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18 Events maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2013 HSBC Malta roofs painted white to reduce energy usage MORE than 77% of HSBC Malta branch roofs have been painted white in a simple yet effective initiative to reduce energy use and to lower the bank's carbon footprint. White roofs minimise solar absorption on buildings, reducing the reliance on air-conditioning, which in turn reduces energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. White roofs also help by reflecting more sunshine back to space, and leading experts explain that this is crucial because of the continued reduction in polar reflective sea ice. As ice retreats, sunshine that would have been reflected back to space by the bright ice is being absorbed by the ocean instead. This heats up then ocean, melting even more ice. "Through this initiative, HSBC has painted over 7,100m2 of roof area brilliant white, that's around the area of a large 11 aside football pitch. This, in a sense, replicates an important function of the white ice cover, and compensates in our small way for the loss of the natural reflective ice sheet, regaining the planet's ability to reflect sun rays back to space," said Ranjit Gokarn, Chief Operating Officer of HSBC. Snow-covered sea ice reflects 85% of sunlight, while the open water reflects a mere 7%. On the other hand, membrane covered roofs can absorb as much as 90% of the sun's heat, while tests reveal that white roofs reflect as much as 90% of the sun's heat and harmful radiation. More information about HSBC Bank Malta's corporate sustainability initiatives is available on the 'Sustainability' section of the bank's website at www.hsbcmalta.com.mt FIMBank President elected Chairman of International Factors Group FIMBank plc President, Margrith Lütschg-Emmenegger, the new Chairman of the International Factors Group (IFG) MARGRITH Lütschg-Emmeneg- ger, President of Malta-based trade finance specialist FIMBank plc, was recently elected Chairman of the International Factors Group (IFG) during the association's 51st Conference held in New Delhi, India. Founded in 1963, the IFG is recognized as the representative Trade Association for the Factoring and the Asset Based Finance Industry worldwide, and is composed of more than 160 members representing 50 countries. Commenting on her appointment as Chairman of the IFG, LütschgEmmenegger stated that "The rapid global growth of this sector means that it is evolving at a different pace and in different directions in the various geographic regions. IFG will remain at the forefront, increasing both awareness and understanding of the role of factoring and assetbased lending as an efficient way to provide capital to small and midsized businesses. We will do this through our existing international programmes and regional plans, as well as by developing new strategic alliances and partnerships." Ms Lütschg-Emmenegger also announced her intention to work towards "the creation of an international representative body for Factoring and Commercial Finance, which would be present in both emerging and established markets worldwide". Margrith Lütschg-Emmenegger has worked in Trade Finance with a focus on Forfaiting and Factoring for much of her career, first with Barclays Bank, and then with Midland Bank Aval in London, before joining West Merchant Bank (now WestLB AG), where she had global responsibility for Forfaiting and Factoring. Lütschg-Emmenegger joined FIMBank in 2003 as Executive Vice President responsible for Business Development, and was subsequently appointed President in 2004. Under her leadership, FIMBank has forged a reputation for developing factoring operations in emerging markets. To date, the Group has set up shop in India, Dubai, Lebanon, Egypt, Russia and Brazil. Over 77% of HSBC Malta branch roofs are painted white to help combat climate change HP helps DreamWorks Animation's 'Turbo' race into theaters HP announced that DreamWorks Animation used HP technology to develop cutting-edge animation for its latest film, 'Turbo'. The animated film is now showing at cinema theatres in Malta. HP Converged Infrastructure technology spanning servers, storage, networking, services and management software; HP Converged Cloud; and HP Workstations and printers helped DreamWorks Animation process massive amounts of data, creating new levels of imagery and powering innovative computer graphics (CG) animated movie-making techniques. "DreamWorks Animation's strategic alliance with HP ensured that we had the high-performance computing, continuous availability and streamlined management capabilities needed to accurately depict Turbo's dream of becoming the world's fastest racer," said Derek Chan, head of Technology Global Operations, DreamWorks Animation. "HP's advanced Converged Infrastructure portfolio enabled our artists and engineers to create the highest-quality picture possible." HP Workstations, HP Networking enable efficiency DreamWorks Animation tapped the power of HP Z Workstations to recreate the thrill of the Indy 500, with a snail travelling 220 miles per hour and more than 500,000 crowd characters filling a replica of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. HP Z800 and Z820 Workstations, powered by Intel Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 processors, enabled artists to execute iterations 50 percent faster than previous workstations and develop increasingly complex camera angles and special effects. When not in use by creative teams, workstation processing power was used to run night time rendering jobs, contributing to the millions of compute hours needed to produce the movie. Integrated with HP Workstations, HP Remote Graphics Software—a free HP Workstation tool—enabled animators to collaborate more efficiently across geographies by viewing ideas and assets on a single display. HP Networking provided animators with access to a central repository of assets, simplifying collaboration by allowing artists to easily share and retrieve resources across all locations. In addition, the highly reliable network infrastructure allows creative teams to work anytime from anywhere, with production spread across studios from Glendale and Redwood City, Calif., to Bangalore, India. HP Converged Cloud services and servers boost processing power, scalability The production of "Turbo" required 75 million render hours to create fully realized images, including 32 Indy 500 race cars and 32 million crowd character instances, the most of any DreamWorks Animation film to date. DreamWorks Animation utilized HP Enterprise Cloud Services to provide a robust, scalable, cloud-based infrastructure that offers the additional compute power needed to render the 10 CG films that are in production at any given time. HP Enterprise Cloud Services, part of the HP Converged Cloud portfolio, enables DreamWorks Animation to meet growing business needs while remaining within its existing data centre footprint. Bingo75 now at €1.20 MALTCO Lotteries has just launched a new concept for the Bingo75 game in which every ticket now costs only €1.20. The game offers great prizes including the phenomenal Snowball Jackpot starting from a minimum prize of €8,000! "The main aim behind such an innovative idea, was primarily to introduce to players the possibility of playing this game with their friends, colleagues and partners. This will reinforce the social aspect of this game," a spokesperson for Maltco said. Bingo75 is a fun game in which 57 numbers are randomly drawn. Each ticket has three grids which contain 24 numbers. A player can win four possible winning categories amongst the Snowball, House, Cross and/or Corner category with different grids. A player can be a winner in more than 1 category within the same grid. Still undecided where to play Bingo75? You will be spoilt for choice between playing Bingo75 at the comfort of your house, at any Maltco's Point of Sale or while unwinding after a hard day's work at a cafeteria. Make sure to purchase your daily ticket and watch the live draw at 6.15pm either on Smash TV, or on the company's Website: www.maltco.com or at any Maltco's Points of Sale spread over Malta and Gozo. You may purchase your ticket up to five minutes before the draw. Don't forget to purchase your ticket, have fun and enjoy yourself with Bingo75. For more information one can call the company's Helpline Centre on 23 88333 or visit the company's website

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