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.

Over the past decade, there’s been a sea change in the way people consume video content. Today’s viewers can download and stream multimedia on their computers, as well as on mobile apps, social media sites, and a variety of connected TV devices, such as Roku, Fire TV, and Apple TV.

Thanks to the proliferation of outlets—and a steep drop in production costs—you no longer have to be a major broadcast network or media conglomerate to gain viewers. Now, even small businesses, state and county governments, and churches are using these non-cable outlets, commonly referred to as “over the top,” or OTT, to reach a whole new audience.

While the barriers to entry are certainly less insurmountable than in the past, independent producers still need the tools to upload, manage, and publish their video and audio content on a wide range of media platforms. Lightcast.com has been helping clients overcome this exact challenge since its inception in 2010.

The company, which has offices in the United States (Charlotte, North Carolina) and Europe, bills itself as the one-stop shop for all its clients’ publishing needs. In addition to providing transcoding services—it creates more than a dozen renditions of each video in different bitrates—it offers a fully functional content management system and the ability to distribute multimedia using one of the world’s largest server networks.

It also helps organizations monetize their content by creating advertising, pay-per-view, and subscription strategies. By eliminating the need to work with video ad networks—what it calls the industry middlemen—the company claims content creators can boost their net revenue.

The “Democratization” of Video

“The shift away from mere streaming on websites to OTT has kept all streaming providers and online video platforms on their toes,” says the company’s managing director, Andreas Kisslinger. “Lightcast.com, in particular, has really enjoyed, welcomed, embraced, and promoted this change as we see the new publishing channels and platforms as a huge opportunity for media publishers.”

For Kisslinger, the changes in the media landscape enable organizations of all stripes to amplify their messages and to expand their reach.

“It’s a chance for democratization of information flow, creativity, and entrepreneurship among independent producers, of which many are highly successful,” he says.

Lightcast, whose Media Cloud solution won the Gold StevieⓇ Award  in The American Business Awards® for New Product or Service of the Year in the CMS category, has tapped in to those opportunities as well as anyone. Its software suite now helps support a multitude of media outlets on social media, connected TV, and mobile apps. Today, InTouch Ministries, Foody TV, and All About Golf are among the thousands of clients Lightcast helps connect with new audiences. It’s an impressive achievement for a company that started with little and worked tirelessly with its “bootstraps” mentality.

“We are all young entrepreneurs from various countries. All self-funded and self-made, without any venture capital or connections behind our backs,” says Kisslinger. “Instead of using investment capital, we built our business exclusively with sweat, blood, and tears—and, most of all, the satisfaction of our customers who share their excitement about our products with others."

Kisslinger acknowledges that keeping a trans-Atlantic operation going isn’t always easy, though. The staff has to continually navigate language and time zone differences to make it work. For Kisslinger, however, what they have in common is more important: a desire to go above and beyond for their customers.

One of the company’s keys to success is a relentless pursuit of the perfect multimedia publishing suite.

“We have a proprietary CRM system and database in which we record every feedback, every wish, and every need customers send us. We do this in order to refine the user interfaces and feature sets of our software-as-a-service offering,” says Kisslinger.

This approach helped the company earn numerous awards for product design over the past few years, but for Kisslinger, snagging the Stevie Award was particularly satisfying.

“We regard the Stevie as one of the most important and prestigious awards a business can win,” he says. “It’s boosted the excitement and self-esteem of our teams—especially among our hardworking coders, web developers, and graphic designers. Everyone is especially excited and grateful over this year's award,” he says.

Businesses are rapidly migrating their data and applications to the cloud, and increasingly taking advantage of the flexibility and functionality of providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS). According to one industry report, 71 percent of enterprise-level companies will increase their spending on the public cloud by 20 percent or more in 2018.

While the benefits of replacing on-premises assets with web storage might seem readily apparent, the conversion itself can present some real challenges. In order to avoid a costly misstep, companies need to put a strategy in place that protects their cloud data and ensures applications work as intended.

Cloud Protection Manager (CPM), a solution the United States based firm N2W Software developed, strives to eliminate those worries.

Designed specifically for AWS, the product offers the ability to back up data as often as necessary, and it recovers that data faster than traditional on-site backup solutions.

“It’s a complex and new IT environment that’s viewed with a lot of uncertainty and challenges, but it doesn’t have to be,” says Jessica Eisenberg, an inbound marketer and customer success manager at N2W Software.

Employing a user-friendly web interface, CPM allows users to manage multiple AWS accounts and to configure policies and schedules to take automated snapshot backups. Clients can recover snapshots, individual volumes or even individual files almost instantaneously, and can recover both in another region or in another account.. It does all this while maintaining compliance with various privacy standards, such as HIPAA, a health data security law in the United States, and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

The solution is especially important because, under its Shared Responsibility Model, Amazon is only responsible for the cloud infrastructure itself. However, the customer may assume liability for application software and utilities that it installs on the platform.

The solution is especially important because, under its Shared Responsibility Model, Amazon is only responsible for the cloud infrastructure itself. However, the customer may assume liability for application software and utilities that it installs on the platform.

Big Clients Sign On

The roots of N2W Software date back to 2010, when AWS user Uri Wolloch realized the need for simpler and more scalable backup and recovery capabilities. Wolloch quit his job and began working from home for almost two years to create the first beta version of Cloud Protection Manager.

Since its release, CPM has been used in virtually every vertical market, including finance, health care, mobile, IT, transport, and media. Companies rapidly joined in as enterprises started to weigh the risks of even short periods of downtime. The company’s client list—now totaling more than 1,000 enterprises worldwide—includes the likes of Coca-Cola, Southwest Airlines, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Dyson, Harvard University, and media giant Time Inc.

“Our existing customer base contains the most progressive and forward-looking enterprises in the world—ones which are most interested in acquiring the latest and best cloud backup and disaster recovery technology in order to be prepared for the growing number of data breaches, ransomware attacks, errors, bugs, and weather-related disasters,” Eisenberg says.

The tech community seems to believe growth will only continue as more companies migrate to the cloud. N2W Software, based in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, completed two rounds of funding in 2017, which was when it also brought in Jason Judge as its new CEO and Andy Langsam as COO.

At that time, the organization’s physical presence swelled to keep up. It now has a development center in Haifa, Israel, as well as satellite offices in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Bucharest, Romania. In January, the private Swiss firm Veeam announced its acquisition of N2W Software for $42.5 million, saying it will continue to operate the business as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Award Boosts Product Awareness

Among the rewards of the buyout was an introduction to the Stevie® Awards, several of which Veeam won in 2015. 

“We knew the Stevies were the premier business awards and that the awarding body is an organization that takes honoring achievements and innovation very seriously,” Eisenberg says.

The panel of judges recognized N2W Software this summer for its pioneering technology. In 2018, N2WS won a Gold Stevie Award in The American Business Awards for New Product or Service of the Year category for Software – Cloud Storage & Backup Solution. The judges noted the efficacy and disaster recovery benefits of CPM, as well as its specialized features, such as robust reporting, alerting, auditing, and dashboard functions.

“The excitement surrounding our company and product is clear recognition of the company’s progress and main goal: to create peace of mind for our customers with valuable data and mission-critical applications in the public cloud,” says Eisenberg. “It has already brought added awareness for customers on AWS that both small glitches and disastrous backup failures can be easily avoided and any single level of downtime can be mitigated.”

Finalists in the 2018 (third annual) Stevie Awards for Great Employers, an international competition, were announced today. The awards recognize the world’s best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements, and HR-related products and suppliers who help to create and drive great places to work.    

Among the organizations with the most finalist nominations are Benefex (United Kingdom), Deutsche Telekom Services Europe GmbH (Germany), ej4 (USA), Tata Consultancy Services (India), and Turkcell (Turkey).

For a full list of finalists by category, visit www.StevieAwards.com/HR.   

All finalists will ultimately be named Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award winners. The placements will be revealed during a gala event on Friday, September 21, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Tickets are now on sale. The presentations will be broadcast live via Livestream.

More than 550 nominations from organizations from 21 nations were evaluated in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 60 professionals worldwide, acting as judges. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize achievement in many facets of the workplace. Categories include:

•    Employer of the Year
•    HR Achievements
•    HR Individual Awards
•    HR Team Categories
•    Solution Provider Awards
•    More than 50 New Product & Service Categories

Stevie Award placements in the 35 Employer of the Year categories will be determined by a unique blending of the ratings of professionals and the votes of the general public. More than 24,000 votes were cast by members of the public for their favorite employer this year.

The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®.

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, announced today that the final entry deadline for the third annual competition has been extended to Thursday, August 9. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers honors the world’s best companies to work for and the HR teams and professionals, HR achievements, new products and services and suppliers that help to create and drive great workplaces.

“We’ve received so many requests for individual deadline extensions that we’ve decided to extend the deadline for everyone,” said Stevie Awards president Michael Gallagher. The original final deadline was July 18. Gallagher emphasizes that no additional late fees will be charged for entries submitted through August 9, and late entries will not be penalized in the judging process. All organizations now have three more weeks to prepare and submit their entries.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

All individuals and organizations worldwide—public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small—may submit nominations to the Stevie Awards for Great Employers. The 2018 awards will honor achievements since the beginning of 2017. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/HR.

Stevie Award winners in the 35 Employer of the Year categories will be determined by a unique blending of the ratings of professionals and the votes of the general public. Public voting will open on July 23.

The Stevie Awards for Great Employers will recognize achievement in many facets of the workplace. Categories include:

• Employer of the Year
• HR Achievements
• HR Individual Awards
• HR Team Categories
• Solution Provider Awards
• More than 50 New Product & Service Categories

Close to 100 professionals worldwide, working on a number of juries, will determine the Stevie Award winners. Finalists will be announced on August 15. Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced at a gala event in New York City on September 21.

A wedding cake is that rare culinary creation that customers remember for years to come. Naturally, bakers pour their hearts into every delicious detail, whether it’s a pattern of elaborate swirls or elegant, sugary flowers.

Then, of course, they have to transport their handiwork to the reception. That’s where things can get scary. Each unexpected stop or dip in the road has the potential to turn a masterpiece into mush.

Juli Chapin knows this as well as anyone. In the late 1980s, she started a bakery specializing in wedding cakes in the Northeast region of the United States, and she sympathizes with bakers who have to deal with this precarious transport situation. Traditionally, people like her would put each cake tier into a cardboard box and stack the tiers, one on top of the other, at the venue.

“It’s extremely nerve-racking and limits the designs you can create since the majority of the decoration needs to be applied to the stacked cake,” she says. “Bakers have even shut down their wedding cake businesses due to the high stress involved in transportation and the risk of being sued by a bride if something happens to the cake in delivery.”

An Invention Is Born

In Chapin’s case, it helped being married to an engineer who had a knack for solving tricky problems around the house. Upon hearing about her transit issues, her husband, Scott, came up with a clever solution: a rigid container with a stainless steel dowel that ran through the center of the cake to keep it nice and secure. Thanks to a double-walled exterior, it also protected the contents from rain, wind, and scorching summer heat.

For a long time, the couple simply saw it as a convenient solution to their own business problem. The results, however, were so good (in 20 years, Chapin never had a cake damaged on its way to a reception) that they started wondering if the contraption had a broader appeal.

In 2009, the Rhode Island couple started marketing the device to bakeries around the country as the “CakeSafe.” From the start, it was clear they had struck a chord with a lot of bakeries when showing off their invention.

Chapin recalls the early days, when Scott worked around the clock at their home to keep up with demand.

“He’d run his CNC table all night long making products for orders that needed to be shipped the next day,” she says. “He'd hear the machine stop, pause the movie he was watching, and go downstairs to set up the next run on the table.”

Despite the hard work, Chapin says it’s been satisfying to help people in the same situation she was once in.

“Bakers now deliver to mountaintop venues in the snow, down gravel roads with potholes, and on congested highways, all with no stress at all.”

One baker told the couple that she slammed on her brakes on the way to an event, causing her CakeSafe to flip over in the car. She expected to see a pile of crumbs inside but instead found the dessert perfectly intact.

“We've received many phone calls from bakers crying tears of joy because they were able to reopen their wedding cake businesses or grow their businesses because they no longer had any fear of delivery,” says Chapin, who eventually scaled back her own bakery to focus on CakeSafe.

Stevie Award Is Icing on the Cake

Since starting the business nearly a decade ago, Scott hasn’t stopped innovating. The company now offers CakeSafe in a variety of sizes; a safe for cupcakes; spray booths for airbrushing desserts; and a host of other baking implements.

“Scott genuinely loves inventing products to help bakers and to make their lives easier,” Chapin says of her husband, who recently won a Silver Stevie® Award for Product Developer of the Year in The 2018 American Business Awards® . “He never turns down a custom order and is constantly inventing new product lines.”

The company’s reputation within the industry belies its small staff, which only recently moved out of the Chapins’ home into a separate location.

“Whenever customers call the office and Scott or I pick up the phone, they tend to clam up,” she says. “They might say, ‘I never expected to get to talk to you. I'm talking to a celebrity!’ Little do they know, we are only a team of six.”

To this day, the company handcrafts all CakeSafe products, but it’s all a labor of love.

“All the employees have such a passion for their jobs,” she notes. “Scott is a big reason for that.”

It’s gratifying, Chapin notes, for her spouse—and the business he started—to get the extra attention.

“Scott is a brilliant and caring man who deserves to be recognized for his outstanding achievements in the bakery product field,” she says proudly. “Winning a Stevie further legitimizes the company so customers can rest assured their products are coming from a reputable source.”

The 2018 (16th annual) American Business Awards® - the U.S.A's top honors open to all organizations operating in the U.S.A., and feature a wide variety of categories to recognize achievement in every facet of the workplace- will be presented this Monday, June 11 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.  More than 650 nominees and their guests will attend to be presented with their Grand, Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards.

The presentations will be broadcast live, beginning at 6:45 pm ET.

Here are the organizations that as of this writing will be represented at the event on Monday:

3Dazer
4Life Research
A.wordsmith
ACES
Advance Financial
Aflac
AIG US Life
Allianz Global Assistance
Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America
Allscripts
Anthem Foundation
Aragon Advertising
Arise Virtual Solutions Inc.
ArmadaCare
ASG Technologies
Association of International Certified Professional Accountants
Asure Software
Avasant
AXA
Barclays
BD
Best Western Hotels & Resorts
BetterAir
BGRS
BIA
Blis
Bloomberg Environment
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
BluePay Processing
BlueToad Inc.
botkeeper
Brightstar Corp.
Brillio
Burst
Cathy Turney
Century Business Solutions
Church & Dwight
Cigna
Cisco
Citi
CityOf.com
Clevens Face and Body Specialists
Company
Concentrix
Condeco
Constant Contact Waltham MA
CoverMyMeds
Create Health Plans
Cruise Planners an American Express Travel Representative
Cummins
Cytellix
Davies
Deloitte
Delta Dental of California
DGC International
DHL
Diligent Corporation
DirecTv
Dow Jones
DraftKings
Dynamic Blending
Eff Creative Group
Emory University
Entercom
EpiFinder
Estee Lauder
Evergage
Fidelity Investments
FIS
Fiserv
FlightScope
ForeverCar
Formativ Health
Foxwoods Resort Casino
Geisinger Health
Generali Global Assistance
George P. Johnson
GL group
Globalization Partners
Glossive Technologies
GN Hearing
Gorilla Safety
GREAT WINE Inc.
Gregory FCA
GuideWell Connect
Hannaford Supermarkets
HCL America Inc. - Ritesh Jain
Health4TheWorld
Heraeus Incorporated
Hire For Hope LLC
HMS
HomeServe USA
IGEL
Ignite Sales
IGT
InfinityQS International
Information Builders
Intel Corporation
International SOS
Invesco
ISG
Jefferson County in Golden CO
John Hancock Financial Services
JVZoo
Karmic Labs Inc.
Keriton
LanguageLine Solutions
Lightcast.com
Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions
Lycored
Makers Nutrition
Makovsky
Marriott International
MDwise
Mercedes-Benz USA
Merck
Meritor
Merkle
MetTel
MONAT Global
Motus
Movember Foundation
Mphasis
NBCU
nCino
NFL Player Benefits Office
Nutrisystem
Oncor Electric
OptumCare Operations
Outreach Process Partners LLC
Pacific Expeditors
PAIRELATIONS LLC
PAN Communications
Panasonic Automotive
Panda Restaurant Group
Parkmobile
Paychex Inc.
Port It Global Inc
Primrose Schools
Progrexion
Public Employees' Benefits Program
QLess Inc.
Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems
RB
Realtor.com
Relic
Revenue Optimization Companies, The
Roth Staffing Companies L.P.
Safeguard Business Systems Inc. Dallas TX
SamsonPR
Scaffidi Restaurant Group
SCAN Healthplan
Scott Hospes
Shade Tree Auto
Sharpen Technologies
Social Finance Inc
SoftPro
Soleo Health
Spark
SparkPR
Spartan Invest
State Street Corp
Sterling Staffing Solutions
STYLE Advertising
Symantec
T and T Consulting Services Inc.
T. H. Easter Consulting LLC
TCS
TekLeaders
Terra Dotta
TGI Fridays
Thomson Reuters
Toshiba America Business Solutions
Transfermate
Trianz
TriNet
TrustLogics
Truth Initiative
TycoonAdvertisingGroup
U.S. Army Headquarters Installation Management Command
UBS
United Educators
United Way Worldwide
UnitedHealthcare
Upsher-Smith Laboratories
Valley Forge Fabrics
Vanguard
Verizon
WebPT
Worldwide Clinical Trials
Xperiel Inc.

Enterprise apps should stop forcing people to think like machines. That’s what Skuid believes and has been working on since they were founded in 2013. They believe apps should behave more like the humans who use them, so everyone can thrive in a digital world. With Skuid’s simple-to-use but incredibly robust tools, anyone can build highly complex, bespoke enterprise apps. More than five million users in 32 countries use Skuid to engage with each other, with data and with new customers in meaningful ways—all without writing a single line of code. That’s why they won a Stevie Award in a New Product of the Year category of The 2017 American Business Awards.

More Human, Less Machine

Skuid helps customers quickly build a user experience and adapt it on their own, without expensive code or engineering resources. Instead of coding a unique solution for every customer, Skuid empowers the customer to customize. Skuid CEO Ken McElrath is a designer and an entrepreneur. Ken's background in design has a significant impact on how Skuid operates.

“Skuid is founded on the belief that software should be more human and less machine—that software should work the way people work instead of forcing people to behave like machines.”

Skuid gives customers the individual components to create the impressive structures of an app, while at the same time making the structure easy to change and to scale.

Consistent Results

Skuid recently commissioned Forrester Research to do a study on the value customers get from using Skuid. The study found that Skuid delivers an ROI of 365%, has a payback period of just one month and has a 73% faster development time than other solutions. Ken says they quickly grew into a platform that would give anyone (not just an IT professional) the power and ability to assemble bespoke apps without writing code.

“Companies are demanding better ways to develop apps and employees are demanding that their enterprise apps be as intuitive and easy to use as the personal apps on their iPhone. Skuid has been successful because we deliver solutions that work. That's why we're working with 10% of the Fortune 100.”

Major Validation

Skuid believes they’ve been successful because they consistently deliver results. These results have attracted attention from Fortune 100 companies to SMBs and non-profits. Skuid has over five million users across 30+ countries and in various verticals. Skuid’s customers are diverse in many ways, but they’re united by a dedication to greatness. When the Stevie Awards caught wind of Skuid, Ken says they also helped validate their hard work.

“A Stevie Award has helped add to Skuid's third-party recognition and validation. Having won such a prestigious award and up against more than 10,000 entries from other organizations is a huge honor. The fact that more than 190 professionals worldwide, including industry analysts, journalists and other industry experts, participated in the judging process is major industry validation.”

They don’t settle for “good enough” in the way they do business, which is why they use Skuid—to create exceptional user experiences that accelerate sales productivity, supercharge customer service and amplify efficiency.

Not Like Anything Else

When it comes to enterprise software, one size doesn’t fit all. No company is exactly like another, and each company needs different systems to support their unique business process. Those with the resources spend millions to try to customize with code, but this slows everything down and creates significant maintenance overhead. Writing code to customize a generic solution is expensive, inflexible and far from optimal. Ken believes Skuid has figured out how to service this intricate challenge.

“Because apps built with Skuid are bespoke—made to order—they align to a user’s business needs perfectly. This means that rather than forcing a user's business processes into an off-the-shelf enterprise software solution, Skuid users can tailor their business apps to unlimited degrees without writing code.”

Because each app is tailored to user needs, Skuid customers have seen massive productivity gains to drive success. Skuid is perfectly positioned to meet this need. 

We all benefit when a child succeeds in school, when someone finds a job that will help them provide for their family or when more people are able to access quality, affordable healthcare. United Way Worldwide fights for the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community.

United Way is the world’s largest privately-funded nonprofit, supported by 2.8 million volunteers, 9.8 million donors worldwide and more than $4.7 billion raised every year. So it’s no surprise they received the Gold Stevie Award for Best Annual Report and for “New Product of the Year, Education, K-12 Course or Learning Management Solution” in The 2017 American Business Awards.

Anyone Can Help Everyone

Providing a platform to make a bigger, deeper difference is what Southerlyn Worsham, Director of Public Relations at United Way Worldwide, says is a top priority when getting involved with United Way Worldwide.

“We’re engaged in nearly 1,800 communities across more than 40 countries and territories worldwide to create sustainable solutions to the challenges facing our communities.”

United Way partners include global, national and local businesses, nonprofits, government, civic and faith-based organizations, along with educators, labor leaders, health providers, senior citizens, students and more.

The Importance of Celebrating Lasting Change

It’s hard to quantify the value of helping people around the world, especially at United Way’s scale. But lives being changed for the better can be acknowledged and celebrated with awards that represent the hard work people do day in and day out. Southerlyn enjoys sharing these stories as testaments to the difference that communities can make when we come together to create lasting change.

“Our team is awed by the awards and the double victory. Our entire office is so proud of the two awards and have been congratulating each other. It has been amazing for morale and pride. These victories have reignited our passion to fight for the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community.”

The Gold Stevie Award in The 2017 American Business Awards for Best Annual Report was given to United Way Worldwide for their multi-media annual report about their efforts and results, including 1,800 locations, 40 countries, six continents, served by 2.8 million volunteers and 9.8 million donors. The annual report details individual efforts, collective results and large-scale impact in childhood success, youth success, financial stability and access to healthcare.

The Versatility of Giving

Giving money to fuel community solutions, volunteering your time or lending your voice to a cause that matters to you are just some of the ways people can get involved. United Way also allows people to gift stock with stock transfer instructions provided.

In keeping with the times of constant innovations for sending money, you can now even donate using Bitcoin, by giving to the United Way Worldwide’s Innovation Fund. The Innovation Fund drives the development of new technology and new strategies to expand their reach and impact in communities around the world. Also, every year, millions of employees around the world launch campaigns to support local United Way solutions that improve education, financial stability and healthcare.

Second Annual Awards Honoring World’s Best Workplaces Continues to Accept Nominations

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, announced today that the final entry deadline for the second annual competition has been extended to Wednesday, August 9. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers honors the world’s best companies to work for and the HR teams and professionals, HR achievements, new products and services and suppliers that help to create and drive great workplaces.

“We’ve received so many requests for individual deadline extensions that we’ve decided to extend the deadline for everyone,” said Stevie Awards president Michael Gallagher. The original final deadline was July 19. Gallagher emphasizes that no additional late fees will be charged for entries submitted through August 9, and late entries will not be penalized in the judging process. All organizations now have three more weeks to prepare and submit their entries.

All individuals and organizations worldwide—public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small—may submit nominations to the Stevie Awards for Great Employers. The 2017 awards will honor achievements since the beginning of 2016. Entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/HR.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Stevie Award winners in the 35 Employer of the Year categories will be determined by a unique blending of the ratings of professionals and the votes of the general public.

The Stevie Awards for Great Employers will recognize achievement in many facets of the workplace. Categories include:

• Employer of the Year
• HR Achievements
• HR Individual Awards
• HR Team Categories
• Solution Provider Awards
• More than 50 New Product & Service Categories

Professionals on three international juries will determine the Stevie Award winners. Finalists will be announced on August 16. Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced at a gala event in New York City on September 22.