Connect with us

Technology

IPC’s Transparency Showcase celebrates the beauty and benefits of government transparency

Published

on

TORONTO, Sept. 25, 2024 /CNW/ – Today the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) unveiled its second Transparency Showcase with another inspiring display of transparency and open government in action by Ontario’s provincial and municipal institutions.

The latest virtual gallery spotlights innovative projects that support government transparency, promote civic engagement, and demonstrate the positive impact of open data for Ontarians. Launched during Right to Know Week, the showcase illustrates the importance of access rights, transparency and open government. Featured exhibits include:

City of Toronto’s If These Walls Could Talk display provides the public with access to tools and government records in connection with historical houses and neighbourhoods allowing them to discover their own local heritage.Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks’ Environmental Property Information Program project shows the power of out-of-the-box thinking to simplify and streamline access to data on the environmental conditions of properties.Ottawa Police Service’s Community Safety Data Portal provides an overview of police activity in various communities and encourages greater public engagement with accessible information.Town of Innisfil’s, Technology in Public Spaces provides interactive signage to inform residents about technology embedded in public spaces, such as sensors in park waste bins.

The online showcase offers visitors a chance to browse the projects through captivating audio and video, graphics, and descriptions that bring the initiatives to life. Each project is represented by a unique and original piece of artwork, including a specially commissioned piece by artist Shelby Gagnon from Aroland First Nation.

“Transparency and access to government-held information is about empowerment,” said Patricia Kosseim, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. “It equips people with the information they need to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, engage in constructive discourse, and hold their governments accountable. It’s the bedrock that democracy is built on, inspiring public trust and providing trustworthy, evidence-based information to shape policies, programs, and services to improve Ontarians’ lives.”

This year’s Transparency Challenge builds on the success of the first challenge, launched last year, which called on Ontario’s public institutions to share creative and innovative projects advancing open data and transparency.

Institutions across Ontario’s public sector responded to this year’s call and 14 projects were selected as part of a new collection in the IPC’s Transparency Showcase. Today, more than 30 projects are featured in two galleries, providing a remarkable range of initiatives aimed at increasing understanding and appreciation for open data and access to government information. The goal is to inspire others towards greater transparency as well.

Privacy and Transparency in a Modern Government, is one of the IPC’s four strategic priorities. Through initiatives like the Transparency Challenge, the IPC advances Ontarians’ access rights and works with public institutions to hold up positive examples of transparency and its real benefits for the lives of Ontarians.

SOURCE Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario

Continue Reading

Technology

Cuttable Unveils Next-Generation AI Advertising Platform as U.S. Expansion Accelerates

Published

on

By

The platform’s evolution comes alongside an A$20 million Series A funding round led by Airtree Ventures, marking Cuttable’s next phase of growth as it moves beyond AI ad generation.

NEW YORK, Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Cuttable, an AI-powered creative production platform for performance marketing teams, today unveiled the next evolution of its platform, designed to help brands move beyond generating ads to understand what works and make smarter decisions about what to create next. Just one year after entering the U.S. market, the Australian-founded company now generates 40% of its revenue from the region.

While AI has made producing ads faster and easier, knowing which creative to make next remains a challenge. Most tools focus on either generating ads or analyzing their performance, leaving marketers to connect the dots between what they intend to test, what actually worked and what to create next.

Cuttable brings those pieces together. Its evolved platform connects a brand’s creative assets, customer data and performance history with the marketer’s original intent, building on what the brand has already tried rather than starting from scratch with each new creative brief.

Cuttable’s software was built to remove creative as a bottleneck for performance marketing teams producing, testing and rebuilding ads at scale. The platform reads a brand’s website, social channels and guidelines to build an editable brand strategy and brand kit. From there, marketers can write a brief in plain language and receive finished, editable ads, built using existing brand and product assets or Cuttable’s AI content studio, Shoots, which creates and extends photo and video content.

Finished ads publish directly to Meta Ads Manager, and Cuttable’s Ad Insights reads the performance back from Meta, including thumbstop, click-through rate and return on ad spend, so that the next brief builds on what worked. It’s this continuous feedback loop, rather than creative generation alone, that differentiates Cuttable from tools that separately generate ads or report on performance. 

Cuttable’s Co-founder & CEO, Sam Kroonenburg, who previously founded and sold A Cloud Guru in 2021, said, “Creative is still made the way it was thirty years ago, one ad at a time. Making an ad has never been the hard part, it is knowing which one to make next. We are building the creative production system ecommerce performance marketers have been waiting for.”

Across 280,000 ads and more than $320 million in Meta spend run through its platform, Cuttable found that one ad in eleven returns ten times its spend or better, and that a small number of ads end up carrying an entire account. The company’s data also shows brands increase creative output 3.4 times going into November, underscoring the growing pressure to produce and test ads at scale.

In just two years since launching, Cuttable now works with more than 420 brands across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe, including lululemon, Rodan & Fields and Brick. Brands on the platform average a 4.4 times return on ad spend and see a 37 percent lift in account-level return on ad spend after moving to Cuttable. To support its growing U.S. business, Cuttable is actively hiring and building out its San Francisco team.

Airtree, which first invested in Cuttable earlier this year, returned to lead the round. One of Australia’s largest technology investors, its portfolio includes Canva, Airwallex, Linktree and SafetyCulture.

Airtree Ventures partner James Cameron, whose firm also backed A Cloud Guru, said: “Since we backed Cuttable’s seed round, their growth has been much faster than our (already very high) expectations. The world of ad creative is being turned on its head by AI, and we’re excited to lead this round as Cuttable becomes the leading system that performance marketers reach for to make content work harder.”

With the U.S. already emerging as a major growth market, Cuttable plans to use its latest funding to accelerate its expansion and advance the next evolution of its platform. Cuttable’s focus from here is on closing the creative loop, helping marketers decide what to make next rather than only how to make it.

ABOUT CUTTABLE

Cuttable is a creative production platform for performance marketing teams, used by more than 420 brands across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe. The company is headquartered in New York with offices in Melbourne and San Francisco.

To learn more, visit cuttable.com.

High-res Cuttable founder imagery is available HERE.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cuttable-unveils-next-generation-ai-advertising-platform-as-us-expansion-accelerates-302916612.html

SOURCE Cuttable

Continue Reading

Technology

Federal, provincial, and territorial governments launch working group to boost cooperation on carbon markets across Canada

Published

on

By

OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 23, 2026 /CNW/ — Climate action is a key part of how we build Canada strong. The Government of Canada is committed to fighting climate change while building the energy security, industrial capacity, and strategic autonomy that will define this century for Canada.

At this pivotal moment, Canada is building a stronger, cleaner economy by investing in clean electricity, reducing emissions, and supporting Canadian innovation. To achieve this, cooperation between federal, provincial, and territorial governments is more important than ever. As governments work together to build one strong Canadian economy and remove internal trade barriers, they are also considering how to improve the functioning of carbon markets across Canada to support investment in clean industrial growth.

In July 2026, First Ministers agreed to launch a new federal–provincial–territorial working group to explore different models of linking carbon markets across Canada. That working group–with representatives from each province and territory plus the Government of Canada–held its first meeting this week and discussed a draft workplan.

Well-functioning carbon markets can unlock significant new investments to support our shared energy and economic ambitions while reducing the emissions that are causing climate change.

Decarbonization is a nation-building project–one that brings Canadians, communities, and governments together around a shared opportunity to build a stronger, more competitive, and prosperous Canada. Climate and economic development are shared responsibilities in our federation, and we are focused on building and sustaining an approach that brings federal, provincial, and territorial governments together to advance these shared objectives.

Quotes

“This working group is an opportunity to consider how we can work together to better streamline and integrate the many distinct carbon markets operating in different provinces and territories across our country. Our goal is to improve the functioning of these carbon markets to provide long-term certainty for industry and investors while enabling our companies to remain competitive in the global marketplace.”
– The Honourable Julie Dabrusin, Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature

Quick facts

Since 2019, a price on carbon pollution has applied across Canada through a mix of federal, provincial, and territorial pricing systems. This approach gives provinces and territories the flexibility to implement their own pricing systems.The federal–provincial–territorial working group is composed of representatives nominated by their respective governments.The working group will facilitate technical collaboration between federal, provincial, and territorial governments. It is expected to report back to the First Ministers by July 2027 with detailed recommendations.The working group is separate from broader engagement on carbon pricing related to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and the review of the federal benchmark.In September, the Government of Canada announced it is exploring a policy framework to trade internationally transferred mitigation outcomes.

Associated links

Industrial Carbon Pricing in Canada

Environment and Climate Change Canada’s X page

Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Facebook page

Environment and Natural Resources in Canada’s Facebook page

Environment and Climate Change Canada’s LinkedIn page

Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Instagram page

SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada

Continue Reading

Technology

Sungrow Shares Perspectives on Europe’s Energy Transition at BloombergNEF London Summit

Published

on

By

LONDON, Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As Europe experiences growing energy transition demands with deeper electrification and smarter grid integration emerging as core priorities, Sungrow, a global leading provider of PV inverters and energy storage systems (ESS), participated in the BloombergNEF (BNEF) London Summit to discuss clean-tech manufacturing, localization and energy storage’s role in a secure, affordable and resilient energy transition.

Strengthening Europe’s Energy Future Through Localization and Reliability

Shawn Shi, President of Sungrow Europe, outlined the company’s commitment to supporting Europe’s evolving energy landscape during the spotlight speech. He emphasized that the energy transition must go beyond expanding renewable capacity to building a secure, resilient and reliable power system.

Shawn highlighted localization, trust and grid reliability as key priorities. Since entering Europe in 2011, Sungrow has built a local presence with more than 900 employees, almost all locally hired. Its planned €230 million manufacturing facility in Poland, expected to begin production in 2027, will bring manufacturing closer to customers and strengthen supply-chain resilience.

Shawn also underscored the importance of cybersecurity, customer management over energy assets and data, and collaboration with European suppliers, installers and developers. As renewable penetration increases, energy storage is becoming increasingly important to grid stability and system resilience.

“Europe’s transition will not be secured by capacity alone. It needs capacity that is local enough to support, trusted enough to connect, and strong enough to keep the grid reliable.” Shawn emphasized.

Navigating Competitiveness in Europe’s Clean-Tech Industry

Javier, Vice President of Sungrow Europe, joined the panel “‘Made in Europe’ Put to the Test: What Should Europe Fight to Keep?”, alongside industry, finance and policy leaders to discuss how Europe can strengthen its clean-tech manufacturing base, preserve industrial expertise and supply chains, and balance localization policies with global supply-chain cooperation to remain competitive in the energy transition.

The discussion examined how local-content requirements and industrial policies can encourage investment while balancing manufacturing realities, project costs and deployment timelines. Participants also explored the conditions needed to build a competitive European clean-tech industry, including predictable regulation, skilled workers, efficient permitting, innovation and strong local supply chains.

Technology, Innovation and Investment

At the theme lunch hosted by Sungrow, “The Outlook for BESS in Europe: How Technology Shapes Investment and Project Development,” James Li, Vice President of Sungrow Europe joined industry leaders including Erik Stromso, CEO and Co-Founder of BW ESS; Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council; and Jordi Francesch, Global Head of Clean Energy at Nuveen Infrastructure, to explore the key trends, challenges and innovations shaping Europe’s battery energy storage system (BESS) market.

The discussions covered European storage market trends, policy developments and regulatory certainty, energy storage’s role in enhancing grid flexibility and system resilience, and strategies to secure projects and attract institutional capital.

The exchange highlighted the importance of looking beyond upfront costs when evaluating energy storage investments, with lifetime performance, operational reliability and service support playing key roles in project economics and investor confidence. It also explored how advanced technologies, including grid-forming capabilities and black-start functionality, can enhance power system resilience and operational flexibility.

Through its participation in the summit and theme lunch, Sungrow reaffirmed its commitment to working with European stakeholders to advance clean-energy deployment, strengthen local capabilities and support a reliable electricity system.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sungrow-shares-perspectives-on-europes-energy-transition-at-bloombergnef-london-summit-302918280.html

Continue Reading

Trending