Connect with us

Technology

Real-World STEM Learning: Students Engage with Their Schools’ Energy Data in Cufflink Quizzes

Published

on

Mountain Vector Energy launches Cufflink Quizzes, an interactive STEM tool that lets students explore real-time energy, water, and air quality data from their own schools. By using the same platform as facilities teams, students gain hands-on experience with data literacy, resource management, and future STEM careers.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., April 6, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Mountain Vector Energy is excited to announce Cufflink Quizzes, a new interactive STEM experience that allows students to engage directly with their schools’ energy, water, air quality, and renewable system performance.

“By increasing accessibility to modern software tools, we hope to inspire careers in energy and water management. This is a new path to engage our future plumbers, electricians, building automation specialists, and HVAC technicians.”

For the first time, students can step into the role of an energy manager, using the same platform their facilities directors rely on—filtering graphs, running reports, and answering quiz questions that build data literacy and critical thinking skills. By making energy data accessible, Cufflink Quizzes help students connect classroom learning to real-world STEM applications and future career paths.

From Data to Discovery

With real-time data at their fingertips, students hone critical thinking skills, uncover insights, and experience the power of data-driven decision-making—just like STEM professionals. As they analyze meaningful data, they see firsthand how energy optimization and strategic choices directly impact their schools’ learning environments.

✔ Ready-to-Go Learning – Designed to assist busy teachers, the quizzes function as stand-alone assignments in a web-based platform, allowing easy access in the classroom with no extra prep required. Quizzes are available for elementary, middle school, high school, and college-level students.

✔ Hands-On STEM Experience – Students interact with live data, analyzing energy trends and seeing firsthand how energy management works in their own school.

✔ Appreciation for School Leadership – Students gain insight into the critical roles of facilities directors and school district leaders, learning how resource management affects their learning experience.

✔ Career Exploration – Students discover how professionals in data science, engineering, licensed trades, and operations drive meaningful change. By interacting with their schools’ data, they gain insight into the impact of STEM careers and leadership roles, inspiring them to explore future pathways in these fields.

By gaining a deeper understanding of resource management, students will begin to see the world around them in a new way—recognizing the impact of STEM in their daily lives.

“With Cufflink Quizzes, we’re giving students an inside look at how data drives outcome-based learning in the real world,” says Steve Kiziuk, CEO of Mountain Vector Energy. “By increasing accessibility to modern software tools, we hope to inspire careers in energy and water management. This is a new path to engage our future plumbers, electricians, building automation specialists, and HVAC technicians.”

Supporting STEM Education

For over a decade, Mountain Vector Energy has been dedicated to advancing STEM education by empowering students to become data-driven problem solvers and future STEM leaders. Through the Cufflink platform, students take an active role in managing their schools’ energy use—analyzing real-time data and making informed decisions.

Cufflink Quizzes build on this initiative by offering self-guided learning experiences for students nationwide. These interactive modules bring real-world applications into the classroom, allowing students to see, measure, and engage with energy data in a dynamic digital environment.

Now Available – Live Demo at CGCS Conference in Charlotte

Cufflink Quizzes are available to all schools using the Cufflink platform for their energy management. This launch coincides with the Council of the Great City Schools Conference for Chief Operating Officers, Directors of Facilities, Child Nutrition, Safety & Security, and Transportation in Charlotte, NC (April 8-11, 2025).

About Mountain Vector Energy

Mountain Vector Energy is a leader in energy and water optimization, enabling organizations to cut costs, streamline operations, and meet ambitious sustainability goals. Through their patented energy management system, Cufflink, they provide the cutting-edge tools organizations need to navigate complex energy landscapes with confidence. Mountain Vector Energy is dedicated to helping organizations use their data to achieve real, measurable results. For more information, visit mountainvector.com

For a hands-on demonstration, visit Mountain Vector Energy’s booth at CGCS or contact:

Yovanna Araujo

505-549-7680

yovanna@mountainvector.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prweb.com/releases/real-world-stem-learning-students-engage-with-their-schools-energy-data-in-cufflink-quizzes-302420602.html

SOURCE Mountain Vector Energy

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

Simply announces compatibility with AI glasses from Meta

Published

on

By

NEW YORK, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Simply, the creative hobbies leader behind the market leading apps Simply Piano, Simply Guitar, Simply Sing, and Simply Draw, today announced compatibility with AI glasses from Meta.

 

The launch signals Simply’s next leap – from mobile and augmented reality into AI glasses – as part of its long–term vision to build a fully multimodal AI platform that connects physical creativity, digital experiences, and wearable interfaces.

After pioneering music learning through augmented reality with Simply Piano for Apple Vision Pro and Simply Piano for Android XR, Simply is now expanding its creative hobbies ecosystem into AI–powered wearables. The new integration with Simply Draw and AI glasses from Meta lets learners capture their drawing process in real time, generating AI–enhanced timelapses and shareable creative assets that showcase their creation. 

“This is an exciting step toward a new era for creativity,” said Yuval Kaminka, CEO and Co–Founder of Simply. “We believe that the way we experience the arts, learning, playing and creative expression at home will become fully contextual. AI glasses allow us to move closer to a true AI creative companion – a multimodal AI, one that understands what you’re doing and supports you in the moment.”

“AI glasses are becoming a natural extension of how we learn and create,” added Eliran Douenias, Head of Product Innovation at Simply. “Our products already enable immersive and virtual experiences with XR and spatial computing, now we’re adding AI glasses from Meta as the next interface – and it’s just the first of an exciting roadmap ahead.”

“Simply’s early move into the AI glasses space puts us ahead of the curve and positions us to lead in how wearables – specifically AI glasses – become part of everyday creative life,” said Douenias.

With this launch, Simply is expanding its platform for the AI era. The new compatibility with AI glasses from Meta enhances how learners see, capture, and share their creative process, with many more experiences to follow.

About Simply

Simply is the world’s leading AI creativity platform redefining how people learn and express themselves through music, arts, crafts, and more. Its award–winning apps – Simply Piano, Simply Guitar, Simply Sing, and Simply Draw – have empowered millions globally to pick up and develop fulfilling creative hobbies that last.

Contact info: eliran@hellosimply.com

Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VquEDFtY-40
Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2940139/Simply.jpg

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/simply-announces-compatibility-with-ai-glasses-from-meta-302755903.html

SOURCE Simply

Continue Reading

Technology

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners Hires James Smith as Managing Director

Published

on

By

LONDON, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (“LLCP”) announced today that James Smith has joined the Firm as a Managing Director in the Investment Management group. James will be based in LLCP’s London office.

Josh Kaufman, Head of Europe at LLCP, said, “We are thrilled to welcome James to LLCP. James adds valuable experience to the team within our core Business Services sector vertical. We look forward to the impact he will have as our European business and team continues to grow.”

James joins LLCP from Advent International where he was a senior member of the European Business & Financial Services team and participated in numerous successful transactions over his 12-year tenure. Prior to Advent, James worked at Bain & Company. James’ full biography can be found at https://www.llcp.com/team

About Levine Leichtman Capital Partners

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, LLC is a middle-market private equity firm with a 42-year track record of investing across various targeted sectors, including Business Services, Franchising & Multi-unit, Education & Training and Engineered Products & Manufacturing. LLCP utilizes a differentiated Structured Private Equity investment strategy, combining debt and equity capital investments in portfolio companies. LLCP believes that by investing in a combination of debt and equity securities, it offers management teams growth capital in a highly tailored, flexible investment structure that can be a more attractive alternative than traditional private equity.

LLCP’s global team of dedicated investment professionals is led by 9 partners who have worked at LLCP for an average of 20 years. Since inception, LLCP and its affiliates have managed approximately $18.5 billion of capital across nearly 20 investment funds and has invested in approximately 120 portfolio companies. LLCP currently manages $12.6 billion of assets and has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami, London, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

Media Contact: Isabel Moon, imoon@llcp.com

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349427/5942845/LLCP_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/levine-leichtman-capital-partners-hires-james-smith-as-managing-director-302756349.html

Continue Reading

Technology

Appian Advances AI in Process to Deliver Enterprise Outcomes at Scale

Published

on

By

New capabilities in agentic automation and AI-assisted spec-driven development transform complex work.

ORLANDO, Fla., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Appian [Nasdaq: APPN] today announced enhancements to the Appian Platform, including AI-assisted spec-driven development and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration for agents. By anchoring AI within processes, Appian eliminates the primary hurdles to AI value: fragmented data, and a lack of reliability and control. Process models provide the structure needed to deliver results safely, and at scale.

Advancements in AI agents enable more intelligent, coordinated work

AI agents in Appian are smarter, safer and more effective because they have better structure, context and guardrails. Appian is enhancing interoperability across its AI ecosystem. By adopting powerful standards like Model Context Protocol (MCP), Appian agents will be able to interface securely with external enterprise systems. Third party AI agents will have access to powerful Appian tools like data fabric which uniquely provides unified read-write access to enterprise data.

Appian is also advancing agent learning by providing users the ability to track agent performance, and then apply an agent’s memory across processes to improve decision making. Users will soon be able to expand on this by giving AI guidance on what objectives to optimize against and recommend improvements that can be applied safely.

Customer value

Global Excel Management, a worldwide healthcare risk management provider, uses Appian to transform claims processes with AI.

“As part of our digital transformation we are evolving our claims processes by transitioning from fragmented workflows to an enhanced level of operations using technological advancements enabled with AI features,” said Pascal Tanguay, SVP, Global Technology Services, Global Excel Management. “With Appian, our processes will be unified. From initial intake to adjudication, our advanced technology will reduce redundant tasks and lessen complexity for our team members. This ensures that our claims processes are consistent and completed more efficiently and accurately.”

Context gives agents a common vocabulary for business data

To support advanced agent capabilities, Appian is augmenting its industry-leading data fabric. Appian’s data fabric has been enhanced to provide a unified metadata model that gives agents clearer context about how information is structured and connected across systems.

Furthering its commitment to supporting industry-leading data platforms, Appian is launching a technology partnership with Snowflake. This unites Appian as the AI orchestration layer with Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud, combining data aggregation, model training, and process orchestration to enable immediate business value. Direct MCP-enabled integration between Appian data fabric and Snowflake equips agents with deep enterprise context, and allows them to interact directly with Snowflake Cortex AI to drive intelligent, data-backed decisions.

“Enterprises don’t need more AI experiments, they need AI that delivers real business outcomes on governed data,” said Baris Gultekin, Vice President of AI, Snowflake. “By combining Appian’s process orchestration and data fabric with the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, we’re bringing intelligence directly into the flow of work. Together, we enable secure, enterprise-grade AI where agents can access trusted data through Cortex AI, act with context, and drive measurable impact across the business.”

AI-assisted spec-driven development

AI-assisted development has revolutionized coding, but mission-critical work needs more than fast, cheap code. Appian puts structure around AI-assisted development. Without that structure, AI-generated code can introduce compliance issues and technical debt instead of business value.

Appian is introducing AI-assisted spec-driven development. AI extracts rich specifications from legacy applications to create a clear visual plan. This plan helps visualize the UI, data models and process flows for rapid and iterative operational improvements. AI developer agents, operating under human supervision, complete tasks according to specifications, accelerating delivery and reducing rework.

New developer MCP servers will allow organizations to use their choice of AI development tools, such as Claude Code or Kiro to build and update Appian applications. Appian will support a wide range of AI models, enabling teams to work in the environments they prefer.

Together, these enhancements will deliver the speed and developer productivity of AI-assisted development, with enterprise-grade control.

“Appian Composer, Agents and Appian MCP servers enable trusted agentic process orchestration and application modernization,” said Mike Beckley, Chief Technology Officer and Founder of Appian. “Composer complements Appian’s agentic orchestration and data fabric with new spec-driven development tools that are both conversational and iterative. Beneath the covers, Appian Composer is built on Appian’s new open MCP – a model-driven representation of your complete application estate—requirements, apps, data entities, logic, workflows, security/governance rules, integrations, and multi-object dependencies—now exposed as context for developers and agents to safely evolve and optimize.”

The advancements announced today were unveiled at Appian World 2026 and will be available in coming releases. Learn more at www.appian.com

About Appian

Appian provides process automation technology. We automate complex processes in large enterprises and governments. Our platform is known for its unique reliability and scale. We’ve been automating processes for 25 years and understand enterprise operations like no one else. For more information, visit appian.com. [Nasdaq: APPN]

Follow Appian: LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and X.

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1488235/5943345/Appian_Caption_2700px_Logo.jpg

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/appian-advances-ai-in-process-to-deliver-enterprise-outcomes-at-scale-302756511.html

Continue Reading

Trending