BenQ’s Latest Blended Education

Kaspersky Finds that 32% of UAE Employees Enjoy Working Outdoors

People working from home during the pandemic have discovered some novelties that they would now like to keep, according to new global research commissioned by Kaspersky, which studied the behaviors of 8,000 SMB workers. Novelties favored by employees in the United Arab Emirates include weekday lie-ins (35%), binge-watching Netflix (33%) and working outside in the garden or on a balcony (32%).

As our working environment during the global pandemic shifted from secure offices to kitchen tables, we met many difficulties balancing work and private lives. According to the World Economic Forum, employees working remotely this year faced mental health and wellbeing challenges, such as childcare pressures and digital connectivity. Nevertheless, some office staff who switched to working remotely savored this experience and discovered some habits they now want to retain.

The majority of respondents benefitted from simply working in comfortable clothes: 48% got used to this lifestyle and would like to make it the norm in the future. Saying goodbye to long commutes also made employees happier as they could wake up shortly before work started, while many also enjoyed taking a nap during the day (32%).

Continuing to discover the perks of the new normal, 32% of people enjoy working outside in the garden or on a balcony, and 33% even manage to binge-watch Netflix at work. Other treats favoured by employees include more time for video games(21%) and takeaway lunches (29%).

Marina Titova, Head of Consumer Product Marketing at Kaspersky, said: “This lockdown turned out to be a two-way street for people whose job allows them to work from home. On the one hand, employees finally got a chance to forget about the downsides of big-city life and start working in a more comfortable atmosphere. On the other hand, they faced many challenges when struggling to remain productive, reorganizing their workspace and developing new habits. When you work from home your privacy is put at greater risk, making it vital that you remember to take care of your digital security.”

BenQ’s Latest Blended Education Solutions Ensure Quality and Healthy Learning

BenQ has recently announced its K-12 Blended Education Solution that helps teachers, in-class students, and remote students to share the continuity of the education environment without worrying about loss of progression. The solution integrates three of BenQ’s advanced offerings – ClassroomCare Interactive Flat Panel, Smart Projector, and Eye-Care Monitor.

With COVID-19 having impacted education systems dramatically, returning to school safely, prioritizing local health conditions, and building a capacity for hybrid learning approaches are now essential school reopening measures. Whilst some education institutes started to implement blended learning methods to reduce the number of face-to-face students, there seemed to be a growing inefficiency amongst teachers to track students’ learning progress and maintain teaching equality when children are learning from home.

“Teachers have undergone rapid transformation and learning in the past few months. Even though the demand for digitalization has amplified, teachers have been facing challenges in ensuring that remote students receive a quality education and are able to interact with in-class classmates, and also in taking care of online and in-class students simultaneously,” said Manish Bakshi, of BenQ Middle East. “BenQ’s latest solution for blended learning combines our flagship three offerings, Interactive Flat Panel, Smart Projector, Eye-Care Monitor along with video conferencing, and cloud collaboration tools. These products have been designed keeping in mind the health, collaborations, and education equality to facilitate teachers and remote students. They help to make learning more interactive in real-time, enhancing the quality of remote learning considerably,” he added.

The Blended Education solution comprises of BenQ’s future-proofed display combinations adaptable to different types of classrooms, which include:

Dual screen classrooms: With a webcam connected, the classroom places BenQ’s ClassroomCare Interactive Flat Panel as the main display for teaching, and a Smart Projector as the second display for online teacher and students’ interactions with remote classmates. Educators are able to share and collaborate materials with the in-class interactive whiteboard solution “EZWrite Live” and web-based whiteboarding app through video conferencing. Small-sized classrooms: Select the world’s first Smart Projector for Classroom and connect with a webcam. It has built-in internet connectivity and a web browser, enabling videoconferencing and wireless sharing of teaching materials from their mobile devices, tablets, or notebooks. Eye-Care Monitors for Remote Students: For remote students learning from home, the Eye-Care Monitor with auto light detection and height-adjustable stand ensures students learn in a healthy viewing experience.

Entrust nShield HSMs Deliver Enhanced Security to Mirantis Kubernetes Engine

CyberKnight Books Over $10 Million in its First Year

CyberKnight has announced its financial results for 2020 which ended on December 31st, 2020. This exceptional performance for a new company was observed during one of the most challenging periods in human history. Despite COVID-19’s unprecedented global impact, in its first year of operation, CyberKnight achieved more than $10 Million in revenue bookings and is on track for exponential growth in 2021.

“During Dubai’s real estate boom in the 2000s, there was a billboard which stated: It takes generations to build a world-class city; we did it in less than one. Deriving inspiration from these wise words, while being headquartered in the same city, we observed other value-added-distributors (VADs) take up to ten years to reach $10 Million; we are privileged to have been able to do it in one. Although our competitors tried hard to slow us down, we went from startup to scale-up in 2020!” said Avinash Advani, Founder & CEO at CyberKnight.

Advani continued, “We are extremely proud and grateful for this phenomenal achievement, but the credit goes to our high-caliber team, who were emulating our market-leading vendors to support our loyal Strategic Partners, as they advised Middle East customers. CyberKnight’s people worked diligently and efficiently over the course of the year, even during the lockdown working from home. The team demonstrated resilience, commitment, and passion while wearing multiple hats in our dynamic startup environment.”

“There was nothing easy about operating a new business in 2020. With the uncertainty created by COVID-19, we struggled to achieve monthly and quarterly linearity, which made forecasting difficult. Although we had set higher targets for ourselves before the pandemic struck, we, unfortunately, realized that they were stretched goals as markets were devastated in Q2 and Q3,” added Vivek Gupta, Co-Founder & COO at CyberKnight.

Gupta concluded, “That being said, by year-end, CyberKnight managed to attain remarkable results for 2020, which can be attributed to various factors. Firstly, instead of spreading ourselves too thin like other VADs have done, we had a razor-sharp focus on cybersecurity with the right number of best-of-breed vendors to tell a Zero Trust Security story. We also rapidly expanded across the Middle East region, deploying vendor-grade teams in all key markets including the establishment of a local entity in Saudi Arabia. With our unique business model, we endeavored to add maximum value by empowering our Strategic Partners, instead of bypassing them like the competitors. This enabled us to become an extension of our vendors on-the-ground and remain a Trusted Advisor to enterprise and government customers across the region.” Entrust, a leading provider of trusted identities, payments and data protection, has announced its new partnership with Mirantis and the certification of its nShield hardware security modules (HSMs) with the Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. Entrust nShield HSMs become the first Mirantis-certified HSMs in the market to deliver enhanced security to the Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. The new certified integration provides a root of trust, enabling developers to add the robust cryptographic services offered by nShield HSMs to containerised applications.

The Mirantis Kubernetes Engine is a container platform for accelerating the development and delivery of modern applications. The platform provides developers with greater choice, simple onboarding and automation across DevOps, and a secure pipeline to Kubernetes environments that can run anywhere.

On-premises nShield or nShield as a Service HSMs, running the nShield Container Option Pack, now integrates with Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. Entrust nShield HSMs provide a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 and Common Criteria EAL4+ high assurance environment for generating the cryptographic keys used to sign, verify, and encrypt sensitive data for the Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. Application developers now can access cryptographic functionality – including enhanced key generation, signing, and encryption – within the container-based environment, protecting sensitive application data and transactions.

“Rapid application development processes must go hand-in-hand with robust cryptography to maintain security in any development environment,” said Juan Asenjo, Director of Product, Solutions and Partner Marketing at Entrust. “Integrating nShield HSMs with the Mirantis Kubernetes Engine makes it easier for developers to put security and trust at the foundation of containerized application development.”