This year, we are once again very grateful for the great commitment of our colleagues to our mission "more security" and beyond. In fact, some of our colleagues are involved in projects that cannot be assigned to a specific company project but are nevertheless of great importance - both professionally and socially. For this reason, usd founded the usd Circle in 2019. Inspired by the Holacracy principle, colleagues from all divisions can team up to form a usd Circle and work together to realize projects that are important to them. At the end of 2023, we like to look back on their engagement:
usd Cloud Circle
The importance of cloud services for our customers is constantly growing. For this reason, the Cloud Circle has launched the usd CloudSchool, where our cloud experts share their knowledge of the configuration security of public cloud environments with all colleagues and offer a practical training environment.
Our experts also shared their knowledge with the community at CloudLand 2023. This year's community festival focused on the topics of container & cloud technologies, microservices & domain-driven design, DevOps & methodology and CI/CD & automation. In their technical presentation, our usd cloud experts shared their experiences and best practices on cloud service configurations.
usd AI Circle
The definition of artificial intelligence (AI) is interpreted in various ways, so the boundaries are blurred as to where it begins. Although it has arrived in many companies, there is often a lack of concrete guidelines on information security, cyber security and data protection. This applies to the requirements of external authorities as well as internal compliance requirements and industry-specific standards. In order to be able to support our customers in these challenges at an early stage, usd experts have joined forces in the AI Circle to shed light on these issues from the perspective of their respective specialist domains.
usd Student Circle
Our working students are an important part of usd. The usd Student Circle helps working students find their way around usd and network with each other. The "Become a Hero Student Program" took place in April and October 2023. In addition to team building, the students got to know the different areas of usd and their colleagues better.
Furthermore, the usd Student Circle organized a "Meet & Greet" at all locations, where students were able to get to know each other better over lunch.
usd Responsibility Circle
There are many social challenges that are important to our colleagues beyond usd's "more security" mission: whether it's participating in GirlsDay 2023, sporting activities as part of charity runs, donating hardware for more equal opportunities in education and nature conservation - initiated by our Responsibility Circle, many colleagues once again got involved for a good cause this year.
At the end of the year, the Responsibility Circle organized the traditional Christmas donations in the usd: In addition to donations in kind for the Speisekammer Neu-Isenburg, a donation total of €10,000 went to Hilfe für Krebskranke Kinder Frankfurt and the FeM Mädchen*haus Frankfurt. In addition, an unscheduled donation was organized this spring for the earthquake victims in Syria and Turkey.
We thank all our colleagues for their commitment and look forward to future usd Circle projects.
