As we innovate, scale and pursue the mission of firms, we need to ensure that we stay within the moral and legal boundaries, to preserve and protect our industries, our societies and our nations. In our school, our grand vision is to discover and make scholars noble, bright and useful – and there is no better way to accomplish that than to also include ethics as a course in our business school.

??? ?? ??????? ????????? ???????, FIMC, CMC of Church of St. Patrick, USA, developed the course for us, and he will be live on Zoom to teach Ethics in Business & Project Management.

Tekedia Mini-MBA >> more than a business school.

Tekedia Institute offers Tekedia Mini-MBA, an innovation management 12-week program, optimized for business execution and growth, with digital operational overlay. It runs 100% online. The theme is Innovation, Growth & Digital Execution – Techniques for Building Category-King Companies. All contents are self-paced, recorded and archived which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to consume contents. Besides, programs are designed for ALL sectors, from fintech to construction, healthcare to manufacturing, agriculture to real estate, etc.

For years, the African aviation industry has struggled to stay afloat amid poor management and tight governments’ bureaucracies, stymieing the integration that would have boosted the sector’s growth.

With each African country setting its own standards – creating multiple rules that have closed the airways to their counterparts – Europe became a rendezvous point for African airlines – consequently making flight fares within the continent – the most expensive in the world – and that has come at the detriment of the aviation industry’s growth.

But that is about to change with a move by some African states to create a single aviation market. Dubbed the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), 35 African nations have shown commitment to pilot the initiative that will integrate their aviation markets to some degree.

Out of the 35 states, 15, which include Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa, have appended their signatures to the pilot project, revisiting the neglected initiative that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has long advocated as a means to “drive economies and create jobs.”

The SAATM initiative was launched in 2018, but has been a shadow of its objective until now. The idea has received little attention in the last four years that African aviation sectors have suffered significantly from bureaucratic bottlenecks.

The initiative received hope of revival after the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) announced the launch of the Pilot Implementation Project on the 14th of November 2022.

The initial stage of the SAATM’s pilot scheme, which is expected to be concluded by the end of the year, involves these countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Africa, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo and Zambia.

A meeting for the implementation has been scheduled for the 5th of December 2022, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, during the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Air Services Negotiation, where the 15 African countries are expected to be in attendance.

The SATMM’s pilot project was agreed upon by ministers representing the 15 African countries during a meeting held in Senegal to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the Yamoussoukro Decision (an agreement among African countries to ease harsh restrictions on intra-Africa air travel), per Insider.

The SAATM initiative involves airlines from the 15 signatory countries, signing a strategic partnership framework that will cut costs, increase the size of the available fleet at their disposal, and enable flights between their territories. It has the goal of spurring the economic growth of its member states. The initiative is aimed at promoting integration across the African continent by abolishing the rules and restrictions that birthed stringent air travel culture in Africa.

The African Union (AU) said high taxes and charges are partly responsible for the high cost of air transport in Africa. Reducing the high taxes and charges is expected to boost economic growth and create jobs. The AU said that signatories’ economies would gain $4.2bn in GDP, as well as 596,000 new jobs and a 27% reduction in air fares if SAATM is fully implemented.

“SAATM will ensure aviation plays a major role in connecting Africa, promoting its social, economic and political integration and boosting intra-Africa trade and tourism as a result,” the union said.

Already Kenya and South Africa have entered into an agreement that will allow their airlines unlimited access to their markets.

It was a fanatical crusade: bitcoin and the broad cryptocurrency world was decentralized and unbounded from the high voltage searchlights of governments. The hodlers believed that you can live in your hut, your mansion, and anything in between, untethered to any central ordinance.

But here, I had posited that it was all an illusion to think that Bitcoin is not centralized. Indeed, the top 10 global miners possibly control up to 70% of the total coins being created. And what that means is this: only a few people or organizations can  “print” the new currency of Bitcoin and bring it to the world. Sure, many prefer that over central banks because governments are bad!

But with the collapse of FTX and the domino impacts across domains and territories, we can now agree that crypto is not fundamentally decentralized, but centralized outside the powers of government. As FTX goes, it has taken hedge funds, startups, businesses and thousands of global citizens along, financially. From Nigeria to Germany, Canada to Japan, etc, entities have been affected just because one company faded.

Good People, if anyone tells you that his coin is outside the influence of the government, ask him how he got the bank account which made it possible for you to use actual currency to buy his coin. For him to get that bank account, he must have been normalized by the government and that means having a company incorporated and using the documents to get a bank account. 

Provided they are not asking for shells or cowries but Naira and US dollars, be assured that they are part of the government system. FTX is an exchange and all exchanges are an extension of governments because exchanges must have bank accounts, pay taxes and have licenses to operate. 

Which one makes sense – decentralize technically but centralized at exchanges or just trust that central bank governor? I wish hodlers will beg governments to regulate cryptos to make them better, and stop the illusion they can run away from governments.

It turns out that crytocurrencies are not decentralized with one company controlling more than 25% mining capacity of one of the most popular ones. The top miners control nearly half of the total mining capacities. If you look at it the other way round, those guys are the ones “printing the money”. I will prefer government to print my money than 3 people controlling a currency I use. I do believe that crypto is a fraud and an illusion. Yes, it is an illusion to think that you can run away from government when you live under government. No African country has the technical capacity to lead the mining. The miners are the new “central banks” and if you trust them, I simply pity you.

FTX brought winter to the crypto world

From LinkedIn News: ‘Crypto exchange Kraken announced Wednesday that it’s laying off 30% of its workforce — about 1,100 employees — as the meltdown in the digital currency market gains pace. Kraken, one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges, had tripled its headcount in the past few years, CEO Jesse Powell said. He added that the layoffs would take Kraken’s “team size back to where it was only 12 months ago.” The cuts come just days after Kraken agreed to pay $360,000 to settle with the Treasury Department for breaking U.S. sanctions against Iran.

A string of digital currency platforms, including Coinbase and Gemini, have announced job cuts following the high-profile implosion of crypto exchange FTX. Powell said he remains “extremely bullish on crypto and Kraken.”’