OMUTHIYA: The newly re-elected mayor of the Omuthiya Town Council (OTC), Johannes Ndeutepo, is urging the residents of Omuthiya to assist the local authority with ideas to grow the town.
Ndeutepo during their swearing-in ceremony here on Friday said residents should be cooperative and should participate in local economic opportunities.
“We have had challenges related to land, several disputes were registered and we have concluded the majority of them,” said Ndeutepo.
He said some resolutions regarding these disputes are still in the pipeline while others are going through approval from different offices and some continue to resolve themselves.
“There has been a vacuum in our legislation when it comes to the land which is acquired through traditional means, and this is [why] we went to the headman to request for a piece of land to set up a homestead, and a field to produce our food,” he said.
He said there is no guidance on how a local authority should manage the interest of those occupying that land in their legislation, process, and procedure.
“Our local authority is putting out a policy to pioneer land that is acquired from the traditional authority and come up with a policy to ensure that we will not stop development,” he said.
He stated that they cannot be prevented from developing themselves or growing or taking opportunities for economic activities that may come to them.
“We will craft this policy that will look after this interest. We do not mean to chase [away] the people who have been inhabiting the town area, we will have a guiding tool to pioneer this. If we have a few mistakes, those that come after us will rectify it,” said Ndeutepo.
He further encouraged the residents to continue paying their rates and taxes as it is very important for the council to be able to deliver services to the community.
In the internal elections, Johannes Ndeutepo was elected as mayor of the OTC while Beata Nashongo was elected as chairperson of the management committee, and Ester Kornelius and Paulus Shimbangala were elected as members of the management committee. The deputy mayor and ordinary council member positions were left vacant. These three were formerly held by Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) councillors – who are currently abstaining from council activities after the suspension of one member by Ndeutepo.
SWAKOPMUND: The seventh Africa Sanitation and Hygiene Conference expressed concern about the number of Africans who still lack access to safely managed sanitation and basic hygiene services.
Attendees of the conference, which started Monday and ended Friday, also noted the fast-fading aspiration to achieve the Africa Water Vision of “an Africa where there is an equitable and sustainable use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation, socio-economic development, regional cooperation and the environment” by 2025.
For this reason, the Swakopmund Declaration on ‘Accelerated Actions for Inclusive, Sustainable and Resilient Sanitation and Hygiene Services Delivery in Africa’ has committed to raising the profile of water and sanitation in national systems for economic planning as an integral element of mechanisms to improve domestic allocations and attract investments to the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.
The declaration delivered by African Ministers’ Council on Water Technical Advisory Committee (AMCOW) Chair Dr Tahani Sileet in Swakopmund on Friday further committed to mobilising funding to implement AMCOW initiatives, especially the Africa Water Facility hosted by the African Development Bank.
“Additionally, we are committed to utilising the African Sanitation Policy Guidelines towards inclusive, sustainable and resilient sanitation and hygiene services delivery in Africa, especially given the lessons learnt from combatting the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also aware of the negative impacts on Africa’s health systems and economic activity that result from climate-exacerbated public health emergencies of preventable diseases associated with sanitation failures,” Sileet added.
The gathering also undertook to revitalise the pursuit of the targets of the Ngor Declaration through promoting “accelerated actions for inclusive, sustainable and resilient sanitation and hygiene services delivery in Africa.”
Minister of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform Calle Schlettwein in his closing statement noted that the declaration is the result of everything covered during the conference and the different discussions held on the sidelines.
He noted that ministers and heads of delegation responsible for water, sanitation, hygiene and related affairs in Africa will therefore take the declaration into account and implement the measures it discusses.
Nigerian Lawyer Zannah Bukar Mustapha Receives Prestigious Global Citizen Award
Internationally recognized humanitarian, philanthropist, and Founder of the Future Prowess Foundation School in Nigeria, Zannah Bukar Mustapha, has been named as the 2023 recipient of the Global Citizen Award at the 17th Global Citizenship Conference in Dubai, UAE.
LONDON, Nov. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Internationally recognized humanitarian, philanthropist, and Founder of the Future Prowess Foundation School for orphans and less privileged children Zannah Bukar Mustapha has been named as the 2023 recipient of the Global Citizen Award, an annual tribute presented by leading international residence and citizenship advisory firm Henley & Partners, in partnership with the Swiss non-profit humanitarian organization Andan Foundation.
The prestigious award, which honors an individual who shows exceptional courage and commitment towards improving and supporting the global community, was presented at a gala reception during the 17th annual Global Citizenship Conference at the Shangri-La Hotel DIFC in Dubai, UAE, attended by heads of government, policymakers, leading academics, private client advisors, family offices, as well as many wealthy entrepreneurs and investors.
Mr. Mustapha played a critical role in mediating the release of over 100 of the Chibok school girls who were kidnapped by Islamic insurgency group Boko Haram in a remote part of Nigeria in April 2014, giving rise to the international #BringBackOurGirls campaign. The school he founded in 2007 in Maiduguri — the capital of Borno State and the epicenter of the Boko Haram rebellion — provides free education, meals, uniforms, and healthcare to children on both sides of the conflict as a sign of the reconciliation he hopes to achieve in the region.
Chairman of Henley & Partners and Founder of the Andan Foundation Dr. Christian H. Kaelin says Mr. Mustapha is a most worthy and inspiring recipient of the award. “As a champion for the safety and education rights of all displaced and orphaned children afflicted by the brutal violence in Northern Nigeria, Mr. Mustapha has demonstrated vision, exceptional courage, and innovation in driving change, and his actions and outlook are a valuable contribution towards a more just, peaceful, and tolerant world. He is a true ‘game changer,’ bridging gender, political, and religious divides by helping children on both sides of the conflict come together and learn under the same roof. We need more Zannah Mustaphas in the world.”
The Global Citizen Award selection process is based on a majority decision of the Global Citizen Award Committee. The award itself consists of a bespoke sculptural medal designed by leading Italian artist Antonio Nocera, an award certificate signed by the Chairman of the Global Citizen Award Committee, and a monetary prize of USD 25,000, which goes towards supporting the awardee’s humanitarian efforts. In addition, Henley & Partners commits to working closely with the awardee for a period of one year, raising awareness of their work and supporting the selected project through the firm’s network of more than 40 offices worldwide.
Since its inception, the Global Citizen Award has honored many remarkable individuals. The first laureate was German entrepreneur Harald Höppner, who set up the refugee humanitarian aid project Sea-Watch. Other previous recipients are Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman, Founder of the Gift of the Givers Foundation, Africa’s largest disaster relief organization, and Monique Morrow, Co-Founder of The Humanized Internet, a digital identity project that aims to bring hope to the estimated 1.1 billion individuals in the world who cannot prove their legal identity. Diep Vuong, Co-Founder and President of the Pacific Links Foundation, was awarded for her work in Southeast Asia, campaigning for the rights of those enslaved by human trafficking, and Prof. Dr. Padraig O’Malley received his Global Citizen Award in recognition of his work on conflict resolution and reconciliation in Iraq, Northern Ireland, and South Africa.
Thanking Henley & Partners and the Andan Foundation for their recognition of his work, Mr. Mustapha said, “Humanity’s interconnectedness in the global data sphere is now undeniable, constituting an expansive realm with limitless possibilities. In contrast, the unity among races, ethnicities, and citizens has grown increasingly delicate. Only global citizenship can heal.”
London, Nov. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —
London, UK – November 9, 2023 – OPEN Health, a preeminent global provider of consulting, HEOR and market access, patient engagement, and scientific and creative communications services, will be presenting innovative research at the upcoming ISPOR Europe conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. OPEN Health experts will contribute to the event through workshops, panel discussions, and 24 posters. Key themes of OPEN Health’s research presented this year are patient preference, advanced modeling methodologies, and HTA policy changes. The majority of OPEN Health’s Scientific Office will be onsite to discuss the role of HEOR science in shaping policy, including Dr. Elisabeth Fenwick, Chief Scientific Officer; Professor Ben van Hout, Scientific Founder; Dr. Marco Boeri, Director of Preference Research and scientific lead for Patient-Centered Outcomes; Emanuele Arcà, MSc, Senior Research Consultant in Strategic Market Access; and Maarten Treur, MSc, Vice President and Global Head of Modeling & Meta-Analysis.
Dr. Elisabeth Fenwick, Chief Scientific Officer at OPEN Health, said: “I am extremely proud to see the research we do at OPEN Health being presented by our scientific experts at the ISPOR EU conference in Copenhagen. The range of research topics covered this year shows the extent of our expertise in advanced techniques as well as key therapeutic areas.”
Dr. Marco Boeri, Director of Preference Research and scientific lead for Patient-Centered Outcomes at OPEN Health, said: “The importance of patient preference information is that it brings a systematic approach to implement the idea of patient-focused drug development promoted by the FDA, the EMA, and various HTA bodies around the world. Indeed, the patient voice is key to patient adherence, and by helping to understand unmet needs, it is key to the success of a pharmaceutical product.”
Emanuele Arcà, MSc, Senior Research Consultant in Strategic Market Access, said: “We are in a dynamic period of policy changes for access and HTA across regional, national, and international settings. HTA is taking a more prominent role in ensuring sustainable access to health innovations, while health innovations become exponentially more complex and expensive. We at OPEN Health are committed to understanding and shaping such changes through research and stakeholder engagement.”
OPEN Health will be presenting a virtual panel on November 10, ahead of ISPOR, on: “EU HTA Joint Clinical Assessments: Navigating Potential Challenges Ahead of 2025.” The panel is set to discuss several policy aspects regarding the current challenges and implications of the EU HTA regulation, covering topics such as the current position of EU HTA implementation, the major challenges expected across the industry, the stance of member states and various stakeholders, and strategies for the industry to prepare for joint clinical assessments. Register now to save your seat.
To learn more about our presence at ISPOR Europe, visit our website or meet the OPEN Health team at booth #C2-012 in Copenhagen.
About OPEN Health
OPEN Health unites deep scientific knowledge with wide-ranging specialist expertise to unlock possibilities that improve health outcomes and patient well-being. Working in partnership with our clients, we embrace our different perspectives and strengths to deliver fresh thinking and solutions that make a difference. OPEN Health is a flexible global organization that solves complex healthcare challenges across consulting, HEOR and market access, scientific communications, patient engagement, and creative omnichannel communications. For more information on OPEN Health, visit www.openhealthgroup.com.
A New SaaS Solution for Quickly Extracting and Sophisticatedly Managing Large Volumes of Data
TYSONS CORNER, Va. and PETAH TIKVA, Israel, Nov. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cellebrite DI Ltd. (Nasdaq: CLBT), a global leader in Digital Intelligence (DI) solutions for the public and private sectors, announced today the release of Mobile Ultra, for mobile device investigations to the private sector. An all-in-one application, Mobile Ultra surfaces facts quickly and accelerates the collection, extractions and reporting process during corporate investigations.
In a fast-paced global economy, corporations, law firms and service providers require innovative, fast and easy approaches for collecting data from mobile devices while keeping pace with technological advancements. Mobile Ultra provides answers to the time-sensitive, critical challenges that corporate investigators often encounter with mobile devices, including the need to quickly find evidence and identify potential missing critical data, all while ensuring that the data is defensible and court-ready.
Mobile Ultra offers a user-friendly interface that seamlessly combines the best features of collection, analysis and review tools, streamlining investigative workflows. It enables investigators to decode and parse data from the widest array of Apple and Android software and devices, enabling industry-leading data analysis. The solution offers full file system extractions enabling comprehensive analysis of the information residing on a mobile device. Additionally, Mobile Ultra provides access to data from more than 50 cloud sources, short-lived messages, third-party chat applications and deleted content, enhancing the probability of discovering crucial evidence.
“Mobile Ultra continues to lead the industry for e-Discovery, corporate investigations and incident response by surpassing previous limitations and providing greater access to comprehensive and accurate data that is fully defensible,” said Ken Basore, General Manager, Cellebrite Enterprise Solutions. “The industry is facing a myriad of challenges including evolving devices and apps, increasing data volumes and deleted data. We’re proud to say Mobile Ultra is the all-in-one solution to address these complex problems.”
In an era where digital investigations play a pivotal role in addressing costly, time-consuming litigation that can impact the business, Mobile Ultra aims to equip investigative professionals with the necessary tools to navigate this evolving landscape effectively. It ensures examiners have the capability to quickly and efficiently uncover all pertinent data, maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and integrity.
To find out more about how Mobile Ultra can advance your investigations, visit our Mobile Ultra webpage.
About Cellebrite
Cellebrite’s (Nasdaq: CLBT) mission is to enable its customers to protect and save lives, accelerate justice, and preserve privacy in communities around the world. We are a global leader in Digital Intelligence solutions for the public and private sectors, empowering organizations in mastering the complexities of legally sanctioned digital investigations by streamlining intelligence processes.
Trusted by thousands of leading agencies and companies worldwide, Cellebrite’s Digital Intelligence platform and solutions transform how customers collect, review, analyze and manage data in legally sanctioned investigations. To learn more visit us at www.cellebrite.com, https://investors.cellebrite.com, or follow us on Twitter at @Cellebrite.
About Cellebrite Enterprise Solutions
In a world that’s evolving rapidly, Cellebrite Enterprise Solutions looks beyond the horizon to design solutions to keep data within reach, transform it and reveal important insights to protect your business and employees. From headquarters to home office, eDiscovery professionals and corporate investigators can access endpoints anywhere with Cellebrite’s enterprise solution offerings.
Cellebrite Contacts
Media Victor Cooper Sr. Director of Corporate Communications + Content Operations [email protected] +1 404.804.5910
Investors Andrew Kramer VP, Investor Relations [email protected] +1 973.206.7760
With additional patient-centric data, compute power, and an exciting new focus for its Bayer collaboration, the company is accelerating the shift of biotech to techbio
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Recursion (NASDAQ: RXRX), a leading clinical stage TechBio company decoding biology to industrialize drug discovery, today announced two significant updates with their collaborators NVIDIA and Bayer, and a new collaboration with Tempus Labs as it creates infrastructure and expands its ambitions and scope in the precision oncology space.
“Since our founding we have believed that the next generation of biopharma leaders would operate at the intersection of scaled datasets and accelerated computing,” said Chris Gibson, Ph.D., Co-founder and CEO of Recursion. “Today, we are thrilled to share three major initiatives that support this belief and our mission to bring better medicines to patients at speed and scale. With Tempus’s 20 petabytes of fit-for-purpose precision oncology data, NVIDIA’s support in quadrupling our supercomputing power to rapidly and reliably advance the exploration and construction of large AI models, and updating our collaboration with Bayer to rapidly pursue a set of precision oncology programs, we will continue to drive the transformation from BioTech to TechBio together.”
Tempus Collaboration Provides Recursion with Access to Data Containing More Than 20 Petabytes of Proprietary Patient-Centric Oncology Data
Recursion has come to an agreement with Tempus for preferred access to one of the world’s largest proprietary, de-identified, patient-centric oncology datasets, spanning DNA, RNA, health records and more to support the discovery of potential biomarker-enriched therapeutics at scale through the training of causal AI models. By combining the forward genetics approach of Tempus with the reverse genetics approach at Recursion, the company believes it has an opportunity to improve the speed, precision and scale of therapeutic development in oncology. As part of the agreement, Recursion will pay Tempus up to $160M in cash or equity over the next five years in exchange for continued and updated data access and use rights for therapeutic development purposes.
“We share Recursion’s commitment to a data-first approach to precision medicine,” said Eric Lefkofsky, Founder and CEO of Tempus. “We look forward to working in tandem to leverage our multi-modal data to uncover insights that have the potential to advance personalized therapeutics for patients around the world.”
In aggregate, Recursion will now have access to approximately 50 petabytes of proprietary data across biology and chemistry as well as real-world, patient-centric data that is relatable and fit for the purpose of training large-scale AI/ML models, which it plans to use to drive novel therapeutic hypotheses, biomarker strategies, and patient cohort selection.
Top 50 Supercomputer Powered by NVIDIA
To accelerate the impact of the proprietary data Recursion has accumulated, the company has committed to substantially expanding BioHive-1, its on-premise NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD-based supercomputer, adding over 500 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs to the more than 300 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs already in place to increase its computational capacity 4X. This greatly expanded compute power will support the company’s pipeline, partnerships, and the construction of one of the largest foundation models of its kind across multiple modalities of biology and chemistry.
Based on the June 2023 TOP500 list, Recursion projects that upon completion and benchmarking, BioHive-1 will likely be in the top 50 most powerful supercomputers in the world across any industry and would be the most powerful supercomputer owned and operated by any biopharma company. The company anticipates the enhancement of BioHive-1 to be operational in the first half of 2024.
“A new era in drug discovery is here, and life science and drug discovery companies are leading the way,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Our ongoing collaboration with Recursion will bring scaled biological data together with one of the most powerful supercomputers to decode biology and get to better medicines faster.”
Collaboration with Bayer in Precision Oncology Programs
Recursion announced an updated collaboration with its established partner, Bayer, for a select set of precision oncology programs. This decision allows Bayer to leverage Recursion’s state-of-the-art capabilities to identify novel targets and chemistry applicable to oncology indications. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies may initiate up to seven oncology programs and Recursion is eligible to receive potential, success-based, future payments of up to $1.5 billion plus royalties on net sales.
“Our collaboration with Recursion is a testament to our commitment to shape the future of healthcare, using advancements in AI and drug discovery to push the boundaries of medicine with the aim of providing innovative cancer therapies for patients whose medical needs are not yet met by today’s treatment options,” said Stefan Oelrich, Member of the Board of Bayer AG and President, Pharmaceuticals.
About Recursion
Recursion is a clinical stage TechBio company leading the space by decoding biology to industrialize drug discovery. Enabling its mission is the Recursion OS, a platform built across diverse technologies that continuously expands one of the world’s largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets. Recursion leverages sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to distill from its dataset a collection of trillions of searchable relationships across biology and chemistry unconstrained by human bias. By commanding massive experimental scale — up to millions of wet lab experiments weekly — and massive computational scale — owning and operating one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Recursion is uniting technology, biology and chemistry to advance the future of medicine.
Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City, where it is a founding member of BioHive, the Utah life sciences industry collective. Recursion also has offices in Toronto, Montréal and the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at www.Recursion.com, or connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statements
This document contains information that includes or is based upon “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, those regarding the outcomes and benefits expected from access to the real-world multimodal data held at Tempus; outcomes and benefits of deriving therapeutic hypotheses by linking molecular data and outcomes data; outcomes and benefits of expanding our supercomputer; early and late stage discovery, preclinical, and clinical programs, including timelines for data readouts; licenses and collaborations, including option exercises by partners and additional partnerships; prospective products and their potential future indications and market opportunities; Recursion OS and other technologies; business and financial plans and performance, including cash runway; and all other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements may or may not include identifying words such as “plan,” “will,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “believe,” “potential,” “could,” “continue,” and similar terms. These statements are subject to known or unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements, including but not limited to: challenges inherent in pharmaceutical research and development, including the timing and results of preclinical and clinical programs, where the risk of failure is high and failure can occur at any stage prior to or after regulatory approval due to lack of sufficient efficacy, safety considerations, or other factors; our ability to leverage and enhance our drug discovery platform; our ability to obtain financing for development activities and other corporate purposes; the success of our collaboration activities; our ability to obtain regulatory approval of, and ultimately commercialize, drug candidates; our ability to obtain, maintain, and enforce intellectual property protections; cyberattacks or other disruptions to our technology systems; our ability to attract, motivate, and retain key employees and manage our growth; inflation and other macroeconomic issues; and other risks and uncertainties such as those described under the heading “Risk Factors” in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and our Annual Report on Form 10-K. All forward-looking statements are based on management’s current estimates, projections, and assumptions, and Recursion undertakes no obligation to correct or update any such statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except to the extent required by applicable law.
