UPMC Liver Transplant commercial shows stark choices healthcare consumers face

Tom Paine




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This commercial from cross-state healthcare giant UPMC bluntly puts its message on the line: you'll be able to get a liver transplant there sooner than most places. No mincing of words.

The tag line:  Don't die waiting.

Reassuring, and likely to be increasing popular future pitch line as government controls limit supply and the fight for organic body parts intensifies.


Constellation Research's take on the "Business Transformation 150 2019"; Local mentions include John Collier of Wawa, Campbell's Francisco Fraga (perfect name), and David Hayne of Urban Outfitters

Tom Paine




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Constellation Research has published its Business Transformation 150 2019 , its take on the 150 top corporate executives in achieving digital business transformation. I never know exactly how these "best of" are selected, but Constellation is well-connected to innovative digital companies and has a good read on them.

These are mostly corporate people, with less emphasis on early stage, though some of the companies represented have increased their venture activities in the recent past.

Below are the people named to Constellation's "Business Transformation 150" either from Philly-based companies or others closely related to Philly:





John Collier
Chief Information Officer
Wawa, Inc.

Michele D'Alessandro
VP & CIO, Manufacturing IT
Merck & Co., Inc.

Cris De Luca
Global Director, Digital Innovation
Johnson & Johnson

Francisco Fraga
Chief Information Officer
Campbell Soup Company

Melanie Kalmar
Corporate Vice President, CIO & CDO
The Dow Chemical Company

David Hayne
Chief Digital Officer
Urban Outfitters

Melinda Richter
Global Head of Johnson and Johnson Innovation Labs
Johnson and Johnson

Karenann Terrell
Chief Digital and Technology Officer
GSK

Scott Sandschafer
CIO and Head of NBS IT
Novartis



Company Roundup: Billtrust, Synchronoss and Princeton Identity


Company Roundup: Billtrust, Synchronoss and Princeton Identity


Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com



Brian Hughes, Mercer County Executive; Senator Shirley Turner; Christopher Bobbitt, Mayor of Lawrence Twp.; Flint Lane, Billtrust Founder and CEO; Edward Jordan, Billtrust CFO cut the ribbon on the new Billtrust HQ. | Courtesy Billtrust

Billtrust: Billtrust, a business to business company that provides accounts receivable automation, celebrated the official opening of its new corporate headquarters in Lawrenceville on September 24. The company had previously been located in Hamilton.

The search for a new HQ location was necessitated by the company’s rapid growth. Billtrust chose to remain in New Jersey partly thanks to a Grow NJ grant it received from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

The new 87,000-square-foot headquarters provides the Billtrust team with state-of-the-art technology, over 50 meeting and collaboration spaces, indoor and outdoor fitness facilities, three coffee bars, ergonomic desks and white noise canceling technology.

“We’re excited to have a new home in Lawrenceville for our corporate headquarters and continue our commitment [to] job creation in New Jersey,” said Billtrust founder and CEO, Flint A. Lane. “The Billtrust culture is unique and this space reflects that with more collaborative spaces and state of the art technology which will allow our teammates to thrive.”

The new corporate headquarters houses all of the Billtrust New Jersey corporate offices under one roof for the first time since March 2015. The company operates five additional facilities, and is actively growing its teams in Denver and Chicago.

Synchronoss: Synchronoss (Bridgewater), which has had its share of financial problems recently, announced some good news. The company participated in a successful Proof of Concept (PoC) for a new cross-carrier mobile payment service based on the Rich Communications Services (RCS) global messaging standard and on TBCASoft’s cross-carrier blockchain platform. Synchronoss’ partners in this payments solution were SoftBank Corp., a Tokyo-based telecom carrier, and TBCASoft (Sunnyvale, Calif.), an “innovator” in cross-carrier blockchain platform technology.

Synchronoss President and CEO Glenn Lurie said: “Our PoC demonstrates how SoftBank is at the forefront in bringing to market new cutting edge technology through the use of blockchain as well as new RCS-based mobile services, which will disrupt the current messaging and payments market, creating new opportunities for customers, brands, and businesses.” He noted that this will drive incremental revenue for operators from messaging.

“RCS messaging will become the foundation for a new, feature-rich marketplace for brands and merchants, both large and small, to interact with subscribers,” he added. “With our expertise and global reach across multiple messaging platforms – not only RCS, but also email, IM, MMS and SMS, Synchronoss is ideally positioned to take advantage of this important new trend in mobile.”

Princeton Identity: Princeton Identity (Hamilton), a company that provides a biometric security system featuring iris identification, has received three new patents:

Patent 10042994 for Validation of the Right to Access an Object.
Patent 10025982 for Collecting and Targeting Marketing Data and Information Based upon Iris Identification.
Patent 10038691 for Authorization of a Financial Transaction.
The new patents represent applications of Princeton Identity’s unique approach to iris authentication in three very important areas: access, marketing and financial transactions. Using the techniques described in these patents, Princeton Identity advances the application of iris identification and personnel authentication beyond the domain of physical security; it anticipates the adoption of these technologies in the broader marketplace.

The company also announced that its iris-scanning technology was being used in the Samsung Galaxy Note9. Building on the successful integration of the technology into both the Galaxy S8 and S9 devices, Galaxy Note9 enables users to easily unlock their phones with a quick glance at the device, maximizing both security and convenience. The Samsung Galaxy Note9 was officially launched on August 9 at an event held in Brooklyn, N.Y.


Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly, and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly, and is republished here with her permission.