Sales Acceleration: Winning 20-year sales executive, Andy Van Oostrum, has joined Cognigy.AI as VP of North American Sales. Van Oostrum, a marketing/tech luminary who has held board of director positions at the American Marketing Association, Portland Advertising Federation, and SOLVE, will build Cognigy.AI's partner ecosystem, drive client engagement in the categories of both voice and text virtual assistants, and lead North America sales efforts.According to Van Oostrum, "Cognigy.AI addresses a far-reaching opportunity in the market. Companies are just starting to uncover what conversational artificial intelligence can do for their business but, at the same time, they are immediately behind the curve. With the ever-complex landscape, businesses must be able to build conversation flows once and leverage them across devices, channels, applications and modality. There is huge value in being able to adapt at speed."

As Hollywood events go, there are few more congratulatory than film festival awards ceremonies, where everyone wants to cheer for the Next Big Thing before they get huge. Yet, at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the biggest applause at the awards show wasn't for a director or actor--it was for Rachel Morrison, a director of photography on the festival jury. "Earlier this week," host Jason Mantzoukas said while announcing her name, "she became the first woman ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for cinematography. Her historic nod is for last year's Sundance hit Mudbound." Out in the audience, Morrison smiled sheepishly; at her side, fellow jurors Jada Pinkett Smith and Octavia Spencer whooped up a storm. The audience stood to clap.