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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.

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SOURCE IES Abroad

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How Cool Is Shenzhen? Just Ask Global Journalists Who Come to See It

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SHENZHEN, China, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — “Shenzhen may well be the world’s No. 1 innovation hub. And together, Shenzhen and Hong Kong form the perfect endpoint of the modern Silk Road.”

That was the glowing verdict American economist Jeffrey Sachs delivered in Shenzhen just over a month ago, effectively giving the city one of the highest-profile stamps of approval in the world of development economics.

Sachs is hardly an ordinary commentator. One of the world’s most influential authorities on sustainable development, and for years a special adviser to the UN secretary-general, he knows a thing or two about how cities and economies grow.

In a recent exclusive interview with Zhi News (from Shenzhen Media Group), Sachs shared his in-depth views. The following is the full report:

when representatives from APEC economies come to Shenzhen, they are bound to be impressed. They will discover that the city is not merely a great place to find capital and business partners, but also a window into entirely new models of development—and perhaps a glimpse of what the future could look like.

After decades of trailblazing development, Shenzhen has more than earned that kind of academic attention. It is, after all, a city built on miracles and a straight-A student in the school of urban development.

The more you admire Shenzhen, the more you begin to understand why it deserves admiration. That, to me, is precisely where the real significance of Shenzhen’s development lies: not simply in what the city has achieved, but in what its experience tells us about where the world may be heading.

As a journalist, I would put it this way: Shenzhen is a mother lode for anyone trying to understand China. For global academia, and perhaps even more so for the world’s media, it is a gold mine of stories, ideas and opportunities.

Over the past year or two, a curious phenomenon has swept across Western social media and, increasingly, Western society itself: China-maxxing, sometimes jokingly described as “becoming Chinese.”

“You met me at a very Chinese time in my life.”

Yes, that viral internet phrase borrows its punchline from the Hollywood classic Fight Club. Earlier this year, The New York Times offered a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek description of the trend in one of its features:  If you drink hot water, wear slippers indoors or shop at Asian supermarkets, you may be Chinese, according to the internet.

But here is what caught my attention.

When it comes to Shenzhen—and China more broadly—Western mainstream media can sometimes be surprisingly slow on the uptake. Take China-maxxing. It only became a mainstream media story, splashed across newspapers and television screens, earlier this year—more than six months after a Twitter user, @Girl_virus, first posted about “becoming Chinese.”

To put it bluntly, China-maxxing was not exactly handed down to the mainstream media from above. The world’s netizens pushed it up there.

The New York Times even framed the provocative question this way in a headline: From Labubu to “becoming Chinese,” has China become cool?

Well, if the Times’ reporter comes to Shenzhen, I’ll make a pretty safe bet: he or she will come away thinking, Shenzhen is super cool.

So here’s my advice to my fellow journalists around the world: follow the lead of those pioneering scholars. Get closer to Shenzhen. Walk into Shenzhen. Stay a little longer. Look a little deeper. And then go farther afield.

There are simply too many fascinating stories here waiting to be told—and too many forces behind those stories waiting to be decoded.

And here’s the best part.

More than two decades ago, Shenzhen residents already had the confidence to put it into one unforgettable slogan:

“Once you come, you’re a Shenzhener.”

I suspect foreign correspondents arriving in Shenzhen today may discover their own version of that old Shenzhen experience:

Come for the story. Stay for the experience. Leave having become, at least a little bit, a Shenzhener.

And trust me, it’s going to be quite an experience. 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/how-cool-is-shenzhen-just-ask-global-journalists-who-come-to-see-it-302869887.html

SOURCE Shenzhen Media Group

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Datamaran Appoints Bert Sinnema as Chief Technology Officer

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LONDON, NEW YORK and LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Datamaran, the AI-powered risk and governance software provider, today announced the appointment of Bert Sinnema as Chief Technology Officer. Based out of the company’s Leeuwarden office in the Netherlands, Sinnema will lead Datamaran’s global engineering and product teams, including the engineering hub in Valencia, Spain, driving the technology and product vision behind the platform that helps organizations understand and manage evolving risks and opportunities.

As CTO, Sinnema will own Datamaran’s product vision, strategy, and technology roadmap, from setting direction to architecture, delivery, and the teams building it. He steps into the role at a pivotal moment for the company, as Datamaran deepens its use of AI across the platform to give customers faster, more decision-ready insights into risk, regulation, and stakeholder expectations. His mandate: lead the engineering and product organization, accelerate the pace of AI-driven product development, and ensure the platform keeps pace with the increasingly complex and fast-moving risk landscape.

A track record scaling product engineering teams

Sinnema brings more than 12 years of product engineering leadership experience spanning startups, scale-ups, and category-leading platforms, with deep expertise at the intersection of engineering, cybersecurity, and AI. He joins Datamaran from Eye Security, Europe’s fastest-growing cybersecurity company, where he served as VP of Engineering and built the product and engineering organization from the ground up, scaling the multi-hub international team 3x and helping the company reach a €60M Series C round.

Before Eye Security, Sinnema spent over three years at HackerOne, the world’s leading ethical hacking and bug bounty platform, rising to Director of Engineering. Earlier in his career, Sinnema founded and served as CTO of SmartLockr, a secure communications and privacy platform he bootstrapped, scaled across three countries, and took through Microsoft’s Ventures Accelerator in Berlin.

Building for Datamaran’s next chapter

“Bert has spent his career building engineering organizations from the ground up and scaling them through some of the most demanding environments, including as a founder himself. He knows firsthand what it takes to turn conviction into something real, and to keep adapting as the market evolves,” said Marjella Lecourt-Alma, CEO and co-founder of Datamaran. “As Datamaran evolves from ESG issue management into an AI-powered governance platform, Bert’s founder mindset and experience building teams, technology, and culture make him exactly the right leader to shape what comes next for our teams, customers, and partners.”

“I like to operate at the intersection of product engineering leadership and AI, where the hardest problems live, and the highest-leverage decisions get made,” said Sinnema. “Datamaran is applying AI to help organizations navigate a genuinely complex risk landscape, and I’m excited to bring my experience building and scaling engineering and product organizations to that mission. This is the most interesting time to be building in tech, and I’m looking forward to being in the middle of it with the team.”

Contact: Helen Skeen, Director of Communications and Insights: helen.skeen@datamaran.com.

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SOURCE Datamaran Limited

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Diving deeper into real-life home demands, EZVIZ brings next-generation home innovations and products to IFA with expanded application scenarios

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HOOFDDORP, Netherlands, Sept. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — This IFA, EZVIZ explores new frontiers with its full-range products in the smart home hall 1.2. Under the theme “Accelerating Innovation”, the company creates an immersive experience at booth 175, featuring anticipated debuts that highlight its leadership in self-developed smart home security and home entry products, and introducing next-generation devices powered by local-first EZVIZ AI. EZVIZ also builds excitement by unveiling brand-new smart cleaning robots and wearable electronics for stay-at-home and on-the-go lifestyle needs.

“EZVIZ has prepared a technological feast, with each line-up full of hardcore innovations,” said Chris Xu, General Manager of EZVIZ’s International Business Center. “Especially in Europe, where we’ve developed our portfolio and services for over a decade, we offer global solutions and Europe-tailored options rooted in insights and localization.”

As the hall’s largest stand, EZVIZ designs 5 interlinked areas, allowing audiences to embark on a journey from visual protection and add-on home convenience to robotic fun and future imagination.

For its renowned smart home cameras, EZVIZ aims to lead with an innovative leap in technology and product design.

The triple-lens 90f series for ultra-vision: Upgraded from the 90 Duals, the wired H90f and battery-powered HB90f pack three lenses, ushering in the triple-lens era of professional-level awareness. They are designed to cover visible distance with 12x mixed zoom, capturing details that are easy to miss across broad areas like ranches.The dual-lens 3K series for compact, mobile security: With the basic CB30 and advanced CB60 models, this series embodies flexibility enabled by high-capacity batteries and magnetic bases. The CB60 further maintains a clear view beyond Wi-Fi range with 8x zoom and switchable 4G-WiFi connectivity.

EZVIZ further expands the potential of smart cameras with EZVIZ AI, delivering the EZVIZ MIRA advanced model system directly on devices to unlock advanced detection and management.

EZVIZ AI CoreX home station: Bringing EZVIZ MIRA to the local level, EZVIZ delivers uncompromised AI performance through the masterpiece edge model AI CoreX. Acting as a private home station without reliance on the cloud, it offers large file storage, smart search with text, photos and videos, and multi-device management, without needing to be online.Local-first AI solutions: Making local AI features accessible at all levels, EZVIZ integrates the power of local AI chips on end devices with AI capabilities on edge devices, and by offering flexible AI home plans. Users can either enable detection features on standalone cameras without subscriptions, or customize scalable systems by adding AI CoreX or other home hubs like the X6.

In smart entry, EZVIZ introduces new line-ups for broader scenarios.

Smart AI locks: From DIY options to high-end choices, EZVIZ offers a complete understanding of smart locks. Among them is the flagship DL50FVX, integrated with pioneering technologies. It provides on-device palm vein and facial unlocking, enhanced awareness with dual lenses and a built-in screen.Doorbells & peephole cameras with add-on AI: EZVIZ showcases versatile options, from door viewers to dual-lens video doorbells that keep entrances connected. The state-of-the-art EP8 Ultra marks a new chapter in video doorbells, providing thoughtful care beyond security with its interactive local AI screen.Smart entry systems for villas: Designed for interaction at gates and driveways, EZVIZ presents systematic solutions with the representative HP7 Pro Video Doorphone and HG2 600 Pro Gate Opener. The HP7 Pro ditches bulky intercoms, offering keyless entry, 4K awareness and centralised management, while the HG2 600 Pro delivers lag-free vehicle access.

For more information, please visit ezviz.com/page/ifa2026.

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SOURCE EZVIZ

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