Project B Taps Fashion Industry Veteran William Kim as Chief Lifestyle Officer

Global basketball platform merges elite sport with fashion, design, and culture

SINGAPORE. Feb 20 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Project B, an elite global women’s and men’s basketball grand prix built for a new generation of athletes and fans, today announced the appointment of William Kim as Chief Lifestyle Officer. In this strategic role, Kim will lead Project B’s premium lifestyle business across merchandise, brand collaborations, and cultural partnerships as Project B expands across Europe, Asia, and the Americas to create the most premium cultural platform in global sport.

“We are building a model designed for 2030 and beyond,” said Kim. “It starts with creating exceptional products. We’re sourcing the highest quality natural fibers for every moment in an athlete’s day and offering those same collections to the broader fan community. From design to supply chain to final consumer experience, we are operating with the same discipline and control as a luxury house, overseeing product, distribution, and brand experience holistically.”

Kim will lead Project B’s global lifestyle strategy, integrating sport, fashion, and community into a unified identity centered on quality and iconic design. He will oversee the development of high-quality performance apparel for athletes using natural fibers, elevated collections for fans, and brand collaborations tied to host cities and culture-defining partners. He will also shape an AI-driven commerce model built for a streaming-first, social-native platform, ensuring that product, distribution, and brand experience operate cohesively across markets.

“Basketball is culture,” said Geoff Prentice, Co-Founder of Project B. “From day one, we are building a premium platform rooted in uncompromising quality. Our collections will be crafted from natural fabrics with no synthetics and no shortcuts, designed and developed in house so we control the standard end to end. William understands how to build brands that live beyond the game, and his global perspective and design sensibility will be instrumental as we scale.”

Kim brings extensive international experience in brand building, retail innovation, and cultural strategy, with a track record of elevating global businesses at the intersection of sport, fashion, and consumer experience. He previously served as CEO of Shinsegae International, CEO of Rapha, CEO of AllSaints, Global EVP at Samsung Mobile, SVP at Burberry, and held executive roles within Gucci Group.

As Project B expands into key international markets the appointment signals the company’s commitment to building a global cultural platform that will outfit players and fans in the very best natural fibers and high-quality textiles.

About Project B

Project B is a global sports platform built for players and fans. Starting with basketball, Project B is creating a high-stakes, international tournament circuit featuring the world’s top men’s and women’s players, competing in world-class cities across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Designed for a streaming, social, and mobile-first world, Project B combines live elite competition with deep storytelling, reaching audiences globally.

View source version on businesswire.com: 
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260219529241/en/

Contact

Press Contacts
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Source : Project B

Mavenir Collaborates with Red Hat to Deliver Carrier-Grade On-Premise Conversational AI and Agentic AI Service Assurance for Telcos

 

RICHARDSON, Texas, Feb 19 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mavenir, the software company building AI-by-design mobile networks, today announced a collaboration with Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open-source solutions, to deliver Conversational AI and Agentic AI service assurance solutions using Red Hat AI. These carrier-grade generative AI (gen AI) offerings are powered by Red Hat OpenShift AI running on-premise, empowering telecommunications service providers with a highly scalable, security-focused, resilient and cost-optimized foundation for network operations.

This collaboration is focused on transforming the telecommunications industry by providing service providers with AI solutions that leverage their existing platform investments while delivering additional security, resiliency, with low latency that is critical for real-time network operations.

With this effort, Mavenir provides AI solutions tailored to the telecommunications industry that are purpose built to be more cost-effective and more secure than hosted as-a-service AI solutions.

Sachin Karkala, EVP & General Manager, IMS & RAN of Mavenir, stated: "In the race to monetize AI and evolve to autonomous networks, service providers need control of the user experience, cost and data privacy. Our collaboration with Red Hat enables us to develop on-premise AI solutions that do just that. Generative AI models can be fine-tuned using service provider data to build specialized, on-premise agents helping deliver optimal performance."

With conversational AI, the industry is moving up the value chain from merely providing connectivity between entities, to AI agents taking over critical control of acting on the content and intent of the communication. 

Agentic service assurance is a significant evolution of today's service assurance solutions relying on machine learning models alone. Agentic systems have a broader perspective, being able to create workflows and drive decision making between different domains in the network and disparate data sources. They adapt and self-learn, ultimately being able to detect and correct issues before they impact the customer.

As a step toward deployment readiness, Mavenir and Red Hat engaged with the Dell Technologies Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL) which hosts an advanced AI infrastructure based on the Dell PowerEdge R760xa – a high-performance air-cooled server engineered for a wide range of applications, including AI, machine learning and deep learning-training and inferencing. Dell's OTEL AI experts collaborated with the Mavenir and Red Hat engineering teams to fine tune the large language model and maximize the solution's efficient use of the underlying infrastructure.

By deploying these solutions on-premise with Red Hat OpenShift AI, service providers can optimize the efficiency of their GPU resources, maintain full control of security and governance requirements and more easily manage the complex AI lifecycle.

Honoré LaBourdette, Vice President of the Global Telco Partner Ecosystem at Red Hat, commented: "For enterprise AI to move from proof-of-concept to production, it requires a validated foundation with mandatory components like guardrails, observability and a robust lifecycle. Red Hat OpenShift AI provides that necessary foundation. Together with Mavenir, we are demonstrating cost-effective GPU efficiency through tools like Kueue and Dynamic Accelerator Slicer (DAS) for multi-tenant resource sharing, which helps optimize utilization of high-dollar hardware investments. This, paired with low-latency model serving using vLLM, helps ensure that real-time applications like AI voice translation, achieve the deterministic performance the market demands, proving the tangible value of the on-premise model. This is our first announcement in a series of joint initiatives with Mavenir to leverage Red Hat AI technology."

About Mavenir

Mavenir is enabling intelligent, automated, programmable networks through the development of telco-first, cloud-native, AI-by-design software solutions for mobile operators. The company's deep telco domain expertise has been proven through deployments with 300+ operators globally in over 120 countries, which together serve more than 50% of the world's subscribers. Mavenir combines its deep telco experience with the cloud and IT expertise and data science skillsets essential to solving real customer challenges. Its proven software solutions are AI by design, delivering the AI-native future and operators' evolution to TechCos.

For more information, please visit www.mavenir.com.

Mavenir PR Contacts:

Emmanuela Spiteri
PR@mavenir.com

Red Hat, the Red Hat logo and OpenShift are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. 

SOURCE: Mavenir Systems, Inc.

MAVENIR, TERRESTAR LAUNCH CANADA’S FIRST 3GPP-BASED HYBRID SATELLITE–CELLULAR IOT PLATFORM

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 12 (Bernama) -- Mavenir, together with Terrestar Solutions Inc, Canada’s only domestically headquartered and controlled mobile satellite service operator, announced the commercial launch of Terrestar’s Hybrid Satellite Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity service.

The new service is Canada’s first domestically controlled hybrid satellite–cellular IoT platform built entirely on 3GPP Release 17 standards, designed to integrate seamlessly with existing and future mobile networks and to support resilient IoT services across urban, rural, remote and northern regions of the country.

The non-terrestrial service is delivered over Terrestar’s Echostar T1 geostationary satellite using licensed S band mobile satellite spectrum and powered by Mavenir’s cloud-native virtualised RAN (vRAN), Converged Packet Core, and network management and analytics solutions, integrated within Terrestar’s broader Hybrid IoT connectivity ecosystem.

Mavenir President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Pardeep Kohli said this deployment is a clear signal to the global operator community that 3GPP-based NTN is ready for commercial scale.

“By combining Mavenir’s cloud‑native vRAN and Converged Core with Terrestar’s satellite expertise, we have delivered a fully standards‑compliant, operator‑grade hybrid IoT network,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Terrestar CEO, Jacques Leduc said launching Canada’s first standards-based hybrid satellite–cellular IoT platform is a major milestone for satellite connectivity in Canada, enabled by Mavenir’s cloud-native vRAN and core technology to deliver resilient nationwide IoT services and support future direct-to-device connectivity.

The deployment leverages Mavenir’s Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) technology, purpose-built to meet mobile network operator regulatory and operational requirements worldwide.

The solution includes a 3GPP Release 17-based vRAN architecture, a fully containerised cloud-native Converged Packet Core delivering carrier-grade reliability and scalability for NTN services, and network service assurance through Mavenir’s mCMS, XA Analytics and managed services.

The commercial launch strengthens Mavenir’s position as a global leader in NTN-ready mobile network software and positions Terrestar as a pioneer in standards-based satellite-cellular integration.

The companies are also advancing additional capabilities, including voice and messaging over NTN, 5G NR NTN evolution, and expanded direct-to-device service models.

-- BERNAMA

HAMAT, RLC GLOBAL FORUM HONOUR RETAIL LEADERS IN RIYADH

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- Hamat, together with RLC Global Forum, co-hosted the RLC Honors Gala Dinner on Feb 3, bringing together senior leaders from the global retail, luxury and consumer ecosystem for an evening recognising excellence, leadership and long-term impact.

Held on the sidelines of the 2026 RLC Global Forum, the RLC Honors recognise individuals whose careers have shaped businesses, industries and markets over time, while underscoring the role of consistent, responsible leadership through periods of change.

The 2026 RLC Honors were presented in an intimate setting in Riyadh in partnership with Hamat, a long-standing supporter of the RLC Global Forum and its international community.

Speaking at the ceremony, RLC Global Forum Chairman, Panos Linardos said the awards highlight consistency of leadership and depth of contribution across an entire career, while Hamat’s leadership underscored the importance of linking global insight with regional execution.

According to a statement, this year’s ceremony recognised two industry leaders whose influence has had a lasting impact on both global and regional retail.

Marco Bizzarri, Gucci’s former chief executive officer, received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Luxury Retail, in recognition of his role in transforming the brand into a global cultural and commercial force.

Meanwhile, Ingie Chalhoub, Etoile Group Founder and President, was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Pioneering Women’s Leadership in Retail for her contribution to the Middle East’s luxury retail development and women’s leadership.

Together, Hamat and RLC Global Forum, in partnership, reaffirmed their shared commitment to strengthening cross-border collaboration and supporting a more resilient, forward-looking global retail industry.

-- BERNAMA

FENGDU ORANGES POWER MODERN AGRICULTURE, RURAL PROSPERITY IN CHONGQING

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 12 (Bernama) -- The harvest season is in full swing in Longkong Town of Fengdu County, a major orange-producing hub in west China’s Chongqing Municipality, as freshly picked fruit moves rapidly from orchards to nationwide markets through an increasingly modernised supply chain.

At the Common Prosperity Orange Orchard in Nanzhu Village, crates of oranges are transported directly to Fengdu Orange’s integrated production base, where the fruit is cleaned, polished, dried, graded and packaged before being shipped across the country.

According to a statement, to ensure smooth operations during the peak harvest is Bai Xiaohua, director of a local agricultural development professional cooperative, who coordinates picking schedules between orchards and processing facilities while personally overseeing quality control.

Raised among orange trees, Bai founded the cooperative in 2018 to organise scattered growers and promote standardised, large-scale citrus production through unified management.

To strengthen technical capacity, Bai conducts monthly on-site training sessions for farmers and has actively introduced modern practices. After completing professional agricultural programmes and study visits across China, he obtained a drone operation licence in 2020 and pioneered the use of drones for orchard management, which has since been adopted across the cooperative.

His efforts reflect the broader upgrading of Fengdu’s orange industry. Longkong Town now has 25,000 mu of orange orchards, producing more than 30,000 tonnes annually with an output value of 110 million Chinese yuan. Its citrus received National Geographical Indication trademark certification in 2011. (100 Chinese yuan = RM56.58)

Nanzhu Village was named a national speciality product demonstration village in 2019, while Fengdu oranges have been exported to the Middle East and other markets, establishing a strong regional brand.

Countywide, Fengdu Orange covers 52,500 mu, with an annual output reaching 70,000 tonnes and a total income of 150 million Chinese yuan. Through cooperative organisation, digital tools and brand development, the local orange industry is evolving from a traditional speciality into a modern agricultural value chain driving sustained rural prosperity

-- BERNAMA

EXPEREO ENHANCES DIGITAL CASE MANAGEMENT FOR FASTER, TRANSPARENT WORKFLOW

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 11 (Bernama) -- Expereo, a managed Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) provider, has launched its enhanced Digital Case Management (DCM) capability within expereoOne for global enterprises at CiscoLive Amsterdam.

“The enhanced Digital Case Management experience delivers a transparent workflow that keeps every stakeholder aligned, reduces operational noise and accelerates resolution.

“This is another step in our commitment to provide the best service experience for customers wherever they are located,” said Expereo Chief Digital Officer, Julian Skeels in a statement.

With DCM, service issues are no longer bottlenecks, as enterprises gain a single, real-time view of case progress and full control through a digital, software-first workflow within expereoOne.

Customers can create, manage and track cases end-to-end within a single platform, enabling more predictable, consistent and aligned service experiences across their global network footprint.

The latest release is aimed at moving customers closer to fully automated and predictable service operations by reducing friction, cutting operational noise and keeping all stakeholders aligned throughout the case-resolution process.

Key features include the ability for customers to add colleagues or third-party contacts to a case, a redesigned Preference Centre that allows users to control when and how they receive updates, access to a shared case timeline, and browser or email notifications that link directly to the live case.

According to Expereo, the enhancement replaces legacy, email-driven case management models with a single digital workflow, consolidating communication, status updates and accountability into one real-time platform.

With the expanded DCM capability and flexible application programming interface (API)-driven workflow integration, expereoOne enables enterprises to automate information sharing, streamline processes and ensure updates are delivered consistently to the relevant teams in real time.

-- BERNAMA

NetBox Labs Announces General Availability of NetBox Copilot, Delivering Enterprise-Ready AI Grounded in Accurate Infrastructure Data

NetBox Copilot accelerates operations and automation, while providing self-service to non-IT teams

NEW YORK, Feb 11 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, NetBox Labs, the central nervous system for networks and infrastructure, announced the general availability of NetBox Copilot, an interactive AI agent embedded directly into the NetBox platform.

As AI agents rapidly move from experimentation into production operations, IT teams are finding that most agents lack the accurate operational context required to be trusted in production environments. NetBox delivers a critical foundation for automation. It is a comprehensive semantic map for infrastructure that enables NetBox Copilot with complete infrastructural context. NetBox Copilot is agentic AI that is grounded in a company's network and infrastructure data providing trustworthy answers, reliable automation and enterprise-ready governance -- all conducted in natural language.

The new capability will allow thousands of NetBox users to accelerate their work, while expanding access to infrastructure data across security and operations teams and executives, as well as other non-IT teams.

NetBox Copilot Delivers Deeply Contextual Results

With GA, NetBox Copilot expands from inquiry into workflow execution, enabling infrastructure teams to automate changes to their infrastructure, not just explore data.

Teams can use NetBox Copilot to:

• Validate data completeness and quality (“Which devices are missing IP addresses?”)
• Investigate changes for troubleshooting and compliance (“Who changed this prefix last week?”)
• Assess impact before maintenance (“What depends on this switch?”)
• Plan capacity across sites and infrastructure (“How much rack space is available in Denver?”)
• Build automation workflows and operational playbooks (“Create an Ansible playbook to deploy switch configs”)
• Apply changes directly to NetBox (“Add another server to the NYC datacenter” - write operations available in NetBox Enterprise and NetBox Cloud)

By embedding AI directly into NetBox’s UI and permissions model, NetBox Copilot makes infrastructure data more accessible to NetOps/NOC teams, IT operations managers, and less-frequent NetBox users who need quick answers without navigating APIs or complex UI workflows.

AI Built for Infrastructure Teams

NetBox Copilot reflects the industry shift toward AI agents that move beyond answers into autonomous operational workflows, with the controls required for enterprise adoption.

“Network and infrastructure teams lag devops and cloud teams in automation, in the face of massive complexity. Yet the demand to automate networks and infrastructure has exploded in the last two years,” said Kris Beevers, CEO and Co-Founder of NetBox Labs. “NetBox Copilot was built to help meet that demand—providing a natural language interface that allows engineers, operators, and managers alike to quickly get answers, validate infrastructure data, and automate workflows without deep NetBox expertise. NetBox Copilot rings in a new automation era and the next evolution of how teams manage networks and infrastructure. Finally, network and infrastructure operations teams can begin to automate more of their work with the tool that makes most sense for them - natural language.”

NetBox Copilot’s GA release includes major new capabilities for NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise customers, including:

• Enterprise-grade governance, with bring-your-own-model access and enhanced privacy controls
• Options for data retention and management
• Write operations, enabling NetBox Copilot to automate approved changes directly in NetBox
• Improved administration and credit management

Enterprise-Ready AI Grounded in Your Unique Infrastructure Data
Unlike generic AI assistants bolted onto infrastructure tools, NetBox Copilot is purpose-built to understand NetBox’s unique and comprehensive infrastructure data model. NetBox Copilot delivers:

• Native awareness of NetBox relationships and context
• Zero-friction deployment in seconds, with no server changes required
• SOC 2 Type II certification
• No training on customer data—ever
• Enterprise controls for model choice, governance, and retention

NetBox Copilot is embedded directly into all NetBox editions— NetBox Community, NetBox Cloud, and NetBox Enterprise—leveraging existing authentication and RBAC controls. It is also part of the broader NetBox AI ecosystem alongside the NetBox MCP Server, with future expansion planned across the NetBox Labs product portfolio including NetBox Discovery, NetBox Assurance, NetBox Observability, and more.

Availability of NetBox Copilot

NetBox Copilot is generally available today across NetBox editions. Enterprise governance enhancements and NetBox Copilot’s features for automating changes in NetBox are now available for NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise customers. Additional private deployment options will continue rolling out to meet enterprise data sovereignty requirements.

NetBox Copilot is available to everyone in the NetBox community for free, as part of a generous free tier, with scale-up pricing based on usage and additional features for NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise customers.

Enable NetBox Copilot using the quickstart:
https://netboxlabs.com/docs/copilot/quickstart/

Want a walkthrough or deeper dive?
https://netboxlabs.com/contact-us/

About NetBox Labs
NetBox Labs makes sense of complex networks and infrastructure. As the commercial steward of open source NetBox, the most popular platform for operating, automating, understanding and securing complex networks and infrastructure, NetBox Labs delivers a world-class portfolio of open, composable products across network discovery, assurance, operations and observability. NetBox Labs fosters and invests in a vibrant community of tens of thousands of network and infrastructure professionals. Top companies like ARM, Cisco, Constant Contact, CoreWeave, J.P. Morgan, Kaiser Permanente, and Riot Games trust NetBox Labs to understand, operate and transform their critical infrastructure.

Media Contact:
Rhiannon Pacheco - press@netboxlabs.com 

SOURCE: NetBox Labs