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Revolutionizing Study Abroad Access: IES Abroad Unveils Breakthrough Financial Aid Initiative, Doubling Opportunities for Underrepresented & Pell-Eligible Students

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CHICAGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — IES Abroad, a global not-for-profit study abroad and internship provider, proudly announces its new High-Impact Aid Commitment, a transformative approach to financial aid to greatly increase access to study abroad.

This is a revolutionary approach to study abroad financial aid focusing on funding transparency and supporting students.

Driven by a dedication to fostering inclusivity and access in study abroad, IES Abroad has completely restructured its financial aid approach, prioritizing a financial aid program that expands IES Abroad’s reach and directs funds to high-need students, making study abroad possible for an even greater number of students than its existing program. IES Abroad wanted to develop a program that used funds as efficiently and effectively as possible, to make the greatest positive impact.

The High-Impact Aid Commitment strategically allocates resources to those with high financial need while simplifying the financial aid process and demystifying the costs associated with studying abroad.

Providing dedicated financial resources to make study abroad accessible has always been integral to IES Abroad’s mission. In the organization’s history, they have annually allocated significant resources to financial aid (up to $7 million in 2023/24) and have awarded nearly 45,000 scholarships overall. As part of their goal to elevate their existing financial aid program and provide increased accessibility to study abroad, particularly for historically underrepresented and financially disadvantaged students, the High-Impact Aid Commitment was formed.

This new approach to awarding financial aid first began as a pilot in Spring 2024 with a group of 12 institutions who are a part of the IES Abroad Consortium, including two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), which saw a significant increase in financial aid applications and participation rates.

Gregory D. Hess, Ph.D., President and CEO of IES Abroad, emphasized the organization’s goal to address the growing financial barriers that come with study abroad: “As an economist and former college president, I closely observed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education. The significant increase in student financial need highlighted the growing difficulty for students to access transformative study abroad experiences. Upon discussing these challenges with colleagues, we took it upon ourselves to do something about it by re-shaping our financial aid program to address the evolving landscape of international education.”

Upon the rollout of the pilot program, IES Abroad received more than three times as many financial aid applications from pilot school students compared to the year before, and students with the highest need are receiving an average of $2,000 more in financial aid. Students coming from a school who is a member of the IES Abroad Consortium with an Expected Family Contribution of $0 can receive up to $7,000 in financial aid towards their semester program. 

The pilot phase of the High-Impact Aid Commitment has already delivered significant positive outcomes, including the following:

A 194% increase in financial aid applications from students enrolled at pilot institutionsA 120% increase in financial aid applications from students with the highest financial need ($0 Expected Family Contribution) enrolled at pilot institutionsA 106% increase in program participation from Pell-eligible students enrolled at pilot institutions

Encouraged by these outcomes, IES Abroad is rolling out the program across all 270+ Consortium Member schools, starting with the Spring 2025 semester. The aid application for Spring 2025 is now open.

This initiative required extensive collaboration, strategic planning, and input from partner institutions of IES Abroad. IES Abroad also engaged an industry-leading external consultant to help guide this initiative. These collective efforts have proven to be impactful as countless students will now gain even greater access to study abroad opportunities.

Susan Thomas, Associate Director of Financial Aid for IES Abroad, further emphasized the long-term goals of the commitment, saying: “The IES Abroad Financial Aid Team’s focus is on creating transformative experiences for students from all financial aid backgrounds, and this new program is a revolutionary approach to financial aid that centers around funding transparency and supporting students. This new approach will change the lives of so many more students, and I look forward to seeing the widespread impact this has on students and the field at large as we continue to push for greater access to study abroad.”

As Dr. Gregory D. Hess most notably says as part of the mission, “Study abroad changes lives, and changed lives change the world. We look forward to evaluating the success of the High-Impact Aid Commitment so that future students have greater access to lifechanging intercultural experiences.”

Learn more about IES Abroad and its scholarship and financial aid.

About IES Abroad: 
Founded in 1950, IES Abroad is a not-for-profit academic consortium of more than 260 top-tier American colleges and universities, with more than 240 additional partner universities worldwide. IES Abroad provides premier study abroad and internship programs around the world through IES Abroad, IES Internships, IES Abroad Customized & Faculty-Led Programs, and The Study Abroad Foundation. With a total of more than 400 study abroad programs in 85 locations worldwide, the organization creates authentic global education opportunities for more than 10,000 students annually. IES Abroad has more than 140,000 alumni who have benefited from studying on IES Abroad programs since its inception, and offers more than $5 million in scholarships and financial aid. Learn more at www.IESabroad.org.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/revolutionizing-study-abroad-access-ies-abroad-unveils-breakthrough-financial-aid-initiative-doubling-opportunities-for-underrepresented–pell-eligible-students-302074474.html

SOURCE IES Abroad

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Alethios Unveils a Comprehensive Decentralized Data Collection Suite for Human Health Research

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Live, no-code integrations let researchers combine participant-reported outcomes, wearables and sensors, AI-powered digital biomarkers, and at-home lab tests in a single study at a fraction of the cost of traditional research.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Alethios, the software platform delivering research infrastructure for human health, today launched a comprehensive suite of decentralized data collection tools. Researchers can now combine participant-reported outcomes, wearable and sensor data, digital biomarkers, and at-home biomarker testing in a single study, without writing code, managing multiple vendors, or requiring clinic visits.

Alethios powers studies across nutraceuticals, functional foods, academia, consumer health, medical devices, biotech, and the life sciences. Study designs range from consumer perception studies to pivotal, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials all run on the same software platform. Customers  including Givaudan, Thorne, PLT Health Solutions, Applied Food Sciences, Hofseth BioCare, Helaina, Samphire Neuroscience, and Sonoran University use the platform to generate rigorous evidence from participants’ homes. The new integrations build on the company’s founding belief that rigorous, multimodal research should be within reach for teams of every size and budget, across the human health ecosystem.

The suite spans four layers of data, each available as a no-code integration within the Alethios Study Planner and Study Operator:

Reported data: participant-submitted photo, video, audio, and text, plus a library of clinically validated instruments, both publicly available and licensed.Generated health data: personal wearables and health platforms including Apple Watch, Google Health, Garmin, Oura, Whoop, and Fitbit, and sensors including Abbott’s continuous glucose monitors and Withings and InBody bioimpedance scales.Digital biomarkers: validated cognitive batteries powered by BrainHQ, skin health selfies for dermatology and cosmetic studies powered by Haut.ai, and 3D body composition scans powered by Prism Labs.At-home biomarker testing: dried blood spot cards, Tasso blood collection devices, and at-home microbiome kits. Standard panels, including male and female hormones, cardiovascular, metabolic, inflammation, vitamin D, and hydration, run through Choose Health. Next-generation tests include epigenetic clocks from Muhdo and TruDiagnostic, and gut and vaginal microbiome sequencing from GutID and other shotgun metagenomic sequencing partners.

Adding a data type takes a few clicks. In the Study Planner, researchers select the data types their study needs and place each one on the participant schedule. For at-home kits, Alethios can handle ordering, shipping, and unique ID verification to keep every sample matched with the right participant, and results flow back into the platform. Once a study is live, the Study Operator brings every data stream into one real-time monitoring dashboard.

Compliant Data Collection by Default

Every integration runs on the platform’s existing infrastructure, where validation and data integrity assurances are built in and each one is designed to encourage participant adherence without compromising data quality. Researchers can:

Schedule each integration on the study timeline, so every data point is accurately time-stamped.Tie completion and compliance to milestone-based tracking and compensation, for example releasing a $50 gift card once a participant’s kit is accessioned at the lab.Monitor adherence across multiple data types in real-time from the Study Operator, so missed wearable syncs, late surveys, or unreturned kits are caught before they turn into missing data.

Every data point is cleaned and aligned to its participant automatically, so research teams receive one analysis-ready dataset rather than stitching together exports from multiple vendors.

“We built Alethios for researchers across human health,” said Zeenia Framroze, Founder and CEO of Alethios. “There are so many new ways to collect data at home, and we want to give research teams the best of them, wherever they sit. Whether someone is designing a claims substantiation study for a supplement or running post-marketing surveillance for a drug, we want to make it easy to collect robust subjective and objective data from Alethiad participants around the nation. The better and more accessible data collection is, the more we move the needle on our understanding of all of human health.”

A Home for Next-Generation Health Measurement

“So many novel devices and at-home tests are being developed today,” said Gurpreet Atwal, CTO of Alethios. “We want Alethios to be the tool scientists and innovators use to rapidly develop and validate new methods of data collection, and the home for the newest, best-in-class technologies for measuring human health. With rapid recruitment through the Alethiad Participant Community, those technologies can be tested with diverse, representative participants from day one.”

Companies developing novel devices, tests, or digital biomarkers can apply to integrate with Alethios here.

About Alethios

Alethios is a software platform delivering research infrastructure for human health. Its AI-powered, full-stack software delivers the capabilities of a study team without the overhead. The platform unifies protocol design, IRB coordination, recruitment, participant management, multimodal data collection, and reporting for decentralized clinical trials. Principal investigators, sponsors, and CROs rely on Alethios to generate rigorous real-world evidence across human health industries, setting up a study in minutes with plans starting at $100 per month. Through the Study Planner, Study Operator, and the Alethiad Participant Community, research teams can use the software in a self-service, hybrid, or fully turn-key model, at a fraction of the cost of traditional research.Alethios is a 2026 Nutra Healthspan Innovator Award winner, a 2026 Vitafoods Europe Startup Challenge finalist, and a 2025 NutraIngredients-USA Startup Award finalist. Get started at Alethios.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alethios-unveils-a-comprehensive-decentralized-data-collection-suite-for-human-health-research-302916518.html

SOURCE Alethios, Inc.

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7 out of 10 Individuals Hit by Data Breaches Via Third Party, Kroll Finds

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Breaches at technology and insurance firms affected the most individuals
in Kroll cases, highlighting the wider damage a single incident can cause

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Kroll, the leading independent provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, today revealed that two-thirds of organizations surveyed (69%) suffered a data breach in the past year. More than a third (34%) were breached more than once, according to its 2026 annual Data Breach Outlook.

Further analysis showed that financial services accounted for the largest share of organizations breached in Kroll’s cases, at 20%, but a single breach at a technology provider can expose data belonging to customers of hundreds of businesses that use its services.

Of the incidents handled by Kroll in the twelve months between June 2025 and June 2026, 69% of affected individuals were impacted by a third-party breach. 79% of those individuals were affected by a breach from the technology sector, which is significantly higher compared to the finance (9%), insurance (6%) or healthcare (5%) sectors.

Breaches at technology firms accounted for the largest number of affected individuals, followed by insurers, despite ranking seventh and ninth respectively for the total number of organizations breached.

Data and Trends from the Kroll Data Breach Outlook 2026

Repeated breaches are common. Of the 250 leaders surveyed by Kroll, 69% said their organization had suffered a breach in the previous 12 months, while 34% reported experiencing more than one.IT teams are far more concerned about third parties than senior leaders. More than half (54%) of IT and technology leaders identified vendor and third-party breaches as their biggest compliance risk, compared with 40% of C-suite executives and 30% of risk and compliance leaders.Third-party relationships complicate the response. Dependence on vendors was among the top four challenges leaders faced when making breach-response decisions, cited by 41% of respondents.A small number of breaches can have a wide impact. Technology ranked seventh for the number of organizations breached but first for the total number of individuals affected. Insurance ranked ninth for the number of organizations breached but second for the total number of individuals affected.

Denyl Green, Global Head of Breach Notification at Kroll says, “Kroll handles thousands of incidents every year. Across most of the major incidents we handled over the past year, a vendor, software supplier or service provider was the link between the initial breach and the organizations affected. One incident can reach businesses and individuals who have never dealt directly with the company where the compromise began.”

“As AI agents are given more access to systems and sensitive data, breach risk rises across both human on non-human identities. Data and identity governance are becoming even more complex, and we expect AI to feature more prominently in Kroll’s Data Breach Outlook next year, both as a tool used by attackers and as a source of exposure for businesses adopting it.”

“When a supplier is breached, every client needs to determine whose data was affected and whether customers and regulators need to be notified. The businesses that respond most effectively have already mapped their third-party relationships and the subsequent domino effect, with an agreed plan in place before an incident happens. That preparation can reduce both the complexity and the cost of managing a breach, as well as give greater peace of mind.”

Katherine Keefe, Global Cyber Insurance Industry Lead at Kroll says, “Kroll’s breach data shows a single supplier breach can trigger dozens or even hundreds of cyber insurance claims from businesses whose only connection is that they use the same provider. These scenarios exponentially increase potential cyber insurance losses compared to breaches affecting a single business.”

“Cyber underwriters are already responding, not only by more closely scrutinizing how businesses manage their suppliers, but also by identifying potential single points of failure which may be caused by vendors and suppliers serving wide swaths of industry. Cyber insurance claims teams managing aggregated losses are also impacted and require efficient incident response and breach notification best practices when multiple policyholders are affected by the same event.”

“Cyber insurers now know that identifying dependencies on common vendors is critical to assessing and minimizing the risk that one breach will impact many policyholders.”

Kroll’s Cyber and Data Resilience (CDR) practice guides organizations through cyber crises, from incident response and cyber risk strategy to process and software controls and managed security operations. Within CDR, the Data Breach team handles some of the largest and most complex notification programs in the world. Often serving as part of a broader cyber incident response, Kroll’s data breach notification services help organizations rapidly navigate multi-jurisdictional requirements, including call center and credit monitoring services, to meet regulatory obligations and protect their reputation. Learn more: https://www.kroll.com/en/services/cyber/breach-notification.

About the Data Breach Outlook 2026 report

The Data Breach Outlook 2026, launched in October 2026, draws on two sources: an analysis of data breach incidents handled by Kroll’s Cyber and Data Resilience practice between June 2025 and June 2026, and a companion survey of 250 risk and compliance leaders and C-suite executives and board members, conducted by Kroll in 2026, examining how organizations experience and respond to breach events, including the role of vendor and third-party relationships.

About Kroll

As the leading independent provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, Kroll leverages our unique insights, data and technology to help clients stay ahead of complex valuation demands. Kroll’s team of more than 6,500 professionals worldwide continues the firm’s nearly 100-year history of trusted expertise spanning risk, governance, transactions and valuation. Our advanced solutions and intelligence provide clients the foresight they need to create an enduring competitive advantage. At Kroll, our values define who we are and how we partner with clients and communities. Learn more at kroll.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/7-out-of-10-individuals-hit-by-data-breaches-via-third-party-kroll-finds-302916280.html

SOURCE Kroll Associates

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Innodisk Launches All-in-One GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit to Accelerate Edge AI Vision Deployment

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TAIPEI, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Innodisk, a leading global AI solution provider, today announced the Innodisk GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit, an all-in-one vision solution that bundles four 3MP GMSL2™ camera modules, a capture card, FAKRA cables, and other necessary accessories.

A milestone in Innodisk’s edge AI vision strategy, the kit lets customers set up a multi-camera system and begin validation right out of the box, shortening the path from proof of concept (PoC) to deployment. Full camera source code is included, giving customers flexibility throughout development and maintenance.

As AI vision moves toward multi-camera perception in robotics and intelligent vehicles, integrating cameras, capture cards, drivers, and host platforms has become increasingly complex, often taking six months or more before validation. The starter kit’s pre-integrated hardware and software driver enable system integrators to speed up time-to-market.

All-in-One Multi-Camera Integration for Faster Setup and Validation

GMSL2™ is a high-speed video transmission technology that originated in automotive applications and offers long-distance connectivity. Unlike plug-and-play USB cameras, it requires a dedicated capture card and platform-specific drivers. The starter kit includes four 3MP fixed-focus GMSL2™ camera modules, a capture card, four FAKRA cables, a power adapter, power cords, and a quick start guide. It also provides camera source code for the widely adopted NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, so users can bypass component sourcing, system-level integration, driver debugging, and tuning.

“The biggest challenge in a multi-camera AI vision project is often not the AI application itself, but the camera integration and system tuning that come before it,” said CK Hsu, Senior Manager of the Camera Product Business Department at Innodisk. “With the GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit, Innodisk takes on the complexity of early-stage integration so customers can focus on development and move into PoC sooner.”

Source Code Included for Seamless Customization

With the camera source code in hand, engineering teams can independently adapt the software driver to their own requirements and use the kit as a working foundation for further development. Innodisk also provides comprehensive customization services from hardware fine-tuning to application deployment, helping customers move smoothly into design-in and mass production.

Expanding GMSL2™ Portfolio for Diverse Edge AI Scenarios

The kit supports edge AI scenarios including blind spot detection and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for heavy-duty vehicles, object recognition and environmental perception for humanoid robots and AMRs.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/innodisk-launches-all-in-one-gmsl2-camera-starter-kit-to-accelerate-edge-ai-vision-deployment-302916771.html

SOURCE Innodisk Corporation

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