Technology

National Classical Education Symposium Returns to Phoenix in March

Published

2 years ago

February 29, 2024

“Renewing the Great Conversation” Themed Event Will Feature Expertise from leading Scholars and Educators

PHOENIX, Feb. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — The Institute for Classical Education and the Great Hearts Foundation is proud to present the sixth annual National Classical Education Symposium from Wednesday, March 20 to Friday, March 22 at the Phoenix Convention Center. The symposium will gather scholars, master teachers, and public leaders to discuss the renewal of the great conversation in classical education in K-12 education across the country.

“At a time when we need real discussion about how best to live our lives as individuals and together as members of a self-governing society, classical schools provide a sanctuary of genuine civility and the thoughtful exchange of ideas.”

The National Symposium 2024 program, now up on the Institute website, lists the full roster of keynote lectures, marquee panels, and workshops addressing the major themes and topics central to classical education. These sessions are designed to provide in-depth insights and foster engaging discussions among participants.

“Our aim at this year’s symposium is to host a great conversation about the exchange of ideas across the classical curriculum,” said Dr. Carol McNamara, Director of the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education, “At a time when we need real discussion about how best to live our lives as individuals and together as members of a self-governing society, classical schools provide a sanctuary of genuine civility and the thoughtful exchange of ideas.”

Prominent among our keynote speakers is the Honorable Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia, whose lecture will address the importance of liberal education for preparing the next generation of public leaders in his lecture: “Classical Education: Cultivating the leaders the world needs.”

Dr. Roosevelt Montás, author of “Rescuing Socrates” and a prominent public advocate for liberal arts education, will speak about “How the Great Books changed [his] life, and “why they matter for a new generation.” We are also pleased to welcome artist, author, and YouTube sensation, Jonathan Pageau, as our opening keynote speaker. His collaboration with Jordan Peterson has reignited the public conversation surrounding the search for meaning through symbols and storytelling. Dr. Jennifer Frey, inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa is a national leader in liberal arts education, and she will discuss the important topic of “Virtue and Liberal Learning.” And finally, in her keynote speech, “Let Mercy Lead,” Great Hearts’ own Toyin Atolagbe, will remind us that as “torchbearers of the classical tradition,” we must “transcend the confines of mere instruction to forge enduring connections with the sacred souls entrusted to us.”

The 2024 Symposium will also feature a myriad of practical workshops targeting two key groups. For teachers, we will host workshops addressing a wide range of topics on K-12 classroom academic content and instructional strategies across various subjects. And for School Leaders, there will be multiple sessions available focusing on professional development, school management, and operational strategies.

Established in 2018 by the Great Hearts Foundation, The Institute for Classical Education is supporting and encouraging the expansion of classical, liberal arts studies across the country. This type of instruction encompasses the development of the whole person—intellect and character. The mission of Great Hearts is to develop young men and women who are prepared to live with meaning and purpose, in pursuit of the common good.

Registration tickets are available to all educators. Single tickets and group tickets can be purchased at https://classicaleducationsymposium.org/about/register-2024/. General admission single tickets range from $275 per day or $550 for both days. Groups of five or more can purchase two-day general admission tickets for $500 a person. Additionally, students can purchase tickets at a discounted rate of $275 for both days.

Great Hearts is a nonprofit network of tuition-free public charter schools dedicated to improving education nationwide through classical preparatory K-12 academies. Great Hearts Academies has no entry or testing requirements to enroll. The schools accept any student who applies as long as a seat is available. More information can be found at greatheartsamerica.org.

About Great Hearts

Great Hearts is a nonprofit network of tuition-free public charter schools dedicated to improving education nationwide through classical preparatory K-12 academies. As the largest provider of liberal arts classical education campuses in the country, Great Hearts Academies serve more than 22,000 students at 44 tuition-free public charter schools in greater Phoenix, Ariz. and Texas, with waitlists that typically exceed enrollment. Great Hearts will also be opening its first preschool, Great Hearts Young Hearts Preschool in Buckeye, Ariz. and its first location in Baton Rouge, LA. Great Hearts provides a robust liberal arts curriculum incorporating advanced math and science, a focus on the arts and foreign language, and a range of extra-curricular activities and athletics. Learn more at www.greatheartsamerica.org.

Media Contact

Kathryn Lipke, Great Hearts Academies, 1 3178746928, kathryn@evolveprandmarketing.com, https://classicaleducationsymposium.org/program-2024/

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SOURCE Great Hearts Academies

Technology

Bloomberg Introduces Spread-to-Benchmark Quoting for EUR and GBP Portfolio Trading Baskets

Published

13 hours ago

June 2, 2026

LONDON, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Bloomberg today announced the launch of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting and trading for Euro (EUR) and Sterling (GBP) denominated portfolio trades through its Portfolio Trading Basket Builder (PTBB). The new functionality expands the range of quoting protocols available for European credit portfolio trading and reflects growing client demand for spread-based execution workflows, alongside increased dealer support for the convention across EUR and GBP markets.

Spread-to-Benchmark quoting is a well-established protocol for USD credit portfolio trades and is used by market participants to evaluate and execute portfolio trades. By extending this workflow to EUR and GBP portfolio trades, Bloomberg enables clients and dealers to transact using a familiar spread-based methodology across additional credit markets.

The introduction of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets reflects increased client interest in evaluating portfolio trades through a spread-based lens and the growing adoption of spread-based execution workflows in European credit markets. The workflow provides market participants with an additional framework for assessing the relationship between credit spread risk and underlying government bond yields when pricing and executing portfolio trades.

Additional Workflow Flexibility 
The workflow complements Bloomberg’s existing portfolio trading capabilities, which support the full range of market-standard quoting conventions, including Price, Yield, Spread-to-Benchmark and Spread based workflows that reference Bloomberg’s evaluated pricing service (BVAL). This gives clients flexibility to compare and execute portfolio trades using the quoting methodology that best aligns with their investment objectives, execution preferences and internal risk management processes.

“European credit clients continue to look for execution workflows that reflect how they evaluate risk and monitor portfolio trading outcomes,” said Harry Street, Global Head of Credit and Equities Trading Product at Bloomberg. “By expanding dealer support for Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets, Bloomberg is broadening the range of workflow options available to clients trading European credit portfolios.”

“Portfolio trading workflows in fixed income continue to become more sophisticated as institutional investors look for ways to evaluate execution quality in changing market conditions,” said Kevin McPartland, Head of Market Structure & Technology Research at Crisil Coalition Greenwich. “Spread-based quoting helps market participants more clearly distinguish between the impacts of credit spread and underlying rates movements when determining how best to execute a portfolio trade.”

Bloomberg’s Electronic Markets solutions are used by leading financial institutions to trade efficiently in over 175 markets around the world. More than 9,000 client firms use Bloomberg Electronic Markets to access industry-leading depth and breadth of liquidity across asset classes from over 800 dealers globally. Bloomberg Electronic Markets provides market participants with comprehensive solutions across the trading lifecycle, including robust price transparency, analytics, automation and execution, powered by Bloomberg’s high-quality, multi-asset class data and tools.

About Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

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SOURCE Bloomberg L.P.

Technology

Dr. Sunho Kang, a senior battery-technology executive with leadership experience at major global battery and EV manufacturers, joins TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology

Published

13 hours ago

June 2, 2026

SAN FRANCISCO, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — TeraWatt Technology Inc. (Headquartered in California, USA) is pleased to announce that Dr. Sunho Kang has joined the company as Head of Product and Technology.

Dr. Kang is a globally recognized battery-technology executive with more than 25 years of leadership experience spanning the United States, Asia, and Europe, and a distinguished track record of advancing innovations from laboratory research through gigafactory-scale production. He has held senior executive positions at world-leading organizations including Samsung SDI, Apple, and Volkswagen Group of America, and brings deep expertise in lithium-ion battery materials, cell engineering, and product industrialization across a broad range of applications, including electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

At TeraWatt, Dr. Kang will lead global product development and the commercialization of TeraWatt’s battery technology platform, aiming to accelerate the delivery of TeraWatt’s competitive products as well as the technology and commercialization roadmap including manufacturing scale-up.

Dr. Kang commented:

“I am thrilled to join TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology. TeraWatt’s innovative battery platform presents a tremendous opportunity to push the boundaries of lithium-ion technology, and I look forward to working with the team to accelerate product development and commercialization to deliver meaningful impact.”

TeraWatt Technology founder CEO Ken Ogata, Ph.D. commented:

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kang as our Head of Product and Technology. His deep expertise in battery materials, cell engineering, and productization will be instrumental in accelerating TeraWatt’s product roadmap and technology leadership. Together with Dr. Kang, we will continue to drive our mission forward.”

About TeraWatt Technology Inc.
TeraWatt Technology Inc. is a California-based company that produces lightweight, high-power, and safe next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

Company Overview
Name: TeraWatt Technology Inc.
Representative: Co-founder and CEO Ken Ogata
Headquarters: 28 Geary St, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94108, United States
Founded: January 2020
Established: December 2019
URL: https://www.terawatt-technology.com/

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SOURCE TeraWatt Technology Inc.

Technology

Tencent Cloud and Soniox Announce Strategic Partnership: Combining Advanced Speech-to-Text (STT) Technology with Global Real-Time Infrastructure

Published

13 hours ago

June 2, 2026

HONG KONG, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, today announced a strategic partnership with Soniox, a San Francisco-based speech AI company that specializes in developing high-accuracy, low-latency speech AI solutions. The collaboration integrates Soniox’s speech-to-text (STT) technology with Tencent Cloud’s Real-Time Communication (TRTC) enterprise-grade global infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build and deploy multilingual voice AI applications across 200+ countries and regions.

Elevating Enterprise Voice AI at a Global Scale

In enterprise voice AI deployments, latency directly affects user experience and application reliability. The integration of Soniox’s high-accuracy, low-latency STT with TRTC’s global transmission infrastructure reduces latency across the entire pipeline, creating a comprehensive end-to-end solution for enterprises deploying conversational AI applications worldwide.

Soniox is the voice platform for every language. Unlike legacy speech AI, which was built primarily for English-speakers, Soniox delivers native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages. Its technology can handle mid-sentence language switching — a user can switch between English and Chinese in a single utterance, and Soniox will capture every word with complete accuracy. All of this works through a single API that works for both speech-to-text and text-to-speech.

By integrating TRTC, the partnership leverages an enterprise-grade real-time communication backbone featuring more than 3,200 global nodes, sub-300 ms worldwide latency, and advanced capabilities such as AI noise suppression and weak-network resilience. These capabilities enable conversational AI applications to operate reliably across diverse network environments, including regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa.

With the roll out of this partnership, developers can integrate the Soniox STT API directly within the Tencent Cloud console. Whether targeting English-speaking markets or supporting languages such as Arabic, Hindi, and Malay, enterprises can build global voice applications — including intelligent customer service, voice assistants, real-time translation, and meeting transcription — to address the demands of expansion into emerging markets and multilingual scenarios.

Wison Xie, Head of Product at Tencent RTC, stated: “Tencent RTC has always been committed to providing reliable real-time communication infrastructure for global enterprises. Our partnership with Soniox brings together our strengths in enterprise-grade audio transmission and Soniox’s advanced speech recognition technology. Together, we are making it easier for businesses to deploy accurate, low-latency voice AI applications across any language and any market.”

Klemen Simonic, CEO at Soniox Inc., stated “At Soniox, our mission is to help businesses understand every word, in any language, with native speaker accuracy and exceptional speed. Partnering with Tencent Cloud combines our speech AI with world-class real-time infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build voice AI experiences that scale globally with low latency and reliability.”

About Tencent Cloud:

Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s leading cloud companies, is committed to creating innovative solutions to resolve real-world issues and enabling digital transformation for smart industries. Through our extensive global infrastructure, Tencent Cloud provides businesses across the globe with stable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services, leveraging technological advancements such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, AI, IoT, and network security. It is our constant mission to meet the needs of industries across the board, including the fields of gaming, media and entertainment, finance, healthcare, property, retail, travel, and transportation.

About Tencent RTC:

Tencent RTC provides real-time communication solutions, including audio/video calling, live streaming, and in-game voice. With enterprise-grade security, AI-powered enhancements, and a global network of over 3,200 nodes, Tencent RTC powers mission-critical communication for customers worldwide.

About Soniox:

Soniox is a next-generation voice AI company bringing about the end of English-first speech AI. Most people on the planet did not grow up speaking English and often mix languages mid-sentence; and yet legacy speech AI was built for just English. Soniox is different: native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages, true mid-sentence language switching, and flawless alphanumeric recognition that legacy providers still can’t match. For developers building global apps, Soniox is the only option. Try it for yourself at soniox.com.

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SOURCE Tencent Cloud