Leading Indian technology company Tech Mahindra has partnered with edtech startup Idealabs to offer blockchain certification courses. The certification course will be offered as a combination of live online and in-person, on-campus classes. Students enrolling for the course will learn about blockchain foundations, Ethereum, smart contracts, decentralized apps and Hyperledger Fabric, among other topics. The two companies intend to build a talent pool for the blockchain industry that could meet the rising job demands. The official web page for the blockchain courses notes that there has been a 290% increase in the number of blockchain jobs over the last year. …

Canada’s York University School of Continuing Studies today announced two new university-level continuing blockchain programs — the part-time Certificate in Blockchain Development and the full-time Post-Graduate Certificate in Back-End and Blockchain Development. The university said their new courses aim to meet the rising demand for blockchain developer roles in Canada, especially in the Greater Toronto Area, where it has risen by 374% in the last two years. Helping people upskill and reenter the workforce The two courses, which are scheduled to start this September, will help students upskill and build a portfolio in the blockchain field so they can secure …

RMIT University, an Australian public research university, is adding two new postgraduate programs in the field of cybersecurity and blockchain technology. The university announced May 26 that it was partnering with IBM, Palo Alto Networks, and Stone & Chalk to offer a graduate certificate in cyber security and graduate certificate in blockchain-enabled business. The programs are expected to start in October 2020 and will last for nine months. Meeting demand for blockchain jobs RMIT introduced the new programs in order to meet the rising demand for industry professionals in cybersecurity and blockchain. The announcement cited reports that showed the Australian …

Daejeon University is the latest in a series of South Korean universities redesigning portions of its finance and technology departments. The university made an official announcement on May 25 that it would open a new fintech department called “Future Convergence.” According to the announcement published by Daejeon Journal, the curriculum will consist of topics such as smart health care, smart city, smart factory, and various employment fields in the medical institutions by implementing blockchain technology. Universities in South Korea are boosting educational programming related to blockchain, big data, and artificial intelligence amid the country’s crisis of college graduates who are …

Educational services across the globe have been witnessing a surge in ransomware attacks in 2020. According to Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigation Report, ransomware attacks account for approximately 80% of all cyberattacks suffered. The data suggests 92% of these incidents were motivated by financial reasons, while only 3% aimed to perform espionage activities on businesses operating within education. A sharp increase in ransomware attacks since 2019 Ransomware attacks are growing at an alarming rate. Currently accounting for an overwhelming majority of all cyberattacks, ransomware was just 48% of the whole during 2019. Phishing is partially to blame here — ransomware …

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has revealed why the University of Wyoming presented a more attractive choice than Harvard, MIT or Cornell for Input Output’s (IOHK’s) lab. IOHK, the company charged with the development of Cardano, donated $500,000 in ADA to the blockchain lab at the university earlier this year. The State of Wyoming is known for its progressive crypto legislation, which allowed former Wall Street executive Caitlin Long to establish the first crypto-native bank in the U.S. Hoskinson noted that the university was, “the first state institution in the entire United States to treat ADA like U.S. dollars.” Gender studies …

Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, recently asked for an explanation of Bitcoin (BTC) on Twitter, bringing an onslaught of commentary from the crypto community. "This started as a joke, but now I’m afraid I’ll never be able to log in to Twitter again without someone getting angry I don’t own Bitcoin," Rowling tweeted on May 15, adding: One day you’ll see a wizened old woman in the street, trying to trade a Harry Potter book for a potato. Be kind. She did try to understand." Nearly the entire crypto community showed up for comment Responding to a May 15 tweet …

On May 15, beloved Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling tweeted at crypto journalist Leigh Cuen about her comprehension of Bitcoin. "I don’t understand Bitcoin," Rowling said, adding, "Please explain it to me." We would be happy to oblige. Dear J. K. Rowling: The first thing you need to understand is that Bitcoin is magic. It allows you to exchange money with anyone in the world instantly, cheaply and securely, without the need for any centralized, Goblin-based banking authority. Chapter 1: The White Paper From No One Bitcoin was invented by a mysterious computer programmer named Satoshi Nakamoto — almost …

Milton Friedman called it the tyranny of the status quo. It is a resistance to change that imprisons us in the moment and blinds us to potential. Yet, despite it all, innovation proves inevitable and change is often thrust upon us, quickly transforming the norm. We subsequently acclimate to the change to which we first resisted and suddenly find that going back is incomprehensible. At times, this transformation happens slowly, other times quickly, but not since the world wars and the Spanish Flu has the world been forced to adapt as quickly as it has in response to the COVID-19 …

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz — also known as a16z — has started releasing an online version of "Crypto Startup School," its seven-week education course for industry entrepreneurs. Two lectures from week one were published on May 13 via TechCrunch, while the rest of the material will eventually become available on the investment giant’s website. Lectures from crypto execs and professors are on the way Titled "Crypto Networks and Why They Matter," the first talk was held by a16z general partner Chris Dixon, who argues that blockchains can become the next major computing platform after smartphones and the web, unlocking …

University College London (UCL) has joined the governing council for enterprise-grade distributed ledger platform Hedera Hashgraph. Paolo Tasca — former cryptocurrency lead economist at Germany’s central bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, and founder of UCL’s ’s Centre for Blockchain Technologies — confirmed that the university is the first academic institution to join the council. In an interview with Cointelegraph on May 6, Tasca said that joining the council was consistent with the university’s experimental and practical approach to research, manifested through a range of industry engagement programs. Hedera Hashgraph’s Governing Council follows a decentralized governance model that aims to bring up to …

Blockchain, a term once only familiar to Bitcoin (BTC) enthusiasts, is becoming one of the most in-demand business skills for 2020. According to a recent LinkedIn blog post, blockchain technology is the most sought-after hard skill this year. The post noted: “The small supply of professionals who have this skill are in high demand.” Moreover, while the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the United States’ unemployment rate — causing 22 million people to file for unemployment since President Donald Trump declared a national emergency four weeks ago — blockchain-related jobs have been increasing. In turn, blockchain courses offered at universities …