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Propel celebrates 10 year anniversary by pioneering new AI-powered technology to help families navigate the safety net

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Over the last decade, Propel has put more than $500 million into the pockets of low-income Americans. Now with a rebranded app, it will build new technology to modernize the safety net, funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

BROOKLYN, N.Y., Aug. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Propel, the leading consumer technology company focused on low-income Americans, is celebrating its 10th anniversary by introducing new technology to accelerate its vision: helping every American make it through the month with dignity and abundance. Among its new initiatives, Propel is building AI-powered tools to improve navigation of the safety net through a grant funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The daily act of navigating the safety net – i.e. government programs, such as SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), designed to provide support in a time of need – is cumbersome. Before Propel, the 41 million people in the U.S. who receive SNAP benefits on EBT cards typically checked their balances by calling a 1-800 number. Propel revolutionized this process by launching America’s first free, nationwide mobile app for checking EBT balances. Over the last 10 years, Propel has enabled 15 million people to check their EBT balances a remarkable 5.5 billion times.

Funded by a $3.5 million grant from the Gates Foundation, Propel is now prototyping and scaling new AI-powered technologies to continue modernizing the safety net. With its dedicated focus on low-income Americans who use the safety net, Propel has become the most widely used mobile app for this demographic, trusted by more than 5 million households each month. That makes Propel the ideal platform to provide answers to questions about public benefits–answers that were once buried in hundred-page PDFs are now accessible and intuitive through Propel’s data, reach, and AI.

In addition to building new AI-powered tools, Propel is also launching several new security features that make its app the most secure way to manage EBT benefits. In original research conducted by Propel, theft of SNAP benefits has become increasingly prominent, with 87% of EBT cardholders actively seeking ways to protect their benefits. Propel is the first in the market to offer suspicious transaction monitoring, which automatically scans and flags transactions that reflect an elevated risk of fraud. In select states, users will also be able to lock their cards and block out-of-state transactions.

“Protecting people from benefits theft requires a cross-sector collaborative approach. Propel is a trusted source for millions of EBT cardholders by providing additional tools and information to promote card security,” said Reggie Bicha, President & CEO of the American Public Human Services Association.

“Over its 10 years, Propel has been a clear example that business leaders can develop products for low-income Americans that support, not obstruct, people’s financial security,” said Ida Rademacher, Vice President of the Aspen Institute and Co-Executive Director of the Financial Security Program. “I look forward to many more years of Propel innovating on how to serve people’s financial security and its continued leadership in the field.”

Alongside these changes, Propel is renaming its flagship app from ‘Providers’ to ‘Propel’. Unifying its company and product names aims to increase clarity and transparency for both Propel’s millions of active users and its partners.

Propel was founded in August 2014 by Jimmy Chen, Ram Mehta, and Jeff Kaiser through Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood Foundation, a nonprofit fellowship program that enables tech entrepreneurs to launch new poverty-fighting technology ventures. The program prioritizes individuals with lived experiences of poverty, ensuring that the solutions built are tailored to address real problems faced by the community.

About Propel

Propel builds modern, respectful, and effective technology that helps low-income Americans improve their financial lives. The free Propel app is used by over 5 million Americans across the country each month to manage their food stamp (SNAP) benefits and money. A Harvard study showed that using Propel helped stretch food stamps by an average of two days per month. Propel is a mission-driven for-profit company, with support from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Nyca Partners, Kleiner Perkins, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams. Propel has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and WIRED Magazine. To learn more, visit propel.app.

Propel measures its impact in a number of ways:

Over 5 million people use the Propel each app month. Over the history of the company, over 15 million people have used Propel’s products.Propel has helped its users put over $500 million back into their pockets – by helping people save money on everyday expenses, avoid fees, and receive cash grants and government benefits.Propel’s users have submitted 2.8 million job applications from roles they found through Propel.Propel’s users have deposited over $1.4 billion onto the Providers Card, a no-monthly-fee debit card built specifically for people who use the safety net.Prior to the Propel app, most people with EBT cards called a 1-800 number to check their balance. By using the Propel app instead, Propel’s users save about 30 seconds each time they check their balance. Propel’s 5 million users save a collective 923 years of time every year through the app. Saving time for low-income families is an underappreciated way to provide more slack and respect for families dealing with financial hardship.

CONTACT: press@joinpropel.com

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SOURCE Propel

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OceanBase Receives Honorable Mention for the Second Consecutive Year in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Report

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December 26, 2024

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SINGAPORE, Dec. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — OceanBase has once again been named as Honorable Mention in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud Database Management Systems (Cloud DBMS), marking the second consecutive year it has received this recognition.

OceanBase offers scalable distributed database for data-intensive transactional and real-time operational analytics workloads, with ultra-fast performance and high compatibility across major global cloud infrastructures, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Operating across more than 30 regions in Asia, Europe, and America, OceanBase has already served over 2,000 customers, such as SAIC Volkswagen, DiDi Global, vivo, Pop Mart, Haidilao, Kwai, Trip.com, GCash, DANA, and PalmPay.

Over the past year, OceanBase has made significant strides in the Southeast Asian market. In December 2024, Starpay, a leading financial technology company in the Philippines, announced a partnership with OceanBase to leverage its cutting-edge distributed database solutions.

OceanBase hosted the inaugural OceanBase INFINITY tech conference in Jakarta, Indonesia in June 2024. During the event, the company announced strategic partnerships with leading local resellers to better serve customers in the Indonesian market.

According to Gartner’s latest DBMS market data in the Magic Quadrant, “the overall database management system market grew by 13.4% in 2023, reaching $103.2 billion“, up from $91 billion in 2022. The DBMS segment remains one of the fastest-growing areas within the software market, alongside analytic platforms, networking software, and supply chain management software.

In May 2024, OceanBase was also recognized as an Asia/Pacific Customers’ Choice and also named a Strong Performer in the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Cloud DBMS report.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems, 18 December 2024

Gartner, Voice of the Customer for Cloud Database Management Systems, 24 May 2024

Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

GARTNER, MGAGIC QUADRANT and PEER INSIGHTS are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

About OceanBase

OceanBase is a distributed database launched in 2010. It provides strong data consistency, high availability, high performance, cost efficiency, elastic scalability, and compatibility with mainstream relational databases. It handles transactional, analytical, and AI workloads through a unified data engine, enabling mission-critical applications and real-time analytics.

To learn more, please visit: https://www.oceanbase.com/

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/oceanbase-receives-honorable-mention-for-the-second-consecutive-year-in-the-2024-gartner-magic-quadrant-report-302339146.html

SOURCE OceanBase

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Matwings Technology Raised Series A Funding of Tens of Millions USD to Redefine Protein Design

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December 26, 2024

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‘Beyond Structure, Predicting Function’

SHANGHAI, Dec. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Recently, Shanghai Matwings Technology Co., Ltd. (‘Matwings’), a global leader in AI-driven protein design, announced the successful completion of Series A funding rounds, raising tens of millions of USD, led by Qiming Venture Partners.

Matwings is pioneering a new frontier in protein engineering with its proprietary AI-based general protein design platform, AccelProtein™, which directly predicts protein functionality beyond the structural data. By predicting functionality, AccelProtein™ offers a new approach for acquiring high-functioning proteins.

AccelProtein™ is built on the Pro-PRIME model, a breakthrough developed by a collaborative team led by Professor Liang Hong at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. After years of research focused on data collection, curation, and optimization, the team developed the Pro-series – an AI framework for protein design. Their work, titled “A General Temperature-Guided Language Model to Design Proteins of Enhanced Stability and Activity” was recently published in Science Advances.

A featured case of AccelProtein™’s impact is the design of a specialized Glycosyltransferase enzyme, which is used in the production of EPS-G7, a core material for pancreatitis screening. Within just 4 months, Matwings increased the enzyme’s total glycosylation activity by 7 times, enhanced product specificity from 60% to 98%, and reduced hydrolytic activity by 33%. These improvements cut down the cost of EPS-G7 by 90%.

In another application, Matwings successfully engineered a super alkali-resistant affinity ligand (a nanobody) for affinity chromatography, improving alkali resistance by 3 folds, binding capacity over 100%, and heat stability by 8℃. This innovation saved millions of USD in CMC costs for a Matwings client. Additionally, scale-up production to 5000L has been successfully completed. Such advancement enables low-cost affinity chromatography purification a viable option for a wide range of biologics, bringing more cost-effective solutions for drug production.

Since 2021, Matwings has successfully delivered over 30 protein-engineering and enzyme-mining projects either proprietary (e.g., Enterokinase, Carboxypeptidase B, KEX2 Protease, Maltogenic Amylase, Subtilisin, Protein A, PETase, T7 RNA Polymerase, and phi29 DNA Polymerase) and co-developed with our stakeholders. These projects span across various applications, including drug innovation, in vitro diagnostics, nutrition and healthcare, food and beverage, and green energy.

About Matwings

Matwings, founded in 2021 by an elite team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, is one of the earliest companies to focus on AI protein models.

Matwings is dedicated to moving beyond directed evolution methods to design and engineer functionally optimized proteins by leveraging a proprietary, pre-trained, AI-based general protein design platform with 780 million curated full-length protein sequence data, including nearly 500 million private data.

This cutting-edge technology platform, AccelProtein™, enables us to engineer proteins and uncover or de novo design novel proteins with significantly improved properties, including stability, activity, affinity, yield, etc.

To date, Matwings has successfully engineered more than 30 proteins either proprietary or co-developed with its stakeholders, and more than 40 ongoing projects across various applications in pharmaceutical industries and synthetic biology industries, e.g.  key enzymes and proteins for CMC, innovative Biologics, synthetic biology and more.

Matwings is actively seeking global partnerships to jointly develop and commercialize new products.

Contact Information:
Email: info@matwings.com
Website: https://www.matwings.com/en/ 
Tel: +86 158 2106 5410
Paper Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr2641 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/matwings-technology-raised-series-a-funding-of-tens-of-millions-usd-to-redefine-protein-design-302339150.html

SOURCE Matwings Technology

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Agoda Highlights Tokyo as Top Global New Year’s Eve Destination

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December 26, 2024

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SINGAPORE, Dec. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Digital travel platform Agoda has announced Tokyo as the most popular destination for New Year’s Eve, based on accommodation searches. This marks a shift from last year when Taipei held the top spot. Following Tokyo, the list includes Bangkok, Taipei, Pattaya, and Osaka, showcasing a diverse range of preferences among travelers.

The data highlights a perpetual interest in Tokyo, a city known for its unique blend of tradition and modernity. Travelers are drawn to its vibrant celebrations, cultural experiences, and iconic landmarks. Bangkok and Taipei, too, continue to be favored destinations, offering rich cultural festivities and lively atmospheres. Pattaya and Osaka also make the list, appealing to those seeking beachside celebrations and culinary delights, respectively.

Agoda’s data reveals Tokyo’s prominence not only on a worldwide scale but also within Japan. Domestic accommodation searches have increased by 23%, with Tokyo leading as the preferred destination, followed by Osaka, Kyoto, Yokohama, and Okinawa Main Island. For Japanese traveling abroad, the destinations primarily considered are Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok, Pattaya, and Hong Kong.

Hiroto Ooka, Associate Vice President North Asia at Agoda said: “Tokyo’s rise to the top of Agoda’s New Year’s Eve destination list is a testament to the city’s global appeal. Whether you’re celebrating New Year’s Eve in Tokyo, Osaka, or anywhere else in the world, Agoda is ready to help you find the perfect spot to ring in the New Year.”

As travelers prepare for their New Year’s Eve plans, Agoda offers a comprehensive selection of over 4.5 million holiday properties, more than 130,000 flight routes, and over 300,000 activities, all available for seamless booking. Download the Agoda app for the latest deals or visit agoda.com/deals.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/agoda-highlights-tokyo-as-top-global-new-years-eve-destination-302338856.html

SOURCE Agoda

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