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Nokia makes scholarships pledge to improve representation of underrepresented communities in technology

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Nokia makes scholarships pledge to improve representation of underrepresented communities in technology

  • Nokia collaborates with online learning platform Udacity and Blacks In Technology Foundation.
  • Over 300 scholarships on offer for Nanodegree programs, which are fully online and can be completed alongside further studies or full-time work.
  • The programs cover a broad range of core tech competencies, from cloud computing and programming to artificial intelligence and data science, available from elementary to advanced levels.

24 August 2021

Espoo, Finland – Nokia has today announced the launch of a scholarship program aimed at providing greater opportunities for underrepresented communities in the technology industry. Working together with online learning and talent transformation platform Udacity and Blacks In Technology (BIT) Foundation, Nokia will offer over 300 scholarships, with a focus on empowering students and career changers from underrepresented communities.

The fully funded scholarships cover a range of core tech competencies, from cloud computing and programming to artificial intelligence and data science, and are available from introductory to advanced levels. The successful candidates will be able to select courses on topics such as AI Programming with Python, Java Programming, Data Structures and Algorithms, Intermediate Python, and Cloud DevOps Engineering.

The courses will be provided by Udacity, whose Nanodegree® programs are fully online and designed to be completed alongside further studies or full-time work, making them accessible to anyone regardless of their position or profession. Scholarships are open to applicants based anywhere in the world, to both students and industry professionals who wish to further develop their technology skills.

Scholarship recipients will also have access to support and networking provided by the BIT Foundation, including mentorship, tutoring, and post-completion career support resources. Nokia will also work closely with its African-American employee resource group ABLE (Advancing Black Leadership and Excellence) to further promote the initiative.

“We are committed to creating technology that helps the world act together, but to do so, the technology industry must reflect the world around us,” said Karoliina Loikkanen, Global Head of Sustainability at Nokia. “This initiative further expands our activities to drive greater inclusion and diversity through concrete actions that provide opportunities to underrepresented communities and individuals, irrespective of background or ethnicity. Education forms a key part of this. Diverse businesses are shown to perform better, and we intend to encourage students who successfully complete one of the programs to apply for positions within Nokia.”

“Education is one of the most important ways for us to help remove the barriers to diversity in tech. By providing access to resources that are designed to nurture and develop people’s skills, we can help get more Black talent into the technology space,” said Dennis Schultz, Executive Director at the BIT Foundation. “We are pleased to see major industry players like Nokia stepping up to the plate with Udacity and addressing the issue head-on in order to drive forward digital transformation and improve much-needed Black representation in tech.”

“We have joined forces with Nokia and Blacks In Technology Foundation because we believe that it is vital to continue to create opportunities for underrepresented groups to build careers in the field of technology,” said Gabe Dalporto, CEO at Udacity. “Democratizing access to digital skills training will create life-changing opportunities for people, and these scholarships will ensure we continue to take measurable steps to increase the participation of Black people in the technology sector.”

Applications are now open. For more information about the scholarship program and how to enter, visit: https://www.nokia.com/about-us/sustainability/improving-lives/tech-and-underrepresented-communities/

About Nokia
At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together.

As a trusted partner for critical networks, we are committed to innovation and technology leadership across mobile, fixed and cloud networks. We create value with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs.

Adhering to the highest standards of integrity and security, we help build the capabilities needed for a more productive, sustainable and inclusive world.

Media Inquiries:
Nokia
Communications
Phone: +358 10 448 4900
Email: [email protected]

About Udacity

Udacity is a global, online training platform powering digital transformation and accelerated time-to-market initiatives for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. Udacity programmes provide industry-created practitioner skills through a series of Nanodegree® programmes consisting of online courses and real-world projects in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, autonomous systems, and cloud computing, among other disciplines. Udacity collaborates with expert instructors and over 200 global industry partners including AT&T, Google, Facebook, Mercedes-Benz, and NVIDIA to power technical education. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., the private company has operations in the United Kingdom, Egypt, Germany, India, and the United Arab Emirates. For more information, please visit www.udacity.com

About the Blacks in Technology Foundation

Founded in 2008 and established in 2012, Blacks In Technology LLC is the largest community and media organization that focuses on people of African descent in the technology industry. Through community-focused activities, events and outreach, The Blacks In Technology (BIT) Foundation is “Stomping the Divide” by establishing a blueprint of world-class technical excellence and innovation by providing resources, guidance, networking, and opportunities for members to share their expertise and advance their careers.

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Tencent Announces Winners of Flagship CarbonX Program to Combat Climate Change

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SHENZHEN, China, May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent (00700.HK) is awarding 13 exceptional teams that won the first phase of its groundbreaking CarbonX Program, which is aimed at boosting promising new climate technologies. The winners, which emerged from a pool of 30 finalists and more than 300 initial applications, will receive a total of around RMB 100 million (US$14 million) in financial support from Tencent. It showcases the company’s commitment to driving sustainable social innovations in the fight against climate change.

CarbonX was launched in March 2023 to advance the next generation of low-carbon technologies. Tencent has committed RMB 200 million (US$28 million) in catalytic funding over the next three years to innovative ideas that might otherwise languish or fail to gain traction.
CarbonX’s first phase focused on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), as well as technology-based carbon removal. These solutions were chosen for their unique ability to curb emissions from hard-to-abate industries such as steel and cement, mitigate the continued reliance on fossil fuels, and reduce legacy emissions created from decades of industrialization.
Backed by Tencent’s mission of Tech for Good and an alliance of like-minded industry partners, CarbonX aims to help these cutting-edge technologies make the leap from the research or early startup stage to commercial scale. The ultimate goal is supporting them in making a significant impact toward the targets outlined in the Paris Agreement, which includes a 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Dr. Hao Xu, Tencent’s Vice President of Sustainable Social Value and Head of Tencent’s Carbon Neutrality Lab, said: “Technology innovation serves as the driving force to accelerate our progress toward achieving carbon neutrality. CarbonX program is aimed at fostering the growth of these technologies, driving positive impact across society, and laying the groundwork for a more sustainable future.”
Professor Jerry Yan, Chair Professor of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Co-chairman of the CarbonX expert committee, said: “To pave the path for a greener economy, we must champion the development of cutting-edge low-carbon technologies. Just as solar and wind power were nurtured in their infancy, emerging solutions like CCUS and tech-based carbon removal demand our early support.”
The program assembled a panel of experts from academia, industries, and the investor community as the jury, and welcomed submissions from diverse participants across three distinct tracks:
CarbonX Lab: Designed to incubate research institutions, universities, or labs that bring in game-changing climate solutionsCarbonX Accelerator: Designed to accelerate the growth of climate-tech startups that exhibit commercialization potentialCarbonX Infrastructure: Designed to support capacity building to facilitate industry developmentThe finalists comprise four projects from the Lab track, six from the Accelerator track, and three from the Infrastructure track. These projects explore innovative solutions, such as using steel slag to capture and store carbon directly from furnace exhaust, converting CO2 into sustainable aviation fuel and valuable chemicals through electrochemical reactions or microorganisms, and employing new approaches to directly capture CO2 from the atmosphere with the hope of slashing the cost to less than US$150 per ton.
Meanwhile, Tencent is also collaborating with Tsinghua University to develop a comprehensive system of Measure, Reporting and Verification (MRV) tools to accurately gauge progress toward decarbonization.
Aside from receiving financial and advisory support, several projects will also have the opportunity to collaborate with industry partners and test their research beyond the laboratory setting.
Building upon the success of the first phase, Tencent is poised to launch the second iteration of CarbonX globally as early as later this year in pursuit of early-stage climate tech innovation.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/tencent-announces-winners-of-flagship-carbonx-program-to-combat-climate-change-302153596.html

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NEXCOM Delivers Exceptional Performance in Edge AI Video Analytics

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TAIPEI, May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — NEXCOM, a leading supplier of network solutions, published AI and storage performance test results of its NSA 7160R: high-performance Edge server. NSA 7160R is powered by dual Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors for high computing, and enhanced with DDR5 memory, high-bandwidth PCIe Gen5 LAN modules, and high-capacity NVMe storage modules. The test results show the efficiency of the NSA 7160R in processing edge video server workloads and were explained in the accompanying paper. 

Edge AI Is the Future
With the rise of smart cities, processing data from cloud to the edge is becoming increasingly critical. Imagine the surge of visual data from ubiquitous security cameras – that information needs real-time analysis right where it’s collected. This is just the tip of the iceberg. As artificial intelligence permeates our lives, certain AI tasks will also need edge computing for efficient, lightning-fast performance. The key is to avoid bottlenecks in the data center by keeping things localized and streamlined.
Your Turnkey Solution Awaits
When it comes to Edge video servers, you need top-notch hardware and software that can handle all the “heavy lifting”. To speed up the total solution bringing up Intel comes in with their Intel® Edge Video Infrastructure (Intel® EVI) reference design. NEXCOM ran a bunch of tests using this design to evaluate its NSA 7160R for essential tasks including storage, image retrieval, and AI features such as inference and feature matching.
After conducting all tests, the results have shown that NSA 7160R meets all performance expectations with outstanding results. For a detailed breakdown of the solution description, test configuration, and results, please refer to the accompanying paper.
Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.
About NEXCOM
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, NEXCOM integrates its diverse capabilities and operates six global businesses, including the Network and Communication Solutions (NCS) unit. NCS focuses on the latest network technology and helps to build reliable network infrastructure, by delivering professional design and manufacturing services for customers all over the world. NCS’s network application platform is widely adopted in Cyber Security, Load Balancing, 5G uCPE, SD-WAN, SASE, Edge Computing, OT Security, Storage, NVR, and other network applications for businesses of all sizes.
Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WlO8fyWnu4

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nexcom-delivers-exceptional-performance-in-edge-ai-video-analytics-302153555.html

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Qiming Venture Partners Promotes Alex Zhou to Managing Partner

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SHANGHAI, May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Qiming Venture Partners, a global-leading venture capital firm, is pleased to announce the promotion of Alex Zhou to Managing Partner.

As a Qiming home-grown Managing Partner, Alex first joined the firm in 2014 as a Vice President and has since emerged as one of the most active investors in frontier technologies, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. Alex will join fellow Managing Partners Duane Kuang, Nisa Leung and William Hu in managing Qiming’s operations.
In the past few years, Alex has actively participated in or led investments in many outstanding technology companies across the artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, new energy vehicles, and software sectors. Notable among these include Roborock, UBTech, Unisound, Biren Technology, ROX Motor, VIEWTRIX Technology, Zhipu AI, Mech-Mind Robotics, Axera, HyperStrong, DeepWay, etc.
“I am deeply grateful for the guidance and trust I received from Qiming over the past 10 years.” Alex said. “We are at the forefront of a new wave of technological revolution. This era will undoubtedly bring about many bold innovators who will shape the future. Together with all the Managing Partners and colleagues at Qiming, I am excited and fully committed to seize the opportunities, embrace any potential challenges, explore new possibilities and build a better Qiming.”
Since its inception 18 years ago, Qiming has always committed to upgrading its institutional capabilities and team development in order to stay ahead in an ever-evolving technological and market landscape. The success achieved in the fields of healthcare, mobile internet and frontier technology is a testament to this strategic approach. Alex’s promotion to the most senior position in the firm demonstrates Qiming’s continued confidence in the future of technology innovation.
About Qiming Venture Partners
Qiming Venture Partners was founded in 2006. Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages eleven US Dollar funds and seven RMB funds with $9.5 billion in capital raised. Since our establishment, we have invested in outstanding companies in the Technology and Consumer (T&C) and Healthcare industries at the early and growth stages.
Since our debut, we have backed over 530 fast-growing and innovative companies. Over 200 of our portfolio companies have achieved exits through IPOs at the NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEX, Shanghai Stock Exchange, or Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or through M&A or other means. There are also over 70 portfolio companies that have achieved unicorn or super unicorn status.
Many of our portfolio companies are today’s most influential firms in their respective sectors, including Xiaomi, Meituan, Bilibili, Zhihu, Roborock, Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals, Tigermed, Zai Lab, CanSino Biologics, Schrödinger, APT Medical, New Horizon Health, Sanyou Medical, AmoyDx, Berry Genomics, SinocellTech, UBTech, Yuanxin Technology, Caidya, Belief BioMed, WeRide, among many others.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/qiming-venture-partners-promotes-alex-zhou-to-managing-partner-302153306.html

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