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Novakid launches NovaPals, an AI-native conversational app designed for independent English-speaking practice

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AI-native conversational partner delivering 24/7 English speaking practice with an adaptive curriculum based on CEFR standards

Designed with AI from the ground up, not retrofitted, leveraging Novakid’s proven years teaching hundreds of thousand students across the globe and through millions of lessons

Targets the ‘excluded middle’: learners aged 13+ who have outgrown children’s apps but aren’t ready for adult tools

Powered by AI technology proven on the field via Novakid’s in-house AI tutor “Pandy”, used by students worldwide

SAN FRANCISCO, April 20, 2026 /CNW/ — Novakid, the award-winning online English school for children, launched NovaPals, an AI-first conversational English app designed to give learners an unlimited and independent speaking practice. Unlike traditional language learning tools focused on grammar drills or vocabulary exercises, NovaPals delivers real-time conversations with an AI partner that adapts to proficiency level, remembers previous interactions, and guides learners through a structured CEFR-aligned curriculum.

The app addresses a critical gap in language education: learners who have moved beyond simplified children’s content but aren’t yet comfortable with adult-level tools. NovaPals provides judgment-free speaking practice accessible anytime, anywhere, making it particularly valuable for students with limited access to live tutors or structured classroom conversation time. As such, NovaPals is the perfect companion for children, teens, and all those who need extra speaking practice.

What sets NovaPals apart is its foundation: the app is built AI-native, architected around Novakid’s proprietary conversational AI agents. The agents draw on almost 10 years of human-designed curriculum expertise delivered to hundreds of thousand students and over 20 million lessons. Rather than offering an open-ended chatbot, NovaPals guides learners through purposeful conversations with defined learning objectives and built-in assessment tracking.

“We’ve spent years building the best human-led English curriculum for children,” said Max Azarov, CEO and co-founder of Novakid. “NovaPals represents our next evolution: taking that expertise and reimagining it for an AI-native experience. This isn’t AI layered onto traditional content, it’s a product designed from day one around what conversational AI does best: personalized and adaptive practice at scale.”

NovaPals builds on insights taken from Pandy, Novakid’s AI tutor deployed to support between-lesson practice. Real-world experience and practice revealed that AI-driven interactions often encourage learners to speak more frequently and with greater confidence, particularly when the AI partner provides consistent encouragement without social pressure or judgment.

The app features a cast of friendly and approachable characters that learners interact with over time, creating a sense of connection and accountability similar to the social contract that makes human tutoring effective. Gamification is integrated from day one in order to provide students with a fun and engaging experience.

“Our initial AI Tutor tests showed us that younger learners genuinely bonded with AI tutoring,” said Chris Kemsley, Product Lead for NovaPals. “That made us ask: what could that look like for other students not finding the learning solution tailored to their needs? For us, it meant combining three things: expert human curriculum design, a product they actually want to use, and emulating the social contract between learner and tutor. The result is NovaPals.”

NovaPals represents a strategic expansion of Novakid’s learning ecosystem, designed to scale beyond the current market for human-led, synchronous tutoring. By offering both teacher-led instruction and AI-powered independent practice, Novakid provides learners with a full array of learning options: human teachers for structured lessons and feedback as well as AI partners for daily study and confidence building.

NovaPals is available for download on iOS and Android.

About Novakid

Novakid is a leading online English learning platform for young learners, and one of the fastest-growing EdTech companies globally. A US company, with a head office in London, this Series B startup has raised $41.5 million in funding from leading global investors, and is trusted by over 990,000 families across 50+ countries.

Novakid membership offers parents an easy and affordable way to get their kids to practice English regularly by participating in online international activities they love. Regular practice complements their academic studies at school, builds confidence and expands opportunities.

Novakid offers multiple ways to learn, adapting to every child – cute Pandy (our AI tutor), group workshops with certified teachers, live streams, and individual 1:1 classes for most serious learners.

AI is at the core of how Novakid personalises learning: matching students to the right teacher, adapting lesson pacing, tracking progress against Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) standards, and creating individual learning journeys. 

Novakid’s approach works. On average, 96% of students improve their English within 6 months. 75% show results from month 1, and most pass assessments on the first or second try.

Novakid website: https://novakidschool.com
NovaPals website: https://novapals.ai/en

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SOURCE NovaKid

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Wondershare to Showcase AI-Powered Business Workflows with PDFelement at Microsoft AI Tour Hong Kong

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HONG KONG, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Wondershare, a global leader in productivity and creativity software, will participate in the Microsoft AI Tour Hong Kong on April 22, 2026, at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. At Booth E10, the company will showcase its AI-powered business workflow solutions across its product portfolio, highlighting Wondershare PDFelement as a key focus, and inviting attendees to experience how intelligent workflows can transform modern business operations.

As Microsoft’s flagship global AI event, the Microsoft AI Tour brings together industry leaders, partners, and innovators to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping business landscapes. At the Hong Kong stop, Wondershare will highlight its deepening collaboration with Microsoft, showcasing how its product ecosystem works seamlessly within Microsoft’s AI and cloud technologies to enable more efficient, secure, and scalable workflows.

This collaboration comes at a pivotal time for Hong Kong’s rapidly evolving AI landscape. Hong Kong is rapidly emerging as a key AI innovation hub, driven by strong policy support and accelerating enterprise adoption. Despite this momentum, many organizations still face challenges such as fragmented AI adoption, integration complexity, and data security concerns. In collaboration with Microsoft, Wondershare addresses these challenges by enabling connected, end-to-end AI workflows that deliver practical and measurable productivity gains.

Under the theme “Streamline Workflows. Power Content with AI.”, Wondershare presents a unified approach to AI-driven productivity. At the center of this ecosystem is Wondershare PDFelement, enabling smarter and more efficient document workflows within enterprise environments and helping businesses adopt AI in practical, everyday scenarios. Supporting this vision, Wondershare’s broader product portfolio—including EdrawMax, EdrawMind, Filmora, and Reelmate—extends AI-powered capabilities across diagramming, mind mapping, video creation, and premium comic content creation, forming a connected, end-to-end workflow, all of which will also be showcased on-site at the event.

Through live, interactive demonstrations, attendees visiting Booth E10 will be able to explore Wondershare’s full product ecosystem and gain hands-on insight into how AI can enhance productivity across a wide range of business scenarios.

Wondershare warmly invites all participants to visit the booth and discover how AI-powered workflows can unlock new possibilities for business growth.

About Wondershare:

Wondershare is a globally recognized software company founded in 2003, known for its innovative solutions in creativity and productivity. Driven by the mission “Creativity Simplified”, Wondershare offers a range of tools, including PDFelement for document management; EdrawMax, EdrawMind for diagraming, Filmora and SelfyzAI for video editing. With over 2 billion cumulative active users across all products and a presence in over 200 countries and regions, Wondershare empowers the next generation of creators with intuitive software and trendy creative resources, continually expanding the possibilities of creativity worldwide.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/wondershare-to-showcase-ai-powered-business-workflows-with-pdfelement-at-microsoft-ai-tour-hong-kong-302747366.html

SOURCE Wondershare Technology

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Cohesity Appoints Nigel Lee as Technical Sales Leader, Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ)

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SINGAPORE, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Cohesity, today announced Nigel Lee as Technical Sales Leader for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ). Based in Singapore, Lee will lead the company’s technical sales strategy, pre-sales organisation, and solution engineering execution across the region, reporting to Mark Nutt, SVP & GM, International at Cohesity, and reflects Cohesity’s increased investment in the region as a strategic priority.

In this newly created role, Lee will strengthen technical engagement with customers and partners, and drive adoption of Cohesity’s AI-driven data security and cyber resilience platform across APJ.

Lee brings 29 years of experience leading pre-sales, sales engineering, and go-to-market changes across Asia Pacific. He has a strong record of building high-performing teams, driving enterprise growth, and engaging C-level stakeholders in complex markets.

“APJ is a strategically important region for Cohesity, and Nigel’s leadership, passion and deep expertise make him exceptionally well positioned to lead our technical sales organisation,” said Mark Nutt, SVP & GM, International, Cohesity. “As we continue to invest in the region, his ability to align technical strategy with the rapidly developing customer requirements caused by the ever-changing threat and compliance landscape will be critical to accelerating our growth and ensuring our customers’ ongoing business resilience.”

Previously, Lee was Director of Data Storage Solutions, Asia Pacific at Lenovo, where he led the regional business and transformed the go-to-market to drive growth. He also held senior regional and global roles at NetApp.

“Across the region, organisations are under increasing pressure to secure, manage, and unlock value from their data as AI adoption accelerates and cyber threats evolve. Cohesity is uniquely positioned to simplify this complexity through a unified, AI-driven data security platform,” said Nigel Lee, Technical Sales Leader, Asia Pacific and Japan at Cohesity. “Having spent my career scaling organisations and embedding solution expertise early in the customer journey, I’m excited to join at this pivotal time and look forward to working with our teams, partners, and customers to drive meaningful, outcome-led growth.”

Lee holds an Executive MBA from Kellogg-HKUST and a Bachelor of Computer Science.

About Cohesity 

Cohesity protects, secures, and provides insights into the world’s data. As the leader in AI-powered data security, Cohesity helps organisations strengthen resilience, accelerate recovery, and reduce IT costs. With Zero Trust security and advanced AI/ML, Cohesity Data Cloud is trusted by customers in more than 140 countries, including 70% of the Global 500. Cohesity is also backed by industry leaders such as NVIDIA, Amazon, Google, IBM, Cisco, and HPE.

Cohesity is certified as a Great Place to Work in multiple countries. Follow Cohesity on LinkedIn and visit www.cohesity.com to learn more.    

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/cohesity-appoints-nigel-lee-as-technical-sales-leader-asia-pacific-and-japan-apj-302747284.html

SOURCE Cohesity

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EcoMatcher Unveils Tree Personas

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A New Nature Interface for Engaging with Your Trees, in Any Language

HONG KONG, April 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — EcoMatcher, a Certified B Corporation that enables companies to plant and track trees transparently, today announced Tree Personas, a new Nature Interface designed to make tree gifting and sustainability engagement more personal, interactive, and memorable.

With Tree Personas, companies can assign a distinct digital personality to each gifted tree, enabling recipients to virtually visit their tree in TreeTracker 3D, chat with it through TreeChat+ in their own language, and learn about its growth, local environment, and real-world impact.

Tree Personas build on EcoMatcher’s earlier TreeChat, which introduced chatbot-powered conversations with trees, only in English. While TreeChat enabled interaction, Tree Personas shape how a tree communicates in any language – from curious and playful to calm and reflective – while all environmental data, location, and impact metrics remain authentic and unchanged.

EcoMatcher describes Tree Personas as a Nature Interface — a new category of digital interface that allows people to interact with real ecosystems through digital companions connected to living trees. The company believes Nature Interfaces can help reconnect people with nature in an increasingly digital world.

Rather than passively receiving information about a planted tree, users can build an ongoing relationship with it — asking questions, learning about its ecosystem, and following its growth over time. Even when users are away, Tree Personas continue to evolve digitally, encouraging people to return and discover new reflections, observations, and updates.

“Trees are essential for life on Earth, yet most people rarely have a personal connection with them,” said Bas Fransen, CEO of EcoMatcher. “Tree Personas turn planted trees into interactive companions that help people learn about nature and build deeper connections with the ecosystems that support us.”

Meet the First Tree Personas

EcoMatcher introduces three Tree Personas available to companies gifting trees, all inspired by real ecological stages and behaviours of trees:

Twiggles: A young, curious tree highlighting small discoveries in nature.Oakly: A grounded, thoughtful tree sharing ecosystems insights.Seren: A calm, reflective tree encouraging deeper connections with nature.

Companies can also collaborate with EcoMatcher to create custom Tree Personas aligned with their brand values, sustainability goals, or storytelling needs.

EcoMatcher will share more about the background and opportunities of Tree Personas during its upcoming Demo Day on April 27. To sign up, visit www.ecomatcher.com/demo.

About EcoMatcher

EcoMatcher is a Certified B Corporation that enables companies to integrate transparent tree planting into their business. Through its technology platform, organizations can plant trees, track them digitally, and engage employees and customers in sustainability. EcoMatcher’s customers include Dubai Islamic Bank, Grab, Infosys, and Singlife.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/ecomatcher-unveils-tree-personas-302741368.html

SOURCE EcoMatcher

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