Since 1995, Embark has been the leading provider of online application and admissions software to colleges, universities, and fellowship programs around the world

Embark

Although the crypto market has shown some signs of recovery after its "long winter's nap," fundraising in 2023 has taken a brutal hit. Crypto data analytics provider Messari stated in a that crypto funding for Q3 2023 came in at just under $2.1 billion across nearly 300 projects, down 36% since Q2 and at its lowest level since Q4 2020. recent report Arguably, some of the most significant innovations in the blockchain world have come from more granular fundraising, allowing small crypto enthusiasts and retail investors to buy into the vision of a project with very few barriers to entry. Yet, we still look to venture capitalists to raise big funds to make projects a reality. Web3 Yet crowdfunding platforms for Web2 like GoFundMe have continued to raise funds, claiming in its report that it has received over 39 million donations. The platform claims to have raised $15 billion in donations since its launch in 2010. 2023 Year in Help So why have we yet to bring the same kind of crowdsourcing sensibility, where users can choose to fund the causes they believe in, to Web3? We spoke with Mo Saravi, CEO & Founder of , a recently launched crowdfunding platform for the Web3 world, about how they are connecting developers and entrepreneurs with the funds they need to bring their projects to life. Embark Finance What new option is Embark bringing to crowdsourced fundraising? "Embark Finance revolutionizes crowdsourced fundraising with its groundbreaking Accelerated Fundraising and Investment System (AFIS), consisting of debt-based and equity-based fundraising services, which offer investors the flexibility of direct and DAO-based investments. Embark goes beyond conventional models by incorporating a hybrid financial approach. It ensures the investment in a centralized way, coupled with decentralized payment methods. This unique blend of centralized security and decentralized transactions sets Embark apart, providing a comprehensive and robust solution for investors and projects. Embark also introduced profit-sharing through the staking of its native token." What separates Embark from launchpads, incubators, and other fundraising platforms? "Embark Finance is a comprehensive decentralized crowdfunding platform. Unlike most launchpads, which reward investors with the fundraising project's tokens, introducing potential volatility, Embark guarantees returns in stablecoins with a predetermined value. While launchpads often specialize in particular sectors or industries, Embark welcomes projects from a range of industries, creating a robust ecosystem that caters to a global audience." What does it mean for projects looking for funding? "Embark Finance stands as a game-changer for projects seeking funding, offering a comprehensive platform with diverse fundraising options. Entrepreneurs and businesses can choose between debt-based or equity-based campaigns and tap into a global network of investors. By choosing stablecoins for their campaigns, projects can ensure better predictability and repayment stability. This approach mitigates the volatility associated with traditional tokens and empowers projects with a greater degree of financial planning and management throughout the fundraising journey." What does it mean for investors? How does it protect your investment? "The platform employs a rigorous due diligence process and collateral-based guarantees, mitigating risks and enhancing the safety of investments. Embark Finance efficiently manages administrative aspects by acting as an intermediary, streamlining the investment process for participants. Embark empowers investors worldwide to participate in innovative projects with relatively small capital, democratizing access to global wealth creation opportunities." Yield-bearing tokens have come under some suspicion in the bear market  — how does Embark maintain transparency? "Our staking system doesn't contribute to token inflation; instead, it utilizes the platform's profits as yield, distributed in stablecoins. This approach ensures that stakers receive a percentage of the added value generated by the platform, representing real value, as opposed to minted tokens that lack concrete backing. This innovative model contributes to a more transparent and sustainable staking experience. Blockchain technology and smart contracts ensure transparency with immutable transaction records." What is the ultimate goal behind Embark? "Embark Finance's goal is to democratize access to funding and investment opportunities in the Web3 space. We believe in the collective collaboration for the wealth creation process, pioneering its globalization for a more prosperous, innovative, and universally accessible future." Summary It's unclear whether crowdsourcing is the definitive solution for blockchain fundraising, but it is one viable solution. The community of crypto and enthusiasts wants to be involved in the projects they support. Often, launchpad communities are hubs of enthusiasm because the project founders are in the groups hyping the other members. The members, in turn, want to see Web3 projects that will have a positive impact get off the ground – and hopefully make a return on their investments. retail investors Embark Finance has some interesting ideas, including centralized assurances over decentralized investments and staking tokens backed by stablecoins instead of newly minted utility tokens with dubious future value. Seeing how Embark plays out with its first cohort of supported products will be interesting. If they can successfully be the GoFundMe of the Web3 space, that will create new opportunities to support innovative projects, which would be a win for the space overall. Embark’s pre-sale begins on multichain DeFi launchpad this week, on December 15, 2023. GemPad

Crypto Funding is at a Three-Year Low, Mo Saravi of Embark Finance May Have a Solution

In this article, we'll create a project that posts about rants using Django and Django Rest Framework. We'll use Django's built-in method and override its method to automatically create a for each rant. We'll also use a third-party package called to handle the serialization of a in the model. slugify save() slug drf-writable-nested ManyToManyField We'll start by creating a virtual environment, installing the initial packages, creating the Django project, creating the Django app, and finally doing the initial migrations. python -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install django djangorestframework
django-admin startproject myproject
cd myproject
python -m manage startapp rants
python -m manage migrate We list and our rants app in the INSTALLED_APPS settings of our project and include them in the project rest_framework urls.py # settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'rest_framework',
    'rants',
]

# myproject/urls.py
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('', include('rants.urls', namespace='main')),
    path('api-auth/', include('rest_framework.urls', namespace='rest_framework')),
] Next, we create the models inside the app: rants # models.py
from django.db import models


class Category(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    slug = models.SlugField(max_length=50)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title


class Rant(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=150)
    slug = models.SlugField(max_length=150)
    categories = models.ManyToManyField(
        Category, related_name='rants_categories')

    class Meta:
        verbose_name = "rant"
        verbose_name_plural = 'rants'

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title We have a Rant model with a title, a slug with a and a categories field with a connected to a Category model with a title and a slug field. CharField ManyToManyField Then we migrate the database . Next, we create a serializer for both models: python -m manage makemigrations && python -m manage migrate # serializers.py
from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import Rant, Category


class CategorySerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    slug = serializers.SlugField(read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = Category
        fields = "__all__"


class RantSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    categories = CategorySerializer(many=True)
    slug = serializers.SlugField(read_only=True)


    class Meta:
        model = Rant
        fields = ('id', 'title', 'slug', 'categories')
        many = True Finally, we create our views and map them to our URLs so we can see the API endpoints of our app. # views.py
from rest_framework.response import Response
from rest_framework.generics import ListCreateAPIView, UpdateAPIView, DestroyAPIView

from .models import Rant
from .serializers import RantSerializer

class RantList(ListCreateAPIView):
    queryset = Rant.objects.all()
    serializer_class = RantSerializer

    def list(self, request):
        queryset = self.get_queryset()
        serializer = RantSerializer(queryset, many=True)
        return Response(serializer.data)


class RantUpdate(UpdateAPIView):
    queryset = Rant.objects.all()
    serializer_class = RantSerializer


class RantDelete(DestroyAPIView):
    queryset = Rant.objects.all()
    serializer_class = RantSerializer We use for read-write endpoints to represent a collection of model instances that provide a and method handler, for update-only endpoints of a single model instance which provides a and method handler, for a delete-only endpoint of a single model instance which provides a method handler. Let's map these views to the ListCreateAPIView get post UpdateAPIView put patch DestroyAPIView delete urls.py # urls.py
from django.urls import path

from .views import RantList, RantUpdate, RantDelete
from .models import Rant
from .serializers import RantSerializer

app_name = 'rants'


urlpatterns = [
    path('api/rants/', RantList.as_view(queryset=Rant.objects.all(), serializer_class=RantSerializer)),
    path('api/rants/update/<int:pk>/', RantUpdate.as_view(queryset=Rant.objects.all(), serializer_class=RantSerializer)),
    path('api/rants/delete/<int:pk>/', RantDelete.as_view(queryset=Rant.objects.all(), serializer_class=RantSerializer)),
] We can now view the API endpoints in the browser using the drf package, but I personally prefer to see the API endpoints using another package which is the package. Let's install and configure the package: drf-yasg python -m pip install drf-yasg

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ....
    'rest_framework',
    'drf_yasg',
]
# urls.py
from django.urls import path, include
from rest_framework import permissions
from drf_yasg.views import get_schema_view
from drf_yasg import openapi

schema_view = get_schema_view(
   openapi.Info(
      title="Rants API",
      default_version='v1',
      description="Rants",
      terms_of_service="https://www.google.com/policies/terms/",
      contact=openapi.Contact(email="contact@snippets.local"),
      license=openapi.License(name="BSD License"),
   ),
   public=True,
   permission_classes=[permissions.AllowAny],
)
urlpatterns = [path('api/', schema_view.with_ui('swagger', cache_timeout=0), name='schema-swagger-ui'),] Now we run and head over to to see what we've created python -m manage runserver http://localhost:8000/api/ But we have a problem; the categories field has an error despite inputting a in the field. str {
  "categories": [
    "Expected a list of items but got type \"str\"."
  ]
} To solve this, we'll install in our app to serialize the categories field and then update the file to include in our drf-nested-writable serializers.py WritableNestedModelSerializer RantSerializer python -m pip install drf-nested-writable

# serializers.py
from drf_writable_nested.serializers import WritableNestedModelSerializer


class RantSerializer(WritableNestedModelSerializer):
    categories = CategorySerializer(many=True)
    slug = serializers.SlugField(read_only=True)

    class Meta:
        model = Rant
        fields = ('id', 'title', 'slug', 'categories')
        many = True Now when we add new data for our app using the endpoint, we won't get the error we got above anymore but instead. We also override the method in our models for the field to automatically fill the database in rants_create save() slug The code to override the method in our models save() # models.py
...
from django.utils.text import slugify

...
    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.slug = slugify(self.title)
        super(Category, self).save(*args, **kwargs)
        return self.slug

...
    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.slug = slugify(self.title)
        super(Rant, self).save(*args, **kwargs)
        return self.slug
... This took me a while to solve since I'm at GMT+8, but hey, at least it got solved, and I learned how to override the save method in the models and learned about the drf-writable-nested package to fix my issue. Conclusion: Also published . here

Embarking on a Quick Project With Django Rest Framework

In a world where high gas fees on the Ethereum network have been a persistent challenge for traders, gamers, and DeFi enthusiasts, the announcement of the Pepechain by Pepemon DAO is a welcome relief. This rollup chain is not just a technologically advanced solution, it's a game-changer for the memecoin ecosystem. The is a state-of-the-art L2 rollup chain designed to combat the high gas fees on Ethereum. Based on the latest OP-stack technology, Bedrock—akin to Optimism—Pepechain is a collaborative project with Paradigm-backed Conduit. The technology behind the chain ensures that memecoin traders, gamers, and DeFi users can enjoy the low fees and security of the Ethereum chain without any compromises. Pepechain A Playground for Memes, Gaming, and DeFi Pepechain is not merely a technological innovation; it's a platform that caters specifically to the meme, gaming, and DeFi community. With the launch of the Pepechain Testnet on the Ethereum Testnet Goerli, Pepemon DAO is providing an environment where users can explore, engage, and enjoy the benefits of a blockchain designed with their needs in mind. The Pepechain Advantage The chain’s most significant advantage is its potential to revolutionize the way users interact with the blockchain. By drastically reducing gas fees and improving transaction speed, the Pepechain provides users with an efficient and cost-effective platform to carry out their activities while keeping the security of funds. Bridging for Free Pepechain is also about accessibility. By offering free bridging to Pepechain, Pepemon DAO ensures that users can easily switch to this next-gen blockchain. The ability to try out the chain without any associated costs is a significant incentive for users to explore and understand the benefits of this new technology. On-Chain Questing In line with its commitment to the gaming community, Pepemon DAO has launched an on-chain questing mechanism on the Pepechain. This allows users to explore the chain while also having fun and winning rewards. It's an innovative and exciting way to attract new users and keep the community engaged. Join the Revolution The launch of Pepechain marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Pepemon DAO. Since its launch in 2020, Pepemon DAO has grown exponentially, sustaining itself through its DeFi economy and thriving NFT ecosystem. The Pepechain is a testament to Pepemon DAO’s commitment to its community. It's an invitation to join a revolution, to be part of a new era where technology, fun, and community come together. Are you ready to join the ride? To learn more about Pepechain, visit and try the dApp today at https://docs.pepemon.world/pepechain pepemon.world

Embark on the Pepechain Adventure: Free Bridging and On-Chain Questing Await

Embárcate en la aventura de Pepechain: Te esperan puentes gratuitos y misiones en cadena

Embarquez pour l'aventure Pepechain : des ponts gratuits et des quêtes en chaîne vous attendent

पेपेचेन एडवेंचर पर लगना: फ्री ब्रिजिंग और ऑन-चेन क्वेस्टिंग का इंतजार

ペペチェーンの冒険に乗り出しましょう: 無料のブリッジングとオンチェーンのクエストが待っています

Embarque na Pepechain Adventure: Free Bridging e On-Chain Questing aguardam

Bắt tay vào cuộc phiêu lưu Pepechain: Cầu nối miễn phí và truy vấn trên chuỗi đang chờ đợi

踏上Pepechain冒险之旅：免费桥接和链上任务等待

Have you ever wondered what it's like to transition from the centralized world of Web 2.0 to the decentralized world of Web 3.0? Or signed up for a platform you didn’t understand at that time and came back after a year to start actually using it? So join me on a thrilling journey of discovery, as I share my experience of building apps with decentralization in mind since discovering Web 3.0 almost two years from there to now. So whether you're a developer, entrepreneur, or simply curious about this story, stay tuned and you won't miss a thing. Discovery The story of how I discovered Web 2.0 is quite an exciting one. I was a student at Regional Maritime University, and in my first year, on my way to my room, so I can pack things and head to class, I stumbled upon a poster advertising a course on CSS and HTML for 150 Cedis, equivalent to 12.58 USD. For some reason, I found myself drawn to it and decided to inquire further; after talking over the phone, we agreed to meet at the hostel cafe room. During our meeting, he showed me some fascinating things, such as how to open a webcam using code and explained why this field was so amazing. Then we began the learning process. Once he had covered the basics, he gave me projects to work on and provided supervision as I completed them. I have been on this path ever since. So was the day I discovered something about Web 3.0. I remember that day because it was the very first ever project I completed; a tutorial on YouTube after learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React.js. Jan 12, 2022, Everything was new to me at that time, and  I didn’t understand anything; I was just forcing myself to understand language ( ) and framework ( ) at that time. JavaScript React.js So, after a little search, I found a video on YouTube titled “ “, and it was from . Build Modern Cryptopunk Clone with React.js & Web 3.0 Clever Programmer As someone new to myself, I wondered what was and how it works, who uses it, and what impact it has on the web. When, after being a little curious, I googled around and found that its main focus was making the internet decentralized. React.js Web 3.0 At that time, I could barely wrap my head around and which was too much for me but wanted to at least know how to build decentralized applications because it was very interesting. So, I followed the tutorial by and I built the . React.js JavaScript Clever Programmer dApp Things I’d Learned After I built the dApp, I realized I didn’t know anything and got to know at least some concepts and how they worked. But, I asked myself if it was right to jump into Web 3.0 without having a solid foundation on Web 2.0; this now became a topic I wouldn’t just decide on my own, and I checked on YouTube like everyone does, right? To my surprise, I learned that while it's possible to start with Web3 without prior knowledge of Web2, it can be challenging. Most developers recommended having a solid understanding of HTTP requests, database storage, APIs, servers, and building complex web applications with these concepts. So, despite my initial reluctance to learn Web2, I knew it was necessary to fully comprehend Web3. Without anyone to consult with, I had to rely on information from the internet, as there was no ChatGPT to provide guidance at that time, and no human to talk about this with. Journey to Web 2.0 At this point, I knew I had to up my game and really delve into the world of Web 2.0 in order to master the concepts necessary to understand Web3. So, I started my search and stumbled upon FreeCodeCamp, a completely free platform where I could re-learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React.js. What really set FCC apart was that its structured program felt like a game, where completing one level motivated you to move to the next. This allowed me to learn a lot and do more research on my own. You can even check out my . FCC account After mastering the basics, I turned to YouTube to learn about APIs, HTTP requests, and servers, JavaScript libraries, frameworks, and state management, to mention a few. That's when I discovered , a JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a web browser. Node.js I spent a solid eight hours learning everything I could about and its capabilities. Node.js At the time, I was working and schooling at the same time, so I couldn’t spend 4 hours straight on learning and building projects. I got interrupted a lot of the time, had to run some errands and other stuff, and also do assignments and project works in school, but at the end of the day, I made sure to spend more than five hours learning or following a tutorial to gain knowledge and understanding of some concepts. And over the course of time, I was able to fully understand a lot of technologies, libraries, and frameworks used in building complex web applications. These are: , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . And how the web actually works. React.js Next.js Node.js Express.js MongoDB RESTful API Postman AWS EC2 & S3 Redux Sanity CMS Python Rust Tailwind TypeScript The Journey on Web 3.0 Now, remember what I said about signing up for a platform you don’t know how to use, and coming back a year, then things finally make sense? That’s how it felt when I started learning web3 just these last 3 weeks. And when I hear technical jargon, I’m like, “The old me would have paused the video and searched what he meant by that.“ But I didn’t; to be honest, it was smooth. But when I discovered Web 3.0, I researched but didn’t do so well, or should I say, I wasn’t specific; so three weeks ago, I started googling about web3 databases, libraries, frameworks, third-party tools, and other learning resources. That’s something I ignored at that time. As I delved deeper into the world of , I found it to be a fascinating and exciting journey. The more I learned, the more I realized the potential of this technology to revolutionize the internet and the way we interact with it. Web 3.0 And there were some things about that make it so interesting; specifically, the concept of . Unlike traditional Web 2.0 applications where data is stored in centralized servers such as , , , , and to name a few, uses blockchain technology to store data in a decentralized manner. Web 3.0 decentralization Google Facebook Amazon Microsoft Netflix, Web 3.0 This means that there is no central authority controlling the data, and users have more control and privacy over their data. After spending some time learning, I got to understand that web3 and blockchain technology go beyond the realm of cryptocurrency since it has the utmost potential to revolutionize numerous industries including healthcare, supply chain management, and social networking among others. It was fascinating to see how blockchain technology could be used to solve real-world problems and create more transparent and efficient systems. Web 3.0 has opened my eyes to a new world of possibilities and inspired me to keep learning and exploring this cutting-edge technology. And I’m only three weeks in. So, let’s see how it plays out. And here are the things I am currently learning. Language: Solidity Database for Web 3.0: IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) Frameworks: Thirdweb Third-Party tools: , MetaMask (browser extension), Remix IDE (web-based Solidity IDE) Infura (web3 provider) Conclusion So, to summarize, this is my journey from nothing knowing anything to now being in the process of achieving my long-time goal of mastering , and there is so much I want to talk about, like the , and , to mention a few. And here is a dApp I’m . Web 3.0 metaverse NFTs working on Thank you to those that found my story interesting.

From Web2 to Web3: How I Embarked on a Thrilling Journey of Decentralized App Building!

The Dilemma Automation Testing Beginners Face Software testing was initially a manual activity, however, due to the importance of speedy delivery, the transition to automation testing is predictable. Unfortunately, this shift can become an overwhelming voyage, especially for startups without a dedicated QA team. Suppose you are a manual tester (or developer) seeking an automation solution to speed up your project. There’s no surprise that your first instinct would be to find tools that are easy to get started with and require the slightest effort to be integrated into workflows. On the flip side, sustainability counts. You need a stepping stone to kick-start automation with ease, but it should be sustainable enough to pave the way for your dynamic growth in the future. This is the dilemma automation testing beginners face: How to find an automation solution that is easy to kick-start and can accommodate future needs. Walk the Line Between Skills and Willingness There’s a wealth of programming language libraries to choose from, for example, Selenium WebDriver, but does the preferred option match your current knowledge and testing level? Or how willing are you to learn and adopt a fresh new testing framework? and are the key factors behind your decision to choose an automation solution. So if a tool takes the least amount of skills and willingness to get started at any given point, it’s the ideal option to tackle the “easy to kick-start” part of the equation. “Skills” “willingness” However, as your team grows, it is likely you will be more willing to invest in automation activities to scale up. Yet, you probably don’t want to become more technically skilled in order to achieve that goal. means you gain more value as you put more effort into automation. It doesn’t mean having to code head-scratching test scripts or know a dozen programming languages. “To accommodate future needs” In other words, an ideal automation solution helps you walk the line between willingness and skills. Take a look at these popular solutions to kick-start test automation: This test automation solution serves multiple purposes, from browser, API to mobile, and desktop testing. Still, it takes a lot of effort to filter out which features you really need to kick-start automation testing. Katalon Studio: Although it enables cross-browser tests, this old-school testing framework doesn’t allow users to create test cases immediately since you need decent programming knowledge to build tests. And programming may not come easy at all, especially for QA engineers. For developers, are they willing to learn yet another programming library? Selenium WebDriver: This web extension is the easiest to get started with browser automation. However, as an open source project maintained by the goodwill of community developers, the tool bears a hidden cost of migrating to other tools/ecosystems in the future. Selenium IDE: Here’s the tough reality of popular automation tools: They are easy to kick-start but require more technical capabilities to scale up and vice versa. Kick-Start Automation Testing Without Sacrificing the Future No one wants to invest resources in a framework just to abandon it and start from scratch later, yet the rabbit hole has become deeper and deeper. However, kick-starting automation does not necessarily equal sacrificing the future. is a free web extension built for Record and Playback in browser automation testing. Katalon Recorder As a well-rounded replacement for Selenium IDE, Katalon Recorder helps you kick-start automation testing and averts the common pitfalls of other popular automation frameworks: Katalon Recorder’s scripts are eligible for import and export in both Katalon Studio and Selenium WebDriver frameworks. Imported tests can be executed immediately with minimal modifications and supported by a dozen available programming languages. Integrated with Katalon TestOps, Katalon Recorder provides quick and easy test reports for better communication with stakeholders. Thanks to a professional development team, Katalon Recorder releases monthly, sometimes weekly, updates. (Selenium IDE’s latest update was last year) Katalon Recorder has built-in data-driven testing — an indispensable feature for advanced testers. The best part is, Katalon Recorder helps users migrate smoothly to Katalon Studio and the Katalon ecosystem when their teams have a larger volume of test cases, need to test in mobile, API, etc. The result? Users can kick-start automation while ensuring that all invested skill sets and effort accommodate their dynamic growth later. Ready for Your First Automation Project? There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but an automation solution can be your best bet for future growth. That said, a good automation tool not only eases the stress of early adoption but also ensures your invested skill sets meet your future needs. Ready to kick-start your first automation project?

Automation Testing: The Tools to Help You Embark On the Automated Journey

, I had the honor of moderating a CIO panel at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management at Lake Forest, IL near Chicago. The lively discussion at the panel centered around Digital Transformation driven by Cloud, Big Data and AI — and the challenges faced by CIOs leading these transformations. Last month First off, I must say that the three leaders on the panel were fantastic — a mix of Enterprise CIOs across Healthcare, the Federal Government and State & Local municipal services. The panelists were: Siva Balu, Head of IT at Bluecross Blueshield Association; Bill Willkowski, Head of Enterprise Architecture at Fermilab, and George Coleman, CTO — Chicago Transit Authority. Below are the questions that I posed to the panel to guide the discussion about how to plan for a digital transformation journey and what are key requirements for a such a critical endeavor. It was evident during the discussion that my fellow panelists differed on their answers to these questions, based on their different target customers and divergent requirements. (They did all agree, though, that their organizations have to operate in a hybrid-cloud state- supporting different types of environments on-prem and in the public cloud). These categories of questions offer a framework to guide CXOs as they embark on a cloud digital transformation. I invite you to review these questions below as you’re planning your own cloud journey, to ensure you are successful and that you position your organization for success in today’s digital age. Category 1 — The Cloud As Business Strategy First off, is your business demanding increasing agility in business applications? A specific ask or company initiative that is causing the organization to take a close look and evaluate their Cloud journey? Or is it more based on reducing IT cost via datacenter, tools, OS or platform consolidation? What tangible benefits (both business and IT) does your organization associate with cloud-based infrastructure? Are these metrics quantifiable in terms of both customer experience as well as IT efficiency? What are the drawbacks? How do you go about determining the order of importance in making choices that need to balance between customer experience and IT costs? Are you pursuing a hybrid cloud strategy? What are the ramifications from both an infrastructure and developer perspective? Why? What are industry leaders in your vertical doing around Cloud? Are there specific business use cases they are focusing on, or results that they achieved? What is the new Cloud technology stack in your organization? And how important is it for the components of the stack to be cloud-neutral so you can stay cloud agnostic? Category 2 — Mode 2 or Cloud-Native Applications Containerization is surely gaining wide adoption. Are you seeing the same both from an existing legacy applications standpoint as well as from a greenfield standpoint? Cloud-native applications fundamentally change how you provision and deploy your infrastructure, and how you manage it. This is particularly true when making the jump from traditional virtual machines to containers and Kubernetes, and when you have more loosely coupled applications, such as microservices and serverless. How have you made the change organizationally to support Cloud-Native technologies? How important is for any technology you consider to be relevant to today’s cloud-first world? What do you think of the Kubernetes project? Has it made it in your tech stack? Category 3 — Security & Disaster Recovery Everything is moving into the cloud these days including precious data. How can dev and Ops ensure an appropriate level of security in an increasingly fragmented landscape? Data is the last and most difficult IT asset to move over to the cloud. How have your data assets and data strategies changed to reflect cloud-based deployments? Or are large-scale data warehouses, systems of record and data lakes still living in-house? How would you design your cloud for resiliency? What is your backup/recovery policy? How well do existing policies translate into the cloud? How is business risk handled in the event of an outage? How has that changed in the new cloud landscape? Category 4 — Culture Who leads the Cloud transformation? Infrastructure, Development, the CIOs organization or a Cloud Center of Excellence? How have job descriptions changed to reflect the new cloud reality? Have Sysadmins turned into SRE (Site Reliability Engineer’s) and Developers into DevOps? Are employees being re-trained in Cloud techniques? How are you making investments from both an Operations and a development team standpoint to adapt to this brave new world? How will your IT team, processes and mandate change in the course of your Cloud Journey? Will IT be relegated to a Service Provider or an Innovation Enabler? Category 5 — Cloud Technology & Vendor Choices Who owns the SLA for uptime for your various environments or your Hybrid Cloud? What are your realistic ROI projections over a 3-year timeline? Does the ROI include substantial Professional Services needed for your organization to get started? Do the vendor or solutions you’re considering to enable your transformation offer an un-opinionated stack for application deployment? Do the tools and solutions you’re considering offer a certified catalog of popular open source projects to deploy applications in a cloud-agnostic manner? What are my chances of lock-in from a cloud provider perspective, as well as an ecosystem, API and stack standpoint? Read the original post on Platform9.

Questions Every CIO Must Ask Before Embarking on a Cloud-Driven Digital Transformation

Photo by on Tim Marshall Unsplash There has been a recent upshift of protest by the people, mostly intellects, and scholars, people who are truly living under the rule of fake democrats. The reasons for a protest are not just daily harassment and sluggish laws, there is significant degradation of life when we consider living under such government, and while we don’t feel powerless, there aren’t any real options while voting. If you haven’t been living under a rock lately, you must know about the breakthrough technology of Blockchain. Until the introduction of Blockchain we used to believe that this world can never be corruption free, but even when for once we imagine a world running upon Blockchain, we can foresee the beauty of a corruption free world. Photo by on Samantha Sophia Unsplash Be assured that greedy and selfish will never stop being so; it’s just who they are. The need to be stop being fooled falls upon us, for all our so-called democracies we can be assured no governments have the power of holding a gun to our heads, lest to say if there were more people than the guns. But guns can certainly hold multiple bullets, and a bad quality of life is certainly better than death. All these fears creep in as soon as we, the most essential part of democracies think about a revolution, but, all this changes with Blockchain, there will be technically no corruption possible. As for the guns, they won’t even know what hit the time they were reloading. The Blockchain tech enables decentralized distributed ledger technology, which simply translates to a great right to information to everyone regardless of anything else. It’s not that anyone is less corrupt than others, Blockchain is the only solution which enables impending righteousness. It’s pure transparency when we talk about implementing our systems on Blockchain technology, be it a voting system of allocation of funds collected through taxes. Blockchain may not overthrow governments overnight, but one day it certainly will.

Will Blockchain embark the downfall of democracy?

It is hard to imagine how to effectively manage a large company not using a customer relationship system. The modern market offers many CRM solutions tailored for different industries and business’ sizes. Why to choose a CRM that is designed specially for your company? management Why to prefer a custom CRM? Quality ready-made CRM solutions are expensive, while usually, your company does not need the whole set of provided functions. The cost of a custom CRM development also is not chip, however, in case of individual development, you pay for the functions required particularly by your company. Plus, employees will not spend a lot of time on exploring the new product, because CRM is initially created under the workflow, already established in the company. For example, while designing a for a construction company, we were developing a solution where functionality, colors, headings and even the typography was adjusted to the customer’s specifics. We took into account that in the service interface numbers and small signatures are frequently used, so the font type was determined by a good numbers’ display and a small text readability. CRM system Typography of a CRM system for a construction company Things to consider when developing a CRM system 1. Convenience Time is money — employees should not waste time searching the necessary topic or information, as well as important documents, should always be at hand. Also, CRM users should have all opportunities for easy reports generation, for communication with each other and with customers directly in the system. «The perfect cloud based crm software is flexible, accessible from any device, user-friendly and provides meaningful reporting capabilities.» — Susan Connor, president and chief CRM strategist at SquareBlue Consulting 2. Complexity Depending on the size and business specifics, will vary the CRM system’s functions and the set of technologies with which will be used while CRM development. Creating CRM for a construction company, we chose the modern, reliable framework . Also, we used RESTful API for easy scalability and Ember.js — applications on this framework are easy to extend and maintain. The CRM project was created by the principle of a Single Page Application. This allowed us to create a rich user interface and significantly reduce the time wastage on the response waiting. SPA applications don’t require reloading of all page when updating the data, plus they can work in offline mode with real-time elements. Symfony2 3. Flexibility Your future CRM system should be flexible enough to provide the possibility to change the settings under a particular process. Also, it’s important to consider the scalability of the web based crm solution so that it can grow together with your company, and there will be no need for a new solution. «The perfect online crm solution is intuitive, but flexible so that you can manage leads easily and make automated actions based on client segmentation.» — Kenny Kline, partner at JAKK Solutions. 4. Compatibility In addition to the online analytical CRM tools, you should also consider the connection with third-party resources. For example, integration with telephony, messaging services, accounting software, email, etc. 5. Reliability Inside the customers relationship management system you will store the important data: customer database, transactions, reports, staff productivity etc. The CRM system should be designed in such a way that the data is protected from third-party interference. Also, there should be concerned access levels for different groups of employees. Goals and objectives of a CRM system Perhaps, the main goal of CRM implementation is to attract new customers and optimize the working processes within the company. Objectives can vary depending on the specifics of the industry. We list the most common issues: leads and their activity tracking; maintaining a database of clients; clients operating improvement; the business operations organization; relationship management within teams; optimization of different departments joint work; the improvement of labor productivity. A thorough analysis of the goals and objectives and their prioritization will help you to the CRM system with the optimal set of features. design Why is it important to develop a mobile application for CRM? The web version of the service may still be enough for the interaction within the team, but when working with clients a mobile app for CRM is necessary as the air. In the business trip, in the transport, even on the negotiations — access to the CRM system will provide the ability to be on call, to have the necessary information at hand and put changes into the system quickly. It is essential that the application work properly and did not let failure in an important moment, so we do not recommend using cross-platform development. Though a native application for or iOS, will cost more, will be a solid addition to the web version of a CRM, and will help to increase the business automation effectiveness. Android Defining MVP for CRM The sphere of CRM system’s application can be divided into two areas: 1. The interaction with customers Mainly involves phone calls, e-mail correspondence, newsletters and meetings. The first three actions should be automated to form a history of customers relations. The minimum set of functions for this area: integration with telephony, e-mail and SMS services; database of customers, addresses, phones with convenient filter the ability of customer relationships tracking; the ability to generate reports the calendar with built-in notifications for entering information on future meetings The interaction between employees A CRM system should provide employees the opportunity to allocate working time and help to plan future workload. Also, the CEO should have the ability to control the workload and efficiency of subordinates. Consequently, the minimum set of functions for the area: levels of access for different categories of staff; calendar with built-in notifications, so that manager is able to inform subordinates about the news; the possibility of tasks’ setting and monitoring; the ability to attach files to the task; communication within the task; labels of tasks status and its priority; generation of the workload reports. According to your business specifics and size, you may need many other features. Creating a CRM system, that will help automate company’s processes and bring the business to the next level, will require significant financial and time costs. However, the result is recouped in a fairly short time — statistics reports that the CRM implementation increases sales productivity up to . 29% Originally published at stfalcon.com .

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