The endorsement and international recognition reinforce the growing importance of public-private partnerships in combating organised fraud, recruitment fraud, human trafficking and related financial crimes.

HONG KONG, July 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — QNET has formally endorsed the Global Public-Private Partnership Framework Against Fraud, joining a growing coalition of law enforcement agencies, international organisations, financial institutions, technology companies, responsible businesses and civil society organisations committed to strengthening global efforts against transnational fraud.

The endorsement follows QNET’s participation in the inaugural UNODC-INTERPOL Global Fraud Summit in Vienna, where the Framework was officially launched after being introduced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in March 2026., The Framework provides a practical roadmap for stronger public-private-sector cooperation through intelligence sharing, prevention, investigations, victim support and innovation.

QNET is among the organisations publicly listed by the UNODC as endorsing the Framework, reinforcing its commitment to collaborative efforts that support intelligence sharing, investigations, public awareness and victim support.

The announcement also comes as QNET’s partnership with Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has gained international recognition as an example of how public-private cooperation can strengthen efforts against organised fraud.

At the Summit, the QNET-EOCO partnership was presented as a practical case study demonstrating how collaboration between law enforcement and responsible businesses can help combat recruitment fraud, human trafficking and the criminal misuse of legitimate brands.

That recognition was further reinforced this month when EOCO, in collaboration with INTERPOL, convened the Regional Case Coordination Workshop on “Model Q” in Accra. The workshop brought together investigators and prosecutors from across West Africa to strengthen regional coordination against organised criminal networks responsible for recruitment fraud, human trafficking and related financial crimes.

Together, these developments underscore the growing international consensus that organised fraud can only be effectively addressed through sustained collaboration between governments, law enforcement agencies, and responsible private-sector organisations.

“The criminal networks behind today’s fraud schemes do not operate in isolation, and neither can the response,” said Mattias Mildenborn, CEO, QNET. “Our experience working alongside authorities such as Ghana’s EOCO has demonstrated the value of trusted public-private collaboration in disrupting organised criminal networks and protecting vulnerable communities. Endorsing the Framework reflects our commitment to strengthening that cooperation internationally.”

EOCO Executive Director Raymond Archer has likewise emphasised the importance of sustained collaboration between public authorities and responsible businesses.

“Our Memorandum of Understanding with QNET demonstrates how collaboration between law enforcement and the private sector can deliver meaningful results in tackling fraud and protecting citizens. Such partnerships are essential in addressing the evolving nature of organised financial crime,” said Raymond Archer, Executive Director, Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO)

The partnership between QNET and EOCO was established in 2025 through a Memorandum of Understanding focused on intelligence sharing, investigative cooperation, public awareness and victim support. Since then, both organisations have worked together to combat organised criminal networks that misuse the QNET brand through fraudulent job offers, fake overseas employment schemes and human trafficking.

Beyond Ghana, QNET has expanded its collaboration with law enforcement agencies and regulators across multiple jurisdictions to identify the criminal misuse of its brand, support enforcement action against fraud networks and strengthen consumer protection.

As fraud continues to evolve across borders, QNET believes the principles outlined in the Global Public-Private Partnership Framework Against Fraud provide an important blueprint for strengthening cooperation between governments, law enforcement agencies and responsible private-sector organisations.

“Public-private partnerships are no longer optional in the fight against organised fraud—they are essential,” added Mildenborn. “Our endorsement of the Framework reflects our long-term commitment to sharing practical experience, supporting investigations, protecting consumers and working alongside international partners to ensure legitimate businesses cannot be exploited by organised criminal networks.”

About the Global Public-Private Partnership Framework Against Fraud

The Global Public-Private Partnership Framework Against Fraud was developed through the UNODC-INTERPOL Global Fraud Summit to strengthen international cooperation against fraud. The Framework promotes collaboration between governments, law enforcement agencies, industry and civil society through six guiding principles: shared responsibility, proactive prevention, information sharing, victim support, education and innovation.

For more information:

UNODC Global Fraud Summit: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/organized-crime/global-fraud-summit/UNODC Endorsements: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/organized-crime/global-fraud-summit/endorsements.html

About QNET
QNET is a wellness and lifestyle-focused direct selling company founded in 1998 and headquartered in Hong Kong. Through its e-commerce platform and independent distributor network, QNET offers health, wellness and lifestyle products in more than 25 countries. The company actively collaborates with governments, regulators and law enforcement agencies to combat recruitment fraud, human trafficking, scams and the criminal misuse of its brand.

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In partnership with Anthropic and Lovable, Stellic launches competition giving students access to free tools to design and build a working solution to a problem they’ve experienced during their higher education journey

SAN MATEO, Calif., July 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Stellic—the Bay Area-based developer of the innovative academic planning and degree management platform that now serves more than 1 million students across 100 colleges and universities—today announced the launch of a national competition that puts the tools for redesigning college in the hands of the students who navigate it every day. The Pathfinders Challenge invites college students to design, test and build real solutions to problems they’ve experienced firsthand—turning the friction they’ve lived through into working applications that can help other students and their institutions.

Participating students will gain access to free credits for Lovable, a vibe-coding platform that enables users to build full working apps based on plain-language descriptions, or for the Claude API for students who want to build with code.

Open to any enrolled university or college student aged 18 or older in the United States, Canada, Mexico, or Australia, the Pathfinders Challenge invites students to build a solution to a problem they’ve personally experienced in college. Students are rarely in the room when institutions choose the systems and processes meant to serve them, and the Pathfinders Challenge puts the people who live with that friction every day in charge of fixing it. Students can enter solo or in teams of up to three, including teammates from different schools, and no formal coding experience is required.

Submissions can address any of four categories: degree planning and discovery, overcoming obstacles like cost and paperwork, campus connection and belonging, or the transition from college to career. A complete submission includes a working link, a two-minute demo video, a 500-word write-up, and a list of every tool used.

Registration is open now, giving students access to free credits for Lovable or the Claude API. Rather than asking students to work around outdated systems, the challenge asks them to imagine what those systems could look like if they were built around the people who actually use them—and then to build it.

Prizes total $12,000, including a $5,000 grand prize plus a career conversation with Stellic’s leadership team, two $2,500 runner-up prizes, and four $500 category prizes. The top three teams will present live at Stellic Summit in front of college leaders from across the country, and every qualifying submission earns a digital badge for the student’s portfolio. Students do not need to attend a school that uses Stellic’s platform to participate.

Built to remove barriers and simplify the student journey, Stellic’s suite of tools—including Progress for degree management, Care for proactive advising and roster management, and now Explore for transfer evaluation—helps institutions create more affordable, efficient, and transparent pathways to completion. Founded by Sabih Bin Wasi, a first-generation immigrant and first-generation college student, Stellic began as a student venture during his time at Carnegie Mellon University. Today, the company works with institutions of every type and size, including community colleges, public and private universities and major research institutions.

Key dates and details:

Submissions close: August 21, 2026Winners announced: Early September 2026Finalist presentations: September 23, 2026, at Stellic Summit in Philadelphia, an annual gathering of Stellic’s partner colleges

Students can register and learn more at stellic.com/pathfinders. Questions can be directed to pathfinders@stellic.com.

About Stellic. Stellic is a leading student success and academic planning platform used by over 100 higher education institutions worldwide and more than 1 million students. The company empowers students, advisors, and administrators with modern tools to streamline degree progress, automate transfer evaluations, and make data-informed decisions that drive completion and engagement. Learn more at www.stellic.com.

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The voice AI platform grew from a side project to $21M ARR and 8 million users in its first year

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Fish Audio, the AI voice platform for expressive real-time text-to-speech, voice cloning, and voice agents, today announced $52 million in seed funding led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today, with participation from 359 Capital, Play Time, HF0, 645 Ventures, Parable, Carya Venture Partners, Alphalist Partners, and leading angel investors. The round comes as the company marks its first anniversary, having grown from zero to $21 million in annual recurring revenue and more than 8 million users across creators, developers, and enterprises.

Fish Audio began in the bedroom of Co-Founder and Chief Scientist Shijia Liao, a former NVIDIA video researcher and lifelong VTuber and anime fan frustrated with monotonous synthetic voices. Training models on a single gaming GPU, he set out to fix it. The resulting open-source project, Fish Speech, quickly became one of the most popular voice projects on GitHub with more than 31,000 stars and a devoted following among indie developers, video game designers, and creators. Now, Fish Audio is one of the fastest-growing companies in voice AI, capable of cloning a voice from a 5-second clip in roughly 15 seconds, supporting 83+ languages, and providing word-level emotion control with more than 15,000 natural language controls. From the start, the mission has been to make expressive, high-quality voice AI accessible to everyone, and the company’s growth shows that mission is resonating.

“We built Fish Audio because we wanted voice AI that sounded human, not chunky or robotic, and we wanted that quality to be accessible at any scale,” said Rissa Cao, co-founder and CEO of Fish Audio. “We make high-quality, human-sounding voices available to every user, from beginner creatives to million-dollar enterprises, so communication is not only more efficient, but more trustworthy. We’ve always believed that if we kept making the models better, people would notice. Eight million of them did. There’s a lot of work left to do, and now we have the resources to do it.”

Fish Audio voice AI models meet the demands of the most ambitious developers and enterprises. Its models are fast, easy to integrate, and competitive with the best in the category. Its most recent model, S2.1 Pro, is preferred by nearly 67% of listeners over leading competitors in blind listening tests. For enterprises operating in regulated industries, Fish Audio provides on-premises deployment, zero-data-retention policies, and HIPAA-compliant configurations, giving security and procurement teams the assurances they need without slowing innovation.

“Voice is becoming the default interface for AI, and Fish Audio is unlocking this opportunity to a new generation of creators, developers, and enterprises,” said Osuke Honda, Managing Partner at Coreline Ventures. “In its short history, Fish Audio has built an unbeatable track record of pushing the envelope on performance, multilingual support, emotional expression, and cost. All factors that have quickly made Fish Audio the default choice for creators, developers, and now enterprises globally, and we expect them to continue to lead the way.”

Fish Audio will use the funding to expand its model lineup beyond text-to-speech into the full audio-native stack, including voice-native LLMs, speech-to-speech and more; build out its enterprise sales team; and deepen developer tooling and integrations with partners like LiveKit and Retell.

Through the end of August, the company’s largest and most robust model, S2.1 Pro, will be free for developers via API. Begin building today at fish.audio.

About Fish Audio
Fish Audio is the AI voice platform built for speed and control, for developers and enterprises alike. Founded in 2025 and headquartered in Palo Alto, Fish Audio grew out of Fish Speech, one of the most-starred open-source voice projects on GitHub, into a platform serving more than 8 million creators, developers, and enterprises, including HeyGen, Retell, LiveKit, OpenArt, Telnyx and Sanas. Its open models deliver expressive, real-time text-to-speech, voice cloning, and voice agents in more than 83 languages, and can be self-hosted for teams that want full control over their data and infrastructure. To learn more, visit fish.audio.

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SOURCE Fish Audio