barrick’s BaTTleborn Series will CONNECT nevada with NATIONAL tech and innovation community
Hackathon Offers $20,000 in Cash Prizes for Solutions Improving Operational Mining Challenge
Las Vegas, NV — Technology and mining industry leaders from across the country, competitors, observers, students and startup entrepreneurs will gather to build skills and engage with talent at BattleBorn, a three-part series that will include boot camps, a 54-hour hackathon and a startup exchange.
Barrick Gold Corporation, Cisco, Switch and Unearthed will provide Nevada’s innovation and tech community with a unique opportunity to get involved by learning about developments in the resource sector or networking with industry leaders, competing in a hackathon and exhibiting a startup March 3-12 at Rob Roy’s Innevation Center, powered by Switch.
The public is invited to participate in the series; observers that wish to witness the action and meet fellow innovators, are invited to attend on March 9 and March 11. Participant tickets are $30 and observer tickets are $100. Members of the media are invited to cover any portion of the series but the best visuals and interview opportunities will occur during hackathon (specifically the opening on March 9 at 6 p.m. and closing on March 11 around 8 p.m.).
BattleBorn Three Part Series:
1. Boot Camps – On March 3 challenge descriptions will be shared during a session where participants will engage mentors in a question and answer session. On March 7, Amazon Web Services, Barrick, Cisco, Silicon Foundry and Unearthed will lead a tech onboarding session. The workshops will provide participants with the tools and techniques they will need to succeed over the hackathon weekend. On March 8 teams will form and prepare to launch.
2. Hackathon – A 54-hour high-intensity programming competition for participants, over the weekend of March 9 – 11, to solve innovation challenges in the mining industry. A panel of judges will evaluate the potential applicability to real-world industry. Prizes, totaling $20,000, will be awarded to the top teams.
3. Startup Exchange – On March 12, an exhibition-style event will be held to showcase early-stage ventures from around the world. The Startup Exchange is a platform for industry leaders to engage with these ventures and find ways to deploy their solutions.
WHO: Michael Brown, President, Barrick USA
Paul Anderson, Executive Director, Governor’s Office of Economic Development
Missy Young, Chief Information Officer, Switch
Michelle Ash, Chief Innovation Officer, Barrick Gold Corporation
Zane Prickett, Director, Unearthed
WHAT: BattleBorn series Hackathon kick off and closing/announcement of award winners
WHERE: Rob Roy’s Innevation Center, powered by Switch
6795 S Edmond Street, 3rd Floor, Las Vegas, NV 89118
WHEN: Hackathon kickoff/welcome Friday, March 9 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Hackathon announcement of prize winners Sunday, March 11 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
VISUALS, PHOTO AND INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
· Barrick representatives available for interviews
· For b-roll of Barrick’s November 2017 hackathon in London, England visit http://bit.ly/BarrickLondonHackathon.
RSVP: Media interested in attending should RSVP with Jennifer Lόpez, Jennifer.Lopez@rrpartners.com.
For more information about the BattleBorn series of events, including a complete schedule, participant registration and ticket purchase, visit battleborn.tech.
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About Barrick Gold Corporation
Barrick’s vision is the generation of wealth through responsible mining – wealth for our owners, our people and the countries and communities with which we partner. The company operates three gold mines in Nevada, providing more than 4,000 of the state’s highest-paying jobs. Barrick is the state’s largest foreign investor and is also Nevada’s largest exporter. Barrick and its employees are active supporters of causes in education, conservation, the arts and other local community organizations in both Northern and Southern Nevada. In partnership with other Nevada businesses, Barrick has taken a leadership role in working to establish best practices and promote corporate giving in Nevada through the Nevada Corporate Giving Council.
About Unearthed
Unearthed is a resources technology group out of Western Australia running open innovation programs and competitions around the world, connecting innovators, entrepreneurs and startups to opportunities and challenges facing the resources sector. Visit http://unearthed.solutions.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: 202-646-5199
February 28, 2018
DOJ Says Atty. Gen. Used Alias to Conduct Official Business to Protect Security, Privacy
Illustrating how government hides information from the American public, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch used a fake name to conduct official Department of Justice (DOJ) business in agency emails obtained by Judicial Watch. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer Lynch, Barack Obama’s second attorney general, skirted public-records laws by using the alias Elizabeth Carlisle in emails she sent from her official DOJ account. In the records provided to Judicial Watch, the DOJ explains it as necessary to “protect her security and privacy and enable her to conduct Department business efficiently via email.”
This begs the question of how many other government officials use fake names and whether those aliases are searched when agencies process Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Besides Lynch, we have only discovered the use of such aliases among government operatives to conduct official business at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Obama’s EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, famously used the alias Richard Windsor in a government email account to conduct official business and communicate with staff. Jackson even took required EPA computer training under the fake identity with the handle Windsor.Richard@epa.gov. She eventually resigned over the scandal, which brought to light the agency’s violations of federal open-records laws.
In Lynch’s case, Judicial Watch requested the records as part of an investigation into the Obama administration’s involvement in a United Nation’s international law enforcement coalition called Strong Cities Network (SCN). The purported mission of the global coalition was to build social cohesion and community resilience to counter violent extremism. The DOJ masterminded the agreement and Americans found out about the U.S.’s participation when Lynch announced it during a U.N. speech on September 29, 2015. Lynch referred to SCN as a “truly groundbreaking endeavor” and assured the notoriously corrupt world body that the Obama administration was deeply committed to the new initiative. “The government of the United States is fully invested in this collaborative approach and we have seen the value of empowering local communities by promoting initiatives they design and lead themselves,” Lynch said.
Following the Attorney General’s fiery U.N. delivery, a New York newspaper reported that the city was joining a new global, terror-busting network to combat homegrown extremism. Civil rights groups quickly denounced the U.S. participation, expressing concerns about law enforcement abuses against Muslims. In a letter to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio 22 civil rights groups warned that other programs created to counter violent extremism stigmatized “Muslim communities as suspicious and in need of special monitoring.” The anti-terror initiatives have also made “the relationship between Muslims and schools and social service providers into security-based engagements,” the letter states. SCN assures however, that “violent extremism and prevention efforts should not be associated with any particular religion, nationality or ethnic group.” In a statement the DOJ also guaranteed that the SCN will safeguard the rights of local citizens and communities. The State Department also put its weight behind SCN.
In its mission to educate the public about the operations and activities of government, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the DOJ on October 15, 2015 for documents related to SCN. Specifically, Judicial Watch asked for legal opinions and analysis prepared by the DOJ relating to the U.S. involvement in the program, documents that form the foundation for the decision for the country to participate in SCN, all international agreements and related records involving the commitment of U.S. resources or personnel to SCN and records of communication between officials in the Office of the Attorney General relating to the initiative. The DOJ claimed to have no records related to the SCN and billed Judicial Watch a startling $50,000 to conduct the search that didn’t produce a single file.
Though the DOJ recently furnished the documents with Lynch’s fake name, the records were part of Judicial Watch’s original 2015 FOIA request. The records also show that then Assistant Attorney General John Carlin touted SCN at an event sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an extremist leftist group that helped a gunman commit an act of terrorism against a conservative organization. A year later Carlin would launch the Michael Flynn counterintelligence investigation and seek the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant now in question.
