Digital Transformation

Miami – September 19, 2026 -- CEO Coaching International has named GreenBanana SEO, a three-time Inc. 5000 digital growth agency, as its newest Platinum Strategic Partner, giving its global CEO client base direct access to AI search visibility services.

Partnership targets the shift from Google rankings to AI-driven answer engines

Founded in 2009, GreenBanana SEO specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization, and AI search visibility across platforms including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. Under the Platinum Partnership, GreenBanana will provide CEO Coaching International's client network with diagnostics on how companies appear across Google Search, Google Maps, AI Overviews, and emerging AI discovery tools.

Austin, Texas – September 19, 2026 -- LeanDNA has named 26 finalists for its second annual APEX Awards, expanding the program from four to six categories as it recognizes measurable supply chain transformation across its manufacturer customer base.

Program adds two categories and opens nominations to customers for the first time

LeanDNA introduced the APEX Architect Award, honoring individual power users of its newest platform capabilities, and the APEX Synergy Award, recognizing teams that unified departments around APEX as a single source of truth. For the first time, nominations were opened beyond LeanDNA staff to the broader customer community, allowing customers to nominate themselves, peers, and teams.

San Francisco – September 19, 2026 -- Aristotle, a voice-first AI tutoring platform, has closed $5 million in seed funding led by True Ventures, with participation from Wicklow Capital and angel investors from Anthropic, OpenAI, Sierra, Ramp, and Cognition.

Closed beta logs 1,500 tutoring hours before nationwide launch

The startup is launching nationwide after a closed beta in which more than 1,000 students completed over 1,500 hours of one-on-one tutoring sessions. The platform targets students ages 13-18 across STEM subjects, standardized testing, and language learning.

Kansas City – September 19, 2026 -- Conexon's Conexon 100 Club now counts nearly 50 electric cooperatives across 13 states that have delivered fiber broadband to 100 percent of their members, following the induction of seven new co-ops in 2026.

Seven cooperatives across three states complete full fiber buildouts

The 2026 inductees -- Canadian Valley Electric Cooperative (Oklahoma), Central Florida Electric Cooperative, Glades Electric Cooperative, Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative (all Florida), and Grady EMC, Habersham EMC and Satilla REMC (all Georgia) -- finished on-system fiber-to-the-home construction between the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026.

St. Petersburg, Fla. – September 19, 2026 -- CCI Insurance, a Higginbotham Partner, has rebranded its proprietary CompCorrect platform as RiskCorrect and opened it as a standalone offering to companies outside its existing client base facing complex risk profiles and significant claims exposure.

Platform expands beyond workers' compensation origins since 2020 launch

Since launching in 2020, the technology has grown from a workers' compensation claims-management tool into a broader system linking incidents, safety activity, root-cause analysis, corrective action and underwriting strategy in a continuous risk cycle. Tobin Robeck, Higginbotham | CCI Managing Director and Regional Sales Director who co-founded the platform, said RiskCorrect now helps companies identify loss drivers, connect claims and incidents, and demonstrate that corrective changes are working.

Bridgewater, N.J. – September 19, 2026 -- OneSchool Global (OSG), a school network operating 122 campuses across 20 countries, has received a Silver A' Design Award for its Learning to Learn framework, an education design model applied to its 8,000-student system.

OSG's proprietary framework earns international design recognition

The A' Design Award and Competition, one of the world's largest international design programs, evaluates submissions through a blind peer-review process involving academics, design professionals and international press members. OSG's Learning to Learn framework was recognized for its innovation, functionality and impact within the education design category.

Exton, Pa. – September 19, 2026 -- Kibow Biotech's redesigned website, KibowBiotech.com, has been named Best Science Website in the 2026 WebAward Competition, run by the Web Marketing Association across seven judging criteria including design, innovation, content and ease of use.

Kibow expands Renadyl distribution into Canada as part of global rollout

The company's flagship product, Renadyl®, a clinically studied probiotic dietary supplement built on gut-kidney axis research, is now sold worldwide, with an upcoming expansion into Canada marking the latest step in Kibow's international access strategy.

Kibow prepares Renaphil launch to extend kidney probiotic science to pets

The company is developing RenaphilTM, a kidney probiotic formulated specifically for cats and dogs, applying nearly 30 years of gut-kidney research to companion-animal health.

Bend, Ore. – September 19, 2026 -- Amazon Web Services has published MSP Validation Checklist (VCL) 8.0, a revised standard requiring managed service providers to prove AI-driven delivery capabilities to earn and maintain AWS MSP validation, cloud operations firm Platformr said.

AWS overhauls 61 controls to embed AI across every requirement

Of the standard's 61 total controls, 24 are entirely new, covering agentic AI platform and agent lifecycle governance, a Responsible AI framework for data governance and prompt injection prevention, agentic Zero Trust and blast-radius containment, and GenAI observability tracking sessions, traces, drift and cost. The update also mandates operational toil measurement, an AI transformation roadmap with industry vertical specialization, and new Forward Deployed Engineer and AI Practice Lead roles.

Sunnyvale, Calif. – September 19, 2026 -- Plug and Play Foundation (PNPF) has launched SMB Tech Connect, an accelerator funded by a Wells Fargo grant that will help 10 Bay Area small businesses assess technology needs and fund adoption. Applications for the pilot program are now open.

Ten small businesses will receive assessments, startup pilots and adoption grants

Each participating business begins with a technology and AI readiness assessment mapping operational gaps and repetitive processes. Results determine placement into one of two tracks: a Technology Pilot Track matching businesses with vetted startup solutions, or a Workshop Implementation Track offering hands-on sessions on AI and automation tools.

Hangzhou – September 19, 2026 -- Hangzhou Zhilianhui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. has launched a direct-to-consumer website for AccuMEMS, its thermal imaging brand, giving technicians and small businesses a new sales channel that bypasses traditional distributor markups on professional-grade inspection hardware.

AccuMEMS targets the price gap between industrial and consumer thermal cameras

The company is positioning its product line between high-end professional thermal imaging systems, which offer high-resolution sensors and rugged designs but often exceed the budgets of independent contractors, and basic consumer-grade devices with limited measurement capability. AccuMEMS is betting that a segment of electricians, HVAC technicians, building inspectors, and automotive diagnosticians will pay for mid-tier accuracy without absorbing the cost structure of specialized lab equipment.