Taking on the world's biggest challenges.

By: Katie Regner

On today’s Up To Speed Live, Hans talked about our involvement with the United Nations General Assembly. Plus, more good news on robocalls.

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On today’s Up To Speed Live, Katie and Hans shared the following updates.

More robocall protection

We’ve already helped our customers avoid more than seven billion robocalls. Though the battle is never over, we have more good news. With the new Silence Junk Callers setting in iOS 14, we’re now able to protect iOS customers by auto blocking potential fraud and spam calls and sending them directly to voicemail.

Hurricane Sally recovery

To assist some of the communities hit hardest by Hurricane Sally, Verizon has deployed two Wireless Emergency Communications Centers (WECCs) to Orange Beach, AL, at the Orange Beach Recreation Center and Orange Beach Sportsplex. These generator-powered mobile units have device charging, computer workstations, and wireless phones, tablets and other devices to communicate with friends, family and other important contacts.

You can find all of the information about our emergency response efforts by visiting our emergency resource center.

United Nations General Assembly

The UN General Assembly gets underway officially tomorrow. Hans has been working with the UN in various capacities for over a decade, and continues to be involved in numerous organizations and panels, including being on the board of the UN Foundation, which helps the UN across the globe.

“I think it’s important for us to be involved with the UN because we’re a global company but also because technology is playing such a key role in addressing the enormous challenges facing the world today.”

As a company, we’re participating in several related events:

  • On September 24, Hans will co-host, along with President and CEO of the UN Foundation, Elizabeth Cousens, a closed-door dinner discussing the state of the SDG’s in the current global climate
  • Additionally, Tuesday - Thursday this week, United Nations General Assembly content developed by Global Goals Studio will be broadcast on Verizon platforms including Yahoo Finance.

Our focus on human rights

One of the ways we put into action our commitment to being a good global citizen is our Business and Human Rights program. Nicole Karlebach is one of the leaders of that program.

“We’re a dedicated team inside Verizon looking at how our business is intersecting with human rights issues,” explained Nicole. “The core of what we do is think about where our team wants to go in its core strategy and how we can help achieve it by considering how we’ll intersect with human rights at the outset as opposed to later on when issues arise.”

“Nicole and her team are doing important work,” said Hans. “We have a broad base of customers across various markets and we need to be listening to them to know that we are showing up as a company in the right way.”

You can learn more about the work the Business and Human Rights program team is doing on Verizon.com, as well as VZWeb or Verizon Media’s website.

Citizen Verizon Assembly #2: Education

Citizen Verizon Assembly is back again with a new panel discussion entitled “Education is not up for debate.” Participants will include Yara Shahidi, Soledad O’Brien, Gabrielle Union and our own Rose Kirk. You can tune in to watch that conversation Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET on Yahoo Life and Yahoo Home, as well as Verizon’s Twitter.

Sign of the times

Our Pearl Street location in New York City has a new look with our updated logo that can be seen from miles around. Next time you’re in lower Manhattan, take a look up, snap a picture and share with us on social @vzuptopseed or good@verizon.com

If you have any questions, email them to live@verizon.com.

Click here for a transcript of the webcast.

Get the latest information on our Coronavirus Resource Page (Inside Verizon, The Street).

Reminder, tune in to Up To Speed Live tomorrow at 12 PM ET/9 AM PT.

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About the author:

Katie is a member of the Verizon Corporate Communications team and a regular host of Up To Speed. She's a new mom with a passion for show tunes trying to keep up with the latest trends in tech.

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