There is a tech side to just about every industry, including fashion. It goes beyond purchasing a new favorite sweater on Amazon. Today, you can scroll through Instagram, click on a photo, zoom in to see a product, and buy it with one click.

AI technology is even finding its way into traditional store shopping. You can go to a store and take a picture of a shirt, pants, or a jacket—and using one of several apps, such as Kim Kardashian’s Screenshop app, you can upload the picture and find similar styles and products all over the world. There are even avatar-based apps, such as Dressing Room, that allow individuals to try on clothing virtually. When ready, you can pay for the item with Apple Pay, which is located in your smartphone’s digital wallet.

Like any industry, the bottom line drives fashion-related businesses, and technological advances are constantly challenging that bottom line. However, the data points collected from searches and purchases are narrowing the gap between product supply and demand, meaning product numbers are more accurate, and fewer materials are wasted. Data are also helping companies predict trends and provide products their customers actually like and want.

As with most business verticals, the fashion industry maintains wholesale production intermediaries. JOOR is one of those companies leading the digital wholesale charge, using analytics within the fashion vertical. Their digital platform connects buyers and sellers online, helping buyers save time and cut costs and leading sellers to better analyze the performance of their inventory.

The company’s model embraces the global shift to mobile-first access and capitalizes on the ease and convenience of streaming handheld devices. Digitizing streamlines the fashion buyer’s process, and as is typically the case when digital technology is implemented, this reduces errors and saves time. The success of JOOR was recognized with a Stevie® Award in Best New Software Product or Service Category.

JOOR was founded in 2010 and is based in New York City, New York, United States. CEO Kristin Savilia is at the helm. She came on board in March 2017 and brought with her 18 years of retail experience and over five years in e-commerce with XO Group (the parent company of popular websites The Bump, The Nest, and The Knot). Even in the hustle and bustle of a technology-driven fashion industry, Savilia—a proactive mother of four—strives for a positive work-life balance.

While she helped lead JOOR to the head of the fashion AI and VR app curve, more technological changes are on the horizon. NextWeb reports the world is ready for the Internet of Things (IoT).

“Apparel items will have digital capabilities that open communication between retailer and customer, such as NADI X, yoga pants with built-in sensors that guide users into alignment by vibrating as they move through the various yoga poses. This example and other IoT apparel items interact with the user to collect data that help retailers understand the needs and concerns of buyers, and then companies can implement solutions to create a more personalized experience.”

In this landscape, individuals will be able to interact with businesses through their yoga pants, informing the companies that made them what they liked best and least. This will allow the companies to make more of those kinds of pants or to offer improved versions, depending on feedback.

That is technology and fashion coming full circle. Try clothes on a virtual reality avatar, search AI apps for any and all styles you like, and then communicate with the product and company directly using the IoT. Companies analyze the data, and the technological personalization and product customization cycle evolves.

In the long run, this seems cost effective and efficient while reducing waste—but it remains to be seen if consumers want to wear yoga pants and other products with AI sensors. Many consumers, however, already talk to Siri (Apple) and Alexa (Amazon), so it might not be too long before this is the product norm.

As recently as 2014, just about everyone (other than Julianne Ponan) doubted her fledgling health food brand would survive—let alone find widespread distribution throughout Europe.

As the owner of Creative Nature, a UK-based company specializing in allergy-friendly vegan snacks and baking mixes, Ponan staked her fortunes on a crowdsourcing effort aimed at raising £150,000 of capital. However, the attempt to capture investors fell well short of the mark.

The failed fundraising campaign was the latest in a series of setbacks for the company, which was losing money at a fast clip. Three years earlier, a 22-year-old Ponan, then working as a financial analyst, was brought in to diagnose why Creative Nature was operating in the red.

At the time, the company marketed a wide range of products, from home goods to natural food products. The latter gave Ponan hope. After all, she knew firsthand the importance of a carefully selected diet. The entrepreneur suffers from multiple food allergies to this day and survived two acute cases of pancreatitis as a young girl.

Ponan says doctors gave her four hours to live after diagnosing the first case of pancreatitis when she was nine. She lived, but it resurfaced at 17, when physicians gave her just a few short years to live.

“After beating it a second time, it still wasn’t smooth sailing,” she recalls. “I contracted pneumonia in my first year at Creative Nature.”

She ended up executing a management buyout of the London, England–area business in 2012, with the goal of growing the superfood segment. It wasn’t just her personal experience she banked on, though. She also saw the continent’s rising obesity levels and the increased prevalence of food allergies as proof this niche market was poised for growth.

The number of Europeans who suffer from chronic allergies tops 150 million, according to the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The group estimates half of the entire EU populace will be impacted by 2025.

“I took over Creative Nature to cater to people like me—people who want healthier snacks without the nasty additives,” she says.

Company Gets Its Big Break

With her business partner, Matthew Ford, the company started focusing on snack bars and baking mixes that were free from 14 of the most common food allergens.

“Most ‘healthy’ snack companies insist on filling their products with tree nuts, peanuts, and seeds, which completely ignores a whole consumer base of allergy sufferers,” Ponan says.

When the crowdsourcing plan turned south and it looked as if the whole enterprise might be a flop, the breakthrough finally came. Creative Nature captured the interest of a buyer at Tesco, a major UK supermarket chain. Virtually overnight, it seemed as if the company’s fortunes were turning around. Still, one major hurdle remained.

“Tesco wanted all our new packaging for launch in just four weeks. This normally would have taken eight weeks to produce,” she says. “Instead of telling them we couldn't launch, we bought self-adhesive labels and spent three weeks hand-labeling around 10,000 tubs—all while continuing to run the rest of the business.”

As it turned out, the two-person team made the launch and used the deal as a platform to propel themselves into more supermarkets. Today, the company, which now has six full-time employees, is stocked in more than 15 countries, including Switzerland and Denmark.

Because of the organization’s compelling turnaround, Ponan earned the Silver Stevie® Award for Young Female Entrepreneur of the Year.

“I’ve known about these awards since starting the business, always dreaming one day I would be able to win one,” she says. “I managed to walk away with a Silver Stevie, so I’m incredibly proud.”

Oncology is the study and treatment of tumors. Although three major fields exist within oncology -- medicine, surgery, and radiation, it’s generally understood as a branch of medicine that treats cancer. What do creativity, brands, design, and advertising have to do with any of that? A lot, as it turns out.

Navicor is an integrated marketing communications agency with oncology at their core. In an effort to make a difference in the world, employees use their creative talents to make compelling brand stories that are inspired by real patients. The Navicor team is comprised of oncology experts, clinicians, and award-winning creative professionals dedicated to launching successful platforms that support life-saving therapies.

It’s the perfect example of a meaningful marriage between the arts and health care.

“We expertly use the data to tell the most compelling brand story, but we also see the people behind the data points on that K-M (Kaplan-Meier) curve,” says Marvin Bowe, managing director at Navicor. “Each one of us is inspired by the patients whose lives we help touch. They’re the reason we get up for work in the morning. Or stay up late at night.”

Bowe profoundly believes in using personal talents to make a difference in the world, which the general public doesn’t regularly connect with creativity and marketing to patients with serious ailments.

Universal Truths

Oncology is the most progressive therapeutic area at the moment. With hundreds of new treatments in development, this field is seeing some of its biggest breakthroughs to date.

Bowe lists his organization’s core values. Although oncology demands specific attention—both surgical and managerial—the list contains items any organization can identify with. To that end, Navicor operates on the following principles:

Most of these tenets are tailored to ensure staff members are getting the support they need. The company also clearly understands the value of having fun while at work.

“Happy employees truly do produce the most creative ideas,” says Bowe.

The company’s history proves that having fun at work can yield huge gains. They participate in walks and 5K runs as a team to help raise awareness and money for cancer advocacy groups. Last year, Navicor raised over $20,000, ranked as the eighth-largest corporate supporter of Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in Philadelphia, and received an award for the most creative idea to raise money.

Doing Great Work

Most people can relate to that feeling of not doing enough for those in need. Cultivating a genuine concern for the lives of strangers and putting that concern into action is an amazing feat.

Garnett Dezember, the CEO and founder of Navicor, expresses the foundation on which he built the organization.

"Cancer is our cause. Cancer has affected each of us, and we use that experience to motivate us daily."

Empathy and the will to use one's talents to help others resulted in Navicor winning the Silver Stevie Awards for Employer of the Year in the 2018 Stevie® Award for Great Employers.

“While oncology is highly scientific, that doesn’t mean your brand communications should be clinical white papers,” says Dezember. “We use some of the best creative strategies to ensure your brand’s message is received, and our industry recognizes our efforts by honoring us with trophies from some of the most prestigious award shows.”

It’s easy to measure success by prescription data and usage trends, but Navicor exemplifies what can happen when you add award-winning creatives to your team, help clients achieve their goals, and capture the attention of a global audience.

Whether it’s an entrepreneur starting out in an office or garage or if it’s a Fortune 500 company, any business must be visible to potential customers before a sale can be made. In most cases, awareness of a company is created through great stories, which elicit engagement and relationships with those potential customers.

Whether dealing with website traffic, email subscriber data growth, social media accounts, or hundreds of other engagement metrics, they’re all interconnected by one thing: an attempt to create a continuous relationship between the customer and the business.

With so many companies marketing that way, though, how do you stand out in a sea of legitimately competent competitors?

PAN Communications is an integrated marketing and public relations agency based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. They focus on B2B technology and health care industries that want a customer-first business model. They deliver this through PR and social, content, and influencer marketing. They also use data analytics and creative services.

“To bring great stories to life, that’s the core message,” says President & CEO, Philip A. Nardone Jr.. “Those great stories are about the companies—their technologies and innovations—that are changing lives.”

The company’s ability to bring resonant, engaging stories to life contributed to them winning the 2018 Gold Stevie® for Public Relations Agency of the Year at The American Business Awards.

PAN Communications is one of the industry’s most trusted communications partners., It demonstrates that it takes an entire team of dedicated marketing and PR specialists to help clients exceed expectations.

Move Ideas and Build Relationships

Success in any venture doesn’t happen overnight. No matter how good you are at something or how certain you are about how to improve a problem, it takes time to develop and to hone sustainable relationships with your audience or paying customers.

The success of PAN Communications is due to the firm’s unique ability to offer the agility and personalized service of a midsized agency while also leveraging national and international relationships. This allows them to manage large-scale communications programs for brands such as SAP, AppDirect, Radial, and MediaMath. PAN Communications provides services, moves ideas, and builds relationships with customers at a level which competitors find difficult to match.

The PAN Communications business model demonstrates one thing clearly: Successful businesses must make their services and messaging available to potential customers over a variety of platforms.

Give Back and Put People First

The belief that great people can do great things is an underlying tenet of the PAN Communications mind-set. That’s why they focus on putting people and culture first.

“By fostering an environment free of office politics and rich in support and diversity, we believe we can rise above the industry noise and win the race,” says Nardone. “The CEO of PAN believes his agency’s greatest assets go down the elevator every night: the people. Phil [CEO of PAN Communications] and the rest of the leadership team devote time and energy to cultivating the award-winning culture that currently exists at PAN. The agency takes a people-first approach and prioritizes a strong work-life balance for its employees.”

PAN Communications also believes in giving back to the communities that built the foundation of their agency. To that end, the firm launched a philanthropic program, PANcares, in November 2017. This allowed the agency to become involved in its local markets more consistently. As part of the program, PAN Communications partners with four nonprofit organizations dedicated to fighting against youth homelessness. Representing a cross-country collaborative, the partners are based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States; San Francisco, California, United States; New York City, New York, United States; and Orlando, Florida, United States.

As PAN Communications demonstrates, today’s PR agencies must distinguish themselves by delivering exceptional services and innovations to their clients. As a result, the industry is thriving. Brands demand more from agencies than ever before, asking these companies to prepare them for every stage of growth and to act as trusted partners along the way. PAN Communications is just one agency that shows the exceptional results that are possible when that happens.

Merchants offer a variety of ways to pay for their products and services these days, including everything from old favorites like credit cards and checks to newer modes, such as NFC (Near Field Communications)-ready phones and smart watches.

That affords retail customers greater convenience, of course, but it also means more chances for technical issues to arise. This can potentially cause lots of extra headaches for the seller.

However, if retailers work with U.S. payment software firms like PayJunction, they greatly minimize the chance of encountering those stumbling blocks. PayJunction is based in Santa Barbara, California, United States. Working in an industry that doesn’t always enjoy a great reputation for customer service, the company has gone all in on its efforts to satisfy users.

By just about any measure, it’s succeeding in that goal. Their customer service team upped its satisfaction score to 95.3% last year, from 94.2% in 2016. It did so after handling 13,500 more support tickets and 2,475 more calls than in 2016. What’s more, the service team, which operates out of the firm’s California headquarters, was also able to maintain an average wait time of just one minute.

“We've definitely developed a culture of respect,” says Christina Lavingia of PayJunction. “We work hard to value long-term relationships over short-term profits.”

This approach has led to a number of significant achievements, such as going three consecutive years without a single complaint file submitted to the Better Business Bureau and achieving the highest rating for a payment processor on Capterra.

A customer-first approach has also proven to have a positive impact on workplace morale. In 2017, PayJunction was selected as a Best Place to Work on Glassdoor.com.

“We treat our employees and customers like family and have prioritized doing the right thing in every facet of the business,” says Lavingia.

The company’s impressive call center team is one of the reasons PayJunction had a big night at the 16th Annual American Business Awards this summer. The firm captured the Gold Stevie® for Customer Service Department of the Year among financial services firms, as well as a Bronze Stevie for New Product or Service of the Year.

The team adds these accolades to its trophy shelf, which already included a Bronze Stevie for its customer service team from the 2017 awards ceremony.

Leveraging Its Awards

Founded in 2000, PayJunction succeeds, in part, by adeptly navigating the fast-changing world of payment processing. When it started, services like Apple Pay and Google Pay weren’t even around. Now, accepting those methods is increasingly viewed as imperative.

It has also been at the leading edge of efforts to combat fraud, which has long been one of the industry’s biggest challenges. Changes in signature requirements and the introduction of chip-and-PIN cards are having a major positive impact on retailers and businesses that process those cards.

“Equipping them with the technology they need for the future is truly exciting,” says Lavingia.

Today, the company processes $4 billion in sales each year, and thousands of businesses across the United States use its payment terminals and software. To meet this demand, the organization now employs more than 60 employees.

Perhaps, though, it’s the company’s laser focus on customer service that makes it stand out the most. For Lavingia, bringing home two Stevie Awards, including one for its customer care team, is a huge notch in its belt.

She notes the company was already bringing up its prior bronze prize during sales calls and in emails in order to help woo new customers, and she’s confident earning a gold this year will give them even greater prestige.

“We're able to leverage these awards to close deals with new merchants and to accurately showcase in a meaningful way how our software and support will positively impact their businesses,” Lavingia says.

Most information humans take in is visual and depth based. Although we do not emit lasers or lights to perceive our environments (as much as we might wish to), we still see everything very accurately with our comparatively low-quality eyes.

This means the brain is the driving factor behind the impressive results of our vision. Now, imagine a world where every device and machine has those capabilities. How well could that serve humanity?

The AI-based software solution from Lucid empowers dual-camera devices, such as mobile phones, robots, and others, to see in three dimensions, providing the depth perception of human eyes.

Lucid wants to be the platform that allows any device or machine to capture depth data in the world. In late 2018, Lucid is on track to bring in 10 times their 2017 revenue. They anticipate adding staff; opening offices around the world; and continuing to foster their culture of inclusion, work ethic, and continuous improvement.

Tech Giants Are Noticing

Lucid was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States, in January 2015. They focused on mimicking human vision in robots because they believed true depth vision should not be emission-based but AI-based. This defied how the entire industry was working at the time.

Han Jin is the cofounder and CEO of Lucid. He details where the company stood technologically before any tech giants entered the now growing space.

“We decided to build the world’s first VR180 camera, LucidCam, because we wanted to prove our AI-based software technology had a market,” says Jin. “There was no similar hardware until iPhone 7 Plus came out with dual cameras.”

After they successfully launched their device into retail spaces and millions of consumer hands, they observed the trend of dual cameras spreading to more than just phones.

This innovation keeps the company on track to recreate human vision through software, and they believe the deeper intermingling of humans and technology when both humans and robots are capable of doing and seeing.

Exploring New Territories

AI provides solutions to many problems caused by hardware limitations. For example, smartphone manufacturers need to ensure the price they charge per device continues to be competitive in order to hit volume benchmarks. However, when trying to incorporate depth-sensing technologies, the process becomes both bulky and costly. In consumer electronics, there’s simply not a lot of room for more hardware.

Space margins are extremely thin, and this is especially true of smartphones, where real estate is dire. Additionally, when you add an expensive sensor to a device, the price, unsurprisingly, goes up.

There’s no way around this other than finding solutions that incorporate depth sensing into consumer devices without the addition of hardware. This is precisely why AI software is leading companies like Lucid into territories that weren’t previously accessible.

Massive Potential

Five billion people have mobile phones, but the latest technological upgrades, such as built-in depth sensors, are currently too expensive for most device makers to incorporate. This disallows facial recognition, VR/AR, and 3D scanning.

At the same time, smartphone makers specifically are feeling increased downward price pressure as they try to come out with newer, more advanced devices that outpace their competitors.

The entire market is trying to find new approaches to solve this problem. As phone makers scramble to conceive new features that convince consumers to upgrade, depth sensing is increasingly on people’s radar.

When Lucid won a Gold Stevie® Award for Entrepreneur of the Year for Computer Software, the community took notice. Lucid is already improving its pure software solutions.

“This year, Lucid partnered with elite camera maker RED to build an H4V camera. The RED camera features two moving high-resolution cameras that adjust dynamically,” says Jin. “Our engine allows you to generate multiple views through AI with only two views being captured. This camera will use the new Hydrogen One phone with a holographic display as a viewfinder.”

Technology and innovation are at the core of what Lucid does, and other entrepreneurs and businesses can learn from Lucid’s alternative AI solution. Their work illustrates that software can implement capabilities much faster (and cheaper) than hardware currently can.

Teaching machines to see like humans could have huge ramifications in the technological world, and we’re just beginning to imagine all the possibilities.

Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations run by women, winners in the 2018 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business were announced on Friday, November 16.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition produced by the creators of the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®. The Stevie is widely considered to be the world’s premier business award.

With more than 500 businesswomen and their guests in attendance, the awards were announced at a gala dinner at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. Nations represented at the event included Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland, U.S.A., United Kingdom, and Vietnam, among others.

The presentations were broadcast live worldwide.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals in 33 nations were submitted to the awards this year for consideration in categories including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. Winners were chosen by more than 200 business professionals working in six specialized judging committees to determine the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

Grand Stevie Award trophies were presented to the five organizations that submitted the best body of entries to the competition, in their own names or in the names of one or more clients. Winners were determined by the number of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Awards won in the competition.

The Grand Stevie Award winners are:

• Award Winning Accelerator, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia (#1)
• Plan International Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada (#2)
• DP DHL, worldwide (#3)
• The Female Social Network, Sydney, NSW, Australia (#4)
• Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (#5)

Notable Gold Stevie Award winners in this year’s competition include:

• Aflac, Columbus, GA USA — Communications or PR Campaign of the Year — Reputation/Brand Management
• Bon Choix Couture, Glendale, CA USA — Company of the Year – Business Services – 10 or Less Employees
• Dee Hutchinson, Founder of Dee Hutchinson Talent Development Ltd, Waterford, Ireland — Mentor or Coach of the Year — Business
• Laurie LaPat-Polasko, Vice President/National Director of Remediation, Matrix New World Engineering, Florham Park, NJ — Woman of the Year — Technology
• PotomacWave, Alexandria, VA USA — Fastest Growing Company of the Year
• Caroline Riseboro, President & CEO, Plan International Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada — Women Helping Women — Government or Non-Profit
• HK Strategies, Mexico City, Mexico — Communications or PR Campaign of the Year — Public Service
• Ashley Harris, CEO, LoveBug Probiotics, New York, NY — Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Products – 10 or Less Employees
• Anne-Lise Dorry, Senior Director of Corporate Finance Products, Thomson Reuters, New York, NY — Employee of the Year — Business
• Esther Rovira, CEO, CasaAPP, Barcelona, Spain — Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Europe, the Middle East & Africa
• Sykes Enterprises, Tampa, FL USA — Achievement in Developing and Promoting Women
• PharmaLogics Recruiting, Quincy, MA USA — Achievement in Equal Pay

The 2018 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award include Dignity Health, iTalent Digital, Jeunesse Global, LoveBug Probiotics, Plan International Canada, Simpson Healthcare Executives, The Cura Foundation, Thomson Reuters, and Tick Tock Boom Digital Agency.

For a complete list of Stevie Award winners and more information, visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

Entries for the 2019 edition of the awards will open in May.

After spending weeks scanning job listings and showing up as your best-dressed self to job interviews, you’ve finally come across the perfect role. You exceed the requirements, and you have a lot of relevant experience, as well as the soft skills the company is after.

All that’s left is a return phone call saying, “Come on by to discuss your employment with us!”

That call never comes though. Why is that? Could it be because your last name isn’t something like Smith?

The immigrant workforce, visible minorities, women, and historically overlooked groups have demonstrated increased success when a company hires more diverse workers.

Attracting—and especially retaining—a diverse workforce should be an important focus for employers in all sectors.

Progressive HR and recruiting companies like career.place aim to remove biases one hire at a time.

Formed in 2016, career.place has been diversifying hiring processes and compliance through a SaaS-based solution that put applicants through an anonymous, consistent, and semi-automated hiring funnel. Using the software, employers advance anonymous candidates who meet the company’s needs and remove those who simply don’t qualify. This technology helps applicants demonstrate they are qualified for positions, and the right people can move forward to the final stage in the hiring process.

Career.Place won three Bronze Stevie® Awards including Woman of the Year in Business Services Industries, Startup of the Year in Business Services Industries, and Entrepreneur of the Year in Computer Software in The American Business Awards®.

The Paradox of Hiring: Anonymity Brings Back Humanity

Melissa Dobbins, founder and CEO of career.place, built the company on the simple premise – bias has no place in hiring. Job seekers and employers are noticing her company’s unique approach; which starts by defining the needs of the job, and anonymously evaluating candidates against those needs, thereby focusing on what matters without the distractions of what is not.

Of course, diversity and compliance are in the news a lot, and this has perfectly positioned companies like career.place to solve the diversity-related problems companies are having now or will potentially have.

Career.Place has created a software solution where applicants are evaluated based on the employer’s criteria, including criteria such as requirements, soft skills (measured by integrated assessments), and responses to job-scenario and situational questions. All unrelated information about the applicants are hidden including name, education, titles, and other biasing information typically found on a resume – think “The Voice” but for applicants. The process is efficient, fair, and eliminates the need for time consuming resume and phone screens.

“Ironically by removing applicant identities, including their gender, age, ethnicity, favorite sports team, and other biasing and irrelevant information, we are giving applicants their voices back.” says Dobbins. “Imagine the great talent overlooked because of details like not knowing the right keywords to get through an automatic filter or having a gap in work history. By removing that information, and replacing it with information like qualifications, soft-skill assessments, and responses to job scenario questions, great talent will stand out because they are great.”

Change agents driving for a better tomorrow

Organizations gain valuable perspectives from diverse talent. There are many reports and studies that show diversity is good for business, but fundamentally, it just makes sense – companies will more effectively sell, support, and engage with a market if they reflect the full diversity of that market. Unfortunately, conscious and unconscious biases get in our way, constantly nudging us to hire others like us, rather than those who are best for the role, the company, and the mission. Dobbins details her experiences dealing with this before starting her company.

“When applying for jobs, I have been asked some very odd questions that I suspect my male counterparts have not had to deal with. For example, probing questions about if I would leave work to pick up my child if she were sick– indecently, that line of questioning is illegal. I have been asked if I could fire people because it is emotionally difficult, if I could handle difficult personalities, and if I would be interested in a single contributor role (i.e. a demotion) before being evaluated for the position at hand. What do you think my experiences would be like if those who interviewed me didn’t know I was a woman? What would your experiences be like if in your next job application the company doesn’t know what you are – just what value you bring?”

“These stories are universal. I have never met anyone who hasn’t experienced bias in one form or another,” continues Dobbins. “For me, I became obsessed with becoming part of the solution – a way for people to be evaluated fairly and consistently based on their skills and qualifications, and not assumptions made based on what they look like or what’s on a resume. And so career.place was born.”

A diverse workforce is good for business, good for communities, and good for the employees. There is no silver bullet for creating a diverse, engaged workforce. It is a future that will take many change agents – from entrepreneurs, like Dobbins, who are creating solutions to support unbiased hiring to those who are engaging and cultivating talent across every demographic group. Together we will succeed and the impact will be profound.

For more information about Melissa Dobbins or career.place, go to www.career.place.

https://www.career.place/single-post/2018/03/19/Do-Not-Hinder-Diversity-with-Bias-in-your-Hiring-Process-Have-a-Plan

The Stevie® Awards has issued a call for entries for the 2019 (sixth annual) Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the only business awards program to recognize innovation in business throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region. 

The early-bird entry deadline is November 28. The final entry deadline is January 30, 2019, but late entries will be accepted through March 8 with the payment of a late fee. Complete entry details are available at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are open to all organizations in the 29 nations of the Asia-Pacific region: Large and small, for-profit and non-profit, public and private. Seven nations are added to those eligible to submit nominations to the 2019 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

The awards focus on recognizing innovation in all its forms, wherever it is achieved in the workplace. Entries will be accepted in eight languages – Chinese, English, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Thai and Vietnamese - in the following awards category groups:

• Annual Report Awards & Other Publication Awards
• Customer Service Awards
• Company/Organization Awards
• Human Resources Awards
• Information Technology Awards
• Management Awards
• Marketing Awards
• New Product Awards
• Corporate Communications, IR, and PR Awards
• Website Awards and Smartphone and Tablet App Awards
  …and more

New awards categories introduced for 2019 include Most Innovative Startup of the Year and Most Innovative Tech Startup of the Year. There are no entry fees for the these categories.

Asia-Pacific Stevie Award winners will be announced on April 17. Winners will be celebrated and presented their awards during a gala banquet on May 31 in Singapore.

Scores of professionals from throughout the region will participate in the judging process to determine the Stevie winners.

Some of the Asia-Pacific region’s most innovative organizations have won Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards in the past five years including ABS-CBN Corporation, Bangkok Health Research Center, Cisco Systems, Delta Air Lines, Dentsu, Freelancer.com, GE Indonesia, Globe Telecom, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Huawei, Maras Group, MetLife Asia Ltd., MSLGROUP China, Ooredoo, PT Petrokimia Gresik, Samsung, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Singapore Power, Sony, Telkom Indonesia, Xiaomi, and more.

The Stevie Award trophies, made by the company that makes the Emmy and other major international awards, are among the world's most coveted prizes. The name Stevie is taken from the name Stephen, which is derived from the Greek for "crowned."

For most people, participating in conversations and listening to music are easy to take for granted. For those with hearing impairment, these everyday activities are a major challenge.

Over the past 71 years, Phonak, which is based in Zurich, Switzerland, has been working to eliminate those hurdles for customers around the globe. After many years of dedication in the industry, the company’s achievements now include a litany of technological breakthroughs, each resulting in hearing devices that are more discreet, effective, and versatile than ever before.

A member of the Swiss corporation Sonova Group, Phonak launched the world’s first behind-the-ear hearing aid in the early 1970s, and a few years later, they introduced the first digitally programmable hearing device. In the 1990s, Phonak developed the market’s smallest FM receiver, which paired with a wireless transmitter to minimize background noises and to enhance the clarity of individual voices.

The desire to push the boundaries of hearing technology still drives the company today, resulting in a series of high-profile accolades. Phonak recently launched Audéo B-Direct, the first hearing aid that can connect to any Bluetooth®-equipped mobile device. The product, which earned the organization a Silver Stevie Award for Best Product at The American Business Awards® this summer, automatically senses the user’s surroundings and adjusts the output to make answering phone calls and holding conversations simpler.

On the heels of that achievement, Phonak was named winner of the Gold Stevie for Best Product at The International Business Awards®. This time it was for its cutting-edge Virto B-Titanium hearing aid. Developed using custom 3-D printing, the device capitalizes on titanium’s lightweight and superior strength. The result is a hearing aid that’s virtually unnoticeable to the outside observer.

“The Stevie Awards are an extremely important achievement to us. They demonstrate our ongoing commitment to create a consistent, scalable, sustainable competitive advantage within Phonak,” says John Urbaniak, Associate Director, Media Relations US Hearing Instruments at Sonova.

Helping Families Cope with Hearing Loss

The firm’s management has made research and development a top priority going forward. In April, Phonak announced a new audiological center of excellence at its audiology research center outside of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The center will serve as a hub for independent research, as well as ongoing collaborations with a network of top audiology experts and institutions around the globe.

“Tackling everything from pediatric to profound hearing loss, Phonak remains committed to creating hearing solutions that change people’s lives and help them thrive socially and emotionally,” Urbaniak says.

The Swiss company is using its stature in the industry to increase awareness of hearing loss solutions. To that end, it recently partnered with a charity called Songs of Sound, which helps improve access to hearing loss testing and the technology to help correct it.

With support from sponsors like Phonak, Songs for Sound holds a free weekend retreat each year that educates families of children with hearing loss about new technologies. It also teaches them how to navigate the health care system in order to get optimal care. In addition to the camp, the partnership with Phonak helps assist the organization’s Hear the Music Project and mobile clinic tours, which provide 10,000 to 15,000 people a year with access to free hearing tests.

Phonak also works to reduce the stigma that sometimes surrounds hearing loss by leaning on successful hearing-impaired celebrities. For example, it inked a sponsorship deal with stand-up comedian D.J. Demers, a contestant on season 11 of America’s Got Talent. His performances often revolve around his experiences as a youth in need of hearing aids.

The organization also turned Swiss aerialist Jason Brügger into a brand advocate. In this role, he’s involved in a range of projects worldwide to help support those with hearing impairments. Additionally, U.S. golfer and Deaflympics gold medalist Kaylin Yost was a guest keynote speaker at Phonak-sponsored summer camps for children with hearing loss.

“With these ambassadors, we've been able to reach thousands through conferences, community outreach, and speaking opportunities,” adds Urbaniak.

In doing so, the company known for developing state-of-the-art technology has also helped hearing-impaired people heal on an emotional level, too.