#March: Sign up for an accelerated program to learn software engineering

[artykyn]

Not me crying because I had a really bad beginning of 2023 and signed up for a program that would proceed to make the rest of my 2023 rough and I spent the whole first three months of 2023 trying to pick myself up and motivate myself like "I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me" and well look at that I made it

[vsplusonline]

Automation Anywhere collaborates with ICT Academy of Kerala - Times of India

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/automation-anywhere-collaborates-with-ict-academy-of-kerala-times-of-india/

Automation Anywhere collaborates with ICT Academy of Kerala - Times of India

COCHIN, India, March 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Automation Anywhere, a global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), today signed an MOU with ICT Academy of Kerala (ICTAK) to develop RPA skills among students by deploying a range of education, training, and certification programs, thereby accelerating learning and development in futuristic technology. Kerala is the first state in India to form a statewide collaboration with Automation Anywhere University (AAU – skilling arm of Automation Anywhere), and thus a frontrunner in bringing mass access to advanced technology to the students.

Automation Anywhere is leading the way to have the largest number of trained resources to meet the growing demand for RPA globally and development of Digital Workforce. The collaboration will aid 60 Engineering colleges in the state to receive access to AAU learning Content & Software. More than 12,000 students will get access to the program and 80,000 + courses will be completed by 2022.

“We are committed to our vision of nurturing RPA talent in India as the market has immense potential to become world’s RPA hub. Digital workers have emerged as a great assistant to human employees and enable them to unleash their real potential at work by eliminating mundane tasks. As the demand for RPA climbs sharply across the world, India is all set to generate millions of new jobs in this category. We expect this partnership to be a key milestone in preparing our workforce future ready, while enabling the state to make their students employable in a high demand job stream,” said Milan Sheth, EVP – IMEA, Automation Anywhere.

Commenting on the collaboration, Santhosh Chandrasekara Kurup, CEO of ICT Academy of Kerala, mentioned, “ICT Academy of Kerala is a social enterprise with a dedicated focus around technologies and practices that drive innovation. Our collaboration with Automation Anywhere provides the students across the state to gain in-depth skills in emerging technology like Robotic Process Automation. The skill helps them to move further towards developing future digital workers, as integral part of Industry 4.0. Automation Anywhere has also extend their support to set up ‘Centre of Excellence’ in select set of colleges in Kerala to make the software tools available to larger audience of learners.”

Automation Anywhere University (AAU), has helped the developers, business analysts, partners, and students to complete more than 750,000 courses in RPA. The program has expanded at an accelerated pace globally with more than 100 authorized training partners, 300 plus academic institutions, continuing education programs, and professional associations.

Source link

[chestnutpost]

Dyndrite Corporation Reveals New Accelerated Geometry Kernel — the World's First Fully GPU-Native Geometry Engine, Releases Additive Toolkit For 3D Printing Technicians

This post was originally published on this site

CHICAGO, March 31, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Today at AMUG 2019, after 3.5 years of development, Dyndrite Corporation emerged from stealth, launching the Dyndrite Accelerated Geometry Kernel (AGK) — the world’s first fully GPU-native geometry engine, along with the Dyndrite Additive Toolkit, the first application built on the new kernel.

Continue Reading

Dyndrite Additive Toolkit with Integrated Python interface.

The Dyndrite Additive Toolkit enables the importing and slicing of native spline date.

The Dyndrite Additive Toolkit streamlines the CAD to Print workflow.

The Dyndrite Additive Toolkit

The Dyndrite Kernel and Additive Toolkit represent a milestone in CAD/CAM development, bringing modern computing, language and capabilities to developers and OEMs developing next-generation applications and devices for designers, engineers, and 3D printing technicians. The Dyndrite Kernel is a “Hybrid” kernel capable of representing all current geometry types, including higher order geometries such as splines (NURBs), surface tessellations, volumetric data, tetrahedra, and voxels. Additionally, users can seamlessly move between geometric representations without destroying the original underlying data format. The fully native GPU Kernel easily handles additive specific computations such as lattice, support, and slice generation, in some cases reducing compute times from hours or days to minutes or seconds. For heavy use cases, the Dyndrite kernel is naturally scalable with access to additional GPU nodes, whether locally or in the cloud.

“I’ve spent my career working on software built to enable designers, engineers and technicians,” said Dr. Laura Lurati, Chief Scientist at Dyndrite, Ph.D, Applied Mathematics. “Today with the release of the Dyndrite platform, we dramatically improve the daily working lives of additive manufacturing users. I’m excited to see the innovative solutions our users create with these powerful new tools.”

“The Dyndrite Accelerated Geometry Engine is a great example of innovation enabled by using the latest NVIDIA GPU programming techniques and the RTX platform,” said Olimpio DeMarco, Director, Strategic Alliances, NVIDIA. “Today’s designers and engineers are clamoring for state-of-the-art tools, built on modern architectures, that leverage today’s manufacturing processes such as 3D printing. We’re excited to see the applications enabled by this powerful new platform.”

The Dyndrite kernel provides both C++ and English-readable Python APIs, making application development accessible to a wide variety of users, including non-programmers such as students, mathematicians, and mechanical engineers. Using the Dyndrite Python APIs solution, providers and OEMs can easily and quickly develop sophisticated next-generation applications and interactive workflows.

The Dyndrite Additive Toolkit is the first customer-facing application built on the new Dyndrite kernel. It is designed to improve the productivity of 3D printing technicians. It streamlines the CAD-to-Print process by directly importing CAD design files, maintaining the original spline data, and using that data to drive the additive manufacturing process. Working directly with CAD data provides numerous advantages over STL files, a pervasive format used in today’s additive systems. The STL is a 30-year-old format that, while helping to launch the 3D printing revolution, now serves as a major bottleneck in additive workflows. STL files are difficult to safely modify, and typically require time-consuming manual repair work prior to being used. Additionally, their fixed reliance on triangles limits the precision of the workflow model and the output quality.

Working directly with CAD spline data, and the richer information it provides, enables Dyndrite users to eliminate model prepping steps and do on-the-fly determinations on desired output quality. The underlying GPU-based kernel means other additive workflow processes which used to take hours of processing time ‒ such as creating lattices or lightweighting, support generation, slicing, hatching, and toolpath generation — now occur on the fly. By removing the long click and wait times, designers are now free to experiment and explore iterations as a natural part of the design workflow. Users have the choice to use the Toolkit’s GUI, or the Python interface to script a significant part of their workflow. Interactive workflows which call up GUI elements for user input can also enable technicians to augment their workflow creating interactive scripts that eliminate and automate repetitive and mundane tasks.

“Dyndrite is delivering on the promise of modern design and manufacturing,” said, Harshil Goel, Dyndrite’s co-founder and CEO. “We are excited to play an important role in fostering the evolution of design and manufacturing software.”

“I’ve known Harshil for quite a few years now,” said noted private investor and former Autodesk CEO Carl Bass. “I believe that he and his team are taking a very fundamental approach to solving a class of problems even broader than the current generative design use cases. Dyndrite has the opportunity to transform an industry and power some pretty awesome next generation workflows.”

Dyndrite’s announcement is the culmination of more than three years of development work by a veteran team of mathematicians, computer scientists, and mechanical engineers who came together with the aim of empowering both application developers and OEMs creating next-generation fabrication processes and machines. Dyndrite takes a holistic and inclusive approach with the aim of powering integrated hardware / software solutions that increase user control over the printing process while protecting manufacturers’ underlying intellectual Property (IP).

“The Dyndrite Accelerated Geometry Kernel promises to do for 3D printing what Adobe and PostScript did for 2D printing in the 1980’s,” said Shawn Hopwood, Dyndrite’s Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Developer and OEM Relations. “Laser printing technology powered by PostScript set off a revolution that forever changed how people communicate. In the new revolution, 3D printers powered by Dyndrite have the potential to change every aspect of the things we make, where we go, and how we live.”

“As EOS continues to break boundaries and push the frontier of additive manufacturing, we pride ourselves in forming collaborative relationships to be able to offer our customers the best and state-of-the-art technology,” said Dr. Gregory Hayes, Director of Applications and Consulting for EOS. “We are excited to be working with Dyndrite, and looking forward to how their software can streamline and improve the design to part workflow.”

The company has independently announced the Dyndrite Developer Program and Council, a membership group comprised of industry leaders chartered with steering the future direction of the company’s roadmap. Inaugural members include:

(Listed in alphabetical order)

Aconity3D EOS HP NVIDIA Plural Additive Manufacturing Renishaw

(see full release)

Availability The Dyndrite Kernel is available to select developers and OEMs. Parties interested in learning more should go to https://www.dyndrite.com/developer. The company intends on broader availability Summer 2019.

The Dyndrite Additive Toolkit is in limited release and will go in public beta later this summer. Additive users can sign-up for the beta program at https://www.dyndrite.com/beta

About:

Dyndrite Corporation (Pronounced “Den-drite”), provides the first of its kind “Computational Geometry Engine” and Additive Toolkit (AT) which combine to bring modern performance, capabilities, and productivity to the design, engineering, and manufacturing marketplaces. The full power of Dyndrite is accessible via an integrated Python Application Programming Interface (API) providing unprecedented control and customization to developers, engineers, technicians, and device OEMs.

Contact:Shawn Hopwood, CMO Dyndriteshopwood@dyndrite.com

All trademarks, service marks and company names used in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Dyndrite Corporation

The post Dyndrite Corporation Reveals New Accelerated Geometry Kernel — the World's First Fully GPU-Native Geometry Engine, Releases Additive Toolkit For 3D Printing Technicians appeared first on The Chestnut Post.

from The Chestnut Post https://thechestnutpost.com/news/dyndrite-corporation-reveals-new-accelerated-geometry-kernel-the-worlds-first-fully-gpu-native-geometry-engine-releases-additive-toolkit-for-3d-printing-technicians/

[faizrashis1995]

Containers and Kubernetes: 3 transformational success stories

Companies across industries are pushing to move data and workloads to the cloud, whether as part of digital transformations or to avoid building costly new infrastructure to handle growing demand.

 For many organizations, key to this move are containers and Kubernetes — especially when multiple cloud services are involved.

 [ Stay on budget with these 6 cloud cost management tips, learn the 5 fundamentals of effective cloud management and beware hidden cloud migration gotchas. | Get the latest cloud computing insights by signing up for our newsletter. ]

 Also featured in this series:

Containers march into the mainstream (InfoWorld)

Kubernetes meets the real world (InfoWorld)

Essential things to know about container networking (Network World)

How Visa built its own container security solution (CSO)

PaaS, CaaS, or FaaS? How to choose (InfoWorld)

Containers on the desktop? You bet -- on Windows 10X (Computerworld)

Containers are standalone software packages that bundle together all of an application’s code and dependencies to ensure the application runs reliably regardless of its computing environment. As such, containers facilitate movement of an application from, for example, a developer's laptop to a test environment, from a test environment to production, or from a physical machine in a data center to a virtual machine in a private or public cloud.

 But while containers simplify shifting workloads between environments, they still need to be maintained. That’s where Kubernetes comes in. Kubernetes is an open source container-orchestration system designed to automate deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Originally developed by Google, Kubernetes is currently maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

 Organizations are discovering that containers and Kubernetes are a powerful combination for enabling workload portability in multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments. Here are three real-world examples of the technologies in action.

 Expedia Group: Enhancing the online travel experience

Online travel services provider Expedia Group began using microservices architecture and public cloud services from Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2013. But the company accelerated its usage when it started to deploy containers via Amazon EC2 Container Service (ECS) in 2015 to run those microservices and be able to run applications within the AWS cloud environment.

 The primary business and technology drivers for deploying the technologies included greater portability of applications across multiple environments and accelerated speed to market for new products and services.

 The CIO's Guide to 'IT as a service'

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 “With containers spinning up in seconds, the amount of time that is needed to ship a new feature to our customers has significantly reduced, and we are able to accelerate our speed to market,” says Kuldeep Chowhan, distinguished engineer at Vrbo, a unit of Expedia Group that provides lodging services for travelers.

 The portability of containers between working environments and the speed with which containers can be deployed accelerated the company’s move toward microservices, Chowhan says. Today, thousands of applications are running in production on ECS across multiple AWS cloud regions, enabling Expedia to provide enhanced services for travelers and partners, he says.

 In 2015, Vrbo adopted Apache Mesos, an open source platform for managing computer clusters, to run container workloads across on-premises data center and AWS cloud environments. That enabled Vrbo developers to run the same workloads in both environments, which in turn accelerated migration from Expedia’s on-premises data center to the cloud, Chowhan says.

 Expedia also harnessed the power of Kubernetes as the technology gained popularity in recent years. The company’s Hotels.com unit currently runs hundreds of its applications on Kubernetes in the AWS cloud, Chowhan says, helping to provide services such as hotel bookings for customers.

 And after Amazon launched its Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) in 2019, many teams across Expedia Group, including data science, online experiences, streaming, and others began to leverage it to run container workloads.

 “Longer term, that is the direction Expedia Group is planning on heading for container runtime and orchestration needs,” Chowhan says.

 Expedia Group’s shift toward a microservices architecture and containers has provided the company with significant advantages in launching new services quickly. Whereas it used to take months for new application development, it can now churn out new features multiple times a day.

 “With investments in modernizing our application architecture and DevOps practices, we have seen an order of magnitude increase in features that are shipped to the customers,” Chowhan says. “The Vrbo brand has seen a 12-times increase in release velocity in the last three years.”

 Thanks to the portability of containers, Expedia applications can be run in a distributed fashion across multiple AWS regions to provide high availability so that customers across the globe can use its travel sites without disruption.

 Containers also enable “targeted scaling,” Chowhan says. “Earlier when we had a monolith application, we had to scale the entire infrastructure to support the traffic,” he says. “With containers and microservices, now we are able to scale more intelligently the specific parts of our site that have higher customer demand — and realize savings in infrastructure costs.”

 Containers still require some amount of infrastructure management, Chowhan says: “To be able to deploy and run containers, you need a container runtime and orchestration platform. As with any software solution, there are updates that are released and those updates need to be rolled out to the existing fleet of servers that are running the container platform.”

 Development processes around containers and microservices have constantly evolved, from source code to runtime, Chowhan says. “We had to retool to be adapt in the new ecosystem across our travel platform, and also train our engineers with the evolving ecosystem across containers,” he says.

 Primerica: Ensuring high-quality, modernized code

Finserv and insurance firm Primerica has created a Kubernetes environment to help scale applications in a private cloud offerings from IBM on Nutanix hardware. And containers from Docker help Primerica provide application consistency between environments.

 “This is a key strategic component in our migration from our traditional technology stack to our modern hybrid cloud,” says Barry Pellas, CTO and executive vice president of application development and delivery at the firm.

 “This environment allows us to continue to see value out of applications that we have developed over several decades in a new and modern way,” Pellas says. “It also plays a key role in our API [application programming interface] and microservices strategy” by facilitating the delivery of new capabilities to business applications, he says.

 The container and Kubernetes combination enables Primerica to not only host applications but also to monitor them and recover quickly should anything happen to the containers.

 “We provide end-to-end infrastructure-as-code, which enables us to consistently build environments that are predictable, and eliminates the possibility of human error,” Pellas says. “Our continuous integration and delivery capabilities ensure that product teams always have the latest changes at their fingertips, and they can feel confident that verification of the environment and application has been done as part of the deployment process itself.”

 The main drivers for using containers and Kubernetes is to provide teams with an opportunity to deliver applications faster and with better quality, Pellas says. They also provide a secure, stable environment in which to work and scalability during high-use times.

 “We also wanted the predictability and consistency between our various environments, to help with debugging and problem resolution,” Pellas says.

 While Primerica has only recently begun to take advantage of containers and Kubernetes, it is seeing increased productivity of teams as well as development of new features for its users that can be delivered in an incremental, agile way.

 “We have also been able to provide more secure and predictable applications by catching issues early in the development process,” Pellas says. “We hope this will lead to increased quality of our applications and a consistent development experience throughout our product teams, as we migrate more and more applications to the platform.”

 As with any technology, there is a learning curve for organizations looking to adopt containers and Kubernetes. “Enabling teams with the right skill sets to properly develop within the environment can be challenging,” Pellas says.

 Primerica is addressing those challenges by providing education to its product teams and best practices for business leaders to get their projects into the pipelines.

 Clemson University: Wrangling massive computational resources

The Feltus lab in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry at Clemson University is an interdisciplinary team of geneticists, computer scientists, computer engineers, and bioengineers who blend software engineering and computational biology techniques to make useful molecular discoveries in human and plant biological systems.

 The lab uses bioinformatics, statistical and data science approaches to discover patterns, says Alex Feltus, a professor in the department. “The biological data sets we analyze are in the tera- to peta-scale range, and we engineer optimized data-intensive computational workflows that fit data to a myriad of computational platforms,” including those of several commercial cloud providers.

 In recent years, the lab has focused development efforts on workflows that run on Kubernetes systems. “We believe that Kubernetes will be a common standard platform for data-intensive computing for many years, which allows us to focus our software engineering efforts on one architecture,” Feltus says.

 Biological databases are growing geometrically, Feltus says, and data sets can be mined for biological insight into some of the largest medical and food security challenges. “Even small biology labs are in constant need of massive computational resources,” he says. “Researchers will soon want to ask biological questions at the petascale [level], which will require access to massive computers that are currently possible in commercial clouds. Kubernetes clusters are an excellent platform to do large scale computing.”

 Before moving to the cloud, “biological researchers need democratized, credit-free cloud sandboxes where one can engineer and test workflows at scale,” Feltus says. “These sandboxes are critical, since 90 percent of scientific experiments lead to dead ends, which would burn cloud credit budgets before discovery occurs.”

 The Feltus lab is working with many other research groups to pilot scalable resources that are a blend of on-premises and cloud services, and Kubernetes and containers will play a huge role.

 “Kubernetes and containers are a go-to platform for computational biology workflow engineering,” Feltus says. “These systems have allowed my students to bypass many of the vagaries of HPC [high-performance computing] environment configuration.”

 The lab has deployed Cisco Container Platform, which helps the team manage multiple clusters from various cloud providers under one platform.[Source]-https://www.cio.com/article/3530277/containers-and-kubernetes-3-transformational-success-stories.html

Basic & Advanced Kubernetes Training Online using cloud computing, AWS, Docker etc. in Mumbai. Advanced Containers Domain is used for 25 hours Kubernetes Training.

[aliciabuncle]

Industry deep dives at IoT Exchange

Thursday, March 19 is Industry Day at IoT Exchange

Your industry is unique. Chances are, it even has its own language. That’s why you want information geared toward your unique sector. At IBM, we have deep industry expertise that we’ve curated into specialized teams focused to cognitive technology in vertical spaces. This year, we’re proud to host Industry Day at IoT Exchange for the Automotive, Aerospace & Defense and Electronics industries.

Reserve your space now

Industry Day at IoT Exchange 2020 features tailored activities across three industry workgroups. Clients who are under the IBM Feedback Program Agreement (FPA) can meet with IBM leaders to share best practices and experiences, and to help shape the future of IBM industry solutions. These user groups provide you the opportunity to influence the direction for emerging technology. Note: this is not a general admission program. So if you’d like to participate, you’ll want to complete the contact form. A member of our client programs team will contact you.

IBM Engineering Automotive Day

8:00 AM – 3:30 PM

Automotive Industry Day began in 2018 as part of IoT Exchange, to take advantage of on-site representation from all facets of industry, including OEMs, suppliers, developers and expert developers. As a result, IBM Engineering released a new automotive compliance solution to help users achieve ASPICE compliance using built-in templates. This year, the program features two tracks, one executive and one technical. Topics such as cybersecurity, AI for requirements, ASPICE and ISO standards will be discussed.

IBM Engineering Automotive Day Executive Advisory Board

This full-day event is geared toward key Automotive mid- to high-level business executives. This interactive meeting will provide an opportunity to:

Identify strategic automotive marketplace opportunities and business drivers

Provide insight into changing industry trends and customer business pressures that will impact, influence and validate the business and offering strategies, corporate image and branding

Create a forum for ideas exchange that will help positively influence IBM’s strategic direction

Prioritize client topics to drive the next set of workstreams

Strengthen the strategic relationships between IBM and its key customers, business partners and other industry leaders

Build relationships with other Automotive Industry executives

IBM Engineering Automotive Day Technical Program

This design thinking workshop will facilitate automotive workstream topics such as:

Accelerating Industry Compliance

Multitier Engineering Value Chain Collaboration

Model Based Engineering

Engineering AI and Analytics

Test Management

There will also be a session devoted to topics that you choose during a survey of audience interests. To participate in the Automotive Day at IoT Exchange, contact iotdpp@us.ibm.com to sign up.

Aerospace and Defense Industry

9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

The Aerospace and Defense workgroup brings together our key A&D customers. In this workgroup we will capture common pain points and determine where IBM can help. Get a demonstration with an aerospace sample model based on a UAV application as part of the Reference Architecture Toolset. This interactive day will include:

Presentations and discussion of key prioritized topics for A&D systems and software engineering

Recent work and roadmap for IBM A&D solutions

Demonstration of the physical assets we have developed to support the A&D industry

Prioritization of next steps

Medical Devices Industry Day

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

The IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) team has formed a Medical Devices Advisory Board. Our goal is to learn from you and your peers, to better understand the challenges your organization is facing, and to get feedback for the design and development of engineering solutions for medical devices specifically related to compliance.

If you’re in the medical electronics industry, please join us for this half-day session where you can:

Learn about work done by IBM Engineering to advance compliance templates, data sets, and process guidance

Gain new ideas to take back to your team

Provide feedback on whether similar content would be beneficial to your teams

The interactions we have with you at IoT Exchange will help us understand the most important areas for collaboration, and prioritize future product roadmap plans.

Participation in Industry Day is limited. Please contact us today to reserve your space in your desired program.

The post Industry deep dives at IoT Exchange appeared first on Internet of Things blog.

Industry deep dives at IoT Exchange published first on https://decalsgraphicstore.tumblr.com/

[falconridgegrp-blog]

Canadian Construction Association's 2017 awards showcase members' accomplishments

BANFF, Wednesday March 14, 2018 - The Canadian Construction Association (CCA) presented its annual awards in conjunction with CCA's 100th conference, held at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. These awards recognize the important contributions of individuals, companies and associations that promote and enhance the Canadian construction industry.

The 2017 Canadian Construction Association award recipients are:

Awards of Excellence

2017 CCA Person of the Year Award – Terry Brown, STBR Consulting

2017 CCA Excellence in Innovation Award – Pomerleau

2017 CCA Environmental Achievement Award – Bird Construction and Maple Reinders

2017 CCA International Business Award – Lystek International, a Division of the Tomlinson Group of Companies

2017 CCA National Safety Award – Groupe C. Laganière inc.

2017 CCA Partner Association Award – Grand Valley Construction Association

2017 CCA Community Leader Award – Paul Seibel, ACL Steel

2017 CCA Gold Seal Association Award – Newfoundland and Labrador Construction Association

Awards of Recognition

2017 CCA General Contractor Award – Brendan Nobes, rcs construction

2017 CCA Trade Contractor Award – Ross McLean, Houle Electric

2017 CCA Civil Infrastructure Award – Gilbert Brulotte, EllisDon

2017 CCA Manufacturers, Suppliers and Services Award – Glen Ackerley, WeirFoulds

“I'd like to invite everyone to visit the CCA awards website to learn more about this year's winners and to watch the videos that were played at the awards ceremony,” said Chris McNally, CCA's chair. “This year's winners highlight the diverse membership – companies small and large, from different parts of the country, working in general contracting, trades and civil – that CCA represents. My congratulations to the winners – you are a source of inspiration for everyone in the industry!”

More information, including videos from the awards ceremony and a list of past recipients, is available at awards.cca-acc.com.

 About the winners

Person of the Year Award – Terry Brown, STBR Consulting

CCA is pleased to present Terry Brown with the 2017 CCA Person of the Year Award for serving as a mentor to his colleagues as well as for contributing countless hours to association business regionally, provincially and nationally. Terry's contributions include the revision of BC Hydro's contract documents and drafting and promoting the Capital Asset Management Framework used to inform public owners on procurement policy. Terry also worked with a group of industry professionals to write the British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA) white paper called “Fair and Transparent”. He is a recipient of the BCCA Outstanding Service Award and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal.

Excellence in Innovation Award – Pomerleau

CCA is pleased to present Pomerleau with the 2017 CCA Excellence in Innovation Award for creating a strong, innovative culture. The company recently became the first general contracting construction company in Canada to be certified with Level-1 building information modelling (BIM) proficiency in Canada, companywide. Pomerleau has internally developed BIM add-ons that are used to improve interoperability, to accelerate data extraction, and to generate useful information for various construction processes. For example, Pomerleau developed a plug-in in Revit allowing for a semi-automatic excavation surface generation based on the 3D model of the foundations and the conditions (or rules) for Place Bell, a multipurpose sport and cultural centre in Laval. Another example of innovation includes developing a technology to transfer a design model into a video game software that enables virtual reality, a technology that is excellent for design comprehension, saves considerable costs from late design changes, and allows for a “virtual reception” of the project long before its completion.

Environmental Achievement Award – Bird Construction and Maple Reinders

CCA is pleased to present Bird Construction and Maple Reinders with the 2017 CCA Environmental Achievement Award for their success in implementing environmentally-sound practices into their Green Cart composting facility project with the City of Calgary, the first Canadian P3 compost project that is also on target to be the first LEED® Gold V4 facility in Alberta.

One unique and defining feature of the facility is that all processing activities are enclosed within a building. Furthermore, all the curing operations are housed in a separate enclosed building which greatly mitigates the potential for fugitive odour emissions. The enclosed and odour-controlled environment also allows the operations group to optimize the duration of the phases of the composting process. By doing so, the actual throughput and overall capacity of the plant is increased with little or no capital cost.

The project team designed a force main system that takes rainwater from a pond for use in the compost process. This achieved a 50.44% reduction in potable water use and no storm water will be discharged to the municipal sanitary system.

International Business Award – Lystek International, a Division of the Tomlinson Group of Companies

CCA is pleased to present Lystek International, a Division of the Tomlinson Group of Companies, with the 2017 CCA International Business Award. Lystek's patented thermal hydrolysis biosolids (THP) technology was founded at the University of Waterloo. Following commercialization, a demonstration-scale plant was constructed and proof of concept at the plant facilitated the first commercial-scale facility. Lystek strategically targeted California due to its unique legislation surrounding landfilling of organic materials by leveraging the company's success with seven design-build-transfer projects in Canada and a Canadian Technology Company of the Year award.

Since its opening just over one year ago, the Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District's (FSSD) Organic Material Recovery Center (OMRC) project has secured numerous additional volume commitments from a variety of other Bay Area agencies. Lystek is now engaging in market development activities in the Northeast U.S., China and Argentina.

National Safety Award – Groupe C. Laganière inc.

CCA is pleased to present Groupe C. Laganière (GCL) with the 2017 CCA National Safety Award. GCL is a family business specializing in the identification and elimination of environmental risks. It is one of the 100 largest construction companies in Quebec and it recently celebrated 14 years – over 2 million hours worked – without any recordable incidents.

To reach GCL's goal of “nobody gets hurt”, the company has implemented a strategy built on three pillars: qualify, equip and plan. Some of the metrics for GCL's strategy include providing 500 hours of health and safety training, registering 250 new employees' evaluations within the mentoring program as well as workers, supervisors, subcontractors and prevention agents reading and signing approximatively 4,000 job safety analyses in 2016. Instilling a «thinking before acting» corporate culture at GCL includes dedicating over 13,625 hours to building awareness in the form of daily tailgate safety meetings as well as 30-minute safety breaks every week for all workers.

Partner Association Award – Grand Valley Construction Association

CCA is pleased to present the Grand Valley Construction Association (GVCA) with the 2017 CCA Partner Association Award for its work in addressing the individual members' needs in industry enhancement, education and membership services. Recently, GVCA upgraded its online communications technology to have a 360-degree view of its members' activities and interactions as well as to learn what benefits and values they most appreciate. Using this information, GVCA develops custom educational sessions. In 2017, GVCA focused on technology, environmental law, crime and industry ethics. The GVCA is also recognized for fostering good relationships between opposing sides e.g. through the creation of PACE (Problem-solving, Accountability, Collaboration and Execution), an event that has brought over 100 participants from all parts of the industry work together to identify and address common concerns.

Community Leader Award – Paul Seibel, ACL Steel

CCA is pleased to present Paul Siebel with the 2017 CCA Community Leader Award for his dedication to ethics and his community work. A long-time GVCA member (including former chair), Paul has contributed thousands of hours of his time and financial resources to make the industry more ethical. He was the first member to sign up for the Construction Industry Ethics program and has continued to champion ethics courses to all his employees and fellow GVCA members. Paul's company has also been actively involved with the Co-Operative Education Program with the Waterloo Region District School Board since 2007 and has trained nine students in the last six years. He has served on the Conestoga College Architecture, Construction, Engineering and Technology Program Advisory Committee for 17 years and supports numerous community causes, including HopeSpring, an organization committed to empowering those whose lives are impacted by cancer, Terry Fox Run and the Walk for Cure.

Gold Seal Association Award – Newfoundland and Labrador Construction Association

CCA is pleased to present Newfoundland and Labrador Construction Association (NLCA) with the 2017 CCA Gold Seal Association Award for its carefully-constructed approach to promoting Gold Seal and for its ongoing support of the program. The Gold Seal Certification program supports the development of skilled construction & heavy civil management professionals across Canada and the award recognizes an association that has gone above and beyond in bringing this program to its members. The NLCA made a conscious effort to ensure that 2017 was the year of Gold Seal. It began with a human and financial resources plan dedicated to the program, and focused on marketing, education and training. NLCA's 2017 conference presented the program in detail with the result that one of Newfoundland and Labrador's largest projects, Memorial University of Newfoundland Core Science Facility, was designated as a Gold Seal Project. The NLCA also launched a new website including a targeted Education and Training section last year. Most courses offered at NLCA's Centre of Excellence are Gold Seal accredited, and through Canada Job Grants the NLCA is able to subsidize 21 courses and 2/3 of its members' Gold Seal applications costs.

General Contractor Award – Brendan Nobes, rcs construction

CCA is pleased to present Brendan Nobes with the 2017 CCA General Contractors Award. Working at all levels in construction has given Brendan, a Gold Seal Certified project manager and estimator, experience in design review, design document preparation, scheduling, budgeting, cost forecasting and tender package preparation. His sound, fair decisions and thoughtful insights have been particularly useful for topics like standard documents and prompt payment that the General Contractors Council has discussed. At the Construction Association of Nova Scotia, Brendan started the Developing Executives Group and helped start the Education Program where he later served as an instructor.

Trade Contractor Award – Ross McLean, Houle Electric

CCA is pleased to present Ross McLean with 2017 CCA Trade Contractors Award. A partner and regional manager for Houle Electric, Ross has served as chair for the Vancouver Island, Prince George and British Columbia Construction Associations (BCCA). He is a past recipient of BCCA's Distinguished Service Award and served as industry co-chair on the deputy minister's Industry Infrastructure Forum and was the founding director of the Construction Foundation of BC, which launched Project Shop Class to upgrade high school shop classes.

Civil Infrastructure Award – Gilbert Brulotte, EllisDon

CCA is pleased to present Gilbert Brulotte with the 2017 CCA Civil Infrastructure Award. Gilbert's service on the CCA Civil Infrastructure Council (CIC) was marked with a disciplined approach to address the topics raised at the CIC and bring them to conclusion with a sense of purpose. Under his leadership, the council funded several key reports supporting the need for ongoing investment by the federal government in infrastructure modernization as a means of maintaining Canada's global economic competitiveness. Having served many years as a board member of the Alberta Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association with two terms as chair, he joined the CCA board in 2005, the executive in 2011 and was the 2016 CCA chair.

Manufacturers, Suppliers and Services Award – Glenn Ackerley, WeirFoulds

CCA is pleased to present Glenn Ackerley with the 2017 CCA Manufacturers, Suppliers & Services Award. In his job, Glenn provides ongoing advice from the start through to completion of a project. He represents clients from across the construction industry in a variety of construction-related matters. He currently sits on the CCA board and is a past chair of the Toronto Construction Association, as well as a past executive of the Construction Section of the Ontario Bar. Most recently, Glen has been a member of the Expert Panel's Advisory Group on changes to Ontario's Construction Lien Act.

About CCA

Canadian Construction Association (CCA) is the national voice for the construction industry in Canada representing over 20,000 member firms in an integrated structure of some 63 local and provincial construction associations. Construction employs close to 1.4 million people and generates about $120B to the economy annually. http://constructionlinks.ca/news/canadian-construction-associations-2017-awards-showcase-members-accomplishments/ Established in 2003, Construction Links Network is the number one “go-to” website for Canada's construction, building and design community. Our peer-to-peer network sharing platform provides the tools necessary to source the latest news, events and innovative products / services the industry has to offer. This helps our customers plan, design and build great projects right across Canada and throughout the world. #construction | #building | #architecture | #safety | #engineer

[hopefulprincepuppy-blog]

There are many mobile plans that use you some quantity of mobile data, but is that mobile information sufficient for your needs? . Idea: You could opt to cost-free download the upgrade version - WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe to transform and also download and install SD/HD/4K/ 8K/3D online videos to iPhone SE/6S (And also)/ 6 (Plus) and also various other devices. Appreciate complimentary as well as limitless Telstra Air data for usage at over 300,000 hotspots throughout Australia, till 27 March 2018. Our apple iphone data recuperation software application is QT made that could be run on windows as well as mac os x. An additional hightlight attributes of this software program lies in its CUDA and also AMD acceleration front-tech used which makes certain 10X faster recuperation rate than similar ios information recuperation software application. Just moments back, after months of reports, Apple made the apple iphone 7 and apple iphone 7 Plus authorities, full with an upgraded camera, pressure-sensitive residence switch and no headphone jack. The adhering to list showcases our choice of the most effective free iPhone applications, and also consists of apple iphone applications for social networking, travel, news, digital photography, productivity as well as more. And the BT Sport application is additionally complimentary for 3 months on all pay monthly plans (it's included in all 4GEE Max strategies). Click-free residence switch takes obtaining used to. Just the larger 7 Plus has the great dual cam. Utilizing the Smart Backup" attribute, you will certainly fill out your iTunes collection with one click only as well as maintain it a 100% free from matches. It needs that your LifeProof instance literally endure the drops, resonances, bumps and fumbles you run into daily. He's tough to find and even more difficult to obtain run over by, yet listen for his unique audio sign as well as seek roadways with no automobiles - Pac-Man does not travel on roads with automobiles. Rather than consuming your monthly download allocation, when you're out and around, find a cost-free Wi-Fi hotspot to utilize rather. One major difference and the root cause of a lot of debate with the brand-new apple iphone has to be the earphone jack - it's gone. Step 3: Click Xcode → Preferences → Accounts and also click the '+' indicator as well as pick Add Apple ID. Free download this ideal iPhone data transfer software application - WinX MediaTrans to set move any kind of video clip to apple iphone (7/SE/6s/ 6) with suitable style many thanks to bulit-in video converting engine. You can refer the internet site to your friend and urge your close friends to take part in the test variation to win a free phone. Long tale short, AT&T's prices will differ based upon the size of your deposit and also the rate of free iphone 6 Read More free iphone Clicking Here Go Here how to get a free iphone 6 Website Discover More Here Click Here Learn More your brand-new iPhone. Register and if selected, you will certainly be sent a brand-new iPhone SE to price, evaluation as well as maintain free of cost! IPhone unlocking has ended up being increasingly popular considering that fed-up consumers found they didn't have to bear with sub-standard phone reception as well as solution. Some solutions develop that specific limit into their regards to solution-- they do not intend to obtain filed a claim against when you call emergency solutions and get bupkis. If there's any kind of industry that's more pricey and also irritating compared to mobile providers, it's bank card. The sole major differences are that the iPhone 6 features a 4.7-inch display as well as the apple iphone 6 Plus is house to a 5.5-inch display screen. These are fantastic totally free no commitment tests so you don't need to be stressed concerning being charged a cent. Up until then, check right here for a free iPhone Fives and also examine back later this year as even more information come forward pertaining to the new iPhone 6. Learn how to use your fingerprint to maintain other individuals from using your Apple iPhone 6. Yet you could also obtain it from the Apple Shop application for iphone, which tends to function extremely smoothly in our past experience.

[csrgood]

Statewide Program Aims to Build Massachusetts’ Next Generation of Creative Engineers

Boston-based non-profit Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning & Creativity has launched Fab@School MaSTEM, a grant-funded initiative in partnership with United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, which is bringing an innovative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) program to economically-disadvantaged school children across the Commonwealth. 

The Fab@School project aims to tackle the disruption in the STEM studies and career pipeline by introducing more engaging STEM teaching and learning much earlier on in schools. With jobs in the STEM field expected by grow 15% by 2020, the Fab@School consortium sees an exciting opportunity to equip our youth to succeed in tomorrow’s economy.

Reynolds Center’s Co-Founder Paul Reynolds notes, “By creating a statewide innovation cluster model, we feel confident that we can scale Fab@School nationally, and reach our target goal of 17 million low-income students by 2025.  If we can do that, we’re sure we’ll help move the STEM studies and career meter in a substantive way.”

Funded by a grant from Cisco Foundation, the Fab@School MaSTEM program is providing schools from Boston to the Berkshires with maker space digital design & fabrication software, hardware, and professional development support.  A majority of these participating districts have also been named Gateway Cities by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which are assisted at the state level to advance an aggressive economic development agenda by making long-term investments in education, innovation and infrastructure.

"Fostering curiosity and enthusiasm for STEM learning will help more young people to see themselves working in the jobs of the future," said Michael K. Durkin, president at United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley. "The Fab@School MaSTEM initiative is bringing together educators, industry professionals, government partners, corporations and community-based organizations to help prepare our students to graduate high school and compete in tomorrow's workforce.  That kind of change doesn't happen alone. We applaud the Cisco Foundation for their support of Massachusetts youth."

The Reynolds Center was tasked to create an easy-to-use design & fabrication software application, called Fab@School Maker Studio. Fab@School was developed over the past six years as a research project through a partnership with University of Virginia and a consortium of partners that include Princeton, Smithsonian, SITE, and Hofstra University. 

The web-based program allows students to use the engineering design process to imagine, design, print, test and iterate a wide array of objects, including pop-ups, working machines, buildings, boxes and packaging, wind turbines, automata, paper airplanes, speakers, model skateboard parks, and more.  While Fab@School Maker Studio prints out to laser cutters and additive layer 3D printers, most teachers and students are using more affordable digital fabricators - more commonly known as scrapbooking machines - which can be easily source at local arts and craft stores.

Over the course of two days (March 7-8), attendees from 31 participating communities across the Massachusetts, gathered for the Fab@School MaSTEM launch event, dubbed the FabMaker Summit.  Designed as a hands-on professional development experience, teachers learned to use Fab@School Maker Studio online software tools, and were introduced to flexible curriculum designed to support Massachusetts’s 2016 Science and Technology/Engineering Standards, and Digital Literacy and Computer Science Framework. 

At the FabMaker Summit, participating pilot schools and after school programs received, free of charge, the Fab@School Maker Studio digital design & fabrication software, as well as multiple digital fabricator devices, fabrication materials and professional development support provided by FableVision Learning (www.FableVisionLearning.com).  Summit attendees also walked away with a FabMaker Summit T-shirt and gift copy of the creativity & engineering storybook Going Places, which the Reynolds Center’s Peter and Paul Reynolds signed and personalized at the event.  Educators from Canada and Iran were also present to learn about Fab@School and the MaSTEM initiative.

As part of Fab@School MaSTEM Cadre 1, teachers are being encouraged to stay connected through the Reynolds Center’s VIP Facebook page - where they can share their questions and special needs, as well as their successes, tips, and best-practices.  As MaSTEM teachers begin using Fab@School with their students, the Reynolds Center will spotlight their work via its web site and social media.  

The Fab@School MaSTEM program grew out of the BoSTEM program, spearheaded by United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, which also includes Boston Public Schools, the City of Boston, Boston After School & Beyond, Citizen Schools, and FableVision/Reynolds Center. The original BoSTEM cluster formed in response to the US2020 challenge put forth by the White House to generate large-scale, innovative solutions to STEM education challenges in the United States. The groups’ collective efforts are aimed at helping close gaps in student learning, and increase career readiness and interest in STEM sector fields. Fab@School MaSTEM has also received support from Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education, and area educational institutions, including Mass College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), and Bridgewater State University. 

Massachusetts State Representative Paul McMurtry, who is attending the FabMaker Summit, is equally enthusiastic about the initiative, “Fab@School is not only exposing very young students to STEM learning, it’s fostering the kind of creative problem-solvers and original thinkers who are critical to Massachusetts’s future as a leader across industry innovation sectors.  This program position the Commonwealth as a leader in the development of next-generation innovators, who will take lead in helping solve a myriad of potentially crippling local, national and global challenges in the decades to come.”

About the Reynolds Center TLC Based in Boston on the top floor of the Boston Children’s Museum, the Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning & Creativity (www.ReynoldsTLC.org) is an edtech social change agency - designing, prototyping, and testing more effective ways to foster creativity and 4Cs to cultivate purposeful, creative problem-solvers who will help move the world to a better place. The Reynolds Center bridges traditional silos in education, schools, research, philanthropy, and business to incubate, deploy, test and share innovations in pedagogically progressive uses of educational technology.   

About United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley brings the community together to help improve people's lives and strengthen the neighborhoods in our region.  There are thousands of nonprofits and foundations working to target the problems that affect our region. United Way was built on the idea that if we are to make meaningful, lasting change, we have make it easier for these efforts to come together. To make the greatest impact possible, United Way aligns a network of more than 200 independent health and human service under the same set of community goals.

About Cisco CSR Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs accelerate global problem solving through our technology and expertise to positively impact people, society, and the planet.  Cisco CSR education programs and partnerships improve access to quality education for students worldwide using the combined power of network technology and human collaboration. From the Cisco Networking Academy to mentoring at-risk inner-city students, Cisco is committed to building the workforce of the future with a goal of positively impacting 1 billion people by 2025. 

As Cisco’s Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Tae Yoo notes in her recent report Launching a Generation of Problem Solvers, the world urgently needs “to solve complex global challenges it faces that deeply impact our society - from climate change to health and economic challenges.” The world’s future prospects rely on a comprehensive, adaptable skills-to-jobs approach to learning, combined with our collective ability to “harness the power of technology to launch a generation of global problem solvers who innovate like technologists, think like entrepreneurs, and act as social change agents.”

Contact: Bill Norris bill@reynoldsTLC.org Mobile:617-763-5608

source: http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39796-Statewide-Program-Aims-to-Build-Massachusetts-Next-Generation-of-Creative-Engineers?tracking_source=rss

[annoyinglygrandtrash-blog]

The top 5 Microsoft announcements you likely missed this year

This was a big year for Microsoft. The HoloLens began shipping to developers, Windows 10 made it through its first year intact (though not without controversy), and the company got into the desktop computer market with a stunning mega-touchscreen.

But there were a few key announcements that flew under the radar this year. While they may not have the splash factor of a Surface Studio or HoloLens, these developments have the potential to alter Microsoft and the world for years to come.

Here’s the rundown on what you probably missed.

Microsoft’s new bot tools help build conversation partners

At its Build developer conference, Microsoft outlined a vision for a conversational computing platform. The idea is pretty simple: Traditional user interfaces are hard to understand right off the bat, so we should let people just talk with computers.

In practice, that means the company is developing intelligent bots along with its Cortana virtual assistant. It revealed an open source Bot Framework to make it easier for developers to build automated conversation partners that work with different chat apps, like Skype, Facebook Messenger, Kik and others.

Late in the year, Microsoft showed off a bunch of new bot capabilities, including an Azure-based QnA Maker service that lets organizations upload FAQ documents and use them as the basis for a bot that can answer users' questions.

Right now, bots aren’t a massive business, but it’s clear that Microsoft will continue building tools to push them into the mainstream. It will be interesting to see if that actually goes somewhere.

Specialized hardware can accelerate networking, machine learning and more

Microsoft had something special to share at its Ignite tradeshow in Atlanta earlier this year. The company revealed that it had deployed hundreds of thousands of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays across its entire cloud footprint to help accelerate key tasks.

FPGAs let developers configure circuitry to tackle particular tasks faster than other types of processors. In Microsoft’s case, they’re using them at first to accelerate software-defined networking between compute instances in Azure.

The benefits are available in beta now as Accelerated Networking, a free Azure feature that gives users transfer speeds of up to 25Gbps (bits per second) and latency between 25 and 50 microseconds. Moving SDN functions off the server can also free up more server hardware for computing.

FPGAs are also useful for certain machine-learning tasks, among other things, and Microsoft has been using them to its own benefit. The company is working on bringing FPGA-based acceleration to some of its machine-learning-based cloud services in the future.

A.I. gets its own division under Satya Nadella

In late September, Microsoft announced that it’s creating a new A.I. & Research division. This may seem like nothing more than a bizarre bit of organizational wrangling, but it’s an important sign of where Microsoft sees its business going.

That division, led by Microsoft Research chief Harry Shum, will include more than 5,000 engineers. Microsoft’s internal research arm has been at the forefront of some of the company’s key A.I. innovations, like its Cognitive Services APIs and Skype Translator service.

Those projects are all important for Microsoft's future. The Cognitive Services APIs are its way to let developers easily implement machine-learning features in their apps. Skype Translator may help the messaging and video-calling service stay competitive against a horde of challengers.

By creating this division, Microsoft appears to be investing heavily in what it sees as the future of computing.

Visual Studio and PowerShell go cross-platform

There are a lot of people used to developing for Microsoft platforms, and two of the key tools for doing so have gone cross-platform in the past year. Microsoft rebranded Xamarin Studio as Visual Studio for Mac, meaning the company’s integrated development environment for Windows now has a Mac counterpart.

In addition, PowerShell for Linux launched, giving operations professionals who are used to that scriptable command line a new set of tools that work outside the confines of Windows.

The rebranding of Xamarin Studio isn't much more than a visual change at this point, but it seems like a harbinger of what’s to come. If Microsoft had wanted to kill off Xamarin Studio and avoid investing in it, they could have kept the same name and left it alone to rot. That's not what the company's doing.

Bash comes to Windows, while Microsoft further embraces open source

It’s in Microsoft’s best interest to extend the reach of its .NET programming framework and other developer tools to platforms beyond those that it controls. Expect to see more from Microsoft in this regard in 2017.

All the Visual Studio and PowerShell expansion this year was made possible in part by Microsoft’s open-sourcing parts of .NET. This is part of an overall move by the company to embrace open-source software.

In September, GitHub revealed that Microsoft had more contributors to its open-source projects than any other company on the platform, which is a far cry from the company’s previous approach. November saw the tech titan join the Linux Foundation as a platinum member.

At the end of March, Microsoft announced it would bring the popular bash (short for Bourne Again Shell) command line to Windows by building an entire Linux subsystem for the OS, working with Ubuntu creator Canonical. That’s a big change for a company that previously called Linux a cancer.

Jim Zemlin, the foundation’s executive director, said at the time that he thought Microsoft is really interested in supporting open source. It has to, he said.

"In a world where things are in the cloud, everybody has a computer, there is too much software to be written for even Microsoft, with all their engineers, to write it on their own," he said. "It ain't gonna happen."

So what’s next for the company in 2017? A.I., open source and bots are poised to remain key parts of its strategy going forward.