Latest news with #governance
CTV News
21 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
Process to dissolve the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation paused
A seagull takes flight off a statue of Captain George Vancouver outside Vancouver City Hall, on Saturday, January 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck The City of Vancouver has put a pause on its process transitioning governance of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, marking another delay to its much talked about plan to fully collapse the board. In December 2023, Mayor Ken Sim announced his plan to abolish the board and reallocate its responsibilities to city council in a bid to save money. In November last year, a report from the city's Parks and Recreation Transition Working Group said the disintegration of the board would save the city approximately $7 million a year. Removing the park board would require making an amendment to the Vancouver Charter, a provincial statute, and the city would need the legislature to vote on whether those changes could go ahead. In a message sent to City of Vancouver staff and shared by Vancouver Park Board commissioner Thomas Digby, the city noted that the province made changes to the Vancouver Charter earlier this month, but made no mention of the park board. 'The provincial government did not introduce Charter amendments for consideration by the legislature in the spring session, which ended yesterday, May 29,' the statement read. 'The provincial government has reaffirmed its commitment to, at a future date, enact these legislative changes.' In the meantime, any planning that was in place to prepare for a transition of governance has been paused. Any information regarding the timing of any legislative changes will be released once the city receives it, it said.
Entrepreneur
2 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Race Capital Leads USD 4 Mn Funding Round in Unbound
The funds will be deployed to scale hiring and operations in India, expand integrations across the AI ecosystem, and enhance Unbound's model routing and orchestration capabilities. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Unbound, the enterprise-grade AI infrastructure startup, has secured USD 4 million in seed funding to redefine how organisations adopt and govern AI. The round was led by Race Capital, with participation from Wayfinder Ventures, Y Combinator, Massive Tech Ventures, and other prominent angel investors. The funds will be deployed to scale hiring and operations in India, expand integrations across the AI ecosystem, and enhance Unbound's model routing and orchestration capabilities. Over USD 1 million is earmarked for India, where Unbound currently operates with a lean team of eight in Bengaluru. "We've seen tremendous interest from Indian enterprises. Like Mangalyan, our customers are finding efficient paths to powerful outcomes," said Rajaram Srinivasan, Co-founder and CEO of Unbound. Founded in 2023 by Rajaram Srinivasan and Vignesh Subbiah, Unbound is pioneering a new category of infrastructure that makes AI safe, observable, and governable within large organisations. Their flagship product, the Unbound AI Gateway, integrates with popular tools like Cursor, Roo, Cline, and internal copilots. It offers real-time protection, cost-aware model routing, and granular usage analytics — enabling enterprises to adopt generative AI on their own terms. "Defaulting to blanket bans on AI tools is like being in the times of GPT-3.5," noted CTO Subbiah. "Unbound introduces surgical security controls into every AI request so teams can innovate without compromising sensitive data." Unbound's AI Gateway has already prevented thousands of data leaks, including secret credentials and sensitive customer information. The platform also enables dynamic model access — allocating premium LLMs to high-impact workflows while offloading routine tasks to open-source models. This approach has helped customers cut AI tooling costs by up to 70%. "As AI tools become mainstream, enterprises demand control, flexibility, and safety," added Srinivasan. "Unbound is the bridge that makes it all work." That sentiment is echoed by THG's CISO, Abraham Ingersoll, who said: "Unbound empowers us to roll out AI tools to employees with confidence." Race Capital's Edith Yeung called Unbound "a new category of AI infrastructure," built for "safety, observability, and cost discipline from day one." With a mission to make AI adoption secure and manageable, Unbound is setting a new standard for enterprise AI — one where innovation no longer comes at the cost of control.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- General
- Irish Times
Two new appointments to Children's Health Ireland board after five resignations
The Minister for Health has appointed Dr Yvonne Traynor and Anne Carrigy to the board of Children's Health Ireland (CHI). The body, which operates paediatric healthcare in the State, has faced significant upheaval after four board members resigned over the past week. The board's chairman, Jim Browne, resigned last month. The resignations followed two reviews that highlighted issues within the group's paediatric orthopaedic units. One focused on three children with scoliosis who were implanted with non-surgical springs, while the other found the vast majority of surgeries for developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) in two hospitals were unnecessary. [ CHI consultant who allegedly referred public patients to his own weekend clinic faced no disciplinary action Opens in new window ] Another report, by UK expert Selvadurai Nayagam, into paediatric orthopaedic surgery services is ongoing. READ MORE Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill announced she would appoint two members of the HSE's board to the CHI board in a bid to strengthen governance and oversight in the organisation. The Minister said the appointments will 'further support the extensive transformation programme, led by CHI chief executive Lucy Nugent and her team, as we move to open the state-of-the-art children's hospital which will be Ireland's first digital public hospital'. Dr Traynor, who has been a HSE board member since 2019, was vice-president of regulatory and scientific affairs with Kerry Group. Before that, she held global and regional leadership positions with German consumer goods company, Henkel. [ Numbers working on children's hospital project dropped by third since January, politicians hear Opens in new window ] Ms Carrigy, who joined the HSE board in March 2021, previously worked as director of the HSE's serious incident management team. She later became the national lead of acute hospital services. Further appointments to fill vacancies on the CHI board will be made in due course, the Department of Health said. The Irish Times reported earlier this week that the Minister is considering subsuming CHI into the HSE following the recent controversies.
The Independent
2 days ago
- General
- The Independent
World drug-fighting leaders get unprecedented 3rd term in move critics call ultimate bait and switch
The president and vice president of the World Anti-Doping Agency were reelected to unprecedented third terms Thursday in a move the agency's critics say undercuts its promise to make meaningful governance reforms after years of doping scandals. The third terms for president Witold Banka of Poland and vice president Yang Yang of China will run through the end of 2028 and extend their time in office to nine years. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in a social media post, called it the 'ultimate 'bait and switch', first promising governance reforms following the Russian anti-doping scandal and then quietly changing the rules the second the world looked away.' WADA spokesman James Fitzgerald outlined the rules changes made in 2023, which did away with the tradition of having a president represent either sports organizations or governments, each of which represent 50% of WADA's main policy-making board. When Banka was first elected, he was a government candidate, but is now considered an independent candidate. 'This change ... was done in order to accommodate the introduction of an initial cooling-off period and the formal election process for those positions,' Fitzgerald said. 'It was also done to harmonize the nine-year term limit with other members of the WADA Foundation Board and Executive Committee.' Banka said he was 'deeply honored' to be tabbed for a third term. 'Despite the many challenges we have faced over the past five-and-a-half years, it has also been a period of transformation, of resilience, and of undeniable progress," he said. Though the Russian doping scandal began before Banka took office, WADA was under his control during the more recent case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who were not banned after WADA declined to step in on a contamination case handled by that country's anti-doping agency. The U.S. government is withholding its annual payment of more than $3.6 million to WADA. When that decision was announced, the U.S. drug czar at the time, Rahul Gupta, said "WADA must take concrete actions to restore trust in the world antidoping system and provide athletes the full confidence they deserve.' USADA portrayed Banka's re-election process as the latest in a long-running series of moves that have undercut WADA's credibility. The German media outlet ARD reported that Dutch Olympic triathlete Chiel Warners had wanted to get in the race, but the obstacles to getting on the ballot — which included getting two nomination forms signed by different members of the WADA Foundation Board — were too great. 'The fact that you need letters of support to run for an independent office does not seem particularly democratic,' Warners told ARD. 'Especially since it is not at all clear how you are supposed to obtain this support. In practice, this means that candidates can be excluded from the outset — and that is exactly what has happened here." ___
Associated Press
2 days ago
- General
- Associated Press
World drug-fighting leaders get unprecedented 3rd term in move critics call ultimate bait and switch
The president and vice president of the World Anti-Doping Agency were reelected to unprecedented third terms Thursday in a move the agency's critics say undercuts its promise to make meaningful governance reforms after years of doping scandals. The third terms for president Witold Banka of Poland and vice president Yang Yang of China will run through the end of 2028 and extend their time in office to nine years. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in a social media post, called it the 'ultimate 'bait and switch', first promising governance reforms following the Russian anti-doping scandal and then quietly changing the rules the second the world looked away.' WADA spokesman James Fitzgerald outlined the rules changes made in 2023, which did away with the tradition of having a president represent either sports organizations or governments, each of which represent 50% of WADA's main policy-making board. When Banka was first elected, he was a government candidate, but is now considered an independent candidate. 'This change ... was done in order to accommodate the introduction of an initial cooling-off period and the formal election process for those positions,' Fitzgerald said. 'It was also done to harmonize the nine-year term limit with other members of the WADA Foundation Board and Executive Committee.' Banka said he was 'deeply honored' to be tabbed for a third term. 'Despite the many challenges we have faced over the past five-and-a-half years, it has also been a period of transformation, of resilience, and of undeniable progress,' he said. Though the Russian doping scandal began before Banka took office, WADA was under his control during the more recent case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who were not banned after WADA declined to step in on a contamination case handled by that country's anti-doping agency. The U.S. government is withholding its annual payment of more than $3.6 million to WADA. When that decision was announced, the U.S. drug czar at the time, Rahul Gupta, said 'WADA must take concrete actions to restore trust in the world antidoping system and provide athletes the full confidence they deserve.' USADA portrayed Banka's re-election process as the latest in a long-running series of moves that have undercut WADA's credibility. The German media outlet ARD reported that Dutch Olympic triathlete Chiel Warners had wanted to get in the race, but the obstacles to getting on the ballot — which included getting two nomination forms signed by different members of the WADA Foundation Board — were too great. 'The fact that you need letters of support to run for an independent office does not seem particularly democratic,' Warners told ARD. 'Especially since it is not at all clear how you are supposed to obtain this support. In practice, this means that candidates can be excluded from the outset — and that is exactly what has happened here.' ___ AP sports:
