New Zealand first in the world to legalize salaries paid in cryptocurrencies

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According to Mr Nikou Asgari at Financial Times, New Zealand is the first country in the wold that legalizes salaries paid in cryptocurrencies. The government of New Zealand announced the news earlier this month. Mr Asgari, claims that New Zealand’s tax authority decision enables salaries and wages to be paid as long as payments are in periodic, set quantities in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin from September 1. ‘Self-employed taxpayers’ are excluded from the scheme. The digital currency of choice must also be attached to at least one periodic currency and can be transformed straight into a normal payment form.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

Moreover, Mr Matthew De Silva at Quartz, confirms that New Zealand has accepted cryptocurrencies as compensation for wage-earning employees under a rigorous framework. Cryptocurrency payments must be subject to an employment contract, be for a set sum, and include a periodic portion of the remuneration of the employee. According to Mr Matthew De Silva New Zealand’s tax authority emphasizes on the crypto-asset’s important aim to operate as a currency. Therefore, the tax authority released an indicative list of approved cryptocurrencies such as: bitcoin, bitcoin money, bitcoin gold, ether, and litecoin. On the other hand, the authority has excluded the use of: filecoin, dentacoin, and CRYPTO20.

Cryptos “pegged to one or more fiat currencies,” such as Tether and the Paxos Standard, are also okay for use as wages and salaries. Only stablecoins that are readily convertible into fiat money on an exchange satisfy the rules, the agency stressed.

Source: Quartz

Photo by Moose Photos from Pexels

Furthermore, Mr Matthew De Silva claims that New Zealand’s pioneering strategy with respect to monetary decisions could play the role of a prodigy affecting the financial direction of other ‘regulators.’ As an example, the IRS in the United States has not given any update with respect to cryptocurrencies during the last five years while this has been mostly anticipated by ‘crypto enthusiasts’.

CMI’s Management 4.0 national campaign to be discussed at the Midlands Conference 2019

Featured image: courtesy of CMI

Earlier this year CMI launched Management 4.0 campaign aiming to begin a ‘national conversation’ about the skills that will be needed by the the next generation of managers and leaders in the new era shaped by technology. CMI defines Management 4.0 as management in the fourth industrial revolution where technology plays the most important role shaping the new business landscape.

Courtesy of CMI

According to CMI:

Management 4.0 is exploring these changes in more detail and identify the essential skills and practices that the next generation of managers and leaders will need.

Source: CMI

Please use the button below to download the Management 4.0 discussion paper:

Management 4.0 discussion paper

Moreover, Management 4.0 will be the focal point of the CMI Annual Midlands Conference 2019, that will be held in Birmingham on Friday the 4^th of October 2019 at the Birmingham International Conference Centre. The event will explore the following Management 4.0 themes through high-profile keynote speakers, and engaging workshops.

THEMES

Management 4.0 themes focus around the key areas below. CMI claims these are the main areas managers will need to respond to in the future.

Technology Transformed
The meaning of innovations (AI, automation, new ways of communication) for managers. Discussion paper

Patterns of Work Transformed
Working force flexibility and remote work.
Discussion paper

Leadership Transformed
New leadership styles and new leadership skills.
Discussion paper

Society Transformed
New challenges for managers deriving from diversity of population.
Discussion paper

Business Transformed
The meaning of technology for existing business models.
Discussion paper

Lifelong Learning Transformed
The importance of Up-skilling and re-skilling.
Discussion paper

Interested in the conference?
Please use the button below
to book your place:

Book Your Place

Libra: Facebook’s new cryptocurrency

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According to Mr Josh Constine at TechCrunch.com, Facebook is planning a new cryptocurrency which is ‘codenamed’ Libra. In his article ‘Facebook plans June 18th cryptocurrency debut. Here’s what we know‘, Mr Costine claims that Facebook Inc. has scheduled for a June 18th release of a white paper explaining their cryptocurrency’s basics.

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Moreover, in her article Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency, Libra, Gets Big Backers at The Wall Street Journal, Anna Maria Andriotis claims Facebook has gathered companies such as Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., to fund a new cryptocurrency to be announced this week and get released next year.

Furthermore, in their discussion at CNBC Liz Hoffman of The Wall Street Journal and Meltem Demirors of  Coinshares outlined that 2.5 billion users of Facebook will get introduced to the use of cryptocurrency and wallets while Facebook enters the ‘payment space without becoming a bank’. This according to Meltem Demirors is very interesting as there are companies that utilize the power of existing cryptocurrencies, while on the other hand there are companies that develop their own Blockchain technology and create new cryptocurrencies like JP Morgan with their JP Morgan coin and Facebook with the new coin.

Courtesy of Pixabay from Pexels

All things considered, probably tomorrow on the 18th of June, Facebook will announce its new cryptocurrency. As it seems there are many more interesting features expected to be released from Facebook with respect to their Blockchain technology.

Amazon Managed Blockchain

Featured image: courtesy of AWS

Courtesy of AWS

Amazon Managed Blockchain is a fully managed service that makes it easy to create and manage scalable blockchain networks using the popular open source frameworks Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum*.

Source AWS

How does this service help?

Amazon Blockchain gives the possibility to create applications where transactions can be executed by multiple parties with no need for a ‘trusted, central authority.’ This is very useful as it is very complex to build a Blockchain scalable network by using the existing technologies and really hard to manage it. That is because, according to AWS, ‘each network party needs to manually provision hardware, install software, create and manage certificates for access control, and configure networking components.’ However, things get a little more complicated once the network is ready and running there is a need to ‘continuously monitor the infrastructure and adapt to changes, such as an increase in transaction requests, or new members joining or leaving the network.’

According to AWS

Amazon Managed Blockchain is a fully managed service that allows you to set up and manage a scalable blockchain network with just a few clicks. Amazon Managed Blockchain eliminates the overhead required to create the network, and automatically scales to meet the demands of thousands of applications running millions of transactions. Once your network is up and running, Managed Blockchain makes it easy to manage and maintain your blockchain network. It manages your certificates and lets you easily invite new members to join the network.

Source AWS

How it works

Courtesy of AWS

Benefits

• Some of the benefits of the Amazon Managed Blockchain are firstly that the service is fully managed eliminating the need for any hardware or software provision and configuration. Similarly, there is no need to setup any networking and security components. Likewise, Managed Blockchain monitors the network and automatically replaces poorly performing nodes.
• Secondly, there is a Choice of Hyperledger Fabric or Ethereum. Hyperledger Fabric is more appropriate for ‘applications that require stringent privacy and permission controls with a known set of members,’ such as in financial applications ‘where certain trade-related data is only shared with select banks.’ Ethereum ideal for highly distributed blockchain networks where transparency of data for all members is important, for example, a customer loyalty blockchain network that allows any retailer in the network to independently verify a user’s activity across all members to redeem benefits.
• Thirdly, Amazon Managed Blockchain is Scalable and Secure. New peer nodes can be added easily using Managed Blockchain’s APIs while there is a selection of instance types with different combinations of CPU and memory available for anyone to choose according to their need for resources. Moreover, Managed Blockchain secures network’s certificates with AWS Key Management Service (KMS) technology, eliminating the need for users to set up their own secure key storage.
• Finally, Amazon Managed Blockchain provides guarantees Reliability. ‘Managed Blockchain’s ordering service is built using Amazon QLDB technology and has an immutable change log that accurately maintains the complete history of all transactions in the blockchain network, ensuring that you durably save this data.’

For more information with respect to Amazon Managed Blockchain please click here.

Amal Clooney, Rana el Kaliouby, Michele Mees, and Dr Marcell Vollmer at SAP Ariba Live Summit Barcelona 2019

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Courtesy of SAP:
Amal Clooney

Courtesy of SAP:
Rana el Kaliouby

Courtesy of SAP:
Michèle Mees

Courtesy of SAP:
Dr Marcell Vollmer

Sap Ariba Live Summit is due in Barcelona between the 4-6 June 2019 with guest speakers such as human rights lawyer, professor, and international law expert Amal Clooney, technologist and leader Rana el Kaliouby, author of The Balanced Leader Michèle Mees, and CDO at SAP Ariba Dr Marcell Vollmer.

There are numerous top experts and influencers in procurement, digital transformation, and enterprise technology appearing in general and breakout sessions, and the Executive Forum. All of them are also doing interviews in the SAP Ariba Marketplace studio. The video below presents SAP Ariba Live Barcelona 2019.

Courtesy of SAP: About SAP Ariba Live Barcelona

According to SAP:

SAP Ariba Live is the largest procurement and supply chain event globally, bringing together a diverse community of buyers, suppliers, and partners to experience the value of Ariba Network and discuss technology, innovation, and market trends.

Source: SAP

What’s more at the Summit there will be more than 140 breakout sessions, many of which showcase SAP Ariba customers who share their experiences, and best practices in procurement, supply chain, and e-commerce. To find more information about the conference please click here.

CMI’s new Patron, Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex, promoting gender equality in the workplace

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On the 15th of May, Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex attended The Chartered Management Institute’s annual President’s Dinner at Kensington Palace. This event honours outstanding achievements by UK managers and was Her Royal Highness’s first event as Patron.

Courtesy of CMI – Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex

His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh handed over the Patronage of The Chartered Management Institute, the chartered professional body for management and leadership, to Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex. The Duke of Edinburgh has been associated with The Chartered Management Institute for 50 years, having become an Honorary Fellow in 1969, and subsequently Royal Patron in 1992. During The Duke of Edinburgh’s tenure as Patron, the CMI has led the debate on the future of management and leadership, the gender pay gap, employee well-being and engagement, as well as talent management and diversity.

On The Countess’s appointment, Bruce Carnegie-Brown, President of The Chartered Management Institute, said:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank The Duke of Edinburgh for his fifty years’ service to The Chartered Management Institute, both as an Honorary Fellow and as Royal Patron. During that time, with The Duke’s support, we have seen incredible progress towards increasing the number and standard of professionally qualified managers and leaders. I warmly welcome The Countess of Wessex as The Duke’s successor and look forward to continuing to champion important causes for managers and leaders within UK industry, under the Royal Patronage of Her Royal Highness.

Source CMI

Ann Francke, Chief Executive of The Chartered Management Institute, added:

The Countess is a tireless supporter of UK business and workplace diversity, and I am honoured that she will become the CMI’s new Royal Patron. With The Countess’s support we will continue our efforts to inspire managers to become better managers, particularly when it comes to the advancement of inclusive leadership.

Source CMI

Courtesy of CMI – Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex and Ann Francke CMI’s CEO

During Her speech at the Chartered Management Institute’s annual President’s Dinner at Kensington Palace, Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex underlined the issues of Gender Equality and women’s empowerment as crucial. Her Royal Highness called business leaders to take action and embrace gender diversity as there is ‘more for all’ and everybody ‘gets to win’.

CMI’s new Patron Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex

Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex has been supporting gender equality and the empowerment of women through the years. Her Royal Highness has been speaking about those issues at numerous events, such as the President of the General Assembly’s ‘Women in Power’ event, at the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW), United Nations in New York in March earlier this year.

CMI launches Management 4.0

Featured image: courtesy of CMI

CMI launches Management 4.0, to start a national conversation about the skills the next generation of managers and leaders will need in a workplace and world transformed.

Source: CMI

Courtesy of CMI

CMI defines Management 4.0 as management in the fourth industrial revolution where technology plays the most important role shaping the business landscape in a way that is new. Through this change businesses are called to demonstrate their compatibility to this change.

Management 4.0 discussion paper

According to CMI:

‘It’s about management at a time when society is changing and becoming more diverse; when the workforce is ageing and where the demands and expectations of consumers and workers are very different to those of previous generations.’

Source: CMI

THEMES

Management 4.0 themes focus around the key areas below as these are the main areas managers will need to respond to in the future as CMI claims.

Technology Transformed
The meaning of innovations (AI, automation, new ways of communication) for managers. Discussion paper

Patterns of Work Transformed
Working force flexibility and remote work.
Discussion paper

Leadership Transformed
New leadership styles and new leadership skills.
Discussion paper

Society Transformed
New challenges for managers deriving from diversity of population.
Discussion paper

Business Transformed
The meaning of technology for existing business models.
Discussion paper

Lifelong Learning Transformed
The importance of Up-skilling and re-skilling.
Discussion paper

There are several ways to get involved, please click the button below to register and be part of Management 4.0 campaign today!

Get Involved

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit London 2019

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One more Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit in London is over leaving the best impressions behind. AWS Summit London is an annual event that presents Amazon’s infrastructure cloud services and a vast number of Amazon’s partners that use AWS to provide various services. For those who are not familiar with Amazon, according to Wikipedia:

Amazon is the largest e-commerce marketplace and cloud
computing platform in the world as measured by revenue 
and market capitalization, the largest Internet company
by revenue in the world and the second largest employer
in the United States. Amazon is the world’s largest provider
of cloud infrastructure services (IaaS and PaaS) through
its AWS subsidiary.

Source: Wikipedia.com

In the keynote session which you can watch in the video below, Matt Garman, Vice President, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) AWS, presents in detail the set of services AWS offers to businesses to build applications to serve various purposes.

AWS Summit London 2019

Mr Garman, presents how organizations in the UK such as Sainsbury’s and the Ministry of Justice used AWS to expand and upgrade their services. Moreover, Mr Garman emphasizes in the variety of tools that Amazon provides for Developers and Data Scientists to help them incorporate Machine Learning into their applications. To give an illustration of this, Mr Garman uses the paradigm of HSBC that built a chatbot using Amazon Translate, Amazon Lex and Amazon Comprehend in order to help the company regulatory compliance function better serve internal stakeholders reducing process time from days to seconds.

Furthermore, Mr Garman presents how Amazon helps companies like Faculty to use Machine Learning models to access large datasets to meet the needs of thousands of data scientists. Similarly, Mr Garman presents the services and infrastructure AWS is using to perform complicated AI and ML operations. Some of them are Amazon Elastic Inference, AWS Inferentia, Amazon EC2 G4 Instances and Amazon Sage Maker. Likewise, Mr Garman speaks about AI operations that AWS provides with such as recognition image and video and forecasting and recommendations.

Finally, Mr Garman introduces Deep Learning tools such as the Deep Racer the 1/18th-scale race car that uses reinforcement learning to perform actions such as to stay on track. You can see more about the Deep Racer in the video below.

AWS DeepRacer League

Except from the very interesting information during the keynote session, attendees had the chance to attend several breakout sessions bearing tittles such as: Become a machine learning developer, learning how to use a million cores, DevOps at Amazon, Innovation, building application on AWS, driving digital transformation using AI, Amazon Managed Blockchain, AWS Get IT, Java on AWS, Cloud Data Management, IOT and many more.

What’s more, at the Summit expo one could find several AWS services such as the AWS Training and Certification Startup help, Deep Racing the AWS escape room and others. Except from AWS there were several exhibitors whose subject is around cloud, AI, ML, Data processing and storage and cloud applications and cloud infrastructure management.

Are you a manager? Why not join CMI today!

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There was never a better time to become a member of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) as it is the only organization that acts as a chartered professional body for managers. CMI offers memberships to managers of all levels (aspiring and existing) and equips its members with cutting edge skills to help them perform best.

Formerly known as the British Institute of Management, it formed the UK’s first diploma in management studies 60 years ago. Since then, the Chartered Manager Institute (CMI) has been constantly developing management (training and thinking). Today CMI is the ‘only chartered professional body dedicated to promoting the highest standards in management and leadership excellence.’ CMI is counting more than 100,000 managers that use its ‘unique services on a daily basis.’

CMI: About us

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CMI is offering a series of highest quality qualifications that come along with many benefits for its members such as better performance, marketability and higher earnings. Moreover, recent research reveals that:

Over 85% of managers agreed their management and leadership qualification improved their performance and by transferring their new skills to the work place, almost all have seen a vast improvement in their teams’ performance too. 78% of employers agreed that qualifications provide quality assurance for customers and that the benefits outweighed the time, money and effort invested in obtaining them. More than 80% of managers say that taking a management qualification has resulted in increased professional recognition, with most stating that employers prefer qualified managers when recruiting. This was confirmed by a further 53% advising that their qualification had helped them in gaining a promotion.

CMI: Study with us

You can watch a brief presentation of CMI resources, tools and development tools in the video.

Courtesy of CMI

CMI is dedicated to its vision to ‘Better led and managed organisations’, its mission to ‘Increase the number and standard of professionally qualified managers’ and core values that are: ‘professional, progressive, passionate, practical.’

Please click here to find out more about CMI’s qualifications. To download CMI’s qualifications brochure, please click here. Some help about choosing the best qualifications can be by clicking here. To find a study centre, please click here. For study support please click here.

Click here and become a CMI member now!

How Accenture defines the DNA of DARQ

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The new post digital era alerts companies that want to be competitive to differentiate. According to Accenture claims these technologies will help companies ‘drive the next waves of innovation and growth.’ Accenture, has named these technologies as ‘DARQ: distributed ledger technology (DLT), artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR) and quantum computing ‘ respectively. Accenture’s report: Tech Vision 2019, describes DARQ as the collective set of technologies that can transform any company to a key differentiator of the post digital era.

Courtesy of Accenture

The world is rapidly moving toward a post-digital era, where leaders will need to set their sights beyond their ongoing digital transformations. With digital capabilities alone no longer serving as a differentiator, future-minded business leaders will need more in their technology arsenals to succeed.

Accenture: Understanding the DNA of DARQ

Accenture claims that 89% of businesses are already using one of the DARQ technologies. However, the collective power of all can transform any company to a key differentiator and grant ‘unimaginable power.’

Courtesy of Accenture: image original source

There is no doubt that technology is changing its shape as we know it therefore, businesses should adapt to this change to maintain their longevity. Adapting to these changes is not an easy process however, it is imperative, crucial and necessary.

Follow on Twitter: @Paul Daugherty (Chief Technology and Innovation Officer: Accenture), @Marc Carrel-Billiard (Senior Managing Director: Accenture Labs and Extended Reality) and @Michael Biltz (Manager Director: Accenture Technology Vision).