GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador, Oct. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The 21st edition of “Banana Time,” the largest international convention for the banana industry, opened with Ecuador’s call for unity to tackle global challenges.

The “Banana Time” convention, organized annually in Guayaquil by the Association of Ecuadorian Banana Exporters (AEBE), which represents more than 70% of Ecuador’s total banana export volume, runs from Oct. 23 to 25, featuring conferences, trade exhibits, and a culinary competition.

During the opening ceremony on Tuesday night, AEBE President Jorge Encalada expressed his belief that “the key to overcoming these challenges lies in unity and the joint efforts of all actors in the production chain.”

Ecuador’s banana sector is going through a difficult period, impacted by the country’s energy and security crisis, geopolitical instability, and plant diseases affecting banana crops.

Further complicating the situation are the new sustainability regulations from the European Union (EU), the main market for Ecuadorian bananas, which require producers and exporters to invest in compliance with these standards.

“We will not allow our producers to be treated unfairly. Supermarkets, key players in the supply chain, must commit to not using bananas as a loss leader,” Encalada added.

Compensation demands for producers

Encalada stressed the need for the new market demands imposed on producing countries to be offset by the true cost of sustainability.

He also highlighted the unity achieved in Latin America through the Joint Latin American Task Force, established in 2020, which includes exporter associations from Ecuador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, and Colombia. This alliance works to address the challenges posed by buyer countries.

Ecuador’s flagship product

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Ecuador’s Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Danilo Palacios, also attended the inauguration, reaffirming the government’s commitment to achieving full formalization of the sector, as “bananas are the country’s flagship product.”

The banana industry is one of the main drivers of Ecuador’s economy, contributing more than $3.5 billion annually to the gross domestic product (GDP) and generating 250,000 direct jobs.

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NEW YORK, Oct. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Attention, the platform that transforms customer conversations into actionable insights, announced today its $14 million Series A funding to power its next phase of growth. The investment was led by Alven, with participation from Eniac, 645 Ventures, Aglae, Frst, and Liquid2. The funding highlights the growing demand for Attention’s AI product and solutions as the business saw a 10x revenue increase this year, with customers including Crunchbase, BambooHR, Aircall, and Clay amongst others.

Founded by repeat entrepreneurs and former competitors, Anis Bennaceur and Matthias Wickenburg, Attention addresses a critical need in the market: enabling revenue teams to unlock and utilize the valuable data hidden in customer interactions. Traditional methods of capturing and analyzing this data are expensive, error-prone, and incomplete. Attention automates this process, offering sales teams a powerful tool to close more deals using the voice of the customer.

“Automating CRM entry out of customer conversations and writing follow-up emails was just the beginning. There is so much more to do out of these precious interactions,” said Bennaceur, Co-Founder and CEO of Attention.

Attention will use the new funding to fulfill strong market demand and expand its go-to-market team, while continuing to invest in product and engineering to solidify its leadership in the AI-driven sales market – a category it pioneered.Attention’s long-term vision is ambitious: to fully automate the routine tasks handled by revenue and sales teams, enabling them to focus on more strategic activities.

“We have built a system of cognition that continuously learns and improves, delivering better results over time,” said Wickenburg, Co-Founder and CTO of Attention. “We believe that our technology will not only enhance jobs but also redefine them, making sales teams more efficient and effective than ever.”

Thomas Cuvelier, General Partner at lead investor Alven, who has also backed transformative AI unicorns such as Dataiku and Algolia, added: “Attention’s Generative AI native capabilities are a paradigm shift to a system of cognition for the revenue function – they can effectively clone top performers by extracting features out of successful sales deals while at the same time dramatically enhance productivity. Anis and Matthias have an exceptional eye for product, and have built a compelling proposition in what is a very large, fast-growing, and dynamic market.”

Austin Myers, VP Revenue at Certificial and Attention customer shared, “Thanks to Attention, our sales pipeline velocity has skyrocketed. With automated CRM entry and insightful scorecards, deals progress smoothly, leading to quicker conversions. It’s streamlined our processes and turbocharged our revenue growth.”

This round of funding marks a pivotal chapter in Attention’s growth story. With a robust foundation, a clear strategic direction, and the support of world-class investors, the company is poised to make significant strides in revolutionizing sales enablement for businesses worldwide.

To get in touch with the Attention team, reach out at [email protected].

About Attention

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Attention is a leading AI-powered platform dedicated to helping sales and revenue teams unlock the full potential of their customer conversations. By automating the extraction of actionable insights, Attention enables businesses to make informed decisions, enhance performance, and drive growth.

About Alven

Alven is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in world-class teams and products, and guiding entrepreneurs from seed to growth across the US and Europe. With over $2 billion under management, Alven has backed over 180 teams in the last two decades, including many success stories such as Stripe, Algolia, Dataiku, Qonto and Gorgias.

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that its Envizi environmental, social, and governance (ESG) Suite received Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization. Designed to create a single, trusted system of record for all ESG data, the IBM Envizi ESG Suite helps organizations automate the capture and management of ESG data for enhanced analysis, reporting and opportunity identification. IBM Envizi is available to federal agencies on the FedRAMP Marketplace in the Analytics and Data Management business categories.

With more than 300,000 buildings, four million employees, 640 million acres of public land, and $700 billion in annual purchases of goods and services, the federal government’s role in championing ESG principles continues to expand. While new reporting frameworks like the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) for climate disclosures are prompting agencies to be more diligent and transparent in how they collect, analyze and report ESG data, obstacles like poor data quality, data fragmentation and complexity, alongside ever-changing reporting regulations, could make measuring progress and reporting outcomes a challenge. By automating ESG data collection and analysis and providing a solution to help streamline the reporting process, IBM Envizi is designed to help agencies begin to overcome these obstacles by minimizing errors, reducing time spent sorting through data, and providing the data insights that can turn into actionable strategies.

“ESG has an impact on government and government has an impact on our broader society and citizens,” said Vanessa Hunt, General Manager, Technology, U.S. Federal Market for IBM. “When considering the federal government’s size and scale, there’s an opportunity for agencies to lead by example. Now that our Envizi ESG Suite has received FedRAMP authorization, federal agencies can take advantage of its capabilities with the confidence that their ESG data are secured and protected.”

About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

Media contact
Banks Willis
[email protected] 

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