According to Quartz, the recent rise of sophisticated ransomware gangs is scrambling the cyber insurance business model. Existing premiums haven’t been enough to cover losses, so insurers are hiking premiums at a fast clip. According to data, ransomware attacks were responsible for all of the growth in US cyber insurance claims last year, and now account for 75% of all cyber claims. In other words, cyber insurers are now almost entirely dedicated to covering one type of risk—ransomware—that barely existed five years ago!

DarkSide is not a unit of Russia’s intelligence services, and there’s no evidence that it is funded or directed by the Kremlin. Instead, DarkSide is a private, for-profit criminal organization that operates under the benign neglect of Russian authorities.

If one takes it to a place like Nigeria, there could be a latent opportunity therein. Sure, the cyberspace sector in Nigeria may not have developed as we have in the US (excluding banking and broad financial services), but the opportunity remains as covid-19-facilitated digitization continues.

Building a business for this redesign would be a win.

Good People, let me thank you all for taking me above 100k followers at LinkedIn. That is now a city, well more than a village. And all connections are natural and organic, by looking at the level of engagement. Thank you!

My experience in LinkedIn can teach someone something: I joined around 2007 while in grad school. I posted something on a small scholarship I received. Someone said I was showing off. I deleted my account as I could not understand the attack.

My Ghanaian brother Brian Laung Aoaeh, CFA asked me to come back. I came back, and I wrote an article, and another person said he was telling us he was “smart”. I deleted my account again. But at the end, in 2016/17, I rejoined and decided to manage the bad species. I took off the Scripture Union vest and now an Onitsha market fighter! Today, it is fire for fire!

This is the message: you need to be in charge of your mission. Do not allow anyone to dictate it. And if you have not followed Ndubuisi Ekekwe, make this place a better place by following me. In college, I edited and published FUTO Bubbles, a print magazine as a student. When you write, you have liberation. Thanks for the opportunity to do just that.

My wife, Ifeoma, said yes because I do write nice poems also! She wants to be getting them all the time. And she does. Thanks.

Foremost business education organization, Tekedia Institute has announced a partnership with Proten International, a leading human capacity development organization in Africa on its channel partnership initiative to advance its Mini MBA program. Through this, Proten International can bundle participants into Tekedia Mini-MBA. Proten operates in many countries in Africa.

Proten International is a leading international Human Resource and Management Consulting firm which provides a range of Advisory and Transformation solutions. Our focus is to align every organisation’s activities relating to People, Process and Technology closely with its business strategy and vision.

Founded in 2010 in the United Kingdom, we have since expanded across Europe and Africa, serving clients across the public and private sectors and various industries including Banking, Oil and Gas, Insurance, Information Technology, Real Estate, Energy, FMCG, Manufacturing and many more.

The partnership aims to leverage the community network of both renowned organizations in empowering future-driven individuals to access quality business education and achieve their learning and career goals through Tekedia’s mini MBA program.

The sixth edition of Tekedia’s mini-MBA commences on September 13, 2021 and as usual, the institute will be engaging global business leaders and professionals from top companies around the world, led by the Lead Faculty and prominent Nigerian inventor, engineer, author, and entrepreneur, Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe to deliver practical and immersive business lessons and mechanics.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Solomon Johnson, Business Development Manager for Proten International said; “we believe this partnership will be mutually beneficial to both Tekedia Institute and Proten International. We hope to leverage our network and customer base across multi-sectors in Nigeria, Ghana, UK  and beyond to promote Tekedia’s industry-based and hands-on learning programs.”

Opportunity and Access

According to the Princeton Review, “an MBA can accelerate your career prospects, whatever the industry, and can set you apart from other job seekers”.

For both Proten International and Tekedia Institute, human capacity development is at the forefront of what we do. We are driven by the common goal to create, nurture and provide opportunities that advance innovation, progress and change for individuals and humanity at large, and as such, this partnership will enable both organizations to march stronger towards this goal.

We, therefore, use this medium to call on future-driven individuals and organizations to join us on this new journey.

To learn more about Tekedia’s mini MBA program, visit here and for more information about Proten International and its premium HR consulting and human capacity development services and projects, visit here.

For enquiries about the partnership, contact s.johnson@protenintl.com or tekedia@fasmicro.com.

After a slowdown in the frenzy that greeted edtech following the outbreak of covid, a major acquisition has put the sector back on the news.

India’s most valuable startup Byju said on Wednesday it has acquired California-headquartered reading platform Epic for $500 million. TechCrunch has the story. It is the latest addition to Byju’s collections, and the startup said it hopes to acquire more American companies in the future.

The deal involves both cash and stock, and Epic founders Kevin Donahue and Suren Markosian will continue to run the business, they said in an interview with TechCrunch.

Epic operates an eponymous digital reading platform for kids aged 12 or younger. The platform, which has a presence across 90% of elementary schools in the U.S., has amassed more than 2 million teachers and 50 million kids (up from 20 million last year).

Epic, which counts Evolution Media as an early backer, collects and analyzes real-time anonymized and aggregated data on how many children read a book, how deeply they engage with it and where their interest starts to wane. In a Netflix-esque move, the firm has also started to release several print versions of its own original titles.

TechCrunch reported in March that Byju’s was in talks to acquire Epic. Donahue and Markosian are no strangers to Byju’s. They first met with Byju Raveendran, co-founder and chief executive of the eponymous Indian startup, four or five years ago, but conversations about an acquisition only began this year, they said.

Raveendran said in an interview that his son uses the app, which gave him the conviction to explore any opportunity with the startup more seriously.

“We started Epic about eight years ago with the goal of bringing books to every child. We thought through technology we can get kids excited about reading and we can remove any barrier between the child and book. We are now in almost every school in the U.S., reaching over 50 million kids and a billion books read,” said Markosian.

“It has been our personal passion to build this platform because we wanted our kids to read more, too. So when we got to this point, it really made sense for us to look at scaling globally and internationally. When we started to talk to Byju, we realized that we share a common passion for education and belief in technology helping solve this opportunity. Together with Byju, we can take Epic to the next level,” he said.

For Byju’s, the new product expands its current portfolio and brings expertise about a demographic of the U.S. that the startup has been looking for, said Raveendran. The addition of Epic to Byju’s offerings is “complementary from a product standpoint, as reading is a very powerful format for students to learn,” he said.

“The distribution they have will also help us offer more options to students in the U.S. and reach a demographic that we have also been working to serve. They understand this demographic very well,” he said.

Earlier this year, Byju’s rebranded its international business as Byju’s Future School, as part of which it is offering coding and math in synchronous and asynchronous formats to students, and plans to add music, English, fine arts and science to the catalog. Raveendran said he hasn’t decided whether Epic will be rebranded, acknowledging that the California-headquartered startup has a strong brand awareness in the U.S.

Byju’s, which launched a learning app featuring Disney characters in the U.S. earlier this month, now has three large offerings in the U.S. that Raveendran expects will generate $100 million each in revenue this year alone. “Our ambition is to make a global impact,” he said.

The startup plans to invest $1 billion in its North America business, he said. Byju’s also plans to bring Epic’s offering to India and other markets, he added.

In the past two years, the startup has acquired U.S.-based kids-focused “phygital” startup Osmo (for $120 million), online coding platform WhiteHat Jr. (for $300 million), coaching centre chain Aakash (for nearly $1 billion) and Indian edtech startups Toppr* and Gradeup*. (*Yet to be officially confirmed.)

“We have not done acquisitions for the sake of doing it,” said Raveendran, who himself is a teacher, pointing to the growth and success of firms he has acquired post-acquisition and how these firms have been led by their original founding teams. “Our aspiration is very long-term. We work with the founders to help them turbo-charge their growth,” he said, adding that the startup is open to exploring more M&A opportunities.

Byju’s, which has raised about $1.5 billion since the pandemic broke last year and has attracted several high-profile investors, including Blackstone, said the fundraise in recent years has helped the startup to acquire younger firms. He said the startup currently doesn’t plan to raise more external capital, but he didn’t rule out more fundraises in the next few months.