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Axim Collaborative and Unicon Partner to Advance Skills-Based and Competency-Based Learning Through Open edX Innovation

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Research partnership will help shape a reference implementation for Open edX platform to meet the growing demand for skills-based and flexible learning models.

MESA, Ariz., May 6, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Unicon, a leading technology and digital learning enablement firm, today announced a new strategic partnership with Axim Collaborative, steward of the global Open edX platform, to drive innovation in skills-based and competency-based education (CBE) at scale.

Building on over thirty years of leadership in the open source community, Unicon is joining forces with Axim to help inform a reference implementation of the Open edX platform to better serve higher education institutions that are shifting to skills-first learning models. The collaboration marks a significant milestone in Unicon’s ongoing commitment to expanding access to flexible, future-ready education.

Through this partnership, and in collaboration with the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN), Unicon is conducting a comprehensive research initiative, gathering insights from community colleges, four-year universities, and other education stakeholders. The goal is to identify key functional priorities and operational challenges facing institutions offering competency-based and/or skills-forward programming — informing the development of new capabilities in an Open edX reference implementation to enable institutions to deliver scalable, skills-based learning programs.

“Bringing Unicon and Axim Collaborative together is a natural evolution in how both organizations are supporting skills-based and competency-based education,” said Kate Valenti, CEO at Unicon. “At Unicon, we believe the future of learning lies in enabling institutions to teach, validate, and credential skills at scale. This partnership demonstrates our deep commitment to the open source community and to building practical, high-impact solutions for higher education.”

This collaboration comes at a pivotal time as Unicon continues its work with institutions focused on innovation and skills advancement. The partnership with Axim strengthens Unicon’s positioning as a trusted partner for organizations aiming to create innovative, flexible, career-connected learning experiences.

In a further demonstration of its commitment to open source and the global skills community, Unicon recently announced its sponsorship of Open edX 2025 in Paris as a Premier Sponsor. This sponsorship not only expands the reach of the new partnership with Axim but also showcases Unicon’s leadership and deep investment in the future of open, skills-based education. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to meet with Unicon’s expert team to share insights on building scalable, future-ready learning platforms.

Ed Zarecor, Vice President of Engineering, Open edX, says of the partnership, “We see enabling a skills-forward approach to delivering non-credit and credit courses as a powerful way to deliver Axim’s mission at scale. We believe the platform’s ability to scale in a robust way along with the affordability that provides for low resourced institutions has powerful potential to drive impact. Given Axim’s mission around driving economic mobility, we see community colleges as powerful enablers of economic mobility, enabling rapid skills acquisition, and allowing students to connect in demand skills with employer needs. We’re excited to partner with Unicon to gather critical feedback from the higher education community and advance the Open edX platform to better support skills-based learning models globally and to reach an underserved market with a compelling value proposition to uniquely serve learners and their unmet needs.”

Learn more about Open edX 2025 and Unicon’s sponsorship at: https://con.openedx.org/

About Axim Collaborative

Axim Collaborative is a nonprofit that transforms education to work pathways by facilitating collaboration and innovations to build an ecosystem of solutions to drive better outcomes for millions of learners. With a mission to make learning more accessible, relevant and effective for all learners, we seek to catalyze new digital and education practices that engage students in their course of study and enable them to persist through their programs and excel in their careers to realize greater social and economic mobility. Axim is a non-profit, co-founded by Harvard and MIT and is the successor to edX, the pioneering online learning platform that launched in 2012.

About the Open edX Project

The Open edX platform is an open-source learning management system that is used across the globe to teach and learn online. The Open edX platform powers more than 70,000 courses and supports more than 100 million learners. It has been deployed to support everything from single classrooms to university-wide education to government-sponsored nationwide learning initiatives. The Open edX project and its community pursue innovative approaches to learning and pedagogy; promote the adoption of best practices across the education continuum; and share the vision that everyone, everywhere should have access to high-quality education.

Press Contacts

Eric Kuennen
Unicon, Inc.
ekuennen@unicon.net

Annabel (Annie) Cellini
Axim Collaborative
acellini@axim.org

Media Contact

Eric Kuennen, Unicon, Inc., (480) 558-2400, ekuennen@unicon.net, https://www.unicon.net/

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SOURCE Unicon, Inc.

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Media Advisory – Minister Hodgson to deliver keynote speech on One Year of Nation Building

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TORONTO, April 22, 2026 /CNW/ – The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, the Honourable Tim Hodgson, will speak at the Empire Club of Canada regarding this past year’s accomplishments and future strategic directions.

Date: April 24, 2026

Time: 11:30 a.m. ET

All accredited media are asked to register using the Empire Club’s press accreditation and registration form. Details on how to participate will be provided upon registration.

Follow Natural Resources Canada on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Natural Resources Canada

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Harness Delivers Unified AI Intelligence Across Software Delivery with Google Cloud

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Harness integrates Google Cloud’s Developer Connect into its Software Delivery Knowledge Graph to give engineering teams smarter, faster AI-driven insights

SAN FRANCISCO, April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Harness, the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, today announced that it will bring together Harness’s Software Delivery Knowledge Graph and Google Cloud’s Developer Connect. The initiative gives joint customers a unified, AI-ready view of their entire software delivery lifecycle, and the intelligence to act on it with confidence.

The announcement was made at Google Cloud Next, where Harness also won the 2026 Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year Award in the Application Development – DevOps category.

The Missing Piece in AI Software Delivery

Modern software delivery environments are inherently complex. Pipelines, services, build and deploy infrastructure, artifacts, and dependencies are deeply interconnected — and the data that describes how they relate to one another is scattered across dozens of tools. As organizations accelerate their adoption of AI-powered engineering, that fragmentation becomes a critical liability. AI is only as effective as the context it can access, and today, most AI agents are operating with an incomplete picture.

Harness is addressing this challenge head-on. By integrating Google Cloud Developer Connect insights into the Harness Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, joint customers gain a continuously updated, relationship-aware model of their software delivery environment that spans both platforms, bridging the visibility gap between development and production so that AI agents can operate with complete and reliable context. For engineering teams, this translates directly to making decisions grounded in situational awareness rather than generic training data, allowing them to execute complex workflows with greater accuracy.

Where the Partnership Comes to Life

For joint customers of Harness and Google Cloud, this integration means Harness AI can now make smarter, faster decisions on their behalf. By bringing together deployment event logs, runtime data, and application dependency information from Google Cloud into the Harness Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, teams gain a continuously updated, comprehensive view of their software delivery environment. When an issue arises, engineers can diagnose and remediate faster, trace problems back to specific source files or infrastructure, and link artifacts to the teams responsible for them, without having to manually piece together context from multiple systems.

The result is AI that works harder for customers. With richer context available upfront, AI agents can operate more efficiently, delivering answers and recommendations that reflect the true state of the environment. Everything teams need is in one place, and their AI has everything it needs to act on it confidently.

Security is central to how this integration was built. Data shared between Harness and Google Cloud is governed by enterprise-grade access controls, ensuring the right information reaches the right people within the guardrails organizations require.

“AI is only as powerful as the context behind it. Without it, teams fall into the AI Velocity Paradox: moving code faster than ever, but risking shipping software that is unverified, insecure, and unreliable,” said Jyoti Bansal, co-founder and CEO of Harness. “This is exactly what our expanded work with Google Cloud directly addresses, giving joint customers a unified view of their software delivery environment and AI that can actually reason across it. When context is complete, speed and confidence go hand in hand.”

A Collaboration That Keeps Deepening

This integration is the latest evolution of a long-standing collaboration between Harness and Google Cloud. Harness AI runs on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and joint customers already benefit from expanded access through Google Cloud Marketplace. With this announcement, that work expands from the infrastructure layer into the application layer — and directly into how AI understands and acts on the software delivery environment. And it doesn’t stop there. The Harness MCP Server is now accessible within Google’s Gemini Enterprise app environment, enabling Gemini Enterprise customers to leverage Harness capabilities directly from their existing AI interface.

“Google Cloud provides cutting-edge technology that helps partners innovate and deliver more impactful solutions for business transformation,” said Ritika Suri, Managing Director, AI and Data Partnerships at Google Cloud. “Through our partnership with Harness, we will provide customers with innovative capabilities that can improve operations, enhance customer experiences, and drive innovation.”

Join Us

As our Knowledge Graph ecosystem continues to grow, Harness remains committed to expanding the breadth of integrations available to customers with the goal of being the most comprehensive AI-ready software delivery platform on the market.

To connect with the Harness team in person, visit the Harness booth at Google Cloud Next.

About Harness
Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, enabling engineering teams to build, test, and deliver software faster and more securely. Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the platform brings intelligent automation to every stage of the software delivery lifecycle after code — removing toil and freeing developers from manual, repetitive work. Companies like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels use Harness to deploy up to 70% faster, reduce change failure rates by 50%, cut deployment effort by 80%, and lower security noise by 65%. Based in San Francisco, Harness is backed by Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, and Citi Ventures.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harness-delivers-unified-ai-intelligence-across-software-delivery-with-google-cloud-302749850.html

SOURCE Harness

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H.I.G. Capital Announces the Sale of Celerion

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MIAMI, April 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — H.I.G. Capital (“H.I.G.”), a leading global alternative investment firm with $74 billion of capital under management, is pleased to announce that one of its affiliates has signed a definitive agreement to sell its portfolio company, Celerion Holdings, Inc. (“Celerion” or the “Company”), a global CRO and leader in clinical pharmacology and bioanalytical sciences, to funds affiliated with THL Partners (“THL”).

Headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, Celerion is a leading provider of highly specialized clinical pharmacology and bioanalytical sciences with deep expertise in first-in-human dose escalation, cardiac safety (TQT), drug-drug interaction, and other complex clinical pharmacology studies that support regulatory approval and drug labeling. Celerion offers an integrated suite of services spanning data management, biostatistics, and clinical monitoring that supports a global base of pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers through its purpose-built clinical and laboratory infrastructure with facilities in Lincoln, Phoenix, Zurich, and Belfast.

H.I.G. acquired Celerion in November 2022 and worked closely with management to accelerate growth and strengthen the Company’s market position. During its ownership, H.I.G. supported strategic investments across commercial, operational, and technology initiatives, including the expansion of Celerion’s clinical and bioanalytical laboratory footprint. These efforts drove exceptional growth and solidified Celerion’s standing as a leading, clinical pharmacology-focused, contract research organization.

Susan Thornton, Celerion’s President & CEO, commented, “H.I.G. has been an exceptional partner to Celerion, helping us accelerate key strategic initiatives and invest meaningfully in our people, capabilities, and infrastructure. These efforts have strengthened our platform and enhanced the quality and consistency of outcomes we deliver to customers. We are excited to carry this momentum forward with THL as we enter our next phase of growth.”

Mike Gallagher, Managing Director at H.I.G., commented, “We are proud of what Celerion’s best-in-class team has accomplished during our partnership. The team has delivered industry- leading growth during our ownership, and we are confident it is uniquely positioned for its next chapter.”

Michael Kuritzky, Managing Director at H.I.G., added, “We are very proud of the work Celerion does to help drug sponsors worldwide navigate the complexities of clinical trial management. It has been a privilege to partner with Susan and her team, and we look forward to Celerion’s continued success.”

BofA Securities, Inc. and Lazard Frères & Co. LLC were financial advisors to H.I.G. and Celerion. McDermott Will & Schulte LLP was legal counsel for H.I.G. and Celerion in connection with the transaction.

About Celerion

Celerion is a clinical research organization that provides comprehensive clinical trial solutions to pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients conducting early clinical research throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. The Company serves its clients through a global network of facilities and provides first-in-human to proof-of-concept studies as well as bioanalytical laboratory services, data management and biometrics, and drug development services. For more information, visit celerion.com.

About H.I.G. Capital

H.I.G. Capital is a leading global alternative investment firm with $74 billion of capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Stamford in the United States, as well as international affiliate offices in Hamburg, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Dubai, and Hong Kong, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to middle market companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/value-added approach:

H.I.G.’s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations, and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses.H.I.G.’s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche, and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. also manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance.H.I.G.’s real estate funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices.H.I.G. Infrastructure focuses on making value-add and core plus investments in the infrastructure sector.

Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 400 companies worldwide. The Firm’s current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $53 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at hig.com.

*Based on total capital raised by H.I.G. Capital and its affiliates.

Contact:

Mike Gallagher
Managing Director
mgallagher@hig.com

Michael Kuritzky
Managing Director
mkuritzky@hig.com

Alex Zisson
Managing Director
azisson@hig.com

H.I.G. Capital
1450 Brickell Avenue
31st Floor
Miami, FL 33131
P: 305.379.2322
hig.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hig-capital-announces-the-sale-of-celerion-302749396.html

SOURCE H.I.G. Capital

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