TAIPEI, Jan. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Pop Institute Taiwan (P.O.P.), a personal development organization dedicated to helping individuals realize their potential, partnered with its philanthropic arm, the Life Enlightenment Education Foundation, this spring for a series of corporate-sponsored community service programs under the Youth Dream Initiative.

On April 3rd, volunteers gathered to support indigenous communities in Hualien’s Xiulin Township – one of the areas hardest hit by last year’s devastating 0403 earthquake. The date, which coincided with Children’s Day and the disaster’s first anniversary, added meaning to the day’s service.

Students and teachers from Tongxin Waldorf Experimental School in Taipei joined local businesses including Xuyue Steel Co., Ltd. (Chairman Wu Jun-Liang, GM Lin Ya-Fang), Weijie Design Co., Ltd. (Wang Cong-Sheng), and Youray Trading Co., Ltd. (Liu Yi-Cheng), along with children from the Presbyterian Church’s Children’s Home, led by Director Du Zhen-Xi. Volunteers cleaned and painted homes in remote villages, transforming them with colorful murals and handprints signifying hope and renewal.

“The true meaning of this project lies in everyone coming together to support those in need within our communities.,” said Chairman Huang Zhen-Hui of the Life Enlightenment Education Foundation. “I sincerely thank all the participating companies and volunteers, as well as the P.O.P. students whose continued encouragement and support empower them to give back meaningfully to society.”

The experience left a lasting impression on many students, who said spending Children’s Day helping others gave the holiday a more profound significance. Many expressed their hopes to continue serving their communities as they grow.

“Giving back is our duty. Working alongside the youth reminded me of my younger days. Our work in public service will continue,” shared Chairman Wu Jun-Liang of Xuyue Steel Co., Ltd.

“It’s heartwarming to see adults and children overcome barriers and work together. We’re honored to support this community,” added donor Lu Xiu-Jin.

Teacher Tsai Meng-Hung, who accompanied the student volunteers, remarked, “This project helps students see that many people are working hard to improve the world. We hope they feel their efforts contribute to that mission.”

Beyond the service project, the Life Enlightenment Foundation donated essential household goods to the Presbyterian Church’s Children’s Home and local needy families. Past charitable efforts include rebuilding post-earthquake kitchens and classrooms, and a “100 Pairs of Shoes” donation drive for eight youth shelters.

Since its founding in 1990, P.O.P. has continued to provide personal-growth programs that help individuals discover their potential and achieve life goals. Through the charitable work of the Enlightenment Education Foundation, P.O.P. remains committed to creating meaningful opportunities for disadvantaged children and promoting a spirit of service.

For more information about P.O.P., please visit: https://poptw.site/.

SINGAPORE, Jan. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Coda, a global leader in digital content monetization, today announced that it is integrating Unity‘s In‑App Purchasing (IAP) SDK with Coda’s global web store platforms. This collaboration offers developers a single place to manage and optimize their entire digital catalog across mobile, web, and PC – directly through Unity’s existing IAP workflow. 

With just a few lines of code, developers can launch secure, branded web stores powered by Coda – offering players more ways to purchase securely while improving their margins.

The integration is powered by Coda’s Merchant of Record (MoR) solution, which is already trusted by leading publishers and fast-growing studios worldwide. As the legal seller in each market, Coda manages payments, fraud prevention, tax remittance, invoicing, and compliance across more than 70 markets and over 400 payment methods. This gives developers more time to focus on the game and the player experience.

“As the games industry moves beyond closed ecosystems, developers of every size want more flexibility and control over how they grow,” said Shane Happach, CEO of Coda. “Our integration with Unity’s IAP SDK gives creators more choice in how they launch and operate their own stores, wherever their players are, minus the complexity of managing global payments or compliance. This reflects Coda’s commitment to democratizing game development and helping every studio, large or small, succeed on their own terms.”

As web-based purchasing becomes a more practical part of developers’ business mix, interest in direct-to-consumer web stores continues to grow. Today, these channels already account for roughly 26% of mobile gaming revenue in East and Southeast Asia, according to research from Niko Partners and Coda.

First-party web stores give developers greater control over pricing, promotions, and player communication, but introduce operational complexity across payments, compliance, fraud, and support. Coda removes these barriers with a scalable payments and risk platform, integrated directly into Unity’s workflow.

Coda’s integration with Unity’s IAP sets a new D2C standard by bringing out-of-app monetization into developers’ existing workflows, removing operational complexity, and making it easier to run web stores at a global scale.

Learn more at coda.co.

About Coda

Coda is a global leader in digital content monetization and distribution. We’re trusted by 300+ publishers—including Activision, Electronic Arts, and Riot Games—to grow their audiences and revenue worldwide. Our out-of-app solutions include Custom Commerce, a fully customizable web store; Codapay, which enables seamless direct payments through a single API integration on publishers’ websites; Codashop, the go-to marketplace for millions of gamers to purchase in-game content; and Distribution, which extends content reach through a network of trusted commerce partners. Founded in 2011, Coda is headquartered in Singapore with a team of 550+ Codans around the globe. Coda recently acquired Recharge, Europe’s leading prepaid payments platform.  Coda is backed by Apis Partners, Insight Partners, and Smash Capital, and has been named an APAC High Growth Company (2023) by Financial Times, one of Granite Asia’s NextGenTech 30 (2024), a payments leader on Fortune’s Fintech Innovation Asia list (2024), and listed among The Straits Times Fastest Growing Fintechs (2024). For more on Coda, visit coda.co.

Press Contacts
Coda:
Liz Adam — VP, Corporate Affairs
elizah.adam@coda.co

New tiered services empower restaurants and food retailers to strengthen hygiene, compliance and customer trust

BANGKOK, Jan. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NSF, a leading global public health and safety organization, today announced the launch of its Retail Food Safety Audits program throughout the ASEAN region and Australia. The program introduces three services: NSF Food Safety Essentials, NSF Food Safety Plus and NSF Food Safety Advanced — designed to help food businesses of all sizes elevate food safety performance, reduce operational risks and build consumer confidence.

“The rapid economic growth and advancing urbanization in the ASEAN region have fueled significant expansion in the food industry. In Australia, the sector continues to demonstrate steady growth driven by strong consumer spending habits. By introducing these services in the ASEAN and Australian markets, we’re demonstrating our commitment to supporting food businesses with effective and scalable solutions that address regional compliance challenges,” said Sutida Ketudut, Managing Director of APAC at NSF. “From small restaurants to multinational chains, our programs provide the tools and expertise needed to raise food safety standards, reduce risk and build lasting consumer confidence.”

The program provides a clear, practical framework for the food service, hospitality and retail food sectors, addressing challenges from day-to-day food operations to complex supply chains. Each audit program is designed to meet the unique needs of businesses at different stages of growth:

NSF Food Safety Essentials: This foundational program evaluates four core areas: food safety, cleanliness, repair and maintenance, and brand standards—providing small to medium-sized food retailers and restaurants with actionable insights, a detailed audit report and the optional NSF Food Safety Essentials badge for display.

NSF Food Safety Plus: Designed for growing brands, this service incorporates regular audits using the NSF Food Safety Checklist and provides additional valuable insights through NSF Connect, a cloud-based audit platform. It helps businesses drive consistent standards across multiple sites, benchmark their performance and manage corrective actions.

NSF Food Safety Advanced: Created for large, multinational brands and master franchisees, this service delivers customized, globally consistent and data-driven audits that integrate expert insights from NSF with local regulatory knowledge, enabling businesses to proactively manage risks, manage compliance, and strengthen customer trust.

Businesses that successfully meet audit requirements can opt in to display the relevant NSF Food Safety badge, signaling their commitment to safety and quality. Customers can scan the badge’s QR code to learn more about the program and the standards achieved.

With the introduction of these new services, NSF aims to help empower ASEAN and Australian food businesses implement best practices, strengthen compliance and enhance customer trust across diverse markets.

Learn more about the NSF Retail Food Safety Audits Program.

About NSF

NSF is an independent, global services organization dedicated to improving human health for more than 80 years by developing public health standards and providing world-class testing, inspection, certification, advisory services and digital solutions to the food, water and wellness products industries. NSF has 40,000 clients in 110 countries and is a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center on Food Safety, Water Quality and Medical Device Safety.

As AI adoption accelerates and technology change cycles continue to compress, many CIOs are finding that traditional leadership models can no longer keep pace with the demands of a technology-first enterprise. While organisations invest heavily in new tools and platforms, leadership capability has emerged as a critical constraint on execution, decision-making, and team performance. At Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane, taking place March 17 and 18 at W Brisbane, Info-Tech Research Group will focus its Adaptive IT Leadership sessions on helping IT leaders evolve how they lead, develop talent, and make decisions in an exponential era.

SYDNEY, Jan. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Info-Tech Research Group, a leader in IT research and advisory, has announced that Adaptive IT Leadership will be a core focus at Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane, taking place March 17 and 18 at W Brisbane. Returning to Brisbane for its second consecutive year, the APAC edition of Info-Tech LIVE brings together CIOs, senior IT executives, and technology leaders for a hands-on, research-driven conference designed to help leaders translate strategy into execution.

At Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane, taking place March 17 and 18 at W Brisbane, Info-Tech Research Group will focus its Adaptive IT Leadership sessions on helping IT leaders evolve how they lead, develop talent, and make decisions in an exponential era.

The Adaptive IT Leadership track addresses the growing reality that leadership itself must evolve at the same speed as technology. With AI reshaping how work gets done and expectations of IT continuing to rise, CIOs are increasingly expected to lead organisational change, develop talent continuously, and make high-impact decisions in real time. These sessions at Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane focus on building leadership capabilities that extend beyond traditional people management to include financial command, workforce adaptability, and the orchestration of human and machine capability.

“Technology is advancing faster than leadership practices are evolving, and that gap is becoming a serious risk for organisations,” says George Khreish, Managing Partner at Info-Tech Research Group, APAC. “Adaptive IT Leadership is about equipping CIOs to lead at the pace of change by developing their teams faster, making decisions with confidence, and operating as true organisational leaders in an AI-shaped world.”

Featured Sessions at Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane
The Adaptive IT Leadership sessions translate strategic research into applied leadership practices, giving CIOs and senior IT leaders concrete models, frameworks, and approaches they can apply in their organisations. Sessions are designed to address leadership execution across talent development, decision-making, financial discipline, and workforce adaptability. These featured sessions include:

• The Race to Develop Talent: The Hidden Speed Limit on IT’s Ambition
  This session introduces the AI-Human Flywheel, a practical model for scaling capability across automation, augmentation, agent integration, and human adaptability. The session reframes the talent challenge as a race to develop skills continuously across both people and machines.
• Adaptive IT Leadership in Action: Redefine Leadership Strategies for Rapid Change
  Focusing on the limitations of traditional leadership models, this session explores the leadership shifts required to navigate complexity, advise the organisation effectively, and lead through constant technological evolution.
• Run IT by the Numbers: How to Inject Real Meaning Into the Decisions You Make
  Emphasising financial and data discipline, this session highlights the role of IT financial management in strengthening the credibility of decisions and organisational trust.
• IT Learning and Development: Build an Adaptive Training Plan for Your Team
  Centred on targeted upskilling and continuous learning, this session explores how organisations can strengthen functional capability and sustain workforce adaptability over time.

Designed for CIOs and senior IT executives, Info-Tech LIVE events emphasise applied learning through research-backed frameworks, peer discussion, and direct engagement with Info-Tech analysts. The 2026 Brisbane event delivers a region-specific experience for APAC leaders while drawing on global research and best practices.

Additional agenda tracks, sessions, and speaker announcements will be released in the coming weeks. For more information about the event, please visit the Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane page.

Media Passes for Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane
Media professionals, including journalists, podcasters, and influencers, are invited to attend Info-Tech LIVE 2026 in Brisbane to gain exclusive access to research, content, and interviews with industry leaders and analysts for their audiences. 

Media professionals can apply for complimentary in-person passes by contacting pr@infotech.com.

About Info-Tech Research Group
Info-Tech Research Group is one of the world’s leading and fastest-growing research and advisory firms, serving over 30,000 IT, HR, and marketing professionals around the globe. As a trusted product and service leader, the company delivers unbiased, highly relevant research and industry-leading advisory support to help leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. For nearly 30 years, Info-Tech has partnered closely with teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to expert guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organisations.

To learn more about Info-Tech’s HR research and advisory services, visit McLean & Company, and for data-driven software buying insights and vendor evaluations, visit the firm’s SoftwareReviews platform.

Media professionals can register for unrestricted access to research across IT, HR, and software, and hundreds of industry analysts through the firm’s Media Insiders program. To gain access, contact pr@infotech.com.  

For information about Info-Tech Research Group or to access the latest research, visit infotech.com and connect via LinkedIn and X.

Media Contact: Sufyan Al-Hassan, PR Director, Info-Tech Research Group, salhassan@infotech.com, +1 (888) 670-8889 x2418

Photo – https://laotiantimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/info_tech_research_group_cios_face_an_accelerating_gap_as_adapti-1.jpg
Logo – https://laotiantimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/info_tech_research_group_cios_face_an_accelerating_gap_as_adapti.jpg

SANYA, China, Jan. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Orange Lion Sports (formerly Alibaba Sports), a global sports event operator, is redefining how major athletic competitions and tourism converge through the coordinated integration of digital platforms and consumer services. The recent 2025 Hainan (Sanya) Marathon, supported by the company, showcased an “event-as-journey” experience that delivered a professionally operated, high-quality racing platform while supporting measurable economic growth for the host city. The marathon saw hotel occupancy in Sanya soar to 92%, with a notable 35% surge in spending at local businesses along the race route, establishing a promising blueprint for the scalable “racecation” model.

“We are committed to creating lasting value for athletes and sports enthusiasts,” said Yang Yong, General Manager of Events and Commercialization at event partner Orange Lion Sports. “We activated resources across the Alibaba ecosystem, including Taobao, Fliggy, Alibaba Health, Ant Chain, and Amap, to extend engagement beyond race day. This approach attracted runners from across Hainan, other parts of China, and overseas, while encouraging additional event-related spending.”

The provincial tourism and sports department has introduced funding incentives for 2026 sports events to attract national and international competitions. Orange Lion Sports has demonstrated how large-scale events can generate sustained economic activity and benefit local businesses by digitally integrating dining, lodging, transportation, entertainment, and shopping. In partnership with Taobao, the company launched a “Winter Warm-up Festival” that distributed tailored promotional vouchers and offers ahead of the event, designed to connect race participation with consumer engagement by introducing regional culinary specialties such as fermented vinegar hot pot and traditional Li-Miao cuisine to runners across China.

The economic benefits were sustained beyond the race period. According to Fliggy data, hotel bookings in Sanya began rising steadily from late October 2025, when event promotions launched, and remained strong throughout the marathon period. The momentum extended beyond the race, coinciding with the New Year holiday travel period. Data from the Sanya tourism bureau shows that during the 2026 New Year holiday, the city welcomed 650,800 visitor arrivals, with tourism revenue of 1.299 billion yuan (approx. US$186 million) generated, illustrating the role of the “racecation” model in supporting tourism demand.

In the future, Orange Lion Sports will harness AI technology to enhance sports events and promote fitness for all, in line with their assertion at CES in 2017: AI is the future of sports development.