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Ellucian Honored in Fast Company World Changing Ideas Awards

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Ellucian Student, higher ed’s complete solution that powers the end-to-end student lifecycle, was recognized by Fast Company for its lifelong learning capability, which leverages AI to connect education pathways to workforce outcomes.The award underscores Ellucian’s commitment to helping institutions expand access to workforce-relevant education and career-connected learning opportunities.Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards recognize organizations and innovations making an impact on society through creativity, technology, and measurable results.

RESTON, Va., June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ellucian, the leading higher education technology solutions provider, today announced it has been named an honoree in Fast Company’s 2026 World Changing Ideas Awards, which recognize organizations, products, and initiatives creating meaningful impact through innovation. The company was recognized for its lifelong learning capability within Ellucian Student, higher education’s complete solution that powers the end-to-end student lifecycle. Powered by AI, the capability helps institutions connect continuing education and workforce development programs to workforce needs, enabling learners to build relevant skills, pursue career-aligned pathways, and continue learning throughout their lives.

“Learning today extends far beyond a traditional degree, creating new opportunities for individuals to grow, adapt, and achieve their goals throughout their lives,” said Laura Ipsen, President and CEO, Ellucian. “Ellucian Student is built to support every learner’s journey — from enrollment through graduation and beyond. Its lifelong learning capability uses AI to help institutions connect education to workforce opportunity, making learning more personalized, accessible, and aligned to evolving career needs. We are honored to be recognized by Fast Company for helping institutions unlock new pathways for lifelong success.”

Recognized for Driving Meaningful Impact

Now in its ninth year, Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards honor innovative organizations and solutions that combine creativity, technology, and measurable impact to address major societal challenges and create positive change. A panel of Fast Company editors and reporters evaluated more than 1,500 entries based on their impact, sustainability, design, creativity, scalability, and ability to improve society. This year’s awards highlight 191 outstanding projects across 14 categories.

“The World Changing Ideas Awards are more than inspiration — they’re a measure of real-world impact,” said Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief, Fast Company. “This year’s honorees are turning bold ideas into tangible solutions and addressing urgent global challenges with creativity and rigor.”

As workforce needs continue to evolve, institutions are increasingly looking for new ways to help learners gain in-demand skills, reskill for changing careers, and pursue education beyond traditional degree pathways. Lifelong learning bridges the gap between education and workforce opportunity.

Helping Learners Prepare for What’s Next

Lifelong learning helps institutions connect continuing education and workforce development programs to real-world career outcomes. Powered by AI, it:

Maps curriculum to workforce skill demands.Delivers personalized learning recommendations based on career goals.Helps learners visualize progress toward skills and career advancement.

The result is a more connected learning experience that helps institutions better serve learners, strengthen workforce alignment, and support success across a lifetime of learning.

To see the full list of winners, visit: https://www.fastcompany.com/world-changing-ideas/list

To learn more about Ellucian’s lifelong learning capability, visit: https://www.ellucian.com/products/student/lifelong-learning

WHAT IS FAST COMPANY
Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.

WHAT IS ELLUCIAN
Ellucian powers innovation for higher education, partnering with approximately 3,000 customers across 50 countries, serving more than 21 million students. Ellucian’s AI-powered platform, trained on the richest dataset available in higher education, drives efficiency, personalized experiences, and strengthened engagement for all students, faculty and staff. Fueled by decades of experience with a singular focus on the unique needs of learning institutions, the Ellucian platform features best-in-class SaaS capabilities and delivers insights needed now and into the future. These solutions and services span the entire student lifecycle, including data-rich tools for student recruitment, enrollment, and retention to workforce analytics, fundraising, and alumni engagement. Ellucian’s innovative solutions, vast ecosystem of partners and user community of more than 45,000 provides best practices leading to greater institutional success and achieving better student outcomes.

Media Contacts:
Greg Giangrande, Chief Marketing Officer
Greg.Giangrande@Ellucian.com

Jess Weston, Manager, Communications
Jess.Weston@Ellucian.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ellucian-honored-in-fast-company-world-changing-ideas-awards-302802033.html

SOURCE Ellucian

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Opsera Launches BrickForge by Opsera, a Purpose-Built AI Operational Command Center for Enterprise Data Teams, on Databricks Marketplace

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June 16, 2026

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Built on the Databricks platform, BrickForge delivers a unified operational command center for Databricks environments

SAN FRANCISCO, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Databricks Data + AI Summit – Opsera, the leader in AI-powered software delivery, today announced the availability of BrickForge on Databricks Marketplace, an open marketplace for data, analytics, and AI, powered by OpenSharing. A purpose-built AI Application, BrickForge gives enterprise data teams what they have been missing: a native command center to observe, diagnose, fix, and govern their entire Databricks estate — without adding infrastructure or touching business data.

Opsera will showcase BrickForge at the Databricks Data + AI Summit, Booth #223. To learn more, visit opsera.ai/brickforge.

The trigger is real. A recent Databricks State of AI Agents report stated that 80% of databases on its platform are now created by agents, not humans. As organizations produce more data products and pipelines alongside this agentic growth, operational complexity grows with it — compliance posture drifts, SQL workloads accumulate security exposure, recovery plans go untested, and deployments introduce configuration risk.

BrickForge addresses that through the BrickForge Operational Loop — a four-stage continuous process for governing Databricks estates at the pace of AI:

Observe: Live Databricks health monitoring across every cluster, job, Delta Live Tables (DLT) pipeline, warehouse, and AI endpoints. When something drifts or degrades, teams see it before it becomes an incident. No log-diving. No waiting for users to report errors.

Diagnose: AI-assisted root-cause analysis that surfaces the exact issue — configuration drift, a YAML delta, a SQL vulnerability, a compliance control slipping — with prioritized remediation options before engineers are paged.

Fix: Human-authorized remediation in minutes, not hours. Declarative Automation Bundles (DABs) generation, 3-stage YAML validation, multi-environment promotion and migration — every action is version-controlled, auditable, and executed with explicit confirmation.

Govern: Continuous posture monitoring against SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and ISO 27001. Per-control verdicts, evidence citations, audit-ready reporting, AI-generated Disaster Recovery plans, workspace replication, and executable RTO/RPO drills — so compliance and resilience are always current, not a fire drill.

“The way enterprises operate their data estate hasn’t kept pace with how fast AI agents are generating pipelines and products,” said Kumar Chivukula, co-founder and CEO of Opsera. “Bringing BrickForge to the Databricks Marketplace gives data teams an operational command center to observe, diagnose, remediate, and govern — with compliance, policy, operational health and disaster recovery built in.”

BrickForge runs natively inside a customer’s existing Databricks tenant under a Zero Business Data Contact principle — evaluating metadata and infrastructure patterns, not row-level data. No new infrastructure. No data egress Data Processing Agreement (DPA). No new vendor trust boundary. What typically takes weeks of security reviews and months of architecture approvals is compressed to days.

“Customers consistently ask us for easier, more secure ways to discover, access, and share data and AI assets across their organizations and ecosystems,” said Stephen Orban, SVP, Product Ecosystem & Partnerships at Databricks. “By bringing BrickForge to the Databricks Marketplace, Opsera and Databricks are helping our joint customers accelerate innovation and unlock more value from their data on an open, governed platform.”

BrickForge extends the company’s AI-SDLC platform — which includes the Forge AI software factory — to enterprise data teams, adding operational governance and intelligence to the full software and data delivery lifecycles.

About Opsera 
Opsera helps enterprises operationalize AI-driven software delivery through its AI-SDLC platform, combining intelligent orchestration, operational intelligence, and an open ecosystem of AI tools and partners. By understanding the intent and context of development workflows, Opsera empowers teams to embrace spec-driven development and leverage agentic workflows to automate complex pipelines safely. By helping customers navigate their AI journey at their own pace, Opsera enables organizations to govern, measure, and scale AI-generated software with confidence.

Media Contact:
Terri Douglas
Catapult PR-IR
tdouglas@catapultpr-ir.com

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SOURCE Opsera

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America’s Freedom Bell to Complete Historic Cross-Country Journey at the Countdown 250 Ball

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June 16, 2026

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Midnight “Bells of Freedom” Ceremony to Welcome America Into Its 250th Year

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Countdown 250 and America’s Freedom Bell today announced a landmark partnership that will culminate in one of the nation’s most memorable Independence Weekend moments.

At the stroke of midnight on July 3, 2026, as America enters its 250th year, America’s Freedom Bell will ring from the Countdown 250 Ball at the Washington Hilton while guests throughout the ballroom join together in a joyful chorus of commemorative bells during the event’s signature “Bells of Freedom” ceremony.

The moment will mark the culmination of America’s Freedom Bell’s cross-country patriotic journey, which begins in California and travels through communities across the nation before arriving in Washington, D.C. during Independence Weekend.

Forged as a tribute to America’s Armed Forces and carrying steel recovered from the World Trade Center, America’s Freedom Bell serves as a powerful symbol of service, sacrifice, resilience, liberty, and national unity. The bell bears the inscription: “Honoring Our Armed Forces Past, Present and Future.”

“The Freedom Bell represents the very ideals we hope to celebrate during America’s 250th anniversary,” said Mike Harrigan, Founder and Executive Producer of Countdown 250. “Its journey across America and its midnight arrival in Washington create a powerful national storyline that honors our past while bringing people together to celebrate our future.”

The Countdown 250 Ball is expected to feature more than a dozen entertainers, musicians, DJs, and performers across four live stages and seven distinct celebration areas. Guests will also experience immersive exhibits, patriotic tributes, presentation of the inaugural All-American Hero and All-American Icon Awards, premium hospitality experiences, and educational programming celebrating American innovation, achievement, and service.

Currently announced All-American Hero Award recipients include Senator Elizabeth Dole, Captain Luis Avila, Claudia Avila, and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Deborah Snyder.

The event benefits Operation Renewed Hope Foundation and its mission to provide housing and support services to veterans and their families.

Tickets, VIP experiences, reserved tables, and sponsorship opportunities remain available.

For more information, visit:
countdown250.allamericanball.com

Media Contact:
Mike Harrigan, Founder & Executive Producer
Countdown 250 Ball
703-930-0400
416996@email4pr.com 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/americas-freedom-bell-to-complete-historic-cross-country-journey-at-the-countdown-250-ball-302802191.html

SOURCE The Countdown 250 Ball

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BRENT HARRAMAN JOINS GULF CAPITAL BANK AS SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT / BUSINESS BANKING DIRECTOR

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June 16, 2026

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HOUSTON, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Gulf Capital Bank (GCB) announced today that longtime Houston banker Brent Harraman has joined the bank as Senior Vice President / Business Banking Director.

“Brent brings decades of banking and sales leadership experience to GCB and will support our growth as we continue building Houston’s trusted relationship bank for local businesses and individuals,” said J. Downey Bridgwater, Chairman and CEO.

“As one of Houston’s few truly independent Texas banks, Gulf Capital Bank pairs competitive products with an exceptional customer experience,” said Harraman. “I am honored to join this growing company and look forward to helping Houston businesses and residents thrive.”

“Brent’s extensive experience and leadership serving small-to-mid-sized Houston businesses will be invaluable as we continue providing high-touch relationship banking to the Houston community,” said Jonathan Homeyer, GCB’s President and Chief Lending Officer. “We are excited to welcome Brent to our growing team.”

About Gulf Capital Bank: Gulf Capital Bank, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is redefining the value of a bank. The bank opened its doors in January 2020 and keeps personal relationships at the center of everything it does. With decades-deep local roots, the team offers the personal touch of a traditional community bank combined with state-of-the-art banking technology and commercial banking expertise led by a group of Houston’s business and civic leaders to help customers accomplish their business and personal financial objectives. For additional information, please visit http://www.gulfcapitalbank.com/.

BANKING BUILT FOR HOUSTON

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SOURCE Gulf Capital Bank

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