for cash withdrawal services is high but the prevalence of ATMs is low.
About Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited
Established in 1985, Kotak Mahindra Group is one of India’s leading financial services conglomerates. In February 2003, Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd. (KMFL), the Group’s flagship company, received banking license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), becoming the first non-banking finance company in India to convert into a bank – Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.
The Bank has four Strategic Business Units – Consumer Banking, Corporate Banking, Commercial Banking and Treasury, which cater to retail and corporate customers across urban and rural India. The premise of Kotak Mahindra Group’s business model is concentrated India, diversified financial services. The bold vision that underscores the Group’s growth is an inclusive one, with a host of products and services designed to address the needs of the unbanked and insufficiently banked. As on 30th June, 2021, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd has a national footprint of 1,612 branches and 2,591 ATMs, and branches in GIFT City and DIFC (Dubai).
For more information, please visit the company’s website at https://www.kotak.com/.
Cutting Development time by 80%, Cogniteam’s Nimbus Operating System “Delivers a seamless user experience from development, to deployment, and allows for lifetime over-the-air in-field maintenance.” Said Cogniteam co-founder and CEO, Dr. Yehuda Elmaliah.
Addressing the current robotic development challenges, Cogniteam released its Nimbus operating system to offer developers a seamless drag n’ drop experience. This will allow for rapid integration of spatial awareness tools, obstacle identification, navigation systems, cameras, LiDar, and more.
For over a decade, Cogniteam has helped companies solve complex robotics problems by developing unique software solutions for their state-of-the-art hardware. To help fast-track the robotic revolution and allow greater access to their insights, Cogniteam developed Nimbus, a high-level operating system that delivers a seamless user experience from development to deployment. Now, as hardware engineers develop the physical aspects of the robots, they can upload the blueprints into Nimbus and allow software teams to program the robot in a simulated environment. “By allowing hardware and software teams to work in tandem, instead of having one team wait for the other, teams can cut the time needed to test new versions in the field and bring their product to market 80% faster,” said Dr. Nachum Kaminka, CFO of Cogniteam. “This dramatically decreases development time and cost.”
Nimbus offers pre-developed drivers and software packages in a drag n’ drop environment, making it easy to incorporate advanced sensors and complicated features. It also integrates with the open-source Robotic Operating System (ROS) and other 3rd party resources. “In the past, hardware-focused teams would focus their resources on developing the physical aspects of the robot. They become tied down by the unexpectedly complex nature of robotic software development,” said Dr. Yehuda Elmaliah, CEO of Cogniteam. “The Nimbus cloud-based platform makes it possible to share robot access through multiple teams, allowing software and hardware developers to work together during development and even troubleshoot in-field challenges, remotely.”
Nimbus has already helped numerous beta test companies to reduce the development time and reach the market in a fraction of the time, shifting from today’s development cycle of 6 years to only 1.5 years. This platform has already been adopted by partners such as AAEON and Adlink.
“Our recent funding round, led by Andrew Owens, Founder & CEO of Seabarn Management, and Panthera home office, has allowed us to extend our product to new companies around the globe and scale robotic development and deployment,” said Dr. Nachum Kaminka, Co-Founder & CFO of Cogniteam. “We are excited by the positive response and the ability to share 11 years of robotics insight with the greater robotic community.”
Calicut, India – October 12th, 2021 – Global payments provider Blackhawk Network announced its acquisition of Rybbon, a leading digital rewards platform based in Washington DC, USA and in Calicut, Kerala, India. With this partnership, Blackhawk puts the power of its scale and experience as the incentives industry leader behind Rybbon’s SaaS-based platform to make digital rewards more delightful, impactful, and easy to integrate into workflows. For users of today’s top business platforms, this solution enables users to simply add rewards directly into their program workflows. The integrated rewards offering joins Blackhawk’s suite of incentive platforms supporting more than $5B in rewards issued annually. To date, Rybbon has over 1,100 customers on the rewards platform, managing over 50,000 campaigns that have delivered rewards to recipients in 160 countries. By joining with Blackhawk, Rybbon can tap into the power of a global reward offering, expanding reach and choice for recipients.
“This is an exciting disruption to the incentives industry,” said Jeff Haughton, SVP, Incentives, Corporate Development & Strategy at Blackhawk Network. “We couldn’t be more thrilled about this acquisition, which builds on Blackhawk’s legacy of helping businesses across the globe leverage payments and rewards to drive brand engagement, loyalty, and growth. Amid increasing demand for digital rewards and streamlined operational efficiency, an integrated rewards platform like Rybbon can drive results and save program administrators time. We are looking forward to building on Rybbon’s success.”
“We are thrilled to join the Blackhawk team so we can expand upon our vision to make rewarding customers and employees easy, delightful and impactful,” said Rajeev Veettil, CTO of Rybbon. “Blackhawk has long been a leader in payments and incentives. It’s scale, reach and deep experience in global incentives will make Rybbon the natural choice for companies looking to adopt a modern rewards management platform. As an industry pioneer, we are proud to carry on our legacy of innovation through the important work of our Center of Excellence team in delivering innovative rewards solutions that will shape the future of global branded payments.”
Rybbon’s India Centre of Excellence (CoE) based out of Calicut will play a critical role in building high-quality software based on modern cloud computing technologies to cater to the growing needs of global customers. The platform can be leveraged for marketing rewards, survey-taking incentives, employee rewards and holiday recognition, and is ripe for introduction into other widely used platforms, namely video communications platforms, remote workforce collaboration tools, enterprise HR systems and more. The solution offers a variety of digital prepaid and gift card rewards, which have been shown to be effective incentives for driving loyalty and motivation. Rybbon’s guided integrations and templates makes launching and managing rewards programs fast and simple. For international rewards recipients, users specify a reward value and each recipient’s reward choices are systemically curated based on their country, currency and applicable regulations.
The Rybbon team in Calicut will continue to shape the digital rewards management platform for customers and partners worldwide. It will also focus on hiring top talent across a broad set of technology, product and project management disciplines and experience levels. Blackhawk’s first Strategic Development Centre was launched in Bengaluru in 2019. With Rybbon’s acquisition, Calicut serves as the base for Blackhawk’s second CoE and further enhances the company’s ability to serve its customers.
Visit Rybbon online to learn more about integrations and use cases, and view the full reward selection, including a variety of employee and consumer rewards that can be offered digitally, such as egifts and virtual prepaid cards.
About Rybbon
Rybbon, a Blackhawk Network Business, puts the power of rewards to work for marketers and market researchers through its extensive catalog of e-gifts from top brands. Rybbon works great for international rewards programs, with options such as prepaid rewards that work in 160+ countries. Rybbon integrates with leading platforms to make rewarding easy and automatic. For more information, visit Rybbon at www.rybbon.net.
About Blackhawk Network
Blackhawk Network delivers branded payment solutions through the prepaid products, technologies and network that connect brands and people. We collaborate with our partners to innovate, translating market trends in branded payments to increase reach, loyalty and revenue. We reliably execute security-minded solutions worldwide. Join us as we shape the future of global branded payments. Learn more at blackhawknetwork.com.
By Somwya Sharma, Founder of Empowering plus magazine and Not Size Zero
It’s no secret that the plus-size community has long struggled to meet the fashion industry’s needs, being denied trend-forward clothing and being excluded from editorials and catwalk shows.
The plus-size community has often questioned why they are disregarded by major fashion designers, and you may be wondering why we have developed an obsession with plus-size things from high-end designers while overlooking modern manufacturers. Additionally, we should include all of the new, specialized plus-size firms that have increased access to the highest levels of fashion through stores and e-commerce sites, such as Not Size Zero, India’s largest plus-size couture fashion company.
Plus-size models Jeesha Chawdhary have collaborated with Not Size Zero founder and brand strategist Somwya Sharma.
Commenting on the same Somwya Sharma said, ”Not size zero is yet facing an issue in terms of making plus size women know what clothing will suit them according to their body shape.”
When a plus-size woman enters a branded store, she is frequently overlooked since it is difficult to change how society views and perceives her. Whether she chooses to ignore, upend, or internalize stereotypes is up to her. Although We are still working toward a society in which everyone can simply be.
While the rest of the world is busy sharing makeup tutorials on social media, Sameera Reddy continues to share her opinions on body positivity, self-love, and remaining active and healthy while flaunting her unfiltered look, which is pretty unusual in the age of filters. She urged people to be forgiving and supportive of their bodies, stating that she, too, has struggled with self-acceptance but is now wholly accepting of who she is.
Numbers knowingly ore unknowingly influence us, from the day we are born till we die. Without Numerology, Astrology, and other Metaphysical sciences can’t exist. Numerology and astrology can help you learn more about ourselves and guide us toward our goals.
Using the basic elements of numerology, we can start to clear out the clutter of life that might distract us from what we really want as it contains a lot of Information about the path we choose. In fact, our numerology number can validate not only who we are, but also the struggles we’ve been through by the help of our birth date whereas astrology relies not only on your birthday but also the place and time of your birth.
Now, coming back to the question of numbers, do we always have to live under the influence of numbers’ power over our lives? Is there nothing we can do about it?
In numerology, there are things called Universal Years which signifies a number that correlates with the year we’re currently in or the one we are going to be in soon.
When your life is tied with these combinations of ‘anti-numbers’, it is crucial to empower the numbers 1 and 5 in our lives.
We can do this by changing the spelling of our name or using a different phone number or by wearing a bracelet. Additionally, all this is to be done along with Vedic remedies and lifestyle changes.
Numerology is a belief system that numbers (from 1-9) have spiritual significance and symbolic meanings.
We are cognizant of the number and the energy it contains. Therefore, if your birthday is on the 17th, you were born with the number 8. It will have a distinct energy and will correspond to specific experiences in your life, as each number does.
Here are some numerology Diwali tips for you:
Number 1 – Donate warm clothing and shawls to the elderly.
Number 2 – Keeping two silver coins in your Diwali Pooja Thali
Number 3- This Diwali, plant a tree to receive Maa Saraswati’s blessings.
Number 4 – To Appease Rahu, feed the street dogs on a consistent basis.
Number 5 – Include five laddus in your Diwali Pooja Thali for Ganesh ji.
Number 6 -On Choti Diwali, donate sugar to a Gurudwara/mandir for prasad/langar.
Number 7 -Feed street dogs and cows on a daily basis to get Laxmi Ji’s blessings.
Number 8 -To Please Shani Dev this Diwali Keep a bowl of fresh water outside your house or balcony for animals and birds.
Number 9 – Keep a katori of Kesar Tilak in your Diwali Pooja thali.
