As the payments landscape evolves, financial institutions and other organizations must strive to stay consumer-centric and competitive.

The payments industry is currently undergoing significant disruption. Financial institutions, fintechs, and other organizations are all competing to keep up with customer expectations and to make payments faster, easier, and more convenient. This requires core infrastructure transformation, new product innovation, and adhering to the new regulations and legislations popping up to accommodate the industry’s transformation. Payments modernization has never been more important or diverse in strategic opportunity, choice for participation, and positioning organizations for the future.

Industry-wide disruption

“If you look back 10 or more years, the payments experience was characterized by quite a bit of friction for the end-user,” says Geoff Rush, Partner and National Industry Leader of Financial Services at KPMG in Canada, a leader in financial and payments services. “It took a lot of effort to complete a payment and often a lot of time for it to clear. What we’re seeing now is a lot of innovation to take that friction out of the process.”

Higher customer expectations are driving the trend. “Customers are expecting more on the service level, which includes the cost, efficiency, and visibility of their payments,” says Edwin Isted, Senior Manager at KPMG in Canada. And the non-traditional entrants into the payments ecosystem, big tech or fintechs, are shaking up the ecosystem significantly, forcing incumbent financial institutions to evolve and innovate.

Full-service payments support 

With organizations striving to meet customer expectations, stay competitive, and future-proof their businesses, they’re also now having to contend with new regulations and legislative changes around payment service providers, new digital currencies like crypto, and other disruptions. These compounding factors are driving an accelerated pace of innovation in payments, says Rush. That’s where KPMG comes in.

“We’re one of Canada’s largest professional services providers,” says Rush. “We’re well-known for our advisory, technology, and analytical services.”

Included in KPMG’s financial services management consulting business is its payments practice, which helps organizations manage risk, enhance regulatory compliance, optimize customer and digital strategies, and improve operations.

“Our payments team is industry-agnostic,” says Cody Greer, Senior Manager at KPMG in Canada. “We help both traditional payment clients — such as wholesale banks, commercial banks, investment banks, retail banks, central banks, card associations, and payment market infrastructures — as well as non-financial institutions like retailers, technology companies, fintechs, transit providers, and governments with payments transformation.

Embracing open banking

“One of the trends we’ve seen and which the Canadian market is about to embark on is open banking,” says Isted. Open banking refers to banking that provides third-party financial service providers open access to consumer banking, transaction, and other financial data from banks and non-bank financial institutions through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs). 

“Open banking is very interesting because we’ve seen a variety of models to enable it,” says Isted. “On the one end of the spectrum, you’ve got a pure legislative requirements-driven approach, while on the other end, you’ve got a purely market forces driven approach,  and then you have something in the middle which is sort of a hybrid of both. Open banking isn’t just about payments. It’s a fundamental change to many organizations in terms of how they view their data assets internally.”

“This is again about reducing friction and making lives easier for the end-customer,” says Rush.

What really separates us is the calibre of our people on an individual level. We’re the friendly firm and not only do we bring really great insights and help our clients achieve great results, we’re also great people to work with, and that’s hard to replicate.

Encouraging innovation   

“Modernizing the Canadian payments infrastructure can have enormous benefits to all Canadians, and other countries are already there,” says Rush. “At the core, what we’re trying to do with open data sharing is to create a more innovative and competitive payments landscape.”

“Open banking and payments modernization aren’t separate things,” adds Isted. “They’re both bringing more efficiency, lower costs, and require greater integration than before.”

From enabling real-time payments for both businesses and consumers to increasing operational efficiencies and boosting revenue for financial institutions, there are many benefits to open banking and payments modernization.

Open banking adds complexity, however, which the Canadian market is currently grappling with. “There are things that need to be in place to enable open banking, such as the surety of the actors involved,” explains Paul Jackson, Director of Payments Modernization at KPMG in Canada. “Being able to verify their digital identity becomes key.”

“To put this in place therefore requires some massive changes — changes to regulation, changes to incumbent players, technology infrastructure and processes, and even education and changes to consumer behaviour,” says Rush. 

Prioritizing payments modernization   

Payments modernization is therefore a critical priority, and organizations must work quickly to evolve their payment models and core infrastructure, adopt digital channel experiences, and innovate.

“We focus on three primary areas: payments modernization, getting financial institutions ready for the SWIFT mandates around ISO compliance, and strategy around payments across multiple industries,” says Isted.

“The new international data standard (ISO 20022) and open banking aren’t small transformations that organizations can just plug into,” says Greer. “These often require years of planning, testing and execution to ensure that they are ready on time. And compliance is only one half of the journey. At the same time, they need to consider the competitive and customer impacts in their new reality.”

KPMG assists its clients with a broad range of services related to payments transformation, from payments strategy and implementation to process reviews, automation and digitization, payment products, market research, risk assessments, and more.

Leading the way 

For organizations looking to tackle these changes and thrive in the payments landscape of the future, turning to a leader in financial and payments services like KMPG is a smart move.

“As a national industry leader, we’ve got some extremely talented professionals who are very deep in their areas of expertise,” says Rush. “But what really separates us is the calibre of our people on an individual level. We’re the friendly firm and not only do we bring really great insights and help our clients achieve great results, we’re also great people to work with, and that’s hard to replicate.”

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Cheryl McGrath

Area VP & Country General Manager, Optiv Canada

The art of balancing innovation and risk management in the world of IoT

As organizations continue to digitally transform, Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as cell phones, tablets, watches, refrigerators, medical devices, vehicles and many more, are becoming critical components to enable companies to act quickly on information to increase competitive advantages and operational efficiencies. 

The addition of these devices to IT environments allows for improved data utilization to better manage technology, increase output and reduce costs and downtime. However, the effort to utilize these new data sources significantly alters an organization’s threat landscape, opening up vulnerabilities that previously couldn’t be exploited. In many instances, network security is unable to detect IoT connections or provide visibility into the extent of an organization’s expanded threat landscape.

Organizational goals are often focused on accelerating time to market. As such, much of the attention and celebration goes to the developers and pioneers who create these IoT tools. In the rush to market, many companies’ security programs are not optimized or utilized at all.  

In conversation with Cheryl McGrath, Area VP & Country General Manager at Optiv, Ulrike Bahr-Gedalia, Senior Director of Digital Economy, of Technology & Innovation at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, takes a closer look at some of the key concerns around IoT security. As the discussion demonstrates, the importance of this issue is pressing, as the trail of technological innovation, especially over the last five years, has also served as a pathway for threat actors to target what they should go after next. 

The term IoT is increasingly being used, and yet, the risks of its real use and application aren’t necessarily well understood. How can this discrepancy be explained?

Companies are looking to unlock data from the next asset class to consume and monetize   —   and that’s IoT.  

The physical interface to digital systems is changing along with everything else. Developers have unlocked tools and gadgets for a wide range of applications   —   machines that don’t run off of regular user laptops or standard servers. Keyboards and mice are being replaced with voice commands and VR.  And that is just the beginning. The development of this is still in its infancy and is guaranteed to create vast issues for security teams during this evolution.  

For critical infrastructure, let’s face it   —   IoT devices control most of the physical world. Everything from the gas in the pumps to our cars, medical devices, the temperature in food processing plants and nuclear facilities. Devices that operate without standard operating procedures are everywhere. 

You can’t secure what you can’t see and most organizations don’t have complete visibility to all of the devices on their networks. If threat actors exploit these IoT vulnerabilities, it can be disastrous. Look at Log4j.

The physical interface to digital systems is changing along with everything else.

How will security be knitted into these new environments? 

These devices are becoming integrated into many new forms of data. For example, consider modern distribution centers, where product is moved from one side of a factory to another via conveyer belt. Once these facilities had just a few sensors used for measurements for the whole facility. Now, more than a hundred sensors are used   —   per foot. We’re livestreaming terabytes of data regarding destination, package shape and weight and much more, but not securing the system any differently. Some security teams are still assuming that one external firewall will secure the facility. Contrast this with the cathedrals of defense implemented on the IT side. The rate of data creation is outstripping our ability to use and secure it.

As we look ahead to the next three years, what should people and businesses be considering with regard to IoT?

There are “three wants” that need to be considered.

Uptime: Many facilities care more about the ability to operate than they do about security. We are replacing aged digital infrastructure with modem cloud networks. A shift of this scale requires people to change their mentality and that can sometimes be a big ask. We also know that people are often wary of new business practices, so that needs to be thought through and immediately actioned.

Digital tools: Think of something as ubiquitous as temperature controls. Many automation systems are trained and honed to regulate small bands of temperature constraints. This plays out in many environments in varying degrees of criticality, ranging from data centers to food storage. All of these facilities have their own digital record, which will need to be extracted, centralized and made tamper-proof.

Security: In many organizations, these new data paths and devices have not been fully monitored or assessed against company risk thresholds. It took us 15 years to secure the modern ATM. These new IoT devices can be larger and closer to more valuable data (yes, more valuable than an ATM full of cash). With information this valuable and technology this new and vulnerable, security and risk mitigation have to be at the forefront of all organizations.

What can companies do to mitigate IoT risks?  

To be proactive, businesses can: 

1. Tap into their production networks to identify all IoT-connected devices and identify the most vulnerable assets.  Then assess devices for vulnerabilities and mitigate outstanding security issues.

2. Understand security in relation to new IoT devices that an organization is looking to purchase and how they may affect their network.  Companies may want to hire a trusted security provider with IoT labs to test devices before they’re implemented on company networks. This is done in order to ensure third party devices aren’t erroneously capturing private data via back door portals and to test integrations with their other technologies end-to-end.

3. Adopt a policy-driven, risk framework based on the organization’s business needs. These policies should include a baseline platform for the development of automated vulnerability management and incident response solutions for IoT.

The post Transitioning from the Internet of Things to the Interconnectedness of Everything appeared first on HiveInnovates.

AI for business

The advances made in Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the past decade have transformed the world of business. New AI-powered consumer goods and services such as self-driving cars and smart homes are now available to the public. Both traditional business practices such as hiring processes and new business models such as Industry 4.0 all rely on AI as a cornerstone. And new career options, such as machine learning developer and data scientist, are available to AI specialists. A recent Accenture study shows that over 80% of Canadian businesses consider the adoption of AI as a necessity for growth and see failure to do so as a guarantee of bankruptcy; a number on par with international respondents.

Faced with this new reality, the Canadian government has acted resolutely to embrace AI and its applications to industry. Through new programs and increased funding, it has used its research organizations NSERC and MITACS to foster research collaborations between Canadian universities and industries. In addition, it appointed the research organisation CIFAR to lead its Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the world’s first national AI strategy, with one of its goals being to translate Canadian AI discoveries into real-world applications.

These actions have created a healthy AI ecosystem where universities and companies work together to create and market innovative ideas, and the benefits are being reaped by everyone in our country. The number of AI firms in Canada has increased exponentially over the past decade, and includes both major international players, such the new offices opened by Microsoft, Google and Facebook, as well as AI start-ups which are supported by unprecedented levels of funding. These new businesses create new career opportunities in AI and technology, and as a result the number of jobs in AI is increasing at twice the national average rate. University research labs also benefit from increased research funding and new research collaborations, which attract quality students (enrolment in computer science programs nationwide is nine times higher than the average post-secondary enrolment) and fosters a quality learning environment (three Canadian universities are among the top-25 for machine learning education worldwide). Nowhere is this symbiosis more visible than at the Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the annual meeting of university professors, graduate students, and industry researchers, where fundamental research breakthroughs and applied solutions to industrial problems are presented side by side.

AI and business for good

Of course, we should not talk about the rise of AI in business and industry without mentioning its darker consequence: the rise of algorithmic discrimination. Indeed, most AI systems learn from examples, and most examples come from human experiences or human decisions. This means that human biases and prejudices taint these examples and are learned by the AI systems. Those systems then naively repeat these prejudices and discriminate in their decisions based on them, negatively impacting both customers and companies.

But even in the face of this major complication, Canada has taken a leadership position. Canadian researchers wrote the Montreal Declaration for Responsible AI , which AI researchers here and internationally are encouraged to sign to commit to working on ethically-responsible AI projects. They also created the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI with the mission of maximizing the positive impacts of AI and technology. Research labs and individual researchers across our nation are increasingly incorporating societal impacts and ethical responsibility in their research programs and integrating them into the curriculum of AI courses. After taking the leadership in AI for business, Canada is now taking the leadership in AI and business for the good of humanity.

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David Kim

Partner & CEO

Massive Insights

The year is 2012 and big data is all the buzz. For many companies though, it is just that, a buzz word. Everyone has figured out that their data is an asset, and terms like data lake and cloud are being thrown around freely, but few have yet figured out how to actually navigate that landscape and unearth the value. The maps are still being drawn, and the early movers are operating out at the edges where the cartographer has penned: “here be dragons.” And David Kim has caught the explorer’s bug.

In 2012, Kim had already built himself a successful and stable career in direct and digital marketing. But he wanted to be on the frontier, writing the future of data. And so, with his business partner, Clarence Chow, and a shared dream, they took the leap and Massive Insights was born. “We started with clearing out the proverbial garage office,” says Kim. “We were coming from really comfy, cushy, steady jobs, where we were well paid and had some great clients. But we had this dream of creating a culture that truly provided real value back to clients. Ultimately, our hearts are in helping others create their own success stories for us to be a part of.”

Relationships matter, even in this highly technical world of ones and zeros, and bits and bytes. We always focus on the quality of work, but we never lose sight of the relationships we’re building along the way.

In those early days, when there was some uncertainty about the future of the data sector, a guide with the right instincts and sense of direction was of inestimable value. With a prescient understanding of the power of analytics and data visualizations, Massive Insights soon secured a reputation as one of the few trusted navigators in the wilds of big data analytics. And in a frontier environment, reputation is everything. “Looking back over the last 10 years, how we’ve grown and how fortunate we’ve been, a lot of that was based on relationships, networks, the referrals from client endorsements,” says Kim. “Our very first client continues to be one of our clients today. Relationships matter, even in this highly technical world of ones and zeros, and bits and bytes. We always focus on the quality of work, but we never lose sight of the relationships we’re building along the way.”

Today, there are a lot fewer blank spots on the map, and Massive Insights has been instrumental in filling it. They have chosen to draw roads to a better world for their clients, and for Canada as a whole. Kim understands that data touches everything. For some companies, data is primarily a marketing asset; for others, it is a tool to reshape and improve not only how a product is delivered, but also to enhance the product itself. And sometimes that product is a healthier future for a sick child.

“We’re currently working the number one children’s hospital in the world, SickKids Foundation. Our objective is to help them understand their ability to uncover opportunities with donors, and how they can optimize and maximize their activities to generate the most value back to the hospital. It’s these types of meaningful applications of data that really connect us back to things that matter to us. And we’d always like to use any of our superpowers for good.”

In 2021, looking forward to their next decade, Massive Insights is retaining their explorer’s spirit, with their eyes set on new horizons beyond the map’s edge. And the network they have built and nurtured will continue to grow and expand with them as they uncover ways to build value and use data for the betterment of all.

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Tracy Fleming

Advanced Solutions, Avaya

The link between company and customer is built on experiences. It might be products and services that bring people to engage with a company in the first place, but it’s the quality of the interaction that retains customers, or loses them. Wherever and whenever that point of contact occurs, there’s a need to deliver an experience that’s welcoming, useful, appropriate, and enjoyable. With more than seven billion people on this planet, however, each with their own needs and desires, it’s simply impossible to curate a single experience that will suit them all. What one customer loves, another will hate.

And that really matters. People are no longer willing to accept friction in their interactions with companies. They know that there’s a better way and they expect it. The data is quite clear that customers are more than willing to walk away from a company after a bad experience. But how can you consistently create a good one for an audience with infinite variety?

The augmented human experience

In today’s era of cloud AI, the golden prize of a truly personalized experience for each customer is finally within reach. The answer is not, however, replacing agents with computers. Instead, we can augment the capabilities of the agents with AI, blending the human and the digital to create a seamlessly personal experience. “The human piece of this isn’t going away,” says Tracy Fleming, Practice Leader for AI at Avaya, a multinational technology company that specializes in cloud communications and workstream collaboration solutions. “Human interaction is still the gold standard. What you’re seeing is AI enabling that human to provide a better experience.”

Artificial intelligence is by no means a new area of exploration within the customer experience field, but as the capabilities of modern AI continue to grow exponentially, the implementation is taking on a whole new character. “The cloud is really the accelerator for the applied use of AI,” says Fleming. “It allows the technology to be applied seamlessly across an entire business model, and so we’re certainly seeing it being deployed in a much broader range of applications. But the core capabilities in this space have been executed in the Avaya world for years.”

Human interaction is still the gold standard. What you’re seeing is AI enabling that human to provide a better experience.

The angel on the shoulder

One of the major new developments is the ever-increasing speed and flexibility with which these AI solutions can be integrated into ongoing interactions. Gone is the time of AI systems facilitating the start of an interaction and then analyzing it afterwards. Whereas it used to be the norm for something like five percent of daily calls to be thoroughly analyzed after hours, now one hundred percent of calls can be analyzed as they’re happening.

AI still plays an integral role in directing the right customer to the right agent, not only for their needs, but also for their personality, demographics, and mood. But then it stays on the line. “What’s been really interesting due to the amount of computing and storage in the cloud today is the way we can provide outcome and input to agents in real time,” says Fleming. “We can have the AI acting as the front door concierge and also sitting on the shoulder of the agent as they’re talking. The AI hears what the customer is saying, finds the relevant data, and then renders it out to the agent on the fly. And it can prompt the agent before the call is over if they forget something, so you never have these incomplete experiences.”

The end result is an experience that is even more human. This is the real arc of the AI transformation, as it allows us to rehumanize our interactions. After decades of digitization and depersonalization, technology is building us a bridge back to genuine human connection.

Let’s see how your company scores on the total experience self-assessment?

There’s nothing artificial about an experience

When implemented properly to build dynamic experiences, artificial intelligence creates an environment where the humanity of both the agent and the customer is able to shine. The Avaya Experience Builders ecosystem leverages all the power of this technology to customize customization itself, so that the experience can be refined down to the essential of the business and then broadened again to fit the rich diversity of its customers. When done right, the most diligent AI experience work renders itself almost invisible.

“When a customer gets off a call thinking that, for 10 minutes, they were the only thing in that person’s world, they may not think to themselves, that was an incredible use of artificial intelligence,” says Fleming. “I would argue that’s the point. I think artificial intelligence is at its best when you don’t know it’s there.”

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Danavation’s Digital Smart Label technology incorporates artificial intelligence and big data to help retailers optimize and automate their operations.

Times have been tough for retailers lately, and it has never been more vital to optimize operations and effectively engage consumers. Canadian company Danavation Technologies Corp., the only electronic shelf label provider that is founded and grounded in North America, understands this mandate deeply. John Ricci, Danavation’s founder and CEO, has over 30 years of experience in the retail industry. He noticed that the industry was missing something — a solution that met and exceeded the needs of modern businesses and tech-savvy consumers. And from that, Digital Smart Labels^TM were born.

A powerful intelligence tool for retailers

Digital Smart Labels^TM are digital e-paper displays that enable organizations — from grocers and retails to health care providers, logistics and manufacturing companies, and beyond — to automate labelling, pricing, product information, promotions, and work- flows in real time.

The benefits of Digital Smart Labels^TM include operational efficiencies, including reducing labour costs and automating tedious manual workflows, as well as giving customers a more engaging experience.

Another major bonus is the added insight that this technology bestows. Unlike legacy paper systems, Digital Smart Labels are designed to react in real time. The advanced engineering behind the digital e-paper displays, cloud architecture, software, and, in the near future, data-as-a-service intelligence tools gives retailers valuable insights into consumers’ buying habits. Coupled with parameters such as inventory levels, cost of goods sold, sales velocity, competitor offers, weather conditions, current events, and demand/price-sensitivity, Danavation’s innovative leveraging of AI, big data, and machine learning will allow retailers to automate pricing at the shelf, optimize their product mix, and forecast inventory.

Maximizing revenue with smart price automation

“Maintaining a digital strategy and a pricing strategy is huge in retail,” says Ricci, adding that retailers are currently facing labour shortages. To keep a competitive edge and maintain margins amidst fluctuating pricing and supply, smart retailers want the ability to automate at-the-shelf pricing. The software behind Danavation’s Digital Smart Labels^TM will soon allow for rapid response to competitor activities, adapting offers based on supply and demand plus market trends to increase basket sizes and maximize revenues. “We’re working toward a system where retailers’ pricing will always be competitive,” says Ricci. “There’ll be no need for someone to set price points. The system will do it for you based on data we’re compiling.”

Understanding customer buying habits

The insights provided by Danavation’s Digital Smart Labels will also help retailers optimize their product mix. “Our Digital Smart Labels^TM will capture customer data,” says Ricci. “How long are they staying at the shelf how long do they take to buy, what do they buy, when do they buy it? We’re capturing all that data for our retailers so they can map their stores more efficiently.”

An optimized assortment plan — the right products, at the right time, at the right shelf — helps retailers to meet ever-evolving consumer demand and preferences. Using Danavation’s AI and data insights, organizations can get a clear picture of how their revenue will be impacted by assortment decisions. They can then achieve revenue targets with the best-performing product mix by market, store format, shopper segment, or even planogram.

How long are they staying at the shelf, how long do they take to buy, what do they buy, when do they buy it? We’re capturing all that data for our retailers so they can map their stores more efficiently.

Forecasting demand, the smart way

Digital Smart Labels^TM insights will also enable retailers to more effectively forecast demand. This will reduce out-of-stock events, optimize inventory ordering, increase profit margins, and mitigate excess inventory. It will also help to reduce waste, as a huge portion of global food waste is due to grocers’ forecasting and supply chain inefficiencies.

As we’ve all observed firsthand during the pandemic, the digital transformation of our society has shifted into fast-forward. This shift is affecting all industries. We’re working remotely and doing more online, and the acceleration of digital marketing and the automation of business processes across all industries are happening at a higher speed than ever before. Retailers and grocers are witnessing the shift in real time, too. It’s time for us all to enter the digital age.

The post Using AI and Big Data to Bring Retailers Into the Digital Age appeared first on HiveInnovates.

The electrification of Canada’s transportation system is critical to achieving our net-zero ambitions. Meeting this goal of carbon neutrality will require multiple elements, including technology, finance, and services to be delivered and scaled at unprecedented levels in the coming decade. Private and public interests will need to come together to achieve a net-zero mobility future.

Here in Canada, global technology pioneer ABB is leading the way in the drive for clean mobility electrification and digitalization.

We have a moral obligation to turn this current situation into a better one for the planet and the future

Moving toward a net-zero future

Canada is on an ambitious path toward net-zero emissions. At the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Canada committed to accelerating the phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

But are we equipped to tackle this goal?

We know that clean electrification would get us much of the way to net zero. Digitalization empowers everyday citizens to shift from traditional demand and consumption to prosumerism, or the increased involvement of customers in the production process — that is, both producing and consuming electricity, and even selling it back to the grid. And digital smart grid technology can be used to enable flexible demand.

Making electricity truly clean

The first challenge in making the transition to net-zero is making our electricity truly clean. By 2040, 90 percent of electricity must come from renewable sources. We’ve already made enormous progress, with 29 percent of electricity from renewable generation globally.

The second challenge is enabling our power grids to be able to manage that renewable energy. Today’s power grid wasn’t built for variable sources, so it can’t capture and use all of the renewable energy being produced. We’re wasting renewable energy, then using fossil fuels as backup when solar and wind are low. We can’t afford that.

Other challenges include addressing and accommodating the complexity of the modern grid and rising electricity demand, which will more than double by 2050. This will require doubling our infrastructure, or managing existing infrastructure more intelligently with smart grid technology.

The good news is that digitalization helps solve many of these issues in the grid. Smart grids connect supply and demand sites to make demand more flexible. They use artificial intelligence (AI) to shift user demand automatically in buildings and electric vehicles to times when energy from renewable sources is available, and also add capacity, by feeding energy back into the grid, when solar and wind are low.

E-mobility’s role in the transition

As we increase clean electrification through empowered demand and a shift to clean energy, one specific area that offers a lot of promise is e-mobility.

E-mobility — the use of electrified vehicles for transportation purposes — will be a key part of the transition to net-zero emissions. “The number one and two challenges in greenhouse gas emission for Canada are buildings and transportation,” says Eric Deschenes, Country Managing Director and Head of the Electrification Business for ABB Canada. “If we collectively have the political courage to tackle these two challenges, it would represent more than 50 percent of the whole undertaking. Political will is the first domino. It’s action on the governmental level that allows the second and third dominoes in the economy and in the community to fall. Technology is no longer the show-stopper here.”

An interconnected ecosystem

The political will is clearly materializing, but we need widespread collaboration. Moving toward clean electrification and e-mobility will require cooperation and action from an ecosystem consisting of government, the private sector, public citizens, industry, and everyday Canadians.

Companies like ABB are an integral part of that ecosystem. In the quest to lift up the entire energy ecosystem to a new, consistent, and sustainable level, events such as the ABB FIA Formula E auto racing championship, returning to Canada this year, are here to speed the transformation.

“ABB Formula E is more than just a race,” says Deschenes. “It’s a testbed and platform to develop e-mobility-relevant electrification and digitalization technologies all in the name of accelerating the transition of electrified transport.”

While these races are energizing the conversation around the electrification of mobility, they’re also directly driving the development of the infrastructure that supports that transition. To further strengthen ABB’s commitment to advancing e-mobility in Canada and to coincide with the return of the championship to a country so closely tied to ABB’s own e-mobility development, ABB Canada will be donating electric chargers to the City of Vancouver and will work closely with the city to determine which chargers will be provided based on Vancouver’s current needs.

“ABB FIA Formula E does more than just engage the local community and drive faster adoption,” says Deschenes. “Right after the Canadian E-Prix in Vancouver, next July, ABB Canada will leave behind more than $50,000 in charging infrastructure. This is in addition to everything Vancouver and British Columbia are doing.”

ABB leading the way

As Canada moves toward its net-zero emissions goal, ABB’s leadership is invaluable.

“I recognize that my generation runs the risk of receiving a planet in better condition than the one we’re leaving to the next generation,” says Deschenes. “We have a moral obligation to turn this current situation into a better one for the planet and the future.”

The time to act is now. We need to unite. What are you going to do?

The post The Race Is On: Accelerating a Sustainable Future for Canada appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Since the very first modern computer appeared in office, we’ve all been asking, “Do we still need all this paper?” It’s a harder question than it seems. If we want to limit the waste, the ecological impact, and the productivity drain of paper, we need to step back and ask ourselves what it is that keeps drawing people to the printout. We need solutions that ease the transition to an enhanced digital workflow while understanding real-world business needs.

The reality of paper

The invention of paper ushered in a never-before-seen age of literacy and education. It’s a cheap, portable, accessible, and lasting vessel for information. Those qualities still drive its use today. But, in an era where workers are spread across the globe, handing a sheet of paper to a colleague is rarely convenient. This is a world where information may as well not exist if it can’t be accessed from your phone. This is a moment when costs are measured not only in dollars, but in time and tons of carbon.

The advantages of going paperless are clear. The Association for Intelligent Information Management has reported that 84 percent of organizations that undertook paper-free projects achieved payback in less than 18 months. But that value is only realized when the undeniable power of print is preserved through this transition.

Canon has spent decades perfecting the philosophy and the practical reality of how people and businesses create, preserve, use, and share information. They’ve leveraged this experience and insight into the creation of new suites of tools that aren’t just paper replacements, but reinventions of the business information ecosystem. And, critically, these systems are informed by a deep understanding of what businesses and employees want and need.

A complete digital transformation

According to Gartner, every time an employee touches a piece of paper, it costs the company $20. Gartner further estimates that the average employee loses almost four weeks of productivity every year searching for lost and misfiled documents. There’s real money and time to be saved here.

But, when the office is a maze of filing cabinets, and home work spaces are chaotic mountains of paperwork organized only by memory and hope, the gap to a structured digital solution may seem unbridgeable. Going paperless is a process, not an event.

Canon’s flagship information management solutions provide an answer to this problem. And cutting-edge OCR, intelligent document fingerprinting, and high-accuracy indexing provide a seamless on-ramp for any document into the digital workflow the moment it’s needed.

These solutions provide workers with the ability to capture, archive, retrieve, edit, and process data at any point in the workflow quickly and securely. They turn every document into a transactable work space with a memory of its own, providing every bit of the power and flexibility of a paper and a pen while maintaining the accessibility and security of cloud-based collaboration.

And, just as importantly, the new digital paradigm to which these documents are transitioned, to has been crafted from the ground up for efficiency. After all, little is gained by replacing a stack of marked-up paper with a tangled email inbox housing dozens of threads with hundreds of versioned documents. A comprehensive solution gently and seamlessly tames this mess into a cohesively streamlined whole.

So, do we still need all this paper? Not necessarily, but we do need a knowledgeable and thoughtful guide to lead us away from it. We need a voice that is intimately familiar with the way businesses work and is unafraid to imagine ways they could work better. Reaping the benefits of the paperless transition requires not a leap, but a series of well-informed steps along a carefully crafted path, a path paved by companies like Canon.

The post Helping Companies Upscale As They Outgrow their Paper Workflow appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are investment funds that let you buy a diversified basket of individual stocks or bonds in one purchase on a stock exchange. ETFs have a number of benefits for investors.

ETFs are an efficient, low-cost investment vehicle. The typical Canadian ETF management expense ratio falls between 0.25 percent and 0.75 percent, which is substantially lower than other investment funds.

ETFs provide trading flexibility. Limit orders allow you to set the price at which you’re willing to trade an ETF. Limit orders also provide investors with greater control over their execution price.

You can benefit from mid-day political and economic announcements. Macroeconomic news can introduce greater market fluctuations, affect the price of securities, and potentially widen bid/ask spreads for ETFs. Being able to trade with a known price throughout the day instead of having to wait for the end-of-day net asset value can be beneficial.

ETFs provide liquidity. They don’t have a fixed number of units outstanding, just like open-ended mutual funds. This enables new units to be created as needed to support demand. With ETFs, there are two levels of liquidity: primary and secondary. The ETF’s trading volume on the exchanges — what is visible — is secondary liquidity. Primary liquidity is the most important level of liquidity as it’s based on the liquidity of the underlying stocks in the ETF’s portfolio.

ETFs offer a range of investment strategies. Index ETFs provide investors with passive exposure to the performance of market indices, with their holdings reflecting the constituents of its benchmarked index.

Factor-based ETFs use a rule-based system for selecting investments to be included in the fund portfolio. They’re built on traditional ETFs and then tailor the components of the fund’s holdings based on predetermined metrics.

Actively managed ETFs’ holdings can change day to day, based on the discretion of their portfolio manager.

Commodity ETFs make it easier for investors to access specific commodities by holding derivative contracts to reflect the price of the underlying commodity, like gold or oil.

Fixed-income products are typically illiquid and hard to trade, but ETFs have made it possible for investors seeking investment security and income to access bonds and other debt instruments.

Leveraged/inverse ETFs use leverage and short-selling, and offer investors the ability to gain 2x, -1x, and -2x exposure to popular market indices and strategies. These should be considered trading vehicles, and not buy-and-hold investments.

ETFs are tax-efficient. The efficiency of ETFs generally refers to the taxable activity that occurs within the ETF compared to a traditional mutual fund. Buys and sells typically happen between investors on the exchange — no taxable activity occurs within the ETF itself. In contrast to this, investors buying or selling a traditional mutual fund do this directly with the fund, which may result in the fund having to either buy or sell underlying investments each day that investors transact. This can result in more taxable activity in a traditional mutual fund than an ETF.

The second aspect of tax efficiency is the creation/redemption mechanism, which allows for the increase or decrease of ETF shares based on demand without impacting other investors of the fund. This is an important contrast to a mutual fund, where any buying or selling in the fund impacts all investors.

The post The Top Six Benefits of ETF Investing appeared first on HiveInnovates.

What does it mean to be a tech changemaker in the cybersecurity field?

Essentially, being a changemaker is being someone who can’t sleep at night if they know there’s an issue that needs to be fixed. So for me, being a changemaker is working with organizations and executive teams to improve their organizations or the ways they execute things. A big area I’m working on is an organization that I co-founded – “Hacking is NOT a Crime”. Here, we work to push for hacker rights and try to change public perception of the hacker community. We work to get organizations to have vulnerability disclosure policies, and for legislation to be updated as most of it was created in the 80s and hasn’t been touched since. Finally, I advocate and take actions for marginalized genders in security and tech through We Open Tech. We Open Tech is an open community of folks who support one another to support all marginalized genders to obtain any position and title while working in security and tech.

You mentioned that you’re working to advocate for hacker rights. Can you provide more information on this?

The majority of the public doesn’t know that there are two distinct groups – hackers and attackers. Hackers are really just security researchers, but they’ve been labeled as attackers by the media, legislation, and companies. Public perception is that they’re the same thing, but in reality, they use the same skill sets but hackers respect boundaries. Attackers focus entirely on malicious gain.

You believe that information security is a humanitarian issue – can you provide more detail?

Before I went into infosec, I was doing work for tech startups and non-profits in management consulting. I realized quickly that in this role, you really never stop learning.

Right upon starting, I realized that all these conversations are about privacy protection, data, data rights, but also about your security. And I start recognizing at the very beginning of my career in security that non-profits are especially targeted. It’s usually easier, as they don’t have a security team. They’re much more likely to have one person that does IT and does it all. And the problem is that when there’s a breach, and donor information gets out publicly, it makes donors not want to give again. When you don’t have funds as a non-profit, you can’t meet the mission’s goals. When I saw this coming up, I got really concerned about non-profits because we don’t talk about security. We’re more worried about the people that we’re serving, and making sure that we’re completing our mission. This was the eye-opening moment when I realized that this is a humanitarian issue – because there are non-profits that can’t feed people that are starving, or provide medical attention if there’s a shut-down of their services. These are really real, humanitarian issues. This is why I see security as a humanitarian issue.

What do you see as the future of cybersecurity and information security?

These are all things that I hope will happen!

First – I want the representation of marginalized persons throughout organizations. This means C-level and in-board positions. Right now, we’re less than 20% of underrepresented persons, and we want to get it to 50% if we want this. We truly need representation at the top. If we don’t get it at the top, we aren’t going to see it trickled down.

Secondly – burnout. I want every organization in our entire industry in infosec to recognize that we have a problem with burnout. We run on 24/7, round the clock, we never know when we’ll be called and we’re at the edge of our seat. We look at burnout and start having that work-life balance, and everyone is aware that we have to do that.

The last thing – gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is such a huge problem in tech in general, but especially in infosec. Various different groups in the hacking community won’t let someone else join because of background. When it comes to employment, they’re looking for certain years of experience. And so even if the person can do the job, they don’t get it – and that’s gatekeeping.

The post Q&A with Chloe Messdaghi – CyberSec Tech Changemaker appeared first on HiveInnovates.