Rajat Bhargava is an entrepreneur, investor, author and currently CEO and cofounder of JumpCloud.

From the 1980s until the mid-2000s, the monoculture around Microsoft ruled. Users logged into Windows-managed computers and used Office and Windows File Server; businesses relied on Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to manage user identity and access.

Then, IT evolved. On-premises environments and closed systems gave way to the flexibility of the cloud. Organizations adopted Mac- and Linux-based systems. Software as a service (SaaS) environments exploded. Data centers started to be replaced by infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers. Now, Gartner predicts that over 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms by 2025, a dramatic increase from 30% in 2021.

With cloud servers preferred for data processing and storage, web applications now dominate the market. In part because wired connections gave way to wireless networks and people became more mobile through smartphones, and Google Workspace (aka G Suite, Google Apps) and M365 (aka Office 365) became as popular as machine-based Office applications in the enterprise space.

In this environment, organizations can’t be bound to anachronistic approaches as businesses shift to the cloud and globally distributed workforces. Now’s the time for companies—especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—to approach IT with an open mind and an open approach.

“Open” in this context doesn’t mean porous or loose; it represents scalability, flexibility and agility in terms of changes in technology and developments in the stack. An open approach improves end user experience, worker productivity and satisfaction. An open approach to IT can be a critical tool in helping organizations establish zero-trust security without sacrificing the agility and flexibility made possible by the cloud.

In this article, I’ll offer some tips to getting started with this approach.

Open Identity

Modernizing IT stacks means making sure that work—remote and hybrid—functions well. Employees care about doing their job; they want easy access to the resources they need. IT teams want a similarly streamlined experience and assurance that company data remains secure without impacting productivity. My company’s survey of 506 SME IT admins found that nearly 75% prefer a single solution to manage employee identities, access and devices than having to manage a number of different solutions. An open directory platform approach incorporates a cloud-hosted “virtual” domain that meets this need, offering the flexibility and security necessary to support modern workplaces.

This means creating an IT environment that consumes identities wherever they live. Not just employee identities but also device identities, allowing your system to be open to receive information from authorized sources anywhere. On the outgoing side, it means creating a single source of user identity that can be propagated out to other devices, other users or to an authorized network.

Identity as a service and cloud directories are vital tools that enable an open approach. Look for those that offer fluidity and the flexibility to change resources any time (for example, from M365 to Google Workspace or vice versa).

Flexible Security Layers

Instead of traditional perimeters, an open approach favors a creation of virtual offices and security perimeters around each employee—and whatever devices they use. Being open doesn’t equate to a cavalier security approach; it’s a way to offer authorized access to resources anywhere that is convenient and tracked for compliance and overall visibility.

Security layers can evolve with each organization’s need and should include:

• Identity layer: A cloud directory houses authentication credentials and establishes centralized access control across user identity, admin access, service accounts and machines. Centering identity within a cloud directory allows SME teams to draw a security perimeter around each employee, enabling updates without disruption and providing access to on-prem and cloud-based resources.

• Device layer: Most IT environments operate within an ever-evolving state of company-issued, personal and mobile devices running some combination of Mac, Windows or Linux systems. In this complicated device ecosystem, organizations should extend user identity to establish device trust, meaning that a device is known and its user is verified. A mobile device management solution (MDM) is one option that can install a remote agent to handle basics—including multifactor authentication (MFA) and permissions—zero-touch onboarding and remote lock, restart or wipe. Determine the control level you need in your device environment, factoring in options like how you honor employee device choice and how you manage your bring your own device (BYOD) policy.

• IT resource layer: In office environments, employees generally use a form of single sign-on (SSO) to log into their desktop at designated workstations and then get instant access to applications and shared files and servers. In remote, hybrid and other modern IT environments, SSO should include everything from SaaS apps to systems, files, infrastructure and shared networks. Some organizations use SSO solely for web-based applications, while some centralize identity and extend it to virtually any IT resource through authentication protocols like LDAP, SAML, OpenID Connect, SSH, RADIUS and REST.

Open Insights

Given security, ongoing monitoring and compliance needs, visibility is critical to an open IT approach. Considering the breadth of access transactions, businesses should look for a holistic solution with broad coverage.

Basic event logging data is table stakes, and IT solutions should include a method for capturing discrete and unique log formats. That includes logs from SSO and from cloud RADIUS for network connection, LDAP and device connections—any log format for resources deployed in your stack.

Because integration requirements make log analysis and management solutions expensive, challenging to implement and difficult for admins managing custom feeds for authentication protocols, consider options that offer a wide range of analysis by enriching raw data. This can be done with a number of other data points, sessionizing the data through post-processing. Such information provides admins with broad insight across their entire IT environment, not just into a particular service or user.

For many organizations, extending closed legacy systems was a necessity. In the age of hybrid and remote work, it’s proving more of a liability than an asset. An open approach allows companies to embrace a diverse, modern IT environment that can keep pace with what users need, keeping them and company data secure at every access point.

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National security leaders routinely warn that the United States faces growing cyber threats. Managing risks will require expertise in the public and private sector to Strengthen security. But there are currently more than 700,000 open cybersecurity positions across the country. That includes nearly 39,000 open government jobs. 

Federal and state government agencies often struggle to hire and retain employees with needed skills to fill cybersecurity positions. The Commerce Department’s chief information officer recently told FedScoop that his agency had resorted to poaching talent from other agencies. “We’re stealing people from each other, that’s what it’s come down to,” commented Commerce CIO André Mendes.

For state and local government agencies, the competition for cyber talent is even more challenging. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers described the “talent crisis” as a top issue facing state technology leaders in 2022. With state and local governments facing growing cyber threats, many state and local government agencies struggle to recruit, fill, and retain key positions responsible for cybersecurity. 

Recognizing the problem, the Department of Homeland Security recently announced a new state and local cybersecurity grant program that will award $1 billion in funds over the next four years. That’s on top of the billions in unspent homeland security grants awarded to states and local governments that could be spent to Strengthen cyber risk management. 

But states and localities, like the federal government, will continue to struggle to manage cyber risks if they don’t have the workers needed to fill key positions. Addressing the nation’s cyber workforce challenge will require new approaches at the federal and state level to Strengthen training and help prepare future workers for careers in cybersecurity.

One promising approach is Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.)’s new National Community College Cybersecurity Challenge Act, introduced on Thursday. The bill aims to address the cyber workforce talent gap by leveraging the nation’s community colleges and public-private partnerships to Strengthen training. 

The bipartisan bill would authorize funding for the Department of Education to provide challenge grants to states that submit a plan to expand cybersecurity instruction at community colleges. It would also increase the number of students earning degrees in cybersecurity, with a focus on helping disadvantaged students. States would be required to provide 50 percent in matching funds (though the Education secretary would be empowered to waive this requirement). States would also be required to help community college students gain access to “real-world cybersecurity work-based experiences” and job opportunities through public-private partnerships. 

The legislation would also create a “national cybersecurity workforce innovation fund” to award matching grants to community colleges and public or private entities that focus on cybersecurity training. Awarded funds would be required to be used to Strengthen training by placing cybersecurity professionals into teaching positions and work-based training programs for students to gain real-world cybersecurity experience. 

The bill would authorize $250 million in annual grants to states through 2027 and a total of $150 million for the workforce innovation fund. The bill wisely offsets these authorized spending increases by rescinding the same amount from unspent coronavirus relief funding bills passed in 2020. 

With growing questions about the return on investment of federal subsidies for higher education, refocusing federal funds to Strengthen cybersecurity training at community colleges through public-private partnerships is a commonsense strategy to address the nation’s cybersecurity workforce training gap while offering students new pathways for promising careers.

The cybersecurity workforce talent gap also spur the education sector to address the cybersecurity workforce talent gap. Student demand for this training should be on the rise, since cybersecurity degrees offer a promising return on investment. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the average starting salary for a two-year degree in cybersecurity is $70,000,  increasing to $116,000 for students earning four-year degrees.

Schools at all levels of the education system, including K-12, should be working to provide students with options to train for cybersecurity careers. With states having more than $100 billion in unspent relief funds for education, there is a particularly good opportunity to use funds to help disadvantaged students receive training for these high-paying jobs. 

Facing growing threats, the nation faces an urgent need to prepare a workforce for open positions to defend the public and private sectors from cyber attacks. Federal and state policymakers, and the entire education sector, should consider new approaches to solving this workforce training gap. The bipartisan National Community College Cybersecurity Challenge Act is a good place to start. 

Dan Lips is Head of Policy at Lincoln Network.

With digital disruptors eating away at market share and profits hurting from prolonged, intensive cost wars between traditional competitors, businesses had been looking to reduce their cost-to-income ratios even before COVID-19. When the pandemic happened, the urgency hit a new high. On top of that came the scramble to digitize pervasively in order to survive.

But there was a problem. Legacy infrastructure, being cost-inefficient and inflexible, hindered both objectives. The need for technology modernization was never clearer. However, what wasn’t so clear was the path to this modernization.  

Should the enterprise rip up and replace the entire system or upgrade it in parts? Should the transformation go “big bang” or proceed incrementally, in phases? To what extent and to which type of cloud should they shift to? And so on.

The Infosys Modernization Radar 2022 addresses these and other questions. 

The state of the landscape

Currently, 88% of technology assets are legacy systems, half of which are business-critical. An additional concern is that many organizations lack the skills to adapt to the requirements of the digital era. This is why enterprises are rushing to modernize: The report found that 70% to 90% of the legacy estate will be modernized within five years.

Approaches to modernization

Different modernization approaches have different impacts. For example, non-invasive (or less invasive) approaches involve superficial changes to a few technology components and impact the enterprise in select pockets. These methods may be considered when the IT architecture is still acceptable, the system is not overly complex, and the interfaces and integration logic are adequate. Hence they entail less expenditure.

But since these approaches modernize minimally, they are only a stepping stone to a more comprehensive future initiative. Some examples of less and non-invasive modernization include migrating technology frameworks to the cloud, migrating to open-source application servers, and rehosting mainframes.

Invasive strategies modernize thoroughly, making a sizable impact on multiple stakeholders, application layers and processes. Because they involve big changes, like implementing a new package or re-engineering, they take more time and cost more money than non-invasive approaches and carry a higher risk of disruption, but also promise more value.

When an organization’s IT snarl starts to stifle growth, it should look at invasive modernization by way of re-architecting legacy applications to cloud-native infrastructure, migrating traditional relational database management systems to NoSQL-type systems, or simplifying app development and delivery with low-code/no-code platforms. 

The right choice question

From the above discussion, it is apparent that not all consequences of modernization are intentional or even desirable. So that brings us back to the earlier question: What is the best modernization strategy for an enterprise?

The truth is that there’s no single answer to this question because the choice of strategy depends on the organization’s context, resources, existing technology landscape, business objectives. However, if the goal is to minimize risk and business disruption, then some approaches are clearly better than others.

In the Infosys Modernization Radar 2022 report, 51% of respondents taking the big-bang approach frequently suffered high levels of disruption, compared to 21% of those who modernized incrementally in phases. This is because big-bang calls for completely rewriting enterprise core systems, an approach that has been very often likened to changing an aircraft engine mid-flight. 

Therefore big-bang modernization makes sense only when the applications are small and easily replaceable. But most transformations entail bigger changes, tilting the balance in favor of phased and coexistence approaches, which are less disruptive and support business continuity.

Slower but much steadier

Phased modernization progresses towards microservices architecture and could take the coexistence approach. As the name suggests, this entails the parallel runs of legacy and new systems until the entire modernization — of people, processes and technology — is complete. This requires new cloud locations for managing data transfers between old and new systems.

The modernized stack points to a new location with a routing façade, an abstraction that talks to both modernized and legacy systems. To embrace this path, organizations need to analyze applications in-depth and perform security checks to ensure risks don’t surface in the new architecture. 

Strategies such as the Infosys zero-disruption method frequently take the coexistence approach since it is suited to more invasive types of modernization. Planning the parallel operation of both old and new systems until IT infrastructure and applications make their transition is extremely critical.

The coexistence approach enables a complete transformation to make the application scalable, flexible, modular and decoupled, utilizing microservices architecture. A big advantage is that the coexistence method leverages the best cloud offerings and gives the organization access to a rich partner ecosystem. 

An example of zero-disruption modernization that I have led is the transformation of the point-of-sale systems of an insurer. More than 50,000 rules (business and UI) involving more than 10 million lines of code were transformed using micro-change management. This reduced ticket inventory by 70%, improved maintenance productivity by about 10% and shortened new policy rollout time by about 30%. 

Summing up

Technology modernization is imperative for meeting consumer expectations, lowering costs, increasing scalability and agility, and competing against nimble, innovative next-generation players. In other words, it is the ticket to future survival. 

There are many modernization approaches, and not all of them are equal. For example, the big-bang approach, while quick and sometimes even more affordable, carries a very significant risk of disruption. Since a single hour of critical system downtime could cost as much as $300,000, maintaining business continuity during transformation is a very big priority for enterprises.

The phased coexistence approach mitigates disruption to ensure a seamless and successful transformation. 

Gautam Khanna is the vice president and global head of the modernization practice at Infosys.

Cardiovascular experts at UVA Health have found a new way to track peripheral artery disease (PAD), a serious medical condition involving atherosclerosis in the leg arteries that affects more than 200 million people worldwide. The researchers say the approach will greatly benefit efforts to better understand the condition, which diminishes blood flow to the limbs, and to Strengthen treatment options for patients.

The UVA researchers were able to use a new magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) technique at the end of exercise to understand the effects of PAD in the calves of patients with the disease and distinguish them from normal volunteers. The approach they used, called chemical exchange saturation transfer, or CEST, produced results comparable to the current gold standard, which does not produce an image. CEST, they found, offered added benefits without requiring highly specialized equipment unavailable to many hospitals and researchers.

The beauty of CEST is that it creates an image of energy stores in the muscle which we can match to images of blood flow. This gives us a new understanding of how atherosclerosis in the leg arteries causes problems in the muscles downstream."

Christopher M. Kramer, MD, Researcher and Imaging Expert, chief of UVA Health's Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Professor of Cardiology and Radiology, University of Virginia School of Medicine

Understanding peripheral artery disease

PAD affects more than 7% of Americans over age 40 and more than 29% of those over 70. The disease can cause pain when walking, coldness or numbness in the lower leg, painful leg or arm cramps, difficulty sleeping and erectile dysfunction, among other symptoms, though it also may cause no symptoms at all.

The lack of adequate blood flow to the limbs may make it difficult for wounds to heal and can, in severe cases, lead to amputation. Existing treatments include medicine to Strengthen blood flow and manage pain; for appropriate cases, doctors may also consider options such as surgery or the placement of a stent to open clogged arteries.

The new diagnostic approach identified at UVA will advance efforts to better understand and treat PAD. To see if CEST would work for this purpose, the research team conducted a clinical trial comparing CEST with the current gold-standard approach, phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The researchers used CEST to image 35 volunteers with PAD and compared the results with imaging obtained from 29 control subjects after they performed calf exercise in the MRI scanner. They found that CEST was effective at identifying PAD in the lower legs, differentiating patients from normal subjects, and the results compared favorably to phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

CEST, they concluded, could offer many advantages for researchers. CEST has better special resolution, creates an image and does not require costly equipment needed for phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy. That means more centers could take advantage of the approach.

CEST also can be combined with other magnetic resonance imaging methods that measure blood flow in the calf to better understand the effects of PAD, the researchers note.

"Combining CEST with the techniques for measuring muscle blood flow with MRI enables an exciting new approach to studying potential benefits of established and novel therapies in this disease," Kramer said.

Findings published

Kramer and his collaborators have published their findings in the medical journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging. The team consisted of Helen L. Sporkin, Toral R. Patel, Yaqub Betz, Roshin Mathew, Christopher L. Schumann, Craig H. Meyer and Kramer.

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, grants R01 HL075792, T32 HL007284 and T32 EB003841.

Although it might seem a bit early, the countdown to Christmas is officially on. And some brands, including The Body Shop, ASOS, The White Company and Lookfantastic have already launched their advent calendars.

Spanning everything from beauty and wine to cheese, there’s an an advent calendar to treat a loved one or yourself to ahead of Christmas. And if you’re looking for a deluxe set of goodies, we think wellbeing brand ESPA’s 2022 launch will pique your interest.

Known as a skincare, home fragrance and body care staple, ESPA’s scents range from restorative and energising to soothing and restful blends. Let’s not forget that it also has some pretty impressive bedding, nightwear and soft furnishings available too.

So, while the calendar comes with a premium price tag of £160, the fact that its contents are worth a whopping £319 is sure to sweeten the deal. If nothing else, it’s a great way of shopping for seasonal surprises and tapping into a reduced price product bundle – which we’re definitely on board with.

Billed as a wellness advent calendar, we wanted to see what’s actually inside ahead of its 3 October launch. With 25 surprises to explore, across both full-sized and miniature ESPA buys, here’s our verdict.

How we tested

Our reviewer tucked into the advent calendar treats over several weeks of testing, looking at packaging, product formulas and value for money. We wanted to see whether any classic ESPA goodies were included inside, while also finding out how much product variety there would be in the calendar. Read on for our full tried and tested ESPA advent calendar review.

Packaging

This is a sizeable advent calendar with a luxury aesthetic, and the white and gold detailing add extra chic appeal too. It has a textured leather-look covered finish, and opening the calendar up, we noticed how robust the frame and integral drawer boxes are too. All-in-all, this looks an expensive purchase and on first sight, already feels like a big treat.

When opened out, we spotted different sized drawers which pull open easily and some contain tissue wrapping too. The drawers come in and out of their slots without folding or being flimsy, making for ease of use throughout December. Plus, this entire box could be repurposed again for product storage or making your own advent calendar.

We think you could keep it on a surface either open or closed, with both options working well. There’s also a handy shelf element on top of the drawers, for displaying any goodies too.

Overall contents

As mentioned, there are 25 products within the calendar and these come in both full and travel sized options, spanning across everything from a miniature candle, winter spiced decoration and shower gel to shampoo, conditioner, serum and cleansers. So as not to spoil the surprise of which treat we discovered on each day, we’ll share an overall list of our standout favourites instead.

Full-sized products

On the full-sized front, we loved opening the bracing 55g fitness bath salts (£33, Espaskincare.com) and instantly inhaled their aromatic rosemary, peppermint oil and clove fragrance blend. After sprinkling them into our bath following a rainy dog walk, we enjoyed immersing our body into the soothing aroma. Plus, we felt relaxed ahead of bed thanks to the inclusion of magnesium and lavender too.

Another bodycare offering is the 50ml purifying polish (£60, Espaskincare.com), an exfoliator we found to both smooth and soothe skin, as its creamy composition offered gentle buffing. Key ingredients are ginger, ylang ylang and vetiver and this body treatment’s rousing scent was a quick way of transporting us to a spa-type tranquillity.

For the face, our tired peepers happily lapped up the 15ml pot of depuff and soothe eye gel (£42, Espaskincare.com) which we found has a light, cooling texture complete with comforting vitamin E, camomile and cucumber ingredients. Paired with a 5ml nourishing lip treatment tube (£21, Espaskincare.com), our pout saw hydrating hyaluronic acid-infused plumping too.

Miniature products

We dipped into some signature ESPA luxury after discovering a 30ml tube of fitness shower gel, which our tester found energising after a workout because of the clove, eucalyptus and lavender ingredients combination. While in the shower, we also used the 50ml super nourish glossing shampoo and nourishing conditioner duo, whose components cover jojoba, almond and olive oil for softened locks.

Speaking of cleansing, there’s a 50ml tube of optimal skin pro-cleanser to enjoy, which is a multi-tasking skincare product that can be used as a mask and exfoliator too. A treat-sized go-to for simple skin indulgence, we loved the gentle jojoba spheres and moringa seed extract ingredients as they bring a glow without feeling abrasive.

Speaking of skincare TLC, we have to mention the inclusion of optimal skin pro-serum, as this taster-sized 10ml version of richly nourishing goodness is an ESPA daily favourite of ours. We’ve found the formula expertly adds hydration and brightness and balances out our skin tone, while we savour the aromatic tangerine, cedar and jasmine essential oils during application too.

Finally, for getting festive, we particularly appreciated the winter spice scented ceramic ornament which is an ESPA logo shaped hanging decoration smelling deliciously of spicy, warming and citrus notes. And as we love a candle here at IndyBest, we’ll end our contents lowdown with a nod to the similarly scented winter spice votive candle. Plus, the gorgeous midnight blue and metallic holder offers plenty of festive joy.

Available to buy from 3 October

The verdict: ESPA wellness advent calendar

There’s no doubt ESPA’s wellness advent calendar is a luxurious festive buy which would add a spa treat to every single day in December. There are plenty of full-sized products well worth trying and the miniatures aren’t always that small, with some still being impressive 50ml tubes.

Whether you’re looking to stock up on skincare and make the most of the multi-buy savings this advent calendar offers, or fancy treating yourself ahead of Christmas, we’re completely sold on ESPA’s wellness advent calendar.

Love exploring new skincare ranges? Find out why we’re big fans of The Body Shop’s edelweiss collection.

Despite the boom of education technology investment and innovation over the past few years, founder Julia Stiglitz, who broke into the edtech world as an early Coursera employee, thinks there’s a lot of room to grow. Her new startup, CoRise, sells expert-led programming to people who want to up-skill their careers. It’s a fresh play in a crowded sector, with heavyweights including Udemy, Udacity, Guild Education and, well, her former employer.

“We haven’t solved the problems yet, and in fact, they’re growing,” Stiglitz said in an interview with TechCrunch. The edtech veteran is right: The next-generation of edtech is still looking for ways to balance motivation and behavior change, offered at an accessible price point in a scalable format. There’s an inherent trade-off between engagement and scale — an elephant that even the unicorns have not entirely been able to avoid.

Enter CoRise, which wants to do it all. The startup, built by Stiglitz, Sourabh Bajaj and Jacob Samuelson, pairs students who want to learn and Strengthen on highly technical skills, such as DevOps or data science, with experts. CoRise defines experts as leaders at tech companies; advertised instructors include a data engineering manager at Drizly, former CTO at Wikimedia and director of machine learning at ShareChat, for example. Some classes, like this SQL crash course, are even taught by CoRise employees.

As far as early users go, it’s not going for the solopreneur who wants to break into tech. Instead, CoRise is selling to enterprises in need of more tailored solutions for their talent. In talking to learning and development leaders, the founder learned that organizations are either rolling out asynchronous education platforms to the entire staff, or bringing in consultants to do customer training; “there sort of wasn’t anything in between,” she said, so she built it.

Stiglitz doesn’t want CoRise to scale to a place where it hosts 20,000 courses taught by thousands of instructors. Instead, the startup wants to offer one applied machine learning course that teaches 1,000 or 5,000 students at a time.

By focusing on bigger cohorts, CoRise is taking a different approach than some of its competitors. Udemy founder Gagan Biyani, for example, is working on Maven, which offers expert-led programming that divides people into small groups to nurture collaboration and the exchange of ideas. Stiglitz, meanwhile, thinks that smaller cohorts drive up the expense of the program. Standardized courses with bigger classes is the only way to get programming to “be really accessible”, in her view.

Single course access costs an average of $400, and students can buy an all-access pass to every cohort for around $1,000, she adds. For comparison, a single course on Maven — perhaps this one on founder finance — can cost $2,000.

“We’re trying to figure out how you get outcomes or results for learners at this scale, and still make it really accessible, still have instructors make solid revenue on it,” she said. “We need to figure out how to have lots of people in a cohort and still have a great experience.”

The challenge of big classes and standardized courses, of course, is the lack of personalization. CoRise created a “nudging infrastructure” that looks at how an individual student is interacting with a course, associated lectures and due assignments. It also looks at things like if the student has gone to office hours, or if they have submitted their work in time.

The back-end information helps CoRise then send out an automated “nudge” or push notification to someone who needs a reminder to seek additional support. The course manager also follows up with a human response so students don’t feel like it’s all robots and automatic messages, the founder explained.

Over time, CoRise can get smarter on how to support students who are struggling before they even show up to office hours, a big vision shared among the personalized learning movement.

“A lot of what we’re trying to figure out is like what needs to be human to retain that motivational element? And then what can we scale up on the backend in order to drive scale and keep costs down to make a reasonable price,” she said. Stiglitz says that the average completion rate of the course is 78%. The startup’s nudge framework is certainly compelling, but is only one step toward a more customized and engaging experience for learners. And while low costs certainly matter — a lot — there can be a race to the bottom if other competitors also seek to drive price down to win over customers.

While the startup didn’t disclose the number of learners who have gone through its platform, it did say that they come from more than 500 companies, including Spotify, Walmart and Lyft. It has a 68 NPS score.

The startup has raised millions to better figure out the above. To date, CoRise tells TechCrunch that it has raised $8.5 million from Greylock, GSV and Cowboy Ventures since launch, with $5.5 million in its first check and the following $3 million given in latest traction. Other investors include Greg Brockman, co-founder of OpenAI, and Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder DeepMind.

My last question for Stiglitz was an annoying one: How does her focus on fewer classes and instructors sit with her investors? Wouldn’t they want her to always be launching new classes?

“The pressure is going to be scale, scale, scale, but it’s going to be scale, scale, scale, within the class,” she said. “We’re targeting large companies who want to roll out SQL training to 1,000 people, but they’re not going to want to roll out eight different versions of that class. That’s how we get scale.”

Image Credits: CoRise

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Jupiter will look bigger and brighter than normal on Monday night as it rises opposite of the sun and reaches its closest point to Earth in decades. It will be so close that the planet's banding and several of its moons should be visible, NASA said. 

The gas giant will become visible when it reaches opposition, meaning it rises in the east as the sun sets in the west, a move that happens every 13 months. Tonight will also mark the closest that Jupiter has been to Earth since 1963 – which, according to NASA, is a unique happening that will make it an extra special viewing. 

At its closest point, the planet will be about 367 million miles from Earth, about 200 million miles closer than when it's at its farthest point. 

"Jupiter's closest approach to Earth rarely coincides with opposition," NASA said, "which means this year's views will be extraordinary." 

Those spectacular views are expected to be vivid and detailed, scientists said. 

"With good binoculars, the banding (at least the central band) and three or four of the Galilean satellites (moons) should be visible," NASA research astrophysicist Adam Kobelski said. 

There are 53 named moons belonging to the planet, though scientists believe that 79 have been detected. The four largest of the moons are known as the Galilean satellites, named after Galileo Galilei, who first observed them. 

"It's important to remember that Galileo observed these moons with 17th century optics," Kobelski  said. "One of the key needs will be a stable mount for whatever system you use." 

The best spots to see Jupiter will be from high elevations where it is dark and dry, Kobelski said, and it should visible for the next few days. 

"Take advantage of good weather on either side of this date to take in the sight," he said. "Outside of the moon, it should be one of the (if not the) brightest objects in the night sky." 

WASHINGTON — A Juul executive fiercely criticized the Food and Drug Administration’s approach toward regulating vaping companies during a tobacco industry conference Thursday.

Joe Murillo, the company’s chief regulatory officer, came armed with a number of criticisms of the agency, including its alleged inability to withstand political pressure.

“The very integrity of the FDA review process is now called into question,” Murillo said at the annual tobacco confab known as the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum.

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He lamented, too, the FDA’s lax enforcement against companies that flout its rules. His remarks come on the heels of a STAT investigation that showed that a large swath of products the FDA has recently ordered off the market are still being sold illegally.

“Fly-by-night companies have flooded the market with illegally marketed products,” Murillo said. “These products flout laws and regulations and present a public health danger. While we’ve seen progress, regulators need to Strengthen and prioritize effective enforcement.”

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The executive’s remarks come on the heels of two lawsuits from Juul challenging the agency’s latest failed attempt to pull its products off shelves. The company has claimed the decision was motivated by political pressure and that the FDA overlooked a number of the scientific studies the company submitted alongside its application.

His criticisms were part of a chorus of complaints directed at the FDA during this week’s conference. Speakers slammed nearly every aspect of the tobacco center’s work, from its alleged unwillingness to work with the tobacco industry, to its lawyering, which law professor Jonathan Adler, called in a keynote speech Thursday “arbitrary” and “sloppy.”

“I just don’t think it’s a well run-center,” said Stacy Ehrlich, a lawyer who represents tobacco companies.

Several speakers argued, too, that all of these regulatory struggles have made it harder for people to use vaping as a tool to quit smoking cigarettes.

“To be crystal clear, this uncertainty only prolongs cigarette use,” Murillo, the Juul executive, said.

While a number of the speakers during the conference have vested financial interests in the vaping industry, it is true that the available evidence suggests vaping can help people quit smoking, and that vaping is less harmful than smoking cigarettes.

Even one prominent tobacco-control advocate railed about the FDA during this week’s meeting.

Dave Dobbins, the former chief operating officer at the Truth Initiative, said he worried that the FDA’s “willy-nilly” regulation of e-cigarettes would eventually lead a judge to “throw the statue out the window.”

The newly minted head of the FDA’s tobacco center, Brian King, briefly addressed the criticisms during a speech at the conference on Wednesday.

“It’s very easy to criticize,” King said. “I think it’s also very easy to be an armchair regulator from the luxury of a social media account. What’s far more complicated is ensuring … that our regulations are scientifically and legally defensible, and that’s what I’m committed to doing.”

King also appeared to urge patience with the center, which was created in 2009.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s a relatively infant center, relative to other centers at the FDA,” King said.

Critics of the agency were not convinced.

“You don’t get to be a baby for 20 years,” said Dobbins, the former Truth Initiative COO.

Standardising recycling collections across Northern Ireland could save councils millions, support jobs and increase how much waste can be reused, says the charity Bryson Recycling.

It is calling on councils to adopt its box system to keep items separate.

A new policy on waste management is currently being developed.

The latest government figures show nearly 10% less rubbish was collected by councils from January to March 2022, compared to the same period in 2021.

Household waste makes up 87.3% of that rubbish - and just 45.8% of it went for recycling.

That's down from 46.6% last year.

Northern Ireland has a target of recycling 65% of all waste by 2035.

What can be recycled varies from council area to council area, and sometimes within those areas.

And councils may use different coloured bins or different box systems to collect recyclable waste.

"There are probably about four different approaches across Northern Ireland," said Eric Randall, chief executive of Bryson Recycling.

"And, yes, I think it would be best if we were migrating towards a more common approach.

"For us using boxes, it's very simple because the householders do a bit of the work.

"They put the material into one of three compartments. That means we keep it separate in the vehicles and are able to sell 80% into companies in Northern Ireland.

"The more it's mixed, the more difficult it is to actually get the quality of those materials to a point where you can actually get them into local companies who require high specifications to make new products."

Those new products include things like egg boxes and drink carriers.

Demand is increasing and that is keeping Huhtamaki's Lurgan factory very busy, according to chief executive officer Richard Smith.

"We produce roughly a million egg cartons a day.

"We are currently funding our next stage of investment, which is another machine to expand that production.

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"But we need to make sure we've got the raw material, not just now but in 10 to 15 years' time, and that generates more jobs here, and then indirect jobs in transport contractors, engineers, etc.

"It fits in with the whole closed-loop system that people strive for.

"But we've got to make sure that we have access to good raw material now and in the future.

"Basically we're sending a product that has a value to landfill, which is crazy."

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs is currently developing a new waste-management strategy, to be published by next year.

There will also be a consultation on standardising recycling practices, following consultation with councils.