Coffee Briefing August 16, 2022 – Wagepoint acquires KinHR; Canadian startup joins Mastercard Start Path program; Humi acquires scheduling software Ameego; and more

Coffee Briefings are timely deliveries of the latest ITWC headlines, interviews, and podcasts. Today’s Coffee Briefing is delivered by IT World Canada’s editorial team!

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What’s new this week

Wagepoint acquires KinHR to build workplace solutions for small businesses and their teams
Source: Wagepoint

Canadian fintech company Wagepoint is acquiring KinHR. KinHR, soon to become People by Wagepoint – has joined Wagepoint’s family of products, creating a single solution that takes payroll, time and attendance and now human resources tasks off small business owners’ hands.

People by Wagepoint will offer features such as employee directory, time-off management, new hire onboarding, document storage and eSignatures. The new company will also provide ongoing employee performance management tools such as employee objectives and reviews. 

“Both payroll and HR can contribute to a happy workplace…We’re excited to welcome People by Wagepoint to our family of products. Now, we can help our customers create a delightful experience for their employees, right from the moment of hire and at every touchpoint that follows,” said Shrad Rao, chief executive officer of Wagepoint.

Humi Acquires Scheduling Software Ameego
Source: Humi

Humi, an all-in-one HR platform, has announced the acquisition of Ameego, a scheduling and time clock application.

The two companies have joined forces to bring together essential workforce management software, simplifying employer work streams and enhancing the employee experience for companies.

Humi and Ameego will enable Canadian businesses to take advantage of essential HR management software needed to optimize their workforce. Both Humi and Ameego customers will benefit from Humi’s human resource information system (HRIS) platform and Ameego’s specialized labour optimization suite merged into one contract, one platform, and one login.

“Since the beginning, Humi’s mission has been to make the lives of businesses and its employees easier and the acquisition of Ameego directly supports this mission,” said Simon Bourgeois, co-founder and chief executive officer of Humi. “As we continued to scale Humi’s product suite we came to a decision point: build or buy scheduling functionality. We had gotten to know Ameego over several years and knew there was no better team or product to execute this essential piece of Humi’s product roadmap.”

More Canadian startups join Mastercard Start Path program

Mastercard is expanding its Start Path startup engagement program to include seven early and late-stage startups from the United States, Canada and Latin America. 

Carbon Neutral Club, one of the startups, is a Canadian sustainability platform that focuses on calculating, offsetting, and reducing users personal carbon footprints. The platform also helps to neutralize carbon footprints by funding environmentally conscious projects including kelp forests, renewables, and CO₂-injected concrete.

Guava, oneKIN, Palla, SUMA Wealth, Truora and Yunit are the other Start Path companies that are embedding climate action into company culture and simplifying the user experience on key digital channels.

This program is part of Mastercard’s commitment of US$500 million in products, services, technology and financial support to help close the racial wealth and opportunity gap. 

These startups will join the growing network of more than 300 companies that have graduated from Start Path since 2014.

Roaming IoT Connections to Generate 1,100 Petabytes Globally by 2027, study reveals
Source: Juniper Research

A new Juniper Research study found that the global amount of data generated by roaming IoT connections will increase from 86 petabytes in 2022 to 1,100 petabytes by the year 2027. This would represent enough data to stream 165 million hours of 4K video from streaming platforms like Netflix.

This major growth will be driven by the termination of 3G networks, fuelling the adoption of low-power cellular networks. 

Juniper Research discovered that low-power wide-area networks provide a low-cost option to established operator-led cellular networks like 4G and 5G.

Roaming IoT connections use wireless services outside of their registered operator’s network; accessing connectivity from other cellular providers.

“U.S. operators must adopt the Billing & Charging Evolution protocol to accurately identify IoT traffic based on network technologies,” said research author Scarlett Woodford. “Failure to do so will risk revenue leakage, if lucrative 5G roaming IoT traffic is misidentified as lower-value connectivity.”

More to explore

Spontivly announces multiple VC investments, plans to become an industry leader in community management

Florida-based community management platform Spontivly has announced multiple investments from venture capital companies across North America. With these investments, the company seeks to fund the integration between data analytics and online community management.

Rogers, Shaw, and Quebecor announce definitive agreement for sale of Freedom Mobile

Following an agreement announced on June 17, Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and Quebecor announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of Freedom Mobile to Videotron, a subsidiary of Quebecor, subject to regulatory approvals and completion of the Shaw and Rogers merger, announced March 15, 2021.

Gartner releases its annual Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies

Gartner has released its annual Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies research report, highlighting 25 technologies to watch.

Montreal man alleged to be an operator behind the Golden Chickens malware

One of the threat actors behind the Golden Chickens malware suite said to be favoured by three major Russian criminal cyber gangs lives in Montreal, according to an investigation by a Canadian-based managed security services firm.

ITWC Research – Bare metal cloud report on what’s driving cloud decisions in Canada now?

“Cloud has won.” That was the advice we received from our CIOs panel, which helped us prepare the questions for this year’s CIO Census Report. This knowledgeable and well-informed group declared that cloud is the de facto dominant architecture for business solutions.

New study findings reveal TikTok the ‘most data-hungry app’

Cybersecurity experts at VPNOverview.com, which is headquartered in The Netherlands, recently took on a unique research assignment: Given the fact that many of us are guilty of downloading face-transforming apps, just how safe is a person’s data in the hands of these apps.

Channel Bytes August 12, 2022 – Adaptiv and OTG partner; Battle Royale to showcase emerging vendors; SASE market to triple by 2026; and more

Staying informed is a constant challenge. There’s so much to do, and so little time. But we have you covered. Grab a coffee and take five while you nibble on these tidbits.

Visa partners with Metrolinx to bring Tap to Pay to transit riders in the GTA

Financial services company Visa has announced a collaboration with Metrolinx to offer transit riders in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) the choice of making contactless payments with their Visa credit card or a payment-enabled device, such as a smartphone or watch.

Sage announces Sage Payroll for small businesses

Sage has announced Sage Payroll, cloud-first multi-functional enterprise software that combines accounting, payroll, and HR functions into a single platform with Sage Accounting.

Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending

AT&T employees are being forced to return to office, Apple could bring ads to some of its apps, SpaceX is letting researchers hack into Starlink.

Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today

Today’s episode warns IT administrators of security updates to be aware of

Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Tendances (Hosted by Direction Informatique)

If you live in Quebec, or prefer to consume the latest technology news in French, our sister publication Direction Informatique has you covered. Follow them on Twitter as well.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Samira Balsara
Samira Balsara
Samira is a writer for IT World Canada. She is currently pursuing a journalism degree at Toronto Metropolitan University (formally known as Ryerson) and hopes to become a news anchor or write journalistic profiles. You can email her at [email protected]

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