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Nord Anglia Education schools feature in 2025 Spear’s Schools Index of world’s best private schools

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LONDON, March 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Four leading Nord Anglia Education schools have once again secured their place amongst the world’s best private schools, as recognised by the prestigious 2025 Spear’s Schools Index.

The index, often regarded as the definitive guide to the world’s 100 leading private schools, acknowledges excellence in education, innovation, and student success. It has been drawn up annually since 2020 by Spear’s, their partners at Thuso, and a panel of independent educationalists from around the world.

In this year’s index, three schools were once again recognised in the “Top 100”: Collège Alpin Beau Soleil and Collège Champittet in Switzerland, along with Swiss International Scientific School Dubai. Nord Anglia International School Dubai also features in the Spear’s Schools Index as a “Recommended” school.

Stuart White, Principal at Collège Alpin Beau Soleil, said: “Our students and colleagues are at the heart of what makes Beau Soleil such a wonderful international community in the Swiss mountains, and I am delighted they have been recognised by Spear’s once again. Our focus on a unique blend of academic and alpine education continues to allow students to develop as tomorrow’s global leaders.”

Philippe de Korodi, Principal of Collège Champittet, said: “Collège Champittet is dedicated to shaping future leaders who are compassionate, open-minded, and independent thinkers. Our inclusion in the Spear’s Index is once more a recognition of our school community’s emphasis on values, engagement, and commitment to academic excellence.”

Ruth Burke, Principal of Swiss International Scientific School Dubai, said: “This accolade inspires us to continue striving for excellence in all aspects of learning and school life, preparing our students to succeed in a rapidly changing world. As a unique bilingual day and boarding school, it is wonderful to be recognised. Thank you to everyone who plays a part in making our school such an exceptional place to learn and grow.”

About Nord Anglia’s featured schools:

Collège Alpin Beau Soleil: A leading private boarding school in Villars-sur-Ollon in the Swiss Alps. It is home to a thriving international community of students aged 11 to 18.

Collège Champittet: A world-class day and boarding international school in Lausanne, Switzerland, offering an outstanding education that instils lifelong values and inspires academic excellence.

Swiss International Scientific School Dubai: A co-educational, IB day and boarding school for students aged 3 to 18 in Dubai, with English only, English-French, and English-German bilingual programmes.

Nord Anglia International School Dubai: An outstanding British curriculum school where children are inspired to achieve more than they ever thought possible.

About Nord Anglia Education:
As a leading international schools organisation, we’re shaping a generation of creative and resilient global citizens who graduate from our schools with everything they need for success, whatever they choose to be or do in life. 

Our strong academic foundations combine world-class teaching and curricula with cutting-edge technology and facilities, creating learning experiences like no other. Inside and outside of the classroom, we inspire our students to achieve more than they ever thought possible.   

No two children learn the same way, which is why our schools around the world personalise learning to what works best for every student. Inspired by our high-quality teachers, our students achieve outstanding academic results and go on to study at the world’s top universities. 

Our Nord Anglia global family includes 80+ day and boarding schools in 33 countries, teaching over 90,000 students from ages 3 to 18.

To learn more or apply for a place for your child at one of our schools, go to nordangliaeducation.com.

For media enquiries:
David Bates
Communications Manager
M +44 (0) 7787 135223

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nord-anglia-education-schools-feature-in-2025-spears-schools-index-of-worlds-best-private-schools-302401300.html

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SmartOrg releases Version 10.x of its Decision Intelligence platform

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New release expands SmartOrg’s Decision Intelligence platform with a cleaner, more configurable experience and new product capabilities.

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 11, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — SmartOrg, Inc., a Palo Alto-based provider of Decision Intelligence solutions, today announced the release of version 10.x of its software platform, with its standard products Innovation Navigator® and Portfolio Navigator® now deployed by configuring modules on a newly integrated platform.

“This release is really about giving customers a better experience and more flexibility in how they apply the platform to their specific decision challenges.”

Combined in other ways, these modules support deployments optimized for other contexts.

“This release is really about giving customers a better experience and more flexibility in how they apply the platform to their specific decision challenges,” said David Matheson, President and CEO of SmartOrg. “We’re delighted to see customers using SmartOrg’s Decision Intelligence Platform in more targeted ways, for example in Technology Assessment, Energy Exploration and Drug Discovery. Version 10.x gives them a cleaner, more configurable foundation for doing that work.”

The release includes major updates to Innovation Navigator®, including flexible brainstorming canvases, enhanced Learning Plan modules, and upgraded Discovery Grid visualizations. These enhancements help innovation teams capture ideas, organize learning activities, and focus attention on the uncertainties that matter most.

Portfolio Navigator® also receives significant new capabilities, including a Maturity Matrix, Probability of Success calculator, and portfolio goal analysis. These features help leaders better assess projects, compare them, and support portfolio decisions.

“Version 10.x is part of our ongoing commitment to keeping SmartOrg’s software current, useful, and easier for customers to apply,” said Dave Wachenschwanz, Director of Development at SmartOrg. “The platform has significant upgrades in its user interface, improving consistency and usability.”

To see highlights of the new release, SmartOrg has published a short video overview from its development team that you can watch here: https://bit.ly/4xdA7QY

About SmartOrg

SmartOrg helps innovation, R&D, and strategy teams convert uncertainty to opportunity. Its software products—Innovation Navigator® and Portfolio Navigator®—apply quantitative methods to prioritize learning, build confidence in the business case, and guide investment decisions at both the project and portfolio levels to help organizations meet their growth objectives.

Media Contact

Doug Williams, SmartOrg, Inc., 1 3399270834, dwilliams@smartorg.com, https://smartorg.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/smartorg-releases-version-10x-of-its-decision-intelligence-platform-302796404.html

SOURCE SmartOrg, Inc.

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Cathay Financial Holdings Leverages Open-Source Small Language Models to Identify Customer Intent

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Fine-tuning Small Language Models to Better Understand Local Financial Service Contexts, Domain Terminology, and Ambiguous Customer Queries

TAIPEI, June 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — To enhance operational efficiency and customer experience, Cathay Financial Holdings (Cathay FHC) continues to advance the application of generative AI in financial services through its generative AI technical framework, GAIA, and AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) strategy. Building on last year’s validation of large language models (LLMs) for financial applications, Cathay FHC recently unveiled its latest AI research findings at NVIDIA GTC Taipei 2026, demonstrating how open-source small language models (SLMs) can be fine-tuned for customer intent classification and applied to future financial service scenarios.

The study evaluated several leading open-source models from Meta, TAIDE, TAME, NVIDIA and OpenAI. Preliminary results showed that, under the testing framework, fine-tuned SLMs may reduce dependence on complex prompt engineering and vector retrieval modules, potentially simplifying system architecture while lowering future operational and maintenance complexity.

The findings indicated that, when combined with carefully designed financial-domain datasets and targeted model fine-tuning, SLMs can further improve model stability, inference efficiency, and deployment controllability. In customer intent classification, the fine-tuned SLM achieved performance close to mainstream closed-source LLMs, approaching that of leading proprietary LLMs, providing enterprises with a practical reference for evaluating AI model training and deployment strategies.

From a data governance and privacy perspective, the study adopted a fully synthetic data approach, ensuring that no real customer information was used during model training. Through techniques including service-function clustering, single-intent and multi-intent dataset design, Taiwan-context localization, and keyword expansion, Cathay FHC strengthened the model’s ability to understand local financial service contexts, industry-specific terminology, and ambiguous customer queries.

Potential future applications include mortgage balance inquiries, credit card payment assistance, and branch service navigation, laying the groundwork for intelligent search, service routing, and next-generation customer engagement experiences.

From a technical architecture standpoint, Cathay FHC integrated NVIDIA AI tools—including NVIDIA NeMo Customizer, NVIDIA NeMo Curator, and NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM—together with NVIDIA Hopper architecture computing resources to support data generation, model fine-tuning, inference optimization, and experimental evaluation. Leveraging NVIDIA AI ecosystem, Cathay FHC continues to strengthen its capabilities in financial-domain model development, data governance, and application validation.

In recent years, Cathay FHC has steadily expanded AI innovation across a wide range of financial scenarios, building scalable technological foundations spanning internal process optimization, customer service enhancement, financial knowledge understanding, and model governance. As financial institutions navigate an increasingly regulated environment, stringent data governance requirements, and rapidly evolving customer expectations, Cathay FHC remains committed to advancing AI research in a compliant, secure, and resilient manner.

Looking ahead, Cathay FHC will continue exploring long-context classification, advanced financial document understanding, and cross-scenario AI applications. By developing model training and deployment approaches tailored to the financial sector, the company aims to accelerate innovation and create more intelligent, efficient, and customer-centric financial services.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/cathay-financial-holdings-leverages-open-source-small-language-models-to-identify-customer-intent-302798631.html

SOURCE Cathay Financial Holdings

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First Advantage Set to Join S&P SmallCap 600

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NEW YORK, June 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — First Advantage Corporation (NASD: FA) will replace Kennedy-Wilson Holdings Inc. (NYSE: KW) in the S&P SmallCap 600 effective prior to the opening of trading on Tuesday, June 16. A consortium led by KW’s CEO with Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (TSE: FFH) is acquiring Kennedy-Wilson Holdings in a deal expected to close soon, pending final closing conditions.

Following is a summary of the changes that will take place prior to the open of trading on the effective date:

Effective Date     

Index Name      

Action

Company Name

Ticker     

GICS Sector     

June 16, 2026

S&P SmallCap 600     

Addition     

First Advantage

FA

Industrials

June 16, 2026

S&P SmallCap 600

Deletion

Kennedy-Wilson Holdings     

KW

Real Estate

ABOUT S&P DOW JONES INDICES

S&P Dow Jones Indices is the largest global resource for essential index-based concepts, data and research, and home to iconic financial market indicators, such as the S&P 500® and the Dow Jones Industrial Average®. More assets are invested in products based on our indices than products based on indices from any other provider in the world. Since Charles Dow invented the first index in 1884, S&P DJI has been innovating and developing indices across the spectrum of asset classes helping to define the way investors measure and trade the markets.

S&P Dow Jones Indices is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), which provides essential intelligence for individuals, companies, and governments to make decisions with confidence. For more information, visit www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

S&P Dow Jones Indices
index_services@spglobal.com 

Media Inquiries
spdji.comms@spglobal.com 

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/first-advantage-set-to-join-sp-smallcap-600-302798639.html

SOURCE S&P Dow Jones Indices

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