Technology

Explore Industries Expands Elite Dealer Program Across Leisure Pools and Aviva Pools Networks

Published

5 days ago

May 14, 2026

Industry-first dealer collaboration model is redefining how fiberglass pool builders scale, market, and grow across North America

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., May 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Explore Industries is continuing the expansion of its Elite Dealer Program, an innovative dealer collaboration model designed to help top-performing pool builders scale through exclusive territories, centralized marketing support, advanced training, and long-term strategic business development.

Available to qualified dealers across both the Leisure Pools and Aviva Pools networks, the program represents a significant shift in how manufacturers and independent pool builders collaborate within the swimming pool industry.

While many networks operate through loosely connected independent businesses, the Elite Dealer Program was built to create a more aligned growth model – combining the strength of nationally recognized brands with localized ownership and marketing expertise.

As fiberglass pools continue gaining market share across North America, Explore Industries believes the Elite model is helping reshape expectations around dealer support, brand consistency, and scalable growth within the industry.

“Historically, many pool builders have had to navigate growth independently, often without access to branding, marketing infrastructure, or operational support needed to scale efficiently,” said Clint McCain, Chief Commercial Officer. “The Elite Dealer Program changes that dynamic by creating a true growth collaboration between Explore Industries and its dealers.”

Backed by more than 25 years of manufacturing experience and over 150,000 pools installed globally, Explore Industries developed the Elite Dealer Program to provide select dealers with the tools and structure needed to compete at a higher level in increasingly competitive regional markets.

A New Model for Dealer Growth
At its core, the Elite Dealer Program gives selected dealers access to operate under either the Leisure Pools or Aviva Pools name within an exclusive territory, supported by a long-term agreement. This structure is designed to create stronger brand consistency while giving dealers access to the tools, assets, and resources needed to grow in their local markets.

What sets the Elite Dealer Program apart is the level of brand and marketing alignment available to participating dealers. While Elite Dealers remain independently owned and operated, they are supported through a more integrated model that combines recognized brand names, centralized marketing execution, and ongoing business planning resources with local market expertise.

This approach is designed to help dealers scale more efficiently while maintaining consistency across the Leisure Pools and Aviva Pools networks.

Comprehensive Support Designed for Growth
The Elite Dealer Program provides a range of tools and resources designed to help dealers scale efficiently and operate with greater consistency across their markets. Key components include:

Exclusive Territories: Defined markets that allow dealers to focus on growth within their regionBrand Alignment: Ability to operate under the Leisure Pools or Aviva Pools name while leveraging a globally recognized brandMarketing Support: Website development, SEO, paid media, social media management, and branded access to drive lead generationTraining & Development: Access to Explore Academy, including installation training, master classes, and best practice documentation

Together, these capabilities are designed to help Elite Dealers scale with confidence while maintaining consistency, efficiency, and a high standard of execution.

Positioned for an Evolving Market
The Elite Dealer Program was developed in response to continued growth in the fiberglass pool market, as more consumers and builders shift toward fiberglass due to its speed of installation, lower maintenance requirements, and evolving design options.

Since its official launch in 2025, the program has continued to expand across North America, with more than 30 locations adopting Leisure Pools or Aviva Pools branding and operating models.

This shift is creating new opportunities for dealers who are equipped to meet evolving consumer expectations with speed, quality, and consistency. As demand continues to grow, the Elite Dealer Program is positioned to help dealers capture market share while operating within a more structured and scalable framework.

Early Success Story: Leisure Pools Coastal Mississippi
As the first dealer to join the Elite Dealer Program, Leisure Pools Coastal Mississippi represents the type of established, trusted local business the program was designed to support.

Led by Pam Carter and Gary Webb, Leisure Pools Coastal Mississippi has served its market for more than 30 years, building a strong reputation for quality, customer service, and outdoor living expertise. After more than a decade as part of the Leisure Pools network, the business became the first to transition into the Elite Dealer Program, marking an important milestone in the program’s rollout.

For Coastal Mississippi, the Elite Dealer Program provided an opportunity to build on decades of local experience while gaining expanded access to the Leisure Pools name, branded marketing assets, and centralized lead generation support. Following the launch of updated branding and marketing initiatives, the business saw a significant increase in lead generation, with reported growth of approximately four times compared to the previous year.

More than a branding shift, the transition reflects Coastal Mississippi’s continued commitment to growth, innovation, and serving customers at a high level. With a long-standing presence in the market and a strong foundation already in place, Coastal Mississippi is well positioned to continue building on the momentum created through the Elite Dealer Program.

Their early success highlights the potential of the Elite model to help experienced, independently owned dealers strengthen their local market presence while gaining access to the tools and resources needed to support future growth.

A More Aligned Dealer Network
The Elite Dealer Program reflects Explore Industries’ broader vision for the future of dealer collaborations – one built around stronger brand alignment, scalable infrastructure, operational support, and long-term shared growth.

By bringing together proven operators under a unified model, Explore Industries is building a stronger, more consistent presence across North America while creating new opportunities for dealers to grow within a clearly defined and supported structure.

The company continues to engage with qualified dealers interested in exploring Elite Dealer opportunities within both the Leisure Pools and Aviva Pools networks.

About Explore Industries
Explore Industries is a global manufacturer and marketer of fiberglass swimming pools and outdoor living products, supporting a growing dealer network across North America and internation markets through its Leisure Pools and Aviva Pools brands. With more than 25 years of manufacturing experience and more than 150,000 pools installed worldwide, the company focuses on innovation, operational excellence, and long-term dealer success.

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SOURCE Explore Industries

Technology

NEC Vietnam Appoints New General Director to Advance Digital Innovation

Published

7 hours ago

May 19, 2026

HANOI, Vietnam, May 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NEC Vietnam announced the appointment of Yasushi Numakura as its new General Director, effective April 1, 2026. The appointment reflects NEC’s continued commitment to expanding trusted technology partnerships and supporting Vietnam’s growing digital ambitions.

Numakura-san joined NEC Group in 1990 and brings over three decades of experience across systems engineering, mobile technology development, and global business leadership. In 2014, he was appointed Head of NEC Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh branch, where he drove business portfolio transformation and strengthened regional partnerships. He subsequently held leadership roles at NEC Solution Innovators and most recently led resource management reform initiatives as part of delivery model transformation efforts.

In his new role, he will lead NEC Vietnam’s business operations and strategic direction, with a focus on strengthening software development capabilities and accelerating digital transformation initiatives across key sectors, serving both the Japanese and APAC markets.

“I am excited to join NEC Vietnam and build on the strong momentum established by the local team over the years. Together with our customers and partners, we look forward to creating what’s ahead through trusted technologies and meaningful solutions that create lasting value for businesses, communities, and society. In line with NEC’s 2030 mid-term direction, we will also advance our capabilities as an AI-native organization with security at the core, ensuring that our innovations are both impactful and resilient,” shares Numakura-san.

Under his leadership, NEC Vietnam will continue providing technologies and solutions spanning software development, biometrics, and public safety.

***

About NEC Vietnam

NEC established its liaison office in Vietnam in the early 1990s under the global business framework of NEC Corporation. It was re-organized as NEC Vietnam Co., Ltd. in 2006, with a newfound commitment to grow the business and contribute towards the people and society of Vietnam.

In a rapidly changing business environment, NEC Vietnam has evolved into a comprehensive solutions provider, leveraging their core competence in delivering Solutions for Society, focused on building social infrastructure that benefits citizens and communities.

Visit https://vn.nec.com to learn more.

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SOURCE NEC Vietnam

Technology

South Asia’s First-ever Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Demonstration, Led by ISGF in Collaboration with its Technology and Utility Partners

Published

7 hours ago

May 19, 2026

NEW DELHI, May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — South Asia’s first ever groundbreaking Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Technology Demonstration in India implemented by India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) marks a major advancement in smart Electric Vehicle (EV) charging and grid stability, paving the way for a future of bidirectional energy flows between EVs and the power grid. ISGF, with its utility partners and technical support from the University of Delaware (UDEL), USA, executed this first-of-its-kind Alternating Current (AC) V2G pilot demonstration in South Asia. The demonstration project was implemented at BSES Rajdhani Power Limited, BSES Yamuna Power Limited, TATA Power Delhi Distribution Limited, as well as at the Agency for New and Renewable Energy Research and Technology (ANERT), Kerala. This pilot demonstration has tested a variety of V2G use cases and found it highly relevant for distributed renewable energy integration and grid stability.

As part of the project, four Tata Nexon EVs were retrofitted with on-board bidirectional power modules and connected to the grid through bidirectional AC chargers. The equipment cost of AC V2G is significantly lower than DC V2G. ISGF is working with local technology companies and EV OEMs to build a V2G ecosystem in the country.

For more information, please write to contactus@indiasmartgrid.org

About India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF)

ISGF is a public private partnership initiative of the Govt. of India, with the mandate of accelerating smart grid deployments across the country. With 170+ members comprising of ministries, utilities, technology providers, academia and research, ISGF has evolved as a Think-Tank of global repute on Smart Energy and Smart Cities. The mandate of ISGF is to accelerate energy transition through clean energy, electric grid modernization and electric mobility; work with national and international agencies in standards development and help utilities, regulators and the Industry in technology selection, training and capacity building.

Website: https://indiasmartgrid.org/

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Technology

Tencent Cloud and Stream Partner to Accelerate the Development of Real-Time Multimodal AI Agents

Published

7 hours ago

May 19, 2026

HONG KONG, May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of leading global technology company, Tencent, today announced a strategic collaboration with Stream, the company behind the open-source AI agent framework Vision Agents, to accelerate the development of real-time, multimodal AI agents.

Through this collaboration, Tencent Real-Time Communication (Tencent RTC) becomes an officially supported edge transport plugin for Vision Agents, giving developers worldwide a low-latency path to build and deploy interactive AI applications across global markets, including regions where network complexity and real-time performance are critical.

Unlocking Lower-Latency Transport for Enhanced Experiences Across China and Asia

Vision Agents is an open-source, edge-agnostic Python framework from Stream that helps developers quickly build low-latency vision AI applications. Rather than retrofitting video onto a voice-centric stack, Vision Agents was designed as a video-first solution — running models such as YOLO, Roboflow, OpenAI Realtime, and Google Gemini on every frame, with sub-500ms end-to-end latency and over 25 out-of-the-box integrations across LLM, STT, TTS, vision, RAG, telephony, and avatar providers.

Through this partnership, Tencent RTC becomes an officially supported edge transport plugin for Vision Agents. Developers can use Tencent RTC to replace the default communication layer in Vision Agents and instantly leverage Tencent Cloud’s enterprise-grade backbone — more than 3,200 global nodes, sub-300ms worldwide latency, AI-driven noise suppression, and weak-network resilience — while keeping every existing LLM, STT, TTS, vision, and avatar plugin unchanged.

The integration supports both audio and video, making it suitable for voice agents, video agents, and multimodal scenarios — powering use cases such as gaming assistants, virtual avatars, sports coaching, and robotics. AI agents can join TRTC rooms and interact with participants in real-time through high-quality audio and video streams.

Tencent RTC operates a globally distributed real-time network with particularly strong performance across some markets in Asia where many global real-time stacks face connectivity and latency challenges. By integrating Tencent RTC, Vision Agents gives developers worldwide a reliable transport option for delivering low-latency, multimodal AI experiences to users in Asia. Developers can improve real-time communication performance by simply swapping the interface.

Wison Xie, Head of Product at Tencent RTC, said: “Vision Agents represents exactly where conversational AI is heading, beyond voice-only, into agents that can truly see, hear, and act in real time. By bringing Tencent RTC’s global real-time backbone to the Vision Agents framework, we are giving developers worldwide a turnkey path to ship multimodal agents that perform reliably from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen. This collaboration reinforces our commitment to powering the next generation of real-time AI experiences for enterprises and developers across global market.”

Neevash Ramdial, Director of Marketing and Vision Agents Lead, said, “Our goal with Vision Agents is to make real-time AI development faster, more flexible, and open, giving developers the freedom to choose the models, infrastructure, and plugins that work best for their applications. Developers building global conversational AI applications also need reliable real-time performance in every market, and Tencent RTC brings high-quality, low-latency connectivity across Asia to the Vision Agents ecosystem. We’re excited to work with Tencent RTC to help developers scale multimodal AI experiences worldwide while having the freedom to use whichever plugin or model best fits their app.”

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 Vision Agents:
Vision Agents is Stream’s open-source framework that helps developers quickly build real-time video AI applications. It works out of the box with most major LLM, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, avatar, and infrastructure providers, so teams can go from idea to production in just a few lines of code, building everything from real-time sports coaches to rich, context-aware avatars.

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SOURCE Tencent Cloud