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Keysight Technologies Inc. (NYSE: KEYS) on Monday announced it acquired Scalable Network Technologies, a leader in communications network simulation and modeling solutions for design, test and analysis, as well as cyber assessment and training.

Based in Culver City, privately owned Scalable Network Technologies develops simulation tools to model and visualize communications networks and cyber threats. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, and Keysight said it wouldn’t have a material impact on its guidance for the current fiscal quarter and year.

“Joining forces with Keysight provides an excellent pathway to dramatically expand the use of our innovative network digital twin solutions across broad swaths of commercial and defense markets,” said Rajive Bagrodia, Scalable Network Technologies CEO and founder. “Working together with Keysight, we will accelerate the use of modeling and simulation capabilities to provide secure and reliable connectivity solutions to our customers worldwide. I am proud of what the Scalable team has accomplished, and we look forward to continuing our journey of discovery and growth with Keysight.”

Scalable’s software creates at-scale digital models of “heterogeneous communications networks” such as 5G, enterprise, internet of things (IoT) and satellite networks to ascertain problems, risks, vulnerabilities and gaps before deployment. Customers include government and defense agencies, research organizations and educational institutions worldwide.

Together, Keysight and Scalable plan to enable customers to model, prototype and assess multi-domain networks and applications through software simulation. The goal is to reduce risks during development and improve time to market. Keysight sees a fit with its customers in communications, aerospace defense and government, automotive and enterprise-level business.

“Scalable Network Technologies industry-leading software solutions are enabling defense industry leaders to accelerate their design cycles and construct ‘what if’ scenarios to predict how critical communication networks will behave against cyber threats. We are excited to add Scalable Network Technologies’ capabilities to our portfolio, aligning with our strategy to deliver first-to-market software-centric solutions to enable the aerospace defense ecosystem,” said Dan Dunn, vice president of Aerospace Defense Government Solutions at Keysight. “We’re looking forward to working with the talented Scalable Network Technologies team to bring new digital twin solutions to market.”

https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/article/keysight-technologies-bolsters-5g-cybersecurity-portolio-via-scalable-acqu/?trk_msg=2P856PSVPFT41EBD5TBV95M6SK&trk_contact=QU0HFLSLRS4B321O7DHC8BRSRS&trk_module=new&trk_sid=1D41V3I4UAD9JQ1LSH0L0M73ES&trk_link=OM9P8806RNL4J8V7S391R13OGO&utm_email=F4C3C49D05C565A25532D4913D&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.northbaybusinessjournal.com%2farticle%2farticle%2fkeysight-technologies-bolsters-5g-cybersecurity-portolio-via-scalable-acqu%2f&utm_campaign=nbbj_daily

Where to begin? When people look back at the last year, many think of strife. A raging pandemic. Troubled politics. A planet changing before our eyes. I don’t need to remind you about the challenges we have all experienced. Despite all we have faced, my message is one of hope and celebration as we consider the many joys we’ve witnessed over the past year. With our help needed more than ever, I gratefully share that Catholic Charities rose up to meet that need. Our immigration staff navigated social distancing requirements to find ways to work safely with clients to establish legal residence through family reunifications, DACA, or other means. They even figured out how to teach citizenship classes on Zoom! Shelter operations continued under modified conditions to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on our residents and staff members. Our staff was heroic in their dedicated work, and we thank Providence and Sonoma County Public Health for being at our side. And we never lost sight of the most important goal: stable housing for all. Through our housing counseling and financial assistance work, we kept thousands of families from losing homes. And we responded in Sonoma and Lake counties again and again to support those facing evacuations and loss of homes due to disasters.   Through it all, Caritas Village, a new beacon of hope, moved forward with great momentum. This past year we broke ground on the multi-purpose Caritas Center, and are scheduled to open in June 2022. In parallel, Caritas Homes, 128 units of affordable housing, is moving forward led by our partner Burbank Housing.

 

You have my sincere appreciation for your ongoing commitment to transforming our community one person, one family at a time. I deeply believe in the helping hand of God. My faith is immensely strengthened when I see solutions arrive when we face seemingly insurmountable hurdles. I truly see God’s work being done through you and the extended Catholic Charities family. Thank you. With Love for All, Len Marabella, Chief Executive Officer

 

Click here to download our complete Annual Report

 

Immigration & Naturalization

 

Catholic Charities’ Immigration Team provides legal services to over 3,000 immigrants in communities across Northern California each year. In this time of uncertainty for our immigrant community, Catholic Charities continues to provide trusted legal services to courageous individuals and families so they can overcome barriers and build a better life – safely. Elsewhere, immigration legal services are costly and out of reach for many immigrants already struggling to make ends meet. Many may not know the legal options available to them or have been harmed by unscrupulous charlatans in the past. We help them along the legal path. Even as federal policy changes daily, our ten multilingual Department of Justice-accredited staff counselors stay current in their training so they can properly guide clients as policy continues to change. A renewed investment in online outreach, as well as rural programming, has made services more accessible to our client base from Sonoma County to the Oregon Border. Expanded language offerings have extended a helping hand to our Eritrean community in Sonoma County. For those without a legal pathway to citizenship or documentation, staff provides counsel so they can be aware of their rights. Though these can be hard conversations, the outcomes keep these families and our entire community safe. Thanks to you, our immigrant neighbors can thrive and participate fully in our community according to the legal options available to them.

 

READ: Immigration – Through the Eyes of a Child…

 

Homelessness & Housing Solutions

 

Catholic Charities has navigated stable housing for over 2,000 individuals in the last three years. How do you operate a multi-site shelter program during a pandemic? How do you house families in a climate of limited employment, shuttered schools, childcare, and government offices, and a cutthroat rental market? There is no playbook, but after over a year of navigating this crisis with our community, the Catholic Charities Team is ready to write one. Years of proven housing leadership set us up to rise to the occasion once again to be a leader our community could count on. Catholic Charities’ housing-focused services touch the lives of thousands of children, veterans, and other vulnerable adults facing homelessness each year. As the largest homeless services provider in Northern California, we run the full spectrum of programs from street outreach to emergency shelter to permanent supportive housing. Despite the challenges, staff continues building relationships with members of our community seeking home. Just a few of our pandemic adaptations included the new Academic Hub which serves as a tool for parents and children managing distance learning. Multiple vaccine events were held to ensure easy access for unhoused individuals. Innovative alternative shelter sites provided safety and security for unsheltered individuals on their housing journey. Since implementing the Housing First model in 2016, we have doubled housing placements and seen a 13% decrease in homelessness despite double-digit increases in surrounding Bay Area counties. Once Caritas Village opens in Summer 2022, we anticipate even more housing successes. Thanks to you, formerly homeless children, parents, and adult individuals can thrive in a new home to call their own…

 

READ: Finding Home – Through the Eyes of a Mother…

 

Financial Stability and Crisis Response

 

Thanks to you, over 10,971 people received tools that aim to prevent hardworking families from falling into homelessness. With the cost of living in California rising by the day, more and more families are being forced to make increasingly precarious choices. Feed their family or fill up the gas tank? Pay the light bill or pay the medical bill? Saving for the future feels impossible. Families need a guide to help them navigate the terribly complex world of public and private resources so they never experience the trauma of homelessness. Our team builds a bridge to these opportunities. Never a simple handout, staff help families get back on their feet so they can get ahead and participate fully in our community. In the last year, the Financial Stability and Crisis Response Team has navigated a rental crisis, multiple wildfires across the Diocese, crippling isolation for seniors, and a crisis of food access. The distribution of food and financial assistance is just the beginning. Following these initial conversations, our financial stability specialists and HUD-certified housing counselors continue to work with families so they can build a future where education, nourishment, and greater rental or home buying options are possible. Thanks to you, families, seniors, and other vulnerable adults at risk of losing their homes can rest safely in the housing they have worked so hard to achieve.

The Buck Institute and the Astera Institute today announced a comprehensive, multi-omics study of the biological effects of longevity interventions. Through a series of large-scale lifespan studies in genetically diverse mice, researchers will test interventions, both alone and in combination, known or suspected to impede or reverse aging and extend longevity.

The work aims to create an open and comprehensive dataset to better understand the biology of aging and the underlying mechanisms of how to potentially impede the aging process. This dataset, which will be freely accessible to the research and drug discovery communities, will provide the most complete picture of the impact of aging interventions in mice across multiple biomarkers and clinically relevant phenotypes. Leading scientists and thought leaders across the field will participate in the selection and design of the interventions.

Research on aging is at a critical inflection point, with breakthroughs in basic science and multiple compounds being tested in clinical trials. While the field is starting to have tools and treatments that target the biology of aging and improve health, a deep and fundamental understanding of how they work, and the models used to validate such findings, is still lacking. Further, because of vision, funding constraints, infrastructure limitations and other impediments, smaller projects are conducted independently of each other and there is little to no research into combination therapies, even though this will likely be the only avenue to achieving meaningful results.

“The Rejuvenome Project was launched to target these bottlenecks,” says Nicholas Schaum, PhD, Scientific Director of Rejuvenome. “We hope to do that by characterizing treatments and regimens, both established and newly invented, for which we have reason to believe improve health and longevity.”

“The breadth and depth of this project centered around an unprecedentedly extensive and deep whole-body functional and multi-omic assay panel has the potential to redefine scientific understanding of how to best intervene in the aging process,” says Eric Verdin, MD, President and CEO of the Buck Institute. “We are delighted to partner with Astera on this very significant work.”

The Rejuvenome Project is expected to take approximately seven years to complete. All wet lab operations will be centered at the Buck while the dry lab computational aspects of the project will reside at the Astera Institute in Berkeley. “The Rejuvenome is the quintessential moonshot project in longevity,” says Astera’s founder Jed McCaleb. “If we are successful it will provide the most complete picture ever of how best to intervene in aging and will produce powerful new avenues for drug development.”

About the Astera Institute:

The Astera Institute was established by entrepreneur and philanthropist Jed McCaleb. The Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to developing high leverage technologies that can lead to massive returns for humanity. Astera’s  high-impact potential derives from housing moonshots and novel scientific research that have no other natural home in today’s research and development landscape. Astera focuses on longevity, Artificial General Intelligence, metascience, and frontier technology. https://astera.org/about/

https://www.buckinstitute.org/news/astera-institute-and-buck-institute-announce-70-million-collaboration-to-redefine-the-field-of-research-on-aging/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=307f50ff6e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_10_13_06_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_aae86405cb-307f50ff6e-69719243

Bank of America announced it has raised its U.S. minimum hourly wage to $21 as a next step in the company’s plans to increase to $25 by 2025. In May, the company also announced that all of its U.S. vendors are now required to pay their employees dedicated to the bank, at or above $15 per hour.

This builds on the company’s history of being a leader in establishing a minimum rate of pay for its U.S. hourly employees. In the last four years, Bank of America raised the minimum hourly wage to $15 in 2017; in 2019 it rose to $17 and in 2020, to $20 — one year ahead of schedule.

“Our company’s focus on Responsible Growth requires that we provide a great place to work,” said Sheri Bronstein, chief human resources officer at Bank of America. “We make broad-ranging investments to attract and develop talented teammates who serve our clients and local communities every day, and who can build long, successful careers with our company. Today, we are taking another step forward, again increasing our minimum rate of pay for U.S. employees, demonstrating our commitment to sharing our success with teammates, and inspiring others to do the same.”

Bank of America’s efforts have been recognized by a number of external organizations including LinkedIn and Fortune, as the only financial services company included in Fortune’s “Best Big Companies to Work For” list for three consecutive years.

Bank of America

At Bank of America, we’re guided by a common purpose to help make financial lives better, through the power of every connection. We’re delivering on this through responsible growth with a focus on our environmental, social and governance (ESG) leadership. ESG is embedded across our eight lines of business and reflects how we help fuel the global economy, build trust and credibility, and represent a company that people want to work for, invest in and do business with. It’s demonstrated in the inclusive and supportive workplace we create for our employees, the responsible products and services we offer our clients, and the impact we make around the world in helping local economies thrive. An important part of this work is forming strong partnerships with nonprofits and advocacy groups, such as community, consumer and environmental organizations, to bring together our collective networks and expertise to achieve greater impact. Connect with us on Twitter (@BofA_News).

https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/content/newsroom/press-releases/2021/10/bank-of-america-increases-us-minimum-hourly-wage-to–21-as-next-.html?cm_mmc=EBZ-EnterpriseBrand-_-TU-LinkedIn-_-EB114LT000F_OrganicSocial_DynSignalminiwage-_-SocialCOE

Progress continues in shaking off the pandemic’s economic cold shower effect on tourism, but keeping it going will require the ability to “constantly, flex and engage,” said a top Sonoma County tourism executive.

All of the work, however, requires the ability to “constantly monitor, flex and engage,” Claudia Vecchio, president and CEO of Sonoma County Tourism, said during the agency’s annual meeting, held virtually on Sept. 29.

“As the landscape in which we operate becomes more complex, it also provides us with opportunities to connect with the people in organizations who we haven’t collaborated with in the past,” said Claudia Vecchio, president and CEO of Sonoma County Tourism. “For example, we’re thrilled to be part of the North Bay Leadership Council and the Sonoma County Transportation Authority Citizen Advisory Committee … helping ensure that SCT is at the table for conversations that impact this destination as a place to live, do business and invite travelers, which is more important than ever.”

During a virtual presentation of the agency’s annual report, Vecchio and her staff recapped its performance for fiscal 2020-2021 and addressed its budget breakdown for 2021-2022. The agency’s fiscal year ends June 30.

Sonoma County Tourism closed out fiscal 2020-2021 having made a number of changes to trim costs from its $5.3 million budget, including cutting staff, stopping advertising and promotions, and canceling contracts with its domestic public relations agency and with international tourism agencies that promote the region, as Vecchio told the Business Journal.

During the meeting, Lori Angstadt, Sonoma County Tourism’s vice president of finance and operations, reviewed expenses for last fiscal year.

The agency saved $110,000 by downsizing the amount of space it leases at its existing location on Airport Boulevard,  Angstadt said,  and working remotely helped cut costs on office needs and equipment.

Administrative expenses decreased 20% below what was budgeted. Business development, which is focused on corporate meetings and retreats, as well as weddings, saw the biggest budget decrease, at 25.9%, because of the delay in travel and businesses reopening, Angstadt said.

As the lockdown began to lift, the agency restarted its marketing and public relations work, resulting in a 7.8% increase in spending.

“New ads, videos and photo shoots were developed in the spring to build both our current recovery campaign and give us a better library of images for future campaigns,” Angstadt said.

Community engagement expenses increased by 12.6%, with spending going toward efforts to promote safe and responsible travel for those still choosing to visit. In April, Sonoma County Toursim  entered into a partnership with Sonoma County Regional Parks and its national organization,  Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics. The partnership elevates further the agency’s commitment to destination stewardship, or the promotion of sustainable travel, Vecchio said.

For the current fiscal year, Sonoma County Tourism has an estimated budget of $6.8 million. The budget, while higher than the $5.3 million last year, is starting to climb upwards toward its pre-pandemic budget of $8 million in fiscal 2019-2020.

The majority of the agency’s funding comes from a 2% assessment on applicable lodging rooms within the Sonoma County Tourism Business Improvement Area.

The breakdown for fiscal 2021-2022 is as follows: 19.6% for administrative expenses, 49.8% for marketing and public relations, 21.5% for business development and 9.1% for community engagement.

“We will continue to re-forecast our revenue expenses throughout the year as things change and more information becomes available,” Angstadt said.

During the annual meeting, the agency gave out its first-ever Stars of the Industry awards, honoring the region’s hospitality workforce in four categories: Front of the House, Heart of the House, Customer Engagement and Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability. The winners, respectively, were Bianca Nicastro from Aperture Cellars, Tiffany Rodriguez from Costeaux French Bakery,  Safari West, and Benziger Family Winery.

“After enduring such a tough year, it was our way of saying thank you to these stellar industry professionals,” Vecchio said.