Dr Student ICT Center

12/08/2018

Restrictions vs Freedom

Powerful interests want to censor free speech,
block the sharing of information, hinder innovation and control how Internet users get online. Care is necessary.

When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is the first line of defense. EFF was founded in 1990, well
before the Internet was on most people’s radar and continues today to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation and consumer rights.

"The power of the Web is in its universality.
Access by everyone regardless of disability
is an essential aspect."

-- Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and
inventor of the World Wide Web

12/08/2018

Be a Career Coach or a Computer Trainer.
“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”

Mother Teresa

Thank You!

Mission Statement
The Pixel and Palette Club aims to foster creativity, innovation, and technical skills in children, empowering them to become the next generation of artists, technologists, innovators and leaders.

12/08/2018

There’s a myth going around.

Ask anyone the best way to get noticed online, chances are they’ll say: “Just produce more content!”

Or, “Just write more books!”

Or, “Start a podcast! Shoot some videos! Write more blog posts!”

Somehow it’s as if flinging out random content into the world will somehow magically help you grow your audience and find more readers.

If you’ve ever tried that approach, I’m betting you burned out pretty quick.

Overwhelm is a killer. And so is bad advice. When you don’t know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, it’s not wonder people struggle to grow their businesses.

My favorite approach: find someone who’s found success and model their approach to your own business.

And that’s what my email is all about today.

My friend Nick Stephenson has just released a free online training series that breaks down how he went from a struggling graduate trying to find work to a business owner and author bringing in 7 figures a year.

Using ebooks and publishing.

The first video in this free video training series is out right now for a limited time - in this session Nick explains the 5 top struggles that online business owners face, and the super-specific 3 step formula you can use to overcome them.

Go Watch The Video Here http://affiliates.yourfirst10kreaders.com/a/10kV1/a53

Just click the link above, enter your email address, and you’ll get access to the first video right away.

Then Nick will send you the rest of the training series when it’s ready.

In this free video training series you’ll also learn:

-how to use ebooks to grow your audience on autopilot

-how to sell without being sleazy, and get readers begging to buy from you

-how to put everything on autopilot so you can avoid overwhelm and focus on other things

-why “just write more content” is terrible advice, and what you should do instead

Over the course of 3 videos, Nick’s going to break it all down for you.

But for now, go watch Video 1 here http://affiliates.yourfirst10kreaders.com/a/10kV1/a53

And Nick will be sure to send you the rest of your free training as soon as it’s ready.

Yours,

Jeff

05/08/2018

The human brain works as a binary computer and can only analyze the exact information-based zeros and ones (or black and white).

Our heart is more like a chemical computer that uses fuzzy logic to analyze information that can't be easily defined in zeros and ones.

22/07/2018

Financial technology companies in the U.S. raised $3.5 billion in the first half of 2017, according to KPMG, as investors rushed to place bets in buzzy sectors like insurance and digital currencies.

The U.S. is now home to 13 fintech unicorns that have scored valuations of at least $1 billion. This year alone, Robinhood (free trading), AvidXChange (automated invoicing for small businesses) and Symphony (Wall Street messaging platform) all joined the billion-dollar club.

Here are the ten most valuable private, venture-backed fintech players based in the U.S.:

1.

Value: $9.2 billion*

Founded: 2010

Founders: Patrick and John Collison

CEO: Patrick Collison

Allows merchants to accept online and mobile payments

2.

Value: $4.3 billion

Founded: 2011

Founders: Mike Cagney, Dan Macklin, James Finnigan,

Ian Brady, Andy Carra

CEO: Mike Cagney

Offers student loan refinancing and other services to Millennials

3.

Value: $3.6 billion

Founded: 2006

Founders: David Zalik, Larry Smith

CEO: David Zalik

Provides on-the-spot financing for home-improvement projects via its network of contractors. (For more, check out Forbes' cover story on GreenSky.)

4. Karma

Value: $3.5 billion

Founded: 2007

Founders: Kenneth Lin, Nichole Mustard, Ryan Graciano

CEO: Kenneth Lin

Offers free credit scores and recommendations for credit cards and loans

5.

Value: $2.7 billion

Founded: 2013

Founders: Josh Kushner, Mario Schlosser, Kevin Nazemi

CEO: Mario Schlosser

Makes it simpler to buy and use health insurance under Obamacare

6.

Value: $2 billion

Founded: 2012

Founders: Al Goldstein, John Sun, Paul Zhang

CEO: Al Goldstein

Makes quick online loans to consumers with lower credit scores

7.

Value: $2 billion

Founded: 2013

Founders: Parker Conrad, Laks Srini

CEO: Jay Fulcher

Sells a cloud-based human resources platform for businesses

8.

Value: $1.9 billion

Founded: 2005

Founders: Chris Larsen, John Witchel

CEO: David Kimball

Connects borrowers and investors for unsecured personal loans

9.

Value: $1.4 billion

Founded: 2000

Founders: Michael Praeger, David Miller

CEO: Michael Praeger

Automates invoicing and bill payments for businesses

10.

Value: $1.3 billion

Founded: 2013

Founders: Baiju Bhatt, Vladimir Tenev

Co-CEOs: Baiju Bhatt, Vladimir Tenev

Offers free trades of stocks and ETFs via mobile app

*Valuations are from PitchBook and CB Insights.

19/07/2018

Good Day,

You’re all set!
To find us on any social media platform, use the

for .

It's now easier for people to find your Page in search using studentICTclass .

Visit our Page at@ fb.me/studentICTclass
Or
Send Page messages at@ m.me/studentICTclass.

More INFO soon!

Watch out for the Update on the Courses we offer.

18/07/2018

How The World's Billionaires Got So Rich
Oma Seddiq


There are many possible ways to become one of the world’s richest people. Some billionaires built arcade machines, made wedding dresses, sold soy sauce or invented hot new apps, then saw their fortunes multiply. Others grew tech firms to sky-high valuations and got ultra-wealthy along the way. While there are many roads to riches, there are a few paths where ten-digit fortunes are more likely to be made.

Many of the individuals on Forbes’ 2018 World’s Billionaires list, for instance, got rich by handling other people’s money. The finance and investments industry—including private equity owners, hedge fund managers and discount brokers—helped produce more billionaires than any other. Altogether the sector held 310, or around 14%, of the fortunes on our 2,208 person list. Billionaires in finance topped the ranks in countries ranging from Brazil to Indonesia. Of these, 24 were newcomers. That includes the first-ever cryptocurrency billionaires, Chris Larsen and Changpeng Zhao (known as CZ), as well as Canadian Stephen Smith, who launched his mortgage lender just four years after being personally bankrupt.

Fashion and retail was the industry with the second most billionaires, accounting for 235, or 11% of the worldwide total. Six of the top 20 billionaires on our list were part of that category, thanks to their respective ownerships of fashion retailer Zara, cosmetics brand L’Oreal, luxury group LVMH and Walmart, the world’s biggest company, as measured by revenue. The industry has minted plenty of other name-brand billionaires including Sara Blakely, the shapewear guru behind Spanx; Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank; and Home Depot cofounders Bernard Marcus, Arthur Blank and Kenneth Langone.

Even as e-commerce giant Amazon takes a bite out of retail sales, there are plenty of entrepreneurs still making money in the sector, including 19 newcomers. Among the new faces are Sheela Gautam, who sells mattresses in India; Helga Kellerhals, who owns electronics retailers in Germany and Lawrence Rossy, who runs the largest dollar store chain in Canada, Dollarama. In all, billionaires in the fashion and retail industry were worth nearly $1.2 trillion, or around 13% of the list’s combined fortune of $9.1 trillion.

A tenth of the richest people on earth got rich by building real estate empires. With a total of 220 billionaires, the real estate industry was the third largest source of wealth this year. China was home to the most property owners, with 60, followed by the United States, with 44. Among those was President Donald Trump, with an estimated net worth of $3.1 billion. But there was another Donald who was five times richer: Donald Bren, the richest real estate developer in the U.S., with an estimated net worth of $16.3 billion.

Manufacturing made up 9% of the total list, with 207 billionaires, a huge leap from last year’s total of 171, making it the industry with the most newcomers. Perhaps surprisingly, tech placed behind it, coming in fifth place as the most likely way to make a mega-fortune. The tech sector represented 9% of the world’s billionaires and 14% of the total wealth. Of those individuals, eight made it into the top 20, including the first centi-billionaire on the Forbes Billionaires ranks, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who secured the number one spot. Tech also had four of the billionaires under 30, including the youngest self-made billionaire, John Collison, of payments processor Stripe, who is just 27-years-old.

Even though some trends have emerged, the rich get rich in different ways. Take Arizona Iced Tea creator Don Vultaggio or Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, both of whom just joined the three-comma club. For some billionaires, good genes were enough to land them on the list—33% of the rankings inherited their fortunes. For the rest, one factor remains mostly constant: they did what they loved and made astonishing sums of money. And had some luck on their side.

See below for the list of the industries most represented on Forbes’ 2018 World’s Billionaires ranks:

Industry No of Billionaires % of total
Finance and Investments 310 14%
Fashion and Retail 235 11%
Real Estate 220 10%
Manufacturing 207 9%
Technology 205 9%
Diversified 194 9%
Food and Beverage 165 7%
Healthcare 134 6%
Energy 94 4%
Media and Entertainment 73 3%

18/07/2018

Forbes found a record 2,208 billionaires, collectively worth $9.1 trillion. Among them are 259 newcomers who made their fortunes in everything from wedding dresses to children’s toys to electric cars.

Centibillionaire Jeff Bezos is the richest person on Earth for the first time, thanks to a $39.2 billion jump in his net worth in the past year. He knocks Bill Gates to number 2.

18/07/2018

How Digital Tech Will Change Oil And Gas Companies

By Riccardo Bertocco, Lodewijk de Graauw and Dmitry Naberezhnev

Unlike other industries that are enjoying a sudden embrace of benefits from data, the oil and gas sector is well acquainted with analytics. For decades, energy companies have relied on rich pools of data to discover and understand the potential in their reservoirs and other production opportunities.

Even so, most have yet to capture the full potential of their data because they haven’t always been able to generate actionable insights or make better and faster decisions based on data. That will change as oil and gas companies upgrade their digital capabilities and improve the way they connect these insights to their operating models. We expect to see dramatic cost savings and significant improvements in productivity and revenue. One integrated oil company managed to save about 10% on unit costs by digitizing a remote offshore operations center. Another reduced operating costs per barrel by about 10% and recovered more reserves by applying selective applications in intelligent oilfields through collective computing and sharing real-time information at all company levels.

Most of today’s digital initiatives in oil and gas are incremental rather than disruptive. Companies are making improvements in technical or operational capabilities, like predictive maintenance or completed analysis on wells. One reason for this gradual approach is that most companies aren’t ready for a big transformation because they lack the people, processes and capital required to make it happen. In particular, we see three common pitfalls in some oil and gas companies that have begun to invest in digital.

• No long-term digital strategy. Without an integrated, multiyear plan, companies risk investing billions of dollars while capturing few benefits. For example, offshore platforms can generate more than a terabyte of data every day, but the satellite uplink is too slow to transfer all that data – so the operations teams on land can’t keep up with the available data. An integrated plan would spot this and place the analytics resources closer to the data: on the platform.

• Outdated operating model. Valuable information can get stranded if companies neglect to connect information flows. For example, a company might invest in a visual scheduling system with sophisticated routing capabilities. But if it fails to connect it to line management’s scheduling systems, the data winds up stranded.

• Unprepared workforce. As in many other industries, oil and gas teams are mostly unprepared to take full advantage of the potential in digital. Most will need to invest in the capabilities of their teams – in most cases requiring a combination of recruiting fresh talent (including data scientists and other digitally savvy professionals) and teaching new skills to current staff.

As companies put in place specific digital capabilities that can deliver fast results at reasonable costs, executives need to develop a strategic roadmap encompassing the digital strategy, operating model changes and, most important, people capabilities.

Approaches differ, of course, from one company to the next, depending on appetite for risk and the potential gains at hand. But they typically include five key elements:

• Identify the areas of the value chain with the highest impact on financial and operating results and cross them with the opportunities to enhance delivery through digital technologies.

• Monitor key industry and technology trends, focusing on the identified value chain areas that are specific to the operations. Decide whether to lead the industry by innovating or by acting as a fast follower by implementing tested technologies and processes.

• Clearly define the links between the company’s most critical decisions and digital applications, including showing how digital applications will improve decision-making effectiveness. In addition, adjust the operating model to facilitate the sharing of key information, leveraging all available data sources.

• Evaluate the investment necessary to digitize the key activities of the company’s value chain, and develop a multiyear budget and an overall roadmap balancing the capture of economic benefits with the financial burden on the cash flow.

• Assess current personnel capabilities and develop a plan to address the gap. The talent upgrade plan should deal with deficits in technical expertise and include a comprehensive set of actions to instruct those at the front line on how to change their way of working.

Every oil and gas company’s digital journey will differ, depending on their industry position, ambitions and opportunities. However, at a time when low oil and gas prices are restricting investment, this is one area of the business where cost has been decreasing and tools rapidly improving—so it should merit an increasing share of budget and focus.

But whether a leader or fast follower, every oil and gas company will need a strategic plan that measures out short-term gains while building capabilities to develop long-term competitive advantage. Perhaps most important, they should all include details on how the flow of information necessitates changes to the operating model, and how each company plans to upgrade its talent and capabilities to make the most of its potential.