Events

Las Vegas – September 29, 2026 -- Arity, a mobility data and analytics company founded by The Allstate Corporation, has introduced Arity Lead Platform, an insurance-native operating layer designed to give carriers direct control over customer acquisition spend and decisions across publishers, marketplaces, agents, and call centers.

Platform unifies fragmented acquisition systems into a single carrier-controlled layer

Insurance carriers currently invest across publishers, marketplaces, lead and call providers, agency networks, and CRM platforms that often operate independently, limiting visibility from acquisition spend through to customer outcomes. Arity Lead Platform builds on more than a decade of Arity's experience connecting insurers with publishers and marketplaces, extending that connectivity into a full operating layer with reusable connectors intended to reduce integration effort and speed partner activation.

Atlanta – September 29, 2026 -- The Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation (JAJF) has completed 20 years of funding fully-paid family trips for parents with terminal cancer diagnoses, a model now formally prescribed by oncologists across the United States as part of patient treatment protocols.

Foundation traces origin to a 2006 family diagnosis

Jon Albert founded JAJF in 2006 after his wife, Jill, was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Jill died two weeks after the foundation's launch, but the organization she inspired has since delivered what it calls WOW! Experiences to thousands of children and parents nationwide.

Shreveport, La. – September 29, 2026 -- Praeses has secured a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract with Air Force Global Strike Command carrying an initial ceiling value of $79 million over a five-year term.

Single-award vehicle opens federal-wide access to Praeses technology

The contract, issued by the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service Assisted Acquisition Services Innovation Office, is structured as a single-award vehicle. It gives AFGSC and eligible customers across the U.S. government a direct procurement path to Praeses' data fusion, management and AI-powered analytics products and services.

Greenlawn, N.Y. – September 29, 2026 -- BAE Systems has secured AIMS certification from the Department of War for its new AN/APX-127(V)1 Combined Interrogator Transponder (CIT), clearing the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system for use on the U.S. Air Force's F-16 Fighting Falcon fleet.

Certification confirms interoperability across U.S. and NATO forces

The AIMS standard verifies the system meets joint U.S. and NATO requirements, allowing pilots to distinguish allied aircraft from potential threats in contested airspace. The AN/APX-127(V)1 is AIMS Mark XIIB IFF certified with Mode S and Mode 5 capability for encrypted data exchange, and adds receive channels for passive acquisition of Mode 5 Level 2 and Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast In signals.

Dallas – – September 29, 2026 -- Integrity, LLC has partnered with Sumner Insurance Services, a fourth-generation, family-owned independent marketing organization based in Sedalia, Missouri, though financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sumner brings a 1958 legacy and nationwide client base to Integrity's network

Founded in 1958, Sumner Insurance Services originally served central Missouri clients but has since expanded to serve customers across the United States. The agency, led by CEO Caleb Sumner, has broadened its offerings beyond life and health insurance into a wealth division covering retirement planning and investments.

New York City – – September 29, 2026 -- Demy-Colton has released the agenda for BioFuture 2026, a two-day conference set for October 27–28 at Cure, 345 Park Avenue South, drawing more than 100 speakers and over 50 presenting companies from biopharma, investment, technology and policy sectors.

Conference agenda spans AI, oncology, biotech financing and global drug development

Speakers include representatives from Johnson & Johnson, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Schrödinger, Piper Sandler and Mizuho Securities. Sponsors backing the event include Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Russo Partners, WuXi AppTec, Blue Matter, Cure, Evotec, Ipsen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Big4Bio, HMA Consulting, Withum and Hogan Lovells Cadwalader.

New York – September 29, 2026 -- DoubleZero Foundation has integrated Phoenix, Solana's native perpetuals exchange, into its Edge market-data platform, cutting data delivery latency by more than 750 milliseconds for traders accessing the Solana perps order book.

Phoenix becomes the third perpetuals venue on DoubleZero Edge

Built by Ellipsis Labs, Phoenix joins Kalshi crypto perpetual futures, added in August 2026, and Hyperliquid perps, added earlier this month, on the Edge network. Trading firms can now pull market data from all three venues through a single connection rather than building separate infrastructure for each.

DoubleZero launched two new Phoenix feeds: top-of-book and trades, and market-by-price data, covering all Phoenix perps markets.

Chicago – September 29, 2026 -- Controllers Council projects that AI and automation adoption among corporate financial controllers will reach 98% by 2030, up from 86% today, according to its new Controllership 2030 Predictions Study.

Survey of controllers and CFOs maps a five-year shift in job duties

The study draws on a national survey of controllers, CFOs and related finance executives conducted between July and September 2026 across multiple industries and company sizes. It tracks how AI, automation, talent shortages and shifting business conditions will reshape the controllership function through 2030.

Philadelphia – September 29, 2026 -- ConnectDER, a manufacturer of meter socket adapters (MSAs) for solar, battery, and EV charging installations, has named Chad Conway as VP of Product to lead development of its flagship IslandDER product line launched in 2025.

Conway brings 15 years of clean-energy hardware experience from SPAN and Tesla

Conway was a founding team member and Head of Products at SPAN, the smart electric panel maker, where he led the SPAN Panel from concept to installations in thousands of U.S. homes. Before SPAN, he spent six years on Tesla's Energy team helping scale the Powerwall to more than 50,000 annual deployments, including post-Hurricane Irma and Maria recovery work with local communities in Puerto Rico.

New York – – September 29, 2026 -- Big Idea Ventures and Mars Petcare have selected three startups for the third edition of the Next Generation Pet Food Program, drawing 83 applications from 33 countries to advance alternative proteins, fats and oils aimed at cutting the environmental footprint of pet food ingredients.

Program partners with AAK, Bühler, Givaudan and Ingredion select three ingredient startups

EcoBean, a Polish company that valorizes spent coffee grounds from industrial production into high-value ingredients for cosmetics, food and pet applications, joins the 2026 cohort. Loopworm, an Indian insect biotech firm, manufactures protein and fat ingredients from silkworms using proprietary technology. Space Ark Biomedical, based in Taiwan, upcycles okara and brewer's spent grain into functional protein ingredients through enzyme technology and precision fermentation.

Petaluma, Calif. – – September 29, 2026 -- Equity Methods secured the highest client loyalty and satisfaction ratings in the equity compensation financial reporting industry for the 13th consecutive year, posting a Net Promoter Score of 97 and 100 percent favorable overall satisfaction, according to Group 5's 2026 Equity Compensation Financial Reporting Benchmarking Study.

Group 5 surveyed 452 U.S. public companies for its 27th annual industry benchmark

The study, now in its 27th year, remains the only independent forum allowing corporate plan sponsors to confidentially rate their equity compensation service providers. This year's edition drew responses from 452 U.S. public companies evaluating providers on accounting, HR, stock administration, and legal reporting functions.

Calgary, AB – – September 29, 2026 -- Canadian oil sands production is projected to average a record 3.5 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2026, a 100,000 b/d increase of 3% over the prior year, according to S&P Global Energy's latest 10-year production outlook. Output is forecast to climb further to 3.9 million b/d by the early 2030s.

Production has grown almost every year since 2001, when output stood at just 300,000 b/d

The only exception was 2020, when COVID-19 disrupted demand. Most of the 2026 gains stem from optimization of existing facilities rather than new construction, S&P Global Energy said.

Draper, Utah – September 29, 2026 -- FirstDigital has surpassed 500 five-star Google reviews, achieving an overall 4.4-star rating that the fiber internet provider says outperforms most locations run by major national competitors in the same markets.

Customer outages get resolved within hours, not days

Customer Mary Tipton reported that after a series of power outages knocked out her fiber connection, a FirstDigital representative created a high-priority service ticket and restored her service within hours. Longtime customer Vance Hawkins, who has used the service for twelve years, said downtime has been "practically nonexistent" and that any disruptions were typically resolved within minutes.

Minneapolis – September 29, 2026 -- Yardstik, a Minneapolis-based workforce trust platform, has appointed Nick Schneider, President and CEO of cybersecurity firm Arctic Wolf, to its board of directors, weeks after closing a $30 million Series B round led by Harbert Growth Partners.

Schneider brings two decades of cybersecurity scaling experience to Yardstik's board

Schneider has led Arctic Wolf since 2021, growing it into one of the largest privately held cybersecurity companies and a Forbes Cloud 100 and Fortune Cyber 60 honoree. Under his tenure, Arctic Wolf launched the Aurora Agentic SOC and was named a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Managed Detection and Response Service for Midmarket. He previously ran North American sales at Code42 and held senior sales roles at Compellent Technologies through its IPO and acquisition by Dell.

Ann Arbor – September 29, 2026 -- Truven has launched MarketScan Snapshot, an AI-powered search capability that compresses what the company says can be days or weeks of cohort feasibility research into a process taking minutes.

Snapshot lets researchers query 300 million cumulative patient lives in plain language

The tool allows users to run patient-count requests against MarketScan Research Databases using everyday language, eliminating the need to specify medical codes or possess programming skills. MarketScan's underlying dataset includes more than 300 million cumulative lives, 95 million active lives, 99% claims completeness, and data access dating back to 1995 across commercial, Medicare and Medicaid populations.

Delray Beach, Fla. – – September 29, 2026 -- The global threat intelligence market is projected to grow from $13.15 billion in 2026 to $26.68 billion by 2031, a 15.2% compound annual growth rate, according to MarketsandMarkets. The market stood at $11.55 billion in 2025, reflecting accelerating enterprise and government spending on AI-driven detection and proactive risk management amid rising cyberattack volumes.

San Francisco – – September 29, 2026 -- U.S. restaurant and foodservice sales are projected to hit a record $1.55 trillion this year, a 4.8% increase from 2025, according to the National Restaurant Association, as OpenTable releases its first U.S. Restaurant Impact Report quantifying the sector's economic ripple effects. Dining at OpenTable restaurants rose 11% year-over-year, with average per-person spend up 3% to $60, based on OpenTable data covering July 2025 through June 2026.

Restaurant meals trigger $138 in additional nearby spending

60% of diners spend money at neighboring businesses before or after a meal, averaging $138 per visit, per a Ripple Research survey of 1,501 U.S. consumers conducted July 28–August 4, 2026. That figure climbs to $171 for Gen Z diners and $158 for Millennials, pointing to generational differences in local economic contribution.

Santa Clara, Calif. – – September 29, 2026 -- Forward Networks has made Forward Predict generally available, a network-change verification tool that customer IG Group says cut firewall change delivery time by roughly 95 percent and saves engineers more than 30 hours of manual work monthly.

Forward Predict verifies network changes before deployment using a mathematically accurate digital twin

The tool, built on Forward Enterprise's digital twin, models BGP, routing, path, ACL, NAT and firewall-rule changes to show connectivity, security and compliance impact before they reach production. Forward positions the capability as the verification layer required for AI agents to propose network changes safely at machine speed.

Marina del Rey, Calif. – September 29, 2026 -- CommanderAI has launched a mobile app for iOS and Android that extends its AI-powered sales and CRM platform to field representatives in the waste, recycling, and scrap industries, letting reps prospect and close accounts directly from trucks and job sites.

Reps convert roadside sightings into leads with photo-to-lead capture

The app allows a field sales representative to photograph a sign, a truck, or a job site and automatically generate a new prospect record, populated with company and decision-maker data. Outreach can begin on the spot, closing a gap that previously forced reps to log opportunities in notebooks until they returned to a desk.

Dallas – – September 29, 2026 -- Topgolf is replacing its legacy event menu with four new chef-driven buffet concepts and increasing buffet frequency to one station per 30 guests, up from one per 50, in its first major events-program update in recent years.

Four new buffet concepts replace fixed-price legacy menu

The new lineup includes Modern Mediterranean (build-your-own salad and bowl bar with chicken shawarma and grilled steak), Cantina Kitchen (a southwest taco and nacho bar with chicken tinga and fajita beef), Taste of Topgolf (sliders and Roman-crust pizza with vegetarian options) and Chef's Table, a premium entrée menu featuring beef tenderloin and herb salmon for executive events. Planners can add à la carte proteins, sliders, sides and whole pizzas, including gluten-friendly, vegan and vegetarian options.