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Disrupting Agriculture: Usman Javaid’s AI Revolution for Smallholder Farmers in Asia

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In today’s dynamic and rapidly evolving agricultural landscape, inefficiencies and exploitative practices have long hindered progress. However, a new wave of innovation is sweeping across the industry, led by visionaries who are determined to make a difference. Join Karla Jo Helms on the Disruption Interruption Podcast as she talks with Usman Javid, CEO of RiCult International, about how he is leveraging innovative AI to transform agriculture and uplift smallholder farmers.

TAMPA BAY, Fla., July 22, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Although often referred to as the world’s least digitized industry by outsiders, agriculture is undergoing a technological revolution with the potential to change the lives of millions. Extensive evidence shows that digital advisories can improve farmers’ practices, increase yields and incomes, and enhance resilience, indicating a 22% higher adoption rate of recommended inputs and a $10 benefit for every $1 spent. (1) Karla Jo Helms (KJ), host of the Disruption Interruption podcast, talks with Usman Javaid, a leader and innovator in the agricultural technology (AgTech) sector, to discuss the groundbreaking work being done at Ricult International. “Our goal is to disrupt the cycle of poverty and inefficiency by providing smallholder farmers with the tools and resources they need to succeed, with a mission to address their challenges in accessing capital and improving their performance,” Javaid explains.

“Our goal is to disrupt the cycle of poverty and inefficiency by providing smallholder farmers with the tools and resources they need to succeed, with a mission to address their challenges in accessing capital” – Usman Javid

Revolutionizing Agriculture
Under Javid’s leadership, RiCult International has achieved remarkable milestones. The company has not only increased farmers’ incomes by 17% but has also attracted significant investments, securing over $12 million from prestigious entities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

He emphasizes the staggering statistics that highlight the urgency of the situation: 75% of the world’s poor are farmers, and 84% of these farmers are smallholders with less than 20 acres of land. These farmers face immense financial exclusion, often relying on exploitative moneylenders due to a lack of access to mainstream financing. The impact of climate change further exacerbates their plight, with shifting weather patterns and rising temperatures threatening crop yields and food security.

Empowering Smallholder Farmers
Ricult International uses AI and data analytics to help smallholder farmers optimize yields, manage resources, and tackle climate challenges. “There is huge potential to make these changes to help people make a better living, but also to help them produce more food,” Javid states. His commitment to leveraging technology for social good is transforming AgTech, bringing hope and opportunity to farmers across Asia and beyond.

Javaid discusses AI’s impact on agriculture, focusing on smallholder farmers, and explores strategies with Helms to improve productivity and mitigate risks, emphasizing Ricult’s efforts to enhance farmers’ access to capital and quality inputs.

Expanding Agricultural Transformation
Ricult is actively expanding its reach across Asia and its numerous regions with significant potential for agricultural transformation. Javaid emphasizes the untapped opportunities in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. “These regions lack access to advanced agricultural technology, and we see enormous potential for change,” he notes. Looking ahead, Javaid envisions a future where technology and access to capital empower farmers to break free from poverty.

Links:
Disrupting Agriculture: Usman Javaid’s AI Revolution for Smallholder Farmers in Asia

https://omny.fm/shows/disruption-interruption/disrupting-agriculture-usman-javaids-ai-revolution?in_playlist=podcast

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/usmanj/

Company Website: https://www.web.ricult.com/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ricult/

Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today’s biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.

Disruption Interruption can be listened to in Apple’s App Store and Spotify.

About Disruption InterruptionTM
Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries— MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more—and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, “THAT’S IT! I’VE HAD IT!”? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo “KJ” Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews badasses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits—and not-so-common—that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world’s key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at http://www.disruption-interruption.com.

About Usman Javaid
Usman Javaid is the CEO of Ricult International and Ricult Pakistan, leading an AI-powered solution empowering smallholder farmers across Asia through digital financial technology. Ricult operates as an AI-based data platform leveraging data from agriculture value chain sources like remote sensing, weather satellites, and financial institutions. Under Usman’s leadership, Ricult has scaled operations across Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam, impacting over 800,000 farmers with a 17% increase in income. He has secured over $12 million in grants and investments from organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MIT. Usman holds an MBA from MIT Sloan, with a background in engineering and experience at Nestle pioneering mobile banking services. Passionate about using technology for social impact, he co-founded Ricult at MIT to address agricultural challenges, earning global recognition and establishing the company as a spin-off in 2015, headquartered in Boston.

About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.

References
1. Kremer, Michael, and Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo. “Grow Back Better? Here’s How Digital Agriculture Could Revolutionise Rural Communities Affected by Covid-19.” World Economic Forum, 9 July 2020, weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/digital-agriculture-technology/.

Media Inquiries:  
Karla Jo Helms 
JOTO PR™ 
727-777-4629
jotopr.com 

Media Contact

Karla Jo Helms, JOTO PR™, 727-777-4629, khelms@jotopr.com, jotopr.com

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Deloitte named a Leader in IDC MarketScape Worldwide AI-enabled Adobe Professional Services 2026 Vendor Assessment

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This report is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics that explain a vendor’s success in the marketplace

NEW YORK, Nov. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Deloitte has been positioned as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape Worldwide AI-Enabled Adobe Professional Services 2026 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US54114626, October 2026). Deloitte is recognized as a “worldwide services provider that combines a long heritage in business consulting with broad and deep IT services capabilities, and with a strong understanding of its clients’ business on multiple levels.” Deloitte’s Adobe-focused professional services are delivered through Deloitte Digital.

This assessment was produced by “key findings from IDC’s 56 calls with reference clients of Adobe professional services.” This IDC MarketScape evaluation “is based on a comprehensive framework and set of parameters expected to be most conducive to success in providing professional services relating to AI-enabled Adobe professional services in both the short term and the long term.” Deloitte was positioned as a Leader of the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Experience Design Services 2025 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US52973225, October 2025) and the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Experience Build Services 2025 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US52973125, October 2025). 

“We’re honored to be recognized by IDC MarketScape as a Leader in the 2026 Worldwide AI-Enabled Adobe Professional Services Vendor Assessment,” says Kim Frazier, Deloitte Global Chief Commercial Officer, Adobe Alliance. “As technology reshapes customer expectations, our deep knowledge of Adobe solutions and forward deployed models help organizations respond quickly and turn new possibilities into meaningful outcomes. We’ll continue building on the strength of our alliance and the innovation of our teams to help clients realize greater value from their investments.”

“Organizations today are looking for collaborators who can bring together creativity, technology, data, and industry insight to drive meaningful business outcomes,” says Mark Lush, Deloitte Global Consulting Services Customer Offering Portfolio leader and Global Head of Deloitte Digital. “We’re proud of this recognition, which I believe reflects Deloitte Digital’s dedication to helping clients create exceptional customer experiences, accelerate growth, and realize the potential of AI-powered transformation.”

“Adobe and Deloitte have built a strong relationship around a shared focus on customer outcomes,” says Kyle Ellis, Global Vice President & General Manager, Strategic Partnership Program, Adobe. “Deloitte brings a thoughtful, practical approach to complex experience challenges, helping organizations put Adobe’s AI-powered technology to work in ways that strengthen their brands, engage customers, and drive growth.”

According to the IDC MarketScape:

“Based on conversations with Deloitte’s clients, the three main areas where clients commended Deloitte were people quality, value creation, and Adobe-specific thought leadership.”

“Deloitte’s breadth and depth of capabilities, and its ability to mobilize its people quickly on a global scale, are important capabilities for clients.”

“Since 2021, Deloitte has won 10 global Adobe Digital Experience Partner or Customer Experience Orchestration Partner awards, has had 16 of its employees appointed as Adobe Community Advisors, and has been a Diamond sponsor of Adobe Summit every year.”

“Deloitte Digital has a number of intellectual property assets to help its clients drive value from Adobe technology, including:Connected Studio Powered by Adobe: An Accredited Solution combining Adobe’s Creative and Experience Cloud platforms with Deloitte Digital’s technical, operational, and creative expertise, including Workfront, to help clients create more content, faster and for less, in a real-time market.

Deloitte Digital Dual Zone: An Accredited Solution that resolves pre-ingestion data hygiene and identity resolution issues, helping clients build complete, consistent customer profiles and unified data sets from multiple platforms and target market segments from a complete view of customers.

Adobe Xccelerator (AX): An Accredited Solution providing a production-ready platform and a suite of reusable components, templates, features, and integrations that extend Adobe Experience Manager, giving clients faster time to value on Adobe’s digital platforms.

Closed-Loop Marketing Solution: A closed-loop marketing (CLM) Accredited Solution that combines marketing automation and financial management for more cost-efficient marketing (Customers using this solution are able to track more than performance of content based on click-throughs, since this solution tracks actual ROI of content and campaigns).

Investment to Value Map: A tool to help CMOs strategically transform and modernize the marketing function.

ConvergeCONSUMER™: A tool that combines Deloitte’s proprietary consumer data with applied AI and machine learning to help organizations know their customers, predict demand, and personalize experiences.

IndustryAdvantage™: An industry-benchmarking framework Deloitte draws on when building clients’ marketing transformation road maps, including competitive analysis, a marketing capability maturity model, and a multiyear business case and road map.”

For more information about Deloitte Analyst Relations, please visit our Analyst Relations page.

About IDC MarketScape
IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and service suppliers in a given market. The research utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of technology suppliers can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective suppliers.

About Deloitte
Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), its global network of member firms, and their related entities (collectively, the “Deloitte organization”). DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and related entities are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties. DTTL and each DTTL member firm and related entity is liable only for its own acts and omissions, and not those of each other. DTTL does not provide services to clients. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more.

Deloitte provides leading professional services to nearly 90% of the Fortune Global 500® and thousands of private companies. Our people deliver measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in capital markets and enable clients to transform and thrive. Building on its 180+-year history, Deloitte spans more than 150 countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte’s nearly 500,000 people worldwide work together every day to make an impact that matters at www.deloitte.com.

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HUSK Launches All-in-One Ecosystem, Uniting Healthy Living and Clinical Care in a Single Platform

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New offering connects health plan-covered nutrition and mental health care with a personalized engagement journey — giving employers a way to measure whether wellness spend is reducing healthcare costs

WAYNE, Pa., Nov. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — In both self-funded and fully insured health plans, most employees already have access to registered dietitians and licensed therapists, yet much of that care goes unused. Today, HUSK, a preventative wellness technology company serving self-funded and fully insured employers and health insurers, announced the launch of its all-in-one wellness ecosystem, HUSK Wellness. The all-in-one ecosystem brings healthy living programs and clinical care together in a single personalized experience, with outcomes reporting employers can act on.

For three decades, HUSK has helped employers engage their workforces in wellness. In that time, it has seen the same gap again and again. Benefits are spread across separate vendors, covered care goes unused, and employers have no reliable way to connect wellness spend to outcomes. HUSK Wellness closes that gap by building each employee a personalized journey across five benefits: Challenge, Rewards, Marketplace, Nutrition and Mental Health. Each journey is shaped by employer goals and driven by employee choice.

“Employers have spent years buying wellness one vendor at a time, and the result is benefits that sit unused and no clear line to healthcare costs,” said Erin Markowski, President and CEO of HUSK. “The clinical care is already covered by the health plan, whether an employer is fully insured or self-funded. Our job is to connect it to the healthy habits people enjoy, so employees actually use it and employers can finally see whether their wellness investment is reducing healthcare spend.” — Erin Markowski, President & CEO of HUSK

The HUSK Wellness journey begins with onboarding led by Poppie, HUSK’s wellness assistant. Poppie learns each employee’s goals, interests and preferences, then builds a personalized path across all five benefits. Because everything lives in one connected ecosystem, employees spend less time searching and more time engaging. Employers can see utilization, ROI, and how participation relates to high-cost utilization such as ER visits and chronic condition spend.

“Most wellness platforms are built to nudge people into engagement. We built ours around choice,” said Samantha Chase, Head of Product at HUSK. “Employees tell Poppie what they care about, and the platform builds a journey around that. People stick with what they chose for themselves.” — Samantha Chase, Head of Product at HUSK

HUSK Wellness is available now to employers and health insurance partners. Employers can request a walkthrough at https://huskwellness.com/.

About HUSK Wellness

HUSK Wellness is a preventative wellness technology company serving employer clients and health insurers. Operating under parent company Volaris, HUSK combines engagement solutions (Rewards, Challenge, and Marketplace) with clinical care delivered by Registered Dietitians and Mental Health Therapists. Learn more at huskwellness.com.

Media Contact
Keri Lindenmuth
Product Marketing Manager
klindenmuth@huskwellness.com

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Listrak Debuts Integration with Dataships, Creating a Connected Approach to Compliance and Growth

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Consent collected through Dataships now flows into Listrak automatically, with each subscriber’s opt-in type preserved.

LITITZ, Pa., Nov. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Listrak, the cross-channel personalization platform, today announced its new integration with consent optimization platform Dataships. Dataships and Listrak work together to help consumer brands grow their direct marketing audiences while maintaining compliant consent practices across regions.

Dataships optimizes how marketing consent is collected across forms, checkout, confirmation pages, and other collection points, showing each shopper the appropriate consent experience based on factors like location, consent history, and applicable regulations. Through the Listrak integration, subscribers and their consent status collected through Dataships flow directly into Listrak, with no manual exports or imports, allowing brands to activate those audiences across their marketing programs. Single opt-in contacts are subscribed right away, double opt-in contacts receive Listrak’s confirmation email, and unsubscribes in Listrak sync back to Dataships, so consent records stay aligned on both platforms. 

Use cases of the Listrak + Dataships integration include:

Consent optimization. Dataships optimizes forms, checkout, confirmation pages, and anywhere else direct marketing consent is collected, showing every shopper the right ask based on their location, consent history, language preference, and more, which helps brands grow email audiences from their customers.Consent compliance. As each ask is optimized for growth, compliance is enforced underneath so no ask that could bring a brand out of compliance is shown. Opt-ins are stored as a permanent timestamped record, so brands stay compliant everywhere they sell and can prove exactly who they can legally reach.Consent intelligence. Dataships measures how marketing consent performs across channels, markets, and collection points and provides benchmarks, so brands understand the impact marketing consent has on their business, including audience growth, incremental revenue, and overall compliance posture.

“Since growing your audience and staying compliant go together, consent should follow the shopper into the marketing platform automatically,” said Leah Beitler, VP of Partnerships & Ecosystems, Listrak. “With Listrak’s compliance center of excellence combined with Dataships’ consent expertise, retailers grow their lists by increasing opt-ins across channels while staying aligned with regional rules.”

“Dataships is built on the belief that compliance is the infrastructure for growth,” said Matt Gottron, Head of Growth, Dataships. “Through our Listrak integration, retailers access a connected approach to audience growth, compliance, and retention marketing, which results in increased long-term customer value.”

About Listrak

Listrak is the cross-channel personalization platform for retail. By unifying customer data, identity, AI, and cross-channel marketing in one platform, Listrak enables retailers to deliver relevant, personalized experiences across email, SMS, RCS, app, web, and in-store. Listrak helps brands win new customers, increase engagement, drive conversions, strengthen loyalty, and grow revenue. Listrak publishes quarterly retail marketing benchmarks, drawn from data across its platform, at https://www.listrak.com/quarterly-benchmarks. For more information, visit https://www.listrak.com/.

About Dataships

Dataships is a marketing consent optimization platform for consumer brands. We optimize forms, checkout, confirmation pages, and anywhere else direct marketing consent is collected to help brands grow email, SMS, and WhatsApp audiences, stay compliant wherever they sell, and understand the impact marketing consent has on their business. For more information, visit https://www.dataships.io/.

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