EDGNEX ramps up an AI data center campus in Jakarta. Oracle opens a seven-story R&D center in Casablanca; Australia’s Element 25 expands manganese production in Pilbara that will supply a future plant in Louisiana.
IAMC Chair Cary Hutchings says content matters at IAMC. The editor in chief checks in with recent IAMC speaker, former OpenAI go-to-market leader and futurist Zack Kass. Learn who received the association’s 2025 Michael P. Hickey Service Provider of the Year Award and Mary Jo Hanover Economic Developer of the Year Award.
Nurse Vaishali Khiran loads the measles vaccine from vials at a 2023 immunization event in Mumbra, a suburb of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Photo by Prakhar Deep Jain courtesy of Gavi
Last Thursday in Brussels, Belgium, world leaders pledged more than $9 billion toward a target budget of $11.9 billion for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in its next strategic period from 2026 to 2030. The commitments made at a summit convened by Gavi, the EU and the Gates Foundation come alongside other investments by development finance institutions and vaccine manufacturers, and “bring Gavi a major step closer to securing the resources it needs for Gavi 6.0,” said a press release from the summit, “in which it hopes to protect 500 million children from preventable disease, averting between 8-9 million future deaths, protecting the world from deadly outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, mpox and Ebola through its vaccine stockpiles and unlocking €85.3 billion in economic benefits for countries.”
“In a constrained budget environment, it’s even more important to focus aid funding on the investments that really work,” said Bill Gates. “And Gavi is exactly that. I don’t know of anything with a higher impact per dollar in terms of saving and improving lives. Gavi is one of the best investments I’ve ever made — and one of the best investments countries can make today in the world’s future.”
Photo by Stephanie Mitchell courtesy of Harvard University
Rocky federal government engagement aside, Harvard plans to advance its corporate engagement strategy, says The Harvard Gazette, led by an executive director and associate vice provost for academic-corporate initiatives who previously served as a commissioner on the U.S. Council on Competitiveness.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
October 2024 photo courtesy of the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this photograph of the Mississippi River while orbiting over Louisiana. “The storied Mississippi meanders north to south through the center of the image, carving through the southeastern Louisiana landscape,” says a NASA description. “The river separates the urban areas of Baton Rouge to the east from the elongated agricultural fields to the west. Small islands within the river have been sculpted by the flowing waters” and barges can be detected by their wakes.
