Local Business Owner Receives National Award

Chase Hazelwood has been named “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” by the National Pest Management Association.

High Point, NC, United States., October 22, 2019 -- Chase Hazelwood has been named “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” by the National Pest Management Association. Hazelwood is the owner and CEO of Go-Forth Pest Control, which is headquartered in High Point, NC.

The National Pest Management Association (NPMA) presented Hazelwood’s award on October 17, 2019 in San Diego, CA at the association’s annual national conference (PestWorld). The Young Entrepreneur Award recognizes pest control professionals under 40 years of age who have helped develop an industry business and/or stewarded a meaningful industry concept to fruition.

Hazelwood’s award nomination focused on the growth of his company in revenue, territory and team size since he assumed operational control of the business. It also referenced several novel ideas he has implemented in the company and his local philanthropic efforts with NC Fusion soccer organization and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

“Our team has a lot to celebrate this year! We’ve grown in many ways and had our successes recognized locally and nationally. We also recently celebrated our 60th anniversary at the beach with our whole team and their families! I am honored to be a recipient of this award. Many of the past winners are people I highly respect,” says Hazelwood.

About Go-Forth Pest Control:
Go-Forth Pest Control was founded in 1959 in the North Carolina Triad. It has now grown to have branches in the Triad, Lake Norman, Charlotte and Raleigh. It is a family owned business now with its third generation owner. Go-Forth strives to have profound professionalism and customer service that makes customers, employees, and the community proud to be associated with Go-Forth Pest Control. It is home to the 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 NC Statewide Technicians of the Year. Go-Forth is the only company in the state to be recognized with that track record. Go-Forth Pest Control is also a Family Business Award winner, a Triad Best Places to Work winner, a PCT Top 100 company, a NC Triad Fast 50 company, and an Inc. Magazine Fastest Growing Company in America. http://Go-Forth.com

TherapyRoute Creates an Innovative Free-to-List Mental Health Service Directory

TherapyRoute.com offers a free to list international mental health service directory that empowers visitors to find psychologists and other mental health service providers quickly. Innovative features include socially relevant filters (Black, LGBT+, Non-binary, female) and tools that enable professionals to create their own website and publish high quality content.

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa., October 9, 2019 -- Today, an increasing number of people turn to the internet to find psychologists and other mental health services. Apart from convenience, this frequently helps people overcome any embarrassment they feel by allowing them to learn more about a professional, or service, before making the call.

Even in today's times, it can be challenging for people to locate professionals that share their cultural background or language. Similarly, fears of being misunderstood and unfairly discriminated against often act as barriers to entry.

TherapyRoute.com includes features that help address such challenges.

Some Examples:

- Easy to use search. Nearby providers appear automatically
- Filter results by identity (Black, LGBT+, Nonbinary, Female...), language (Russian, French, isiZulu...), issue (depressions, anxiety...), and more
- Find online clinicians when no nearby results are found
- Thousands of qualified clinicians and providers to choose from

The following core values guide the direction of the platform.

1. Improve access to mental health services

TherapyRoute.com improves access to services by innovating tools to empower visitors to find the help they need.

Thanks to a team of volunteers in South Africa, the database includes many verified community clinics and hospitals. The intention is to link anyone in search of therapy or help, be they rich or poor, with a service that meets their need and means.

Many of the South African low/no fee listings are included in the following city-specific 'How to find a therapist' guides.

How to find a therapist in Cape Town - www.therapyroute.com/article/how-to-find-a-therapist-in-cape-town-by-l-acosty
How to find a therapist in Durban - www.therapyroute.com/article/how-to-find-a-therapist-in-durban-by-l-acosty
How to find a therapist in Johannesburg - www.therapyroute.com/article/how-to-find-a-therapist-in-johannesburg-by-l-acosty
How to find a therapist in Pretoria - www.therapyroute.com/article/how-to-find-a-therapist-in-pretoria-by-l-acosty

Clinics and service providers from other regions of the world are encouraged to follow this example and list their services too.

2. Promote awareness of mental health and talk therapy

TherapyRoute.com equips professionals to publish mental health and therapy-related writing online. The site's growing library of excellent articles promotes awareness of the value of talk therapies that are proven to be effective, relational, and which respect human complexity.

3. Facilitate professional and service visibility

TherapyRoute.com enables qualified mental-health professionals to create a website and represent the services they provide.

The platform is free and open to all qualified mental health professionals, clinics, counselling centres, rehabilitation programs, and group practices. Private practice and community services are welcome.

The State of Workplace Happiness 2019

What makes people happy at work, why the UK is made up of apostles and how workplace happiness differs across the country.

London, UK., October 15, 2019 -- This year’s ‘State of Workplace Happiness’ report by Engaging Works reveals the majority of the UK workforce is happy at work (58%) but that 42% don’t enjoy their working lives.

The report unveils what makes people in the UK happy at work and reveals those who work in the West Midlands, East Anglia and York and Humber are most happy at work (81%, 78% and 79% respectively).

Employees in Scotland are least happy at work- with one in three saying they are unhappy.

The data is taken from Engaging Works’ Workplace Happiness Survey which has been taken by over 10,000 people worldwide and aims to help individuals and businesses improve workplace happiness and engagement.

Further data shows:

- The UK has moved from 10th to 8th place in our global ranking with Romania topping the board
- Those working in the South West of England believe the most that more reward (pay) would make them feel happier at work-A four-day working week is popular most in the South West and Wales
- 25% of people in the North West of England believe that feeling respected more would make them happier
- London is the most anxious region in the UK
- The UK is made up of apostles- happy and loyal workers who would recommend their employer to others.

Founder of Engaging Works, Lord Mark Price, says, “I’m pleased our 2019 report shows improvement in UK workplace happiness and I’m encouraged to see the country is made up of apostles. However, there is much to do to make UK employees happier at work. Employers must wake up the inextricable link between happy employees and increased productivity. Research shows happy and engaged employees increase productivity and profitability by 20%. This report is a must-read for employers and employees alike”.

Engaging Works has a number of free tools including the recently launched Business Library to help individuals become best informed with business know-how. With over 80,000 business books, e-books and audio books available for individuals to purchase, everyone signed up to Engaging Works will also have access to enjoy free podcasts, lectures, articles and research. This expansion into retail aims to make Engaging Works the number one provider of business content in the UK.

The platform also includes Career Developer services; a CV generator; allowing employees to create and save multiple CV's for different job applications, ultimately saving job hunters hours of time. Additional free features include EQ and IQ tests and mentor matching. Businesses and employees can also sign up for online coaching and the recently launched Job Services enables employers to post and target jobs and employees to find, apply and match with jobs.

Lykke Partners with Altcoin Fantasy and Launches an Exciting Trading Competition

Lykke’s mission is to create conditions for a more democratic financial system in which everyone can exchange any kind of assets freely and instantly. It is expected that financial literacy will increase generally as blockchain technology eliminates intermediaries. Partnering with Altcoin Fantasy will allow crypto beginners to improve their financial literacy in an interactive way.

Switzerland, October 15, 2019 -- This partnership will enrich Lykke’s offering of educational materials with an interactive platform allowing users to learn how to trade in a fun way and without investing any funds.

14 October 2019, Zug (Switzerland) Lykke’s CEO Richard Olsen and Altcoin Fantasy’s CEO Cynthia Huang agreed to join forces in offering educational content to the constantly growing audience of crypto beginners.

As a part of this partnership, Altcoin Fantasy will launch a trading competition sponsored by Lykke. By participating in this contest, users will be able to learn the main principles of crypto trading and develop their own trading strategies.
And there is more! Participants will also be in with a chance to win prizes:

1 first prize $300
4 second prizes $125
20 third prizes $20
1 prize every single day of $10

By participating in this competition, users have the unique opportunity of being rewarded with LyCI tokens. The contest will run from October 14 to October 26. To claim their prize participants will need to register with Lykke, pass KYC and abide by standard T&Cs. More information about the rules, prizes and country restrictions is available on the official page of Altcoin Fantasy.

“Lykke’s mission is to create conditions for a more democratic financial system in which everyone can exchange any kind of assets freely and instantly. It is expected that financial literacy will increase generally as blockchain technology eliminates intermediaries. Partnering with Altcoin Fantasy will allow crypto beginners to improve their financial literacy in an interactive way, empowering them to participate in the new digital financial economy.” - Richard Olsen, Lykke founder and CEO.

"Altcoin Fantasy is focused on onboarding people into crypto and advancing mainstream adoption. It's important for us that we have partners that we can onboard our users onto and with Lykke, they have a wallet, an exchange and a crypto index, making it easy for people to get started with crypto, no matter their skill level." - Cynthia Huang, Altcoin Fantasy’s CEO.

Altcoin Fantasy is the most realistic and fun Bitcoin and crypto trading simulator game. Users can enjoy fantasy trading competitions where they can win real crypto prizes for improving their trading skills. They can compete against players all around the world while learning from the trading strategies of other users. It is always free to play and there is no experience required!

Lykke is a Swiss-based fintech company building a global marketplace for the free exchange of any kind of digitized assets. Lykke was founded in 2015 and has been verified by Blockchain Transparency Institute as one of the few crypto exchanges not involved in wash trading. Lykke offers for trading a wide range of cryptocurrencies, 21 fiat currencies, commodities and unique instruments for managing an investment portfolio such as the LyCi Crypto Index family of tokens. More information about the company and its vision is available on its official website.

Mantra Softech Wins the 9th CII Design Excellence Awards in the Industrial Design Category

CII Design Excellence Awards recognize extraordinary products made and/or sold in India. Recently, they organized their ninth CII Design Excellence Awards event to recognize and celebrate Indian design and innovation.

Ahmedabad, Gujarat., October 12, 2019 -- CII Design Excellence Awards recognize extraordinary products made and/or sold in India. Recently, they organized their ninth CII Design Excellence Awards event to recognize and celebrate Indian design and innovation.

Mantra Softech India Pvt Ltd device mTerminal100 – A biometric POS Terminal has been recognized at CII Design excellence award, winning the “Industrial Design: Electronic, Computer and Communication Products” category. The slick and unique design makes mTerminal100 a winner for this category. The award ceremony was hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry and it was endorsed by the India Design Council in Goa. It’s been an honor for all the winners to receive the award from Dr. (Smt.) Mridula Sinha, the honorable Governor of the State of Goa.

The award-winning mTerminal100 to begin with launched in 2018, which is an IRIS and fingerprint POS machine that is developed based on the latest biometric technology, it offers a single device platform to control and operate all connected devices like camera, fingerprint & IRIS scanner, barcode and QR code scanner, and thermal printer along with stunning 7-inch touch screen display without the need of utilizing multiple devices.

mTerminal100 is a modified version of a point of sale (PoS) device, which is utilized efficiently as a biometric Micro-ATM in several applications where biometric identification is required. The Aadhaar-enabled biometric device having multiple identification modalities like fingerprint and IRIS sensors is widely used to verify the identity of a beneficiary for getting subsidized edible and non-edible commodities through Aadhaar-based biometric identification process under PDS system at fair price shops (Ration Store). The UP Government implemented Mantra mTerminal100 at nearly 19,661 fair price shops in the Western Uttar Pradesh, serving collectively 8.6 million eligible families in the region.

Loose Bruce Productions Re-releases Sun Microsystems’ "Y2K" Video from 1999 on approach to 20th Anniversary Dec. 31 st

As the 20 th Anniversary of “Y2K” (the “Millennium Bug”) approaches on December 31, here’s a short comedy music parody video (set to the music of “YMCA” by the Village People, a hit song from 1978) produced in 1999 by a Silicon Valley tech giant at the time, Sun Microsystems.

Roseville, CA., October 01, 2019 -- Loose Bruce Productions Re-releases Sun Microsystems’ "Y2K" Video from 1999 on approach to 20th Anniversary Dec. 31 st

Who: songwriter/performer/attorney “Loose Bruce” Kerr (nationally: Dr. Demento Show; Jim Bohannon Show)

What: 20th Anniversary (Dec. 31) re-release of Sun Microsystems’ “Y2K” comedy music video from 1999 re then-impending threat of Y2K issue

Where: free streaming of the comedy parody video at: https://youtu.be/r8Igm9Jh2Xo

When: now available for use by press/radio/Internet in upcoming stories recounting the runup to the saY2K threat of 20 years ago on Dec. 31, 1999.

Editor’s Notes:
As the 20 th Anniversary of “Y2K” (the “Millennium Bug”) approaches on December 31, here’s a short comedy music parody video (set to the music of “YMCA” by the Village People, a hit song from 1978) produced in 1999 by a Silicon Valley tech giant at the time, Sun Microsystems. It was one way the company used to break the ice at Y2K planning meetings in the 6 months leading up to the event.

The tongue-in-cheek parody music video was recorded by song parodist, Loose Bruce Kerr, together with a production staff of his fellow employees of Sun.

Two years prior, Sun Microsystems hired attorney Bruce Kerr. Most were not aware he was the same as “Loose Bruce Kerr,” a nationally-known song parodist who’d opened for “Weird Al” Yankovic back during Bruce’s previous twenty-year performing career, before then returning to law. Early in 1999, Bruce performed for a Sun legal conference his latest parody at that time, “Y2K.” (“The Western World collapsing/My car insurance lapsing”)

Over 6 months, Bruce and his fellow Sun employees were charged by their employer with producing a music video (MTV was popular at the time) to Bruce’s soundtrack and a script he quickly put together. Sun senior executives were used as extras, including cameos by Sun’s CEO, Scott McNealy, and COO, Ed Zander.

Here, then, is the story of the Y2K threat as seen through the lens of a computer company dealing lightheartedly with that threat in the months leading up to 01/01/00, with the assistance of their employee, song parodist, Loose Bruce Kerr.

As it turned out, only minor disruptions occurred after millions were spent by banks and other companies trying to avert disaster. With dates in many computer systems at the time represented by only two digits (e.g., 00) instead of four (e.g., 2000 or 1900), the worry was “00” would be seen by the systems as 1900, not the year 2000, and worldwide systems might shut down big time, disrupting everything from bank, commerce, and health systems even to include images of “airplanes falling from the sky.”

Later, Kerr became Assistant General Counsel at Sun and is currently an attorney working at Oracle which acquired Sun in 2010.

Jeffrey Sweeney Speaks at London Digital Private Placements Event

San Francisco-based private financial group and the world’s first and only FinTech news outlet co-host London event on digital private placements.

San Francisco, California, USA., October 10, 2019 -- US Capital Global and The Fintech Times joined forces in September to host a digital private placements event in London’s up-and-coming FinTech venue, Rise London. Held in the Barclays-created community workspace known as “the home of FinTech”, the event attracted leading FinTech thinkers and doers.

The open-discussion event, titled “Digital Private Placements – It’s About Standardization, not Disruption”, explored how derivatives of private placements leverage the traditional roles of asset managers, investment advisors, and custodians.

Headquartered in San Francisco, US Capital Global is a full-service private financial group with an established track record in investment banking, asset management, investment management, and capital formation services. The firm provides sophisticated debt, equity, and investment products to lower middle market companies and investors, using the latest FinTech and RegTech innovation.

“As always, it’s a pleasure working with The Fintech Times to produce these leading FinTech events in London,” said Jeffrey Sweeney, Chairman and CEO at US Capital Global, who was a keynote speaker at the event. “The emergence of tokenization is an existential issue pushing us to carefully examine the relationship between derivatives and the digital financial ecosystem. Our digital private placements event in London gave us the opportunity to do this within the FinTech community, exploring how elements such as digital ledger technology tackle the more archaic security practices we are traditionally accustomed to. As always with US Capital Global, the genesis of our discussion is rooted in what constitutes best practices in financial transactions going forward.”

Leading the discussion alongside Mr. Sweeney, among an audience of industry insiders, were speakers Aditya Nagarsheth (Perpetual Value Partners), Francesco Roda (Koine), Ciaran McNamee (QPQ), Simon Barnby (Archax), and David Benizri (Rivver Inc.), with Katia Lang from The Fintech Times and US Capital Global’s Vanessa Guajardo hosting the evening.

About The Fintech Times:
The Fintech Times is a multi-media outlet centered on the world’s first and only FinTech newspaper. The publication chronicles the latest in cutting-edge financial technologies, including RegTech, banking transformation, payments innovation, AI, WealthTech, cryptocurrencies, cybersecurity, InsurTech, and much more. With over 150,000 copies of print circulated in London, San Francisco, and Tokyo, and over 120,000 online readers, The Fintech Times is building the voice of the FinTech industry.

About US Capital Global:
Established in 1998, US Capital Global leverages the latest FinTech and RegTech innovation to provide sophisticated debt, equity, and investment products to lower middle market companies and investors. The group manages direct investment funds and provides wealth management and capital raise services. Operating with its registered investment bank affiliate, US Capital Global Securities, LLC, the firm acts as a licensed placement agent for companies, funds, and projects, and collaborates closely with its peers in professional banking and investment advisory. www.uscapglobal.com