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Dylan: We just announced the panelists for our WorkXPlay Smarter Workplaces event on June 21. They include David McFarlane of Litmus, Michael Affronti of Fuze, Stefania Mallett of ezCater and Chris Kelly of Convene.

Lucy: From older companies like PTC and GE to startups like Rethink Robotics and Desktop Metal, it’s easy to conclude that Boston tech is playing a very big role in the future of manufacturing.

Dylan: Now we have one more anecdote to add: After Formlabs showed how it plans to bring heavy-duty 3D printing systems into the manufacturing world yesterday, one of its co-founders, Natan Linder, this morning announced that he has raised a $13M Series A for his new startup, Tulip. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Pitango VC and angel investors.

Basically, Tulip has built a manufacturing app platform that gives operators and front-line engineers on the shop floor better tools and analytics to do their job. By plugging into various tools, machines, sensors and IT backend systems, Tulip’s platform allows people to create apps for things like interactive work instructions, quality control, automatic data collection, training and machine monitoring.

Linder, Tulip’s CEO, told me one of the key features is its ease of use, which is made possible through a drag-and-drop interface that requires no coding experience. “That’s huge because of the huge amount of money people spend on system integration,” he said.

An analysis by Deloitte found that Tulip’s platform was able to increase productivity by more than 10% while reducing manual quality issues by 60% in first four weeks the technology was in use by Jabil, a global contract manufacturer. “The point is, nobody should be robbed of making decisions based on data,” Linder said.

Tulip is among a number of Boston-area companies that are building technologies to augment human workers at manufacturing companies. Other companies include PTC, which has built Internet of Things and augmented reality products to help workers service machines, and MachineMetrics, which collects data on shop floors using sensors for real-time machine monitoring.

Dylan: You may have seen one of nuTonomy’s self-driving cars in Boston’s Seaport. Now you may soon have a chance to ride in one, thanks to a new partnership the Cambridge-based autonomous vehicle startup has landed with Lyft. The two companies announced a strategic research and development partnership on Tuesday. The Boston Herald reported that the Lyft will eventually start providing rides, limited to the Seaport, though not without explicit approval from regulators. Both companies have been working with city officials on the project. Read more: Lyft Plans to Test Self-Driving Cars in Boston, Thanks to a Local Startup

Lucy: I’m positive that the majority of our readers remembers LovePop, the pop-up greeting card startup backed by Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary. The BBJ reported that the Harvard Business School-born company filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston against Paper Pop Cards, a New York-based company that produces similar pop-up cards. In the documents, LovePop argues that the competitor has copied several of its copyrighted card designs.

Dylan: After voicing its opposition to President Trump’s immigration ban in three courts, MassTLC has released its own report on why immigrants are integral to the innovation economy, locally and nationally. It’s full of figures, with dozens of reports and studies cited. Here are a few highlights:

— 40% of U.S. Fortune 500 companies were founded by first or second-generation immigrants.

— Out of the Fortune 500 companies based in Massachusetts, 58% of them were founded by immigrants of their children. Those companies produce $136.8B in annual revenue and employ over 466K people annually.

— Nearly 20% of businesses in the Boston metropolitan area were foreign-born.

Lucy: Digital health startup ZappRx announced that its online platform will be used at Tufts Medical Center. Designed to speed up the prescription process for rare types of drugs, the platform will be first used in the medical center’s unit for pulmonary diseases. Karen Tirozzi, VP of solutions at ZappRx, let me know that specialists at the medical center helped the company get through contracting inside of two months: “I can pretty much see Tufts MC from my office window, so it’s really nice to be able to walk over to bounce an idea off of them or answer a question anyone on their team has.” Read more: ZappRx Launches Its Drug Prescribing Platform at Tufts Medical Center

Dylan: Freight Farms, the Boston startup that builds automated farm systems in shipping containers, has closed a $7.3M Series B round led by Spark Capital. Over 100 of its Leafy Green Machines have now been sold. Read more: Freight Farms Raises $7.3M Series B to ‘Make Local Food a Global Reality’

Dylan: Oh dang, lots of personnel moves today. First, the Big One (let’s call this the Second Big One): Uber hired Frances Frei, a Harvard Business School professor, as its first SVP of leadership and strategy. Basically, Frei has been hired to help the company fix its big management problems, CEO Travis Kalanick included. Read more: Uber Just Hired an HBS Professor to Help Fix the Company 

Lucy: Kasha Gauthier has been appointed as director-in-residence for community engagement at The Advanced Cyber Security Center. Previously, Gauthier was CFO and COO at Boston cybersecurity startup Pwnie Express.

Dylan: Kuebix, a Maynard-based provider of transportation management system software, has appointed David Lemont as its CEO. Lemont was previously CEO of Currensee, AppIQ and Revit Technology, the latter of which was acquired by Autodesk in 2002.

Lucy: Last but not least, Biscom has hired Bob Pratt as the new senior director of sales for its content collaboration solutions and Mischa St. Amand as its new director of marketing. Prior to joining the secure document transfer solutions company, Pratt held sales leadership positions at OptiSystems, ZixCorp, PostX and Accellion; and St. Amand was at CodeBroker and Philo.

Dylan: Just got the heads up on a new event series: Product Hunt Boston is having its first night of demos and drinks at HubSpot’s 2 Canal Park location in Cambridge on June 14. The events will happen quarterly, and they’re being run by Kunal Bhatia, co-founders of SlidesUp, and Niti Shah, a senior marketing manager at HubSpot. Bhatia told me the event is officially supported by ProductHunt, and they’re expecting 250 people for the first event. Find more Boston tech and startup events in BostInno Approved.

Lucy: A heads up for inclusive innovators: Tomorrow is the registration deadline for the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge, a competition for innovators that are using tech to reinvent the future of work. Award is over $1M.