Life's Work of Western Pennsylvania is one of region's most valuable assets helping people with physical and mental disabilities find meaningful and lasting employment. 

We are excited to welcome Life's Work President and CEO Tim Parks to Business as Usual to talk about his organization's impact, how it works with local tech companies to place talent and how it has navigated the impact of COVID-19 

Tim will surely explain how "it's all about the work” and Life's Work's commitment to "making lives work better."

The Neighborhood Image Award is given to an organization whose work is contributing to making their community appealing and desirable to all. Their work celebrates neighborhood pride and attracts new people and investment while retaining new and long-term residents.

Based in McKees Rocks, BlackTeaBrownSuga is a force in giving a voice to the people through access to space, media, and technology for Black creatives. The BlackTeaBrownSuga Network (BTBSN) is empowering members of the community to challenge and correct injustices, whether they be social or judicial, community wide or personal. Overall, they seek to give members of the community the resources, knowledge, and confidence to be pro-active, change-makers.

Launching in McKees Rocks just over a year ago, The BlackTeaBrownSuga Network serves as an accessible and affordable creative hub for local youth as well as adults. Located on Broadway Avenue in McKees Rocks, BTBSN converted an old law office to a beautiful media facility equipped with all of the equipment and software needed to create podcasts, music, videos and more. Having a background in psychology, founder Eszquire Harris has a vision for this space to not only provide a place for people to express themselves and tell their own story, but also to provide a platform for recognizing global issues, bringing awareness to how they affect the community, and providing solutions. BTBSN strengthens the community through community service, workshops, and weekly live shows which initiate the conversations needed to share, educate and develop solutions as a community. They have also made a significant impact on the Pittsburgh and McKees Rocks communities by providing a safe place both physically and virtually for creatives to be able to continue their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. These creatives were able to continue or start new projects that directly impact low-income communities while continuing to address and give voice to the local Black community regarding everything from maternal health disparities to social justice and prison reform.

Fetterman will provide the latest updates and insights on COVID-19's impact on the Commonwealth. Plus he will detail his support for legalizing recreational cannabis in Pennsylvania, saying it's not a matter of if it will happen but when it will happen 

This is your front row seat to engage with Fetterman about these and other topics of vital impact to Pennsylvania.

Today on Business as Usual, we welcome Karl Iagnemma, President and CEO, Motional, a joint venture by Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv. Motional is making driverless vehicles a safe, reliable and accessible reality. Karl Iagnemma is an authority on robotics and driverless vehicles. His commentary has been published and broadcast worldwide on Bloomberg, The Economist, CNBC, and BBC, among others. He co-founded nuTonomy, Inc. in 2013 and saw the company through acquisition by Aptiv in late 2017. Karl will provide an introduction to the new Motional brand, discuss the company's investment in Pittsburgh, and share insights on his team's commitment to making driverless vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality.

Othot, Inc. is a growing artificial intelligence company that takes the complexity out of and reduces the cost of adopting advanced analytics.

Andy Hannah and Amy Baker stop by the show to detail how Othot is focused on helping post-secondary institutions with recruiting and retaining students in the highly competitive environment of higher education. Its SaaS-based predictive and prescriptive analytic machine learning algorithms and cloud-based, user-intuitive platform allows for a better acceptance and integration of this new technology.

As we slowly bringing our workforces back into the office, it is often accompanied with new stressors and pressures that can seriously impact workers' mental health.

We are excited to welcome Demetrios Marousis, MA, MBA, LPC Director, Behavioral Health at Highmark, to Business as Usual today. He will overview key ways to identify mental health issues in the workplace. Whether it's in the office or virtual, the added stress of the pandemic can negatively affect anyone.

 Taking a few simple steps could make a major difference in the mental health of your most business's most valuable asset! 

We are excited to have one of Pittsburgh's fastest-growing robotics companies stop by Business as Usual -- Gecko Robotics!

Company Founder and CEO Jake Loosararian has an amazing story of starting and scaling the company while still in college. Gecko Robotics develops and operates robots to automate infrastructure inspections.

Jake will detail how Gecko is focusing on industrial plant inspections using non-destructive testing technology. Every year, over $100 Billion is spent on industrial maintenance. Gecko has developed wall-climbing robots that dramatically reduce downtime resulting in millions of dollars saved.

Link Up Conference Show (LUCS),the digital networking conference for top level executives and CEOs, is set for December 8, 2020.

LUCS Founder Anna Degtereva steps up to the One Mic Stand to not only give us more details about the conference, but her entrepreneurial journey that has taken her around the world.

The exclusive networking conference will be hosting global visionaries, designed to help FinTech & Telecom industry leaders elevate their businesses.

During the conference participants will ask real-time questions and make live comments to gain unparalleled insights. 

Pittsburgh Technology Council Members get 20% off of the face value for both Executive and Premium Tickets with code "PTC-20." Register at https://lucs.online/ptc 

In honor of Veteran's Day, Business as Usual is excited to put a spotlight on organizations that are serving Pittsburgh area veterans and supporting the families of active duty military members.

We will welcome Colonel John Pippy, Commander, 55th Maneuver Enhancements Brigade and Board Member of Pittsburgh Hires Veterans. We will also be joined by Kristy O’Hara, Founder and CEO of Mutually Dependent, an organization that works to help find employment opportunities for the spouses of active duty military spouses.  

Learn how you can find amazing talent, while also supporting our nation’s veterans and active duty military families!

The Quality of Life Award is given to an organization who is helping residents access the larger economy and quality neighborhood amenities. They do this through assistance, support and programming to build assets, accumulate wealth and connection to economic opportunities. They are also actively contributing to make their neighborhood safe while positively impacting the health and well-being of families and neighbors.

Community Empowerment Association (CEA) was founded in 1993 in order to establish an organized, structural approach to address the specific needs of at-risk youth and families in distressed, marginalized communities. Their mission is to restore, reclaim and transform distressed communities through strategic planning, collaboration, advocacy, education and training.

Rashad Byrdsong of Community Empowerment Association, Inc. is the lead principle on a collaborative project with Pitt Public Health entitled, “Live Longer, Empowering Pittsburgh Communities”. The project is geared towards identifying health issues in low income communities that are the causes of premature deaths to the citizens living in those low income communities, thereafter providing viable solutions to help those same citizens understand and make changes to their lifestyle to prolong their lives. During the height of the project, COVID-19 hit the country, putting the project on hold. That didn’t stop Mr. Byrdsong! He jumped in right away and started a bi-weekly emergency food distribution program entitled “Food First Program”.

He gathered all his donors and volunteers and began handing out and delivering food and supplies to our community’s most vulnerable citizens (senior citizens and the disabled) while practicing social distancing. While Mr. Byrdsong was responding to the crisis, the work he was doing was not new; He was simply helping to feed the community that he has served in many ways for over 25 years.

From youth-focused after-school programs, to providing families with basic necessities, to workforce development, CEA serves as a welcoming and trusted space for Homewood residents and a resource center for all of Allegheny county. Mr. Byrdsong is an inspiration to so many–proving that you can’t and shouldn’t be afraid to stand up and do the right thing, even in the face of huge uncertainty.