This global crisis has taught us a few
things. One of the most transformative outcomes of the pandemic will be the
collective realisation of what really matters in life – and in business.
Job stability and meaningful projects, health, human contact. At a time when we’ve come to question everything that was part of our day-to-day, technology has proven to be indispensable. A lifeline connecting us to the rest of the world.
Now more than ever, IT departments hold the key to organisational resilience and recovery. Find out why.
Head in the clouds
The cloud industry’s momentum seems unstoppable. It was only last week that we were discussing how cloud providers are extremely well-positioned to benefit from the current situation.
This week, we got some more good news for the cloud folk. Despite taking a considerable hit in online advertising, Google has increased cloud revenue by 52%.
Additionally, the company’s Anthos platform is now live on AWS. Additionally, Oracle has scored a major win by securing Zoom’s cloud business. Video calls have surged amidst the global lockdown. The American company has emerged as the biggest beneficiary.
News from the frontlines
A look at the week in tech news. Join us on a
tour around the globe to see how tech is facing COVID-19 head-on. This week…
Tech giants, from NVIDIA to PayPal, have made a commitment to maintaining all employees throughout the crisis. This move, again, highlights the strategic importance of having a robust IT team. Even if it hurts you in the short term, it will prove more than worthy once the storm is over.
But some are not following this advice, endangering their operations, customers and partners. Some companies are trying to reduce overall IT costs by making their security experts shift to regular IT support tasks — that can prove disastrous for cybersecurity, accentuating the strain on enterprise networks.
Nadia’s eyes were red after hours with
the holovisor on. The newer models came with ocular moisturizing tech, but not
all companies were eager to take on the extra cost just for the visual
well-being of their employees. At least not yet. Her friend Sudi had one of
those fancy rigs at the office. Apparently, you didn’t even need to use your
hands to manipulate data sets and subroutines. A simple mental order would get
the job done. Nadia thought for a second of how lazy humans had become. It was
hard to imagine how, just thirty years ago, people like her had to rely on
mechanical input devices and raw code to do their jobs.
A pulsating glow on the bottom right
corner of her field of vision brought her back from the history tour. The alert
was accompanied by a low-pitched beeping sound. She veered right with a gesture
of the hand and pulled the message window closer to her.
“Unusual log entry detected,”
said the virtual operator in a quirky and piercing male voice.
Nadia had recently configured her AI to
sound like Saneer Ziza, her and her sister’s favourite comedy actor. She had to
give it to her sister — for the first time in years, she had come up with a
pretty thoughtful birthday gift. Perhaps age was starting to weigh on her and
she was finally letting some barriers down. In any case, Nadia had been
enjoying the company of Ziza’s humour while scouting the network for potential
breaches. It made everything sound quite funny, actually. Even that alert.
“Give me a full report,”
requested Nadia. Like anyone who deserved to call themselves a data integrity
expert, she knew better than to ignore odd entries in the system’s registry of
activity. It was one of the thousands of parameters she had trained Ziza to
monitor.
“Sorry, Nadia. The event log no
longer shows any abnormalities.”
Weird. “What do you mean by ‘no longer’? ” she asked, bothered.
“I have reviewed the records 43,901
times, and there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary here.”
“Why would you alert me of an
unusual entry, then?
“Sorry, Nadia. I cannot answer that question
without an irregularity to make reference to.”
“But you just said ‘no longer’,
which means you have memory of the irregularity being there in the first
place.”
“I was merely referencing my previous
statement.”
Nadia sighed and rolled her eyes — not a
great idea, dry as they were. These annoying bugs had become more common since
the last system update. She couldn’t wait for the next patch.
“Flag this over to maintenance, would
you?”
She took the headset off and threw
herself on the sofa. The four walls of her studio felt somewhat oppressing after
the vastness of the digital world. Stretching arms and legs, she told Ziza to
put on some music and got herself lost in thought. Tomorrow was an office day.
Plus, she had that new business meeting first thing in the morning. It would be
a big deal if they signed this client. Sunset filtered through the blinds,
projecting red and orange stripes on the opposing wall.
Nadia took a long sip of coffee and let
her gaze go from one person to the other around the conference table. A strange
bunch. Even in their formal business attires, she could tell how different they
were from one another. Two men and two women, their ages ranging from the early
thirties to the mid-fifties. She tried to come up with a background story for
each one of them as Tom from sales walked them through the proposal. Raindrops
kept hitting the glass wall behind them. It was an unusually foggy autumn day. Nadia
could barely see the building across the street.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how
we’ll solve your problem. That’s if you decide to move forward with the plan,
of course,” said Tom with a polite smile that Nadia knew too well. “Quantum cryptography
has come a long way, and we’ve been there since the beginning. Others will promise
they can do it too, but our unique encryption system is the only way to fully
guarantee that your customer’s data stays secure throughout all transactions.”
RayStar was one of those brand names all
professionals know. They were in — well — everything. Financial services,
insurance, enterprise software. Anything your average business would need. But
recently they had started focusing on the consumer market, using their machine
learning expertise and their access to most of the world’s data to develop a
new kind of personal AI assistant: Duplo.
The premise was pretty straightforward.
Who better to help you manage your everyday tasks than an exact copy of
yourself? Somehow, RayStar had managed to aggregate all your data and create an
AI that thought and acted just like you do. Of course, your Duplo wasn’t
perfect. But it was way more effective than any other AI assistant out there. Media
hype was strong.
With the product’s official release
scheduled for next month, RayStar was looking to find a security partner that
could ensure the protection of user data. AI chips had improved a lot in terms
of security, and most AIs were able to run locally on the user’s device or
network. But Duplo was simply too complex. A central quantum computer was
required to process all the assistant’s responses, and that was a major
liability considering how sensitive personal data was. The chances for someone
to intercept the information along the way were simply too high. That’s where
Nadia’s firm came in.
“Forgive me, but I fail to understand how
this, hmm, binding is the only way to protect the data 100%,” said one
of the RayStar executives. Clearly more of a businessman than a technical type.
“Ray Goldstein, VP of Compliance,”
whispered Ziza’s voice through the earpiece Nadia had on. The exec was talking
about the process by which Nadia’s company would ensure the encryption keys
remained confidential. RayStar’s CIO, a middle-aged woman with piercing eyes, looked
at her colleague with impatience, probably hoping to wrap that up quickly so
that she could move onto the next endless meeting of the day. Tom was looking
at Nadia, silently begging her to step in.
“It’s entanglement, actually,
sir,” said Nadia. “Although binding works as a concept as well,” she added with
a smile. “In very basic terms, we encrypt the data by generating two identical sets
of random numbers — or ‘keys’ — that we then send to your central system.
Your supercomputer can only read and process the data by first using that key
to decrypt it, so that…”
“See. That’s exactly what I am saying,”
said the VP. “We are trying to prevent someone from accessing the data during
transactions by sending a key, the password. But what’s to prevent them from
intercepting that key as well?” Nadia could now clearly hear the CIO’s fingers
tapping nervously on the table.
“That’s precisely why our real-time entanglement
system is the only way the secure your transactions, Mr Goldstein,” explained
Nadia. “It all comes down to quantum theory. Sub-atomic particles. Quantum mechanics
tells us that, when we generate a password, the value of that password will be
altered once we look at it. Meanwhile, the property of entanglement dictates
that two entangled keys will be tied across time and space, so that whatever
happens to one affects the other.”
“I see,” said the VP, clearly not seeing
it at all.
“Think of it as a pair of twins, if you
will,” said Nadia. “It is said that twins can feel it whenever something
happens to their other half, even if they are thousands of miles apart. Well,
here this is actually true. If someone was eavesdropping and intercepted one of
the keys, we would be able to detect it. Something would feel off.”
“Oh, I see. Interesting. I actually have
a twin, you know?”
IT's Pivotal Role in a Post-Pandemic World. This struggle has further highlighted the strategic importance of one particular department – IT.
IT’s Pivotal Role in a Post-Pandemic WorldOne of the few positive outcomes of this global health and economic crisis will be the collective realisation of what really matters. Overnight, the world stopped. Our lives were stripped of all the fluff, forcing us to re-evaluate priorities and hold onto the essentials. A stable income, health, human contact.
The same is true for the enterprise world. Businesses had to scrap their 2020 roadmap and start anew, trimming down costs and adjusting short- and mid-term goals. Those lucky enough to be in an industry where remote work makes sense have done their best to stay operational. This struggle, in turn, has further highlighted the strategic importance of one particular department – IT.
IT’s Pivotal Role in a Post-Pandemic World
Accelerating digital transformation
For some, the road to digital transformation has been a shorter and bumpier ride than expected. The sudden need for company-wide telework has caught them unprepared, without the necessary infrastructure or processes in place. But the surge in demand for IT services has put a strain on even the best-prepared organisations.
Collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and cloud services have experienced lag and other issues. Forcing providers to implement new measures and double down on personnel. Traditional retailers have turned to online sales, whereas pure e-commerce players and multichannel operators are expanding their overall organisational structure.
All of this is only made possible by technology investments and the development of IT teams. Furthermore, the current situation offers a good reminder of technology’s key role in ensuring companies can quickly adapt to changing circumstances.
Ensuring cybersecurity
As we have discussed in the past, a home-based workforce has made it easier for attackers to exploit weaknesses in enterprise networks. Not to say that business leaders were unaware of the dangers of cyberthreats before. Cybersecurity has long been in the top list of worries for CIOs.
However, the risks — and stakes — are now higher than ever. Companies are putting a renewed focus on the importance of implementing appropriate protocols and tools, from VPNs to cloud security. The push to guarantee business continuity is making organisations compete for the best security specialists. Accentuating an already pervasive shortage of skilled talent.
Navigating uncharted waters
But not all challenges that businesses face are as straightforward. New regulatory landscapes; like the ones brought forth by GPDR and the UK’s upcoming IR35; can be difficult for companies to figure out.
For example, those speeding up digital transformation might not be fully aware of the ins and outs of data privacy laws and inadvertently commit malpractice. Again, technological tools like enterprise automation can be decisive in helping organisations manage the unknown and limit exposure. IT departments can employ digital workers to comb through data sets or carry out other time-consuming tasks to ensure compliance with current regulations.
Additionally, IT can greatly help enterprises deal with evolving economic and market scenarios. Machine learning and other types of AI software are great allies in the search of new areas of business. Helping sales teams identify leads and allowing for more accurate predictions.
IT’s Pivotal Role in a Post-Pandemic World : Numbers don’t lie
Recent studies suggest that business leaders know perfectly well that IT is set to play a pivotal role in the COVID-19 aftermath. Yes — IDC expects a 2.7% decline in worldwide IT spending this year. But this data must not be taken out of context.
All seems to indicate that CFOs are, as usual, exercising caution and limiting overall spending across the organisation. However, it looks like most companies recognise the strategic importance of technology by prioritising IT spending over other areas. This sentiment was echoed in a recent poll by Imperial College Business School, which revealed that 48% of businesses were planning to prioritise the hiring of IT professionals in the coming months.
This week marked the 50th anniversary of Earth
Day. Created by environmentalist Denis Hayes in 1970 (go math ?) the celebration reaches its
half a century of life amidst the greatest global crisis our world has seen in
a while.
Hayes sat down with
Thomson Reuters to reflect on the event’s trajectory and discuss how much we’ve
done vs. how much is left to do.
Among his main criticisms — the system’s failure to leverage technological innovations to produce cheaper, more efficient and cleaner energy.
He is hopeful that being stuck at home makes us more aware of what’s at stake should we not tackle climate change head-on and collectively.
It is precisely this message of unity that the European Space Agency wanted to emphasize, reminding us of the late Stephen Hawkins’ last message to humankind.
“How will we feed an ever-growing population, provide clean water, generate renewable energy, prevent and cure disease and slow down global climate change?
I hope that science and technology will provide the answers to these questions, but it will take people, human beings with knowledge and understanding to implement the solution.”
The message was broadcasted to all planet Earth, with accompanying music by Greek composer Vangelis.
It’s a mixed bag for IR35
The UK’s controversial IR35 regulation,
which was set to enter into force earlier this month, was delayed to April 2021
due to the advance of COVID-19. The decision was welcomed with relief by
workers and the enterprise world alike.
The legislation could have endangered
independent work by asking companies to pay higher taxes for contractors who
were not deemed independent enough.
But both industry and legislators at the House of Lords Finance Bill Committee believe the law needs to be further postponed, as an extra year might not be enough time. Some go beyond that, arguing for a bill revision rather than a delay.
However, the Treasury announced yesterday it had no intention at this moment of changing its plans.
News from the frontlines
One more week, we look at the various tech
initiatives being launched around the world to help fight the novel
coronavirus.
Cisco has created two new
programs to help healthcare organisations get the networking equipment they
need. The platforms match companies looking to donate unused wireless equipment
with healthcare facilities that need it.
Google has opened its
Healthcare API in a move to facilitate the sharing of medical data and promote
a coordinated response to the virus.
Facebook is launching a nation-wide symptom survey in the UK. The survey, which had already been rolled out in the U.S., will provide data to predict hospital admissions in specific areas.
Finally, the innovation arm of the UK’s National Health Service has announced a £500,000 funding competition for innovators and startups to come up with digital tools to help against the virus outbreak.
Discover our 5 keys to adapt your IT Talent Strategy to the current reality. Here are 5 things you should keep in mind.
Discover our 5 keys to adapt your IT Talent Strategy to the current reality. Here are 5 things you should keep in mind.
It seems it was ages ago that we were wrapping up 2019
and getting ready for a new year. It was the perfect time to look at emerging trends
and future business needs, to make resolutions and establish goals for the year
ahead. However, the global pandemic is forcing us to scrap many of those plans.
We must adjust to the current economic and social reality, and so does our
talent strategy.
As an IT decision-maker, your success depends very much on the performance of your teams. Now more than ever, you need to mobilize the right skills, at the right time, and at the right cost.
To do this, you must re-evaluate your existing talent strategy. You must anticipate your skills needs and set up concrete measures to attract, recruit, retain and develop that talent — both to weather the crisis and for when the storm is over.
Identify your main challenges
Alright, so it’s your team that determines your success. But how do you find and recruit top performers when the tech & IT talent market is suffering from a heavy talent shortage and everyone is competing for the same candidates? Who should you prioritise hiring given the uncertainty of the situation?
All key departments
in a company should have a talent strategy in place, but it is all the more
necessary for IT since the talent war is raging much more than in other areas. For
instance, an expert in an area of expertise such as cybersecurity often
receives several offers for permanent jobs or freelance assignments every week
— or even every day.
Be aware of
these issues to anticipate your needs and define the best possible plan of
action (difficulty levels to recruit a particular profile, salary levels,
etc.).
Another of the Keys to Adapt Your IT Talent Strategy: Be flexible with your recruiting approach
You know how fast everything goes in the world of IT, especially given the massive shift to remote work. In this perspective, you must ensure that you are able to quickly adapt by working both with stable resources, who know the long-term challenges of your business, and with resources that can be mobilised quickly and on more specific issues.
The solution is often to use both internal and external talent, including freelance IT consultants. They make it possible to bring in skills that are often specific on certain technical subjects, without too restrictive a commitment over time. They also have the benefit of bringing a “new” and external look which can be beneficial to the team already in place and stimulate rapid change.
Leverage soft skills to accelerate your projects
More and
more, soft skills are making a difference among IT professionals. The IT
department is at the heart of digital transformation and must be an engine of
change in the company. Especially in today’s climate, IT teams must be composed
of people capable of adapting, communicating, and sometimes even evangelizing
to encourage the adoption of new tools or uses.
Hard skills
are obviously fundamental, but the lifespan of acquired skills is getting
shorter and shorter, and times of crisis call for something more than technique.
As an IT decision-maker, you must make sure that your recruitment and talent
development strategy focuses on people as the primary performance lever.
A good CIO
or a good IT leader shows leadership, creativity and a daring vision — even an
entrepreneurial spirit. You must look for these qualities in your IT team
leaders and members to ensure the success of your projects.
Are you
recruiting developers? Choose candidates who demonstrate emotional intelligence
and who will be able to put themselves in the shoes of the user. Beyond the
technical mastery of the targeted computer languages, make sure that the
curiosity, the method, the initiative and the critical thinking of your
candidates are evaluated in the recruitment process.
For more information on the topic, check out this article outlining the 5 most sought-after soft skills in IT.
Beyond recruitment: talent retention and development
It is no
longer enough to know how to identify and attract the best profiles to have an
effective talent strategy: you have to make sure you know how to keep and
develop the right IT professionals who constitute your teams. Especially in a
crisis like the one that is unfolding.
You might
be tempted to cut staff loose and settle for short-than-best experts to reduce
costs. That can be a big mistake. Your employees are your greatest asset and
you should protect them and nurture them as much as possible. Focus on
retaining your best talent, on future-proofing your existing team. You will be
thankful for it once the crisis ends and you have all the competitive
advantages of a robust IT team.
Some specific
steps that you can take:
Create a sense of belonging —
especially important with everyone working from home
Make your current and future projects
attractive and take advantage of online development opportunities
Reassure your employees. Make
sure they know they are appreciated and that you have their back.
Facilitate the management of
work-life balance now more than ever
Put special attention on
internal communication. Transparency here is also crucial
Remember
that these initiatives must concern internal talent, but also external employees.
The increasingly frequent hybridization of teams, made up of both freelancers
and “classic” employees, means measures must be implemented across
the board.
Another key
area of focus you should put particular emphasis on the onboarding of new
recruits. The successful integration of an employee is always the foundation
for successful collaboration, but, with less and less human interaction, it is
necessary to make an extra effort in this area.
You must ensure that appropriate onboarding processes and tools are in place. Again, treat outsiders like you treat employees and make sure that freelancers are well integrated into the team.
The last of the Keys to Adapt Your IT Talent Strategy: Seek the support of the right partners
Defining
talent strategy is key to your department’s success. But it is not an easy feat
in these strange times, especially if you are not a recruitment specialist. Here,
a trusted recruitment partner can be decisive. It may be wise to seek the
guidance of a third-party actor who knows the market well and understands your
specific problems and needs — someone capable of supporting you today and in
the long term.
It is also
necessary to work in collaboration with other departments within your company:
HR for the entire employer brand part, Purchasing for relations with external
service providers, etc.
Some businesses are
thriving amid the global turmoil caused by the spread of COVID-19. Whereas whole
economic sectors are falling victim to the effects of a quarantined population and
the fall in demand, others find themselves in a privileged position to face
this once-in-a-century crisis. This competitive advantage is particularly
noticeable in areas like technology.
U.S. oil prices have turned negative for the first time in history. Traditional retailers
are struggling to stay afloat, drastically cutting down expected profits for
the second half of the year while delivering disappointing first-quarter results.
At the same time, online retail moguls like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos have seen their
net worth skyrocket since the lockdown began.
With the surge in remote
work and internet traffic, businesses need IT now more than ever. Videoconferencing services
and other collaboration tools are booming, while the rise in digital operations
has multiplied the number of cyber threats and accentuated the cybersecurity skills shortage.
But that’s not all.
Facing a new reality
Many organisations were not ready for the sudden shift to digital and
decentralised ways of working. For some, digital transformation went overnight
from being a mid-term goal to a bare necessity. They were either relying too
much on on-premise storage and computing, or perhaps they were simply not ready
to have most of their employees working from home at the same time. This change
in demand has propelled cloud services forward, with more and more clients
signing up for access to IaaS and PaaS solutions.
The big winners
There are no clearer signs of the cloud’s
buoyant momentum that the good results the top industry players have achieved during
the first quarter. Even if overall company performance is not as strong.
IBM has seen the pandemic thwart what
otherwise would
have been a solid quarter of growth. However, the company claims hybrid
cloud adoption has spiked as a direct result of the pandemic. IBM’s (and by
extension Red Hat’s) platform and containerization offerings allow companies to
quickly deploy and easily escalate business-critical applications – a major
advantage in today’s everchanging situation.
German ERP powerhouse SAP has
also managed to maintain strong cloud bookings. The company even managed to
increase overall revenue. SAP S/4HANA gained an additional 300 customers in
Q1, bringing the total up to 14,100 accounts. That’s a 23% increase from the
same time last year. The results further demonstrate S/4HANA’s growing momentum and as the deadline
to migrate to the newer ERP system approaches.
Additionally, and in what is another tell-tale sign of the health of the
industry, Alibaba announced it will be investing $28 billion to expand
its cloud infrastructure and semiconductor business. That’s over half of its
revenue for the past fiscal year.
Cloud providers and their customers are betting big on the cloud’s
potential to protect company operations and speed up the recovery process once the
crisis is over.
The dual health and economic crisis we are going through creates a particularly high level of uncertainty and instability. How to manage your activity?
How to avoid mistakes when hiring IT freelancers? With most of the workforce operating remotely, it is highly likely that your company needs to expand its IT team. Whether it’s due to a lack of preparedness in terms of digital transformation or increased cybersecurity concerns. A good way to go about it is to seek the help of independent experts. Working with freelancers grants you quick access to the specific skills that you need while reducing the risk of hiring new employees in uncertain times.
But beyond budget restrictions, to recruit is to take a risk. The risk of selecting a candidate who does not have the right skills or who will not be able to adapt to your team or your company. This risk is all the more obvious in the case of the recruitment of tech freelancer; since they are expected to be operational and produce results right away. So how do you limit this risk as much as possible? And find the right profile, within the limits of your budget and in an often-tight schedule?
First things to avoid mistakes when hiring: define your ideal candidate
Be careful, as hiring mistakes can be made from the start of the recruitment process. To find the right person, you must first define the profile you are seeking. The first common mistake is to ignore this first key step. Start by listing your needs, write a clear job description and validate your budget.
Next comes the step of selecting candidates. Are you looking for an SAP expert or a Business Intelligence consultant for a mission of several months? You will need to assess the level of expertise of your candidates. Beyond the CV and the list of skills, you should ask freelancers for examples of their previous work. You can also ask for their portfolio or their GitHub profile, which can provide a lot of information.
Finally, the interview stage is essential for evaluating the skills of a freelancer. And the candidate is not the only one who has to prepare. Think beforehand about the points you want to assess and do not hesitate to alternate concrete questions and open questions to test the ability of freelance to solve complex problems. If you do not have the level of technical knowledge necessary to assess a profile; it may be wise to be accompanied by someone who does and to set up specific filters such as technical tests.
Have you found the freelancer with the most suitable skills? Very well. Do not stop there. If you do, you might be on the verge of committing the most common hiring mistake. Limiting yourself to the technical aspects and neglecting social skills.
Know-how or the distinguishing element
In any recruitment, the human factor is essential. You may find the candidate with the highest level of expertise and with the most suitable experiences. But these will never be sufficient factors to ensure a successful recruitment. The so-called soft skills have become a must-have for IT professionals. This is particularly true in the case of freelancers. An independent consultant will have limited time to integrate into your team and will have to adapt very quickly to get to the heart of the project.
But how do you assess the soft skills of a tech freelancer? It is not easy to measure elements as subjective and intangible as the human and relational qualities of a candidate. The interview is again decisive: you have to know how to ask the right questions and be emotionally intelligent to properly identify a profile. Here again, being accompanied by a specialized actor. An actor who knows the tech & IT talent market well, can prove to be saving to avoid hiring mistakes.
Avoid mistakes when hiring: The secret weapon to assess a freelance profile
Last tip: seek professional references to limit the subjective aspect of assessing a candidate’s skills. Who better than a former client or employer to tell you about their reliability and expertise? Keep in mind that a “good” freelancer will never be reluctant to give you the contact details of these contacts, as they will be confident in having fulfilled the objectives set during previous projects. This check often takes time if you decide to do it yourself, but it will allow you to dispel your last doubts and confirm that the freelancer you have chosen is really the expert you are looking for.
Have you followed all of these steps and recruited the perfect profile, and yet are disappointed with the freelancer’s performance? First, give them some time. Of course, a freelancer must be operational very quickly, but they must nevertheless be allowed enough time to assimilate the context and all the data necessary for the success of their mission. Be realistic and don’t expect your freelancer to work miracles from day one.
But above all, ask yourself the following question: have I taken the necessary steps to integrate this freelancer into the business and team? Sharing information, providing the necessary equipment, and introducing them to key team members are all important parts of the onboarding process. The performance of your freelancer also depends on you. You have made the choice to take an external expert to accelerate the work on a project: go all-in with your investment and make sure that they have all the weapons required to succeed.
Whether you are completely new to Python or just looking to improve your capabilities, here are a few Python projects for you to try in the coming weeks.
Python’s growing momentum is undeniable. Favoured by data scientists and those involved in AI and machine learning, the programming language has risen to the top of the popularity list in just a few years, with a lot of Python projects. A recent study by online learning platform O’Reilly found Python to be the “preeminent” language of 2019. Representing both the highest number of searches and the most trainings contracted through the portal.
There are many reasons for this rapid ascend. Python is an efficient and easily readable language. It allows developers to create lean code that reads very much like English, while its built-in data structures are user-friendly and fast to implement. Additionally, Python is surrounded by an expansive support ecosystem which offers a wide array extension packages and open-access code repositories.
As we have mentioned before, these days of quarantine provide a great opportunity to acquire new skills and strengthen your CV. And how best to learn code than by developing hands-on experience with it?
Whether you are completely new to Python or just looking to improve your capabilities; here are a few Python projects for you to try in the coming weeks.
Python projects for beginners
If you are just now jumping into Python, the official Python Software Foundation’s website offers a ton of free resources to begin with. There you can access the language’s official documentation and refer to an exhaustive list of reliable resources for beginners.
As for projects, you can, for example, start with the list of over 30 beginner exercises at PracticePython.org. They are detailed step by step and offer a separate section for solutions to keep you challenged. PythonForBeginners is another good portal for Python projects and fundamentals. When it comes to automation, Al Sweigart’s Automate the Boring Stuff with Python is a fantastic — and free — work of reference.
Popular beginner projects include:
Dice rolling simulator
Guess the number
Hangman
Fill an online form
Update and format Excel spreadsheets
Of course, learning portals like Codecademy and Udemy are another great way of developing your Python skills. In fact, a multitude of platforms have made courses available for free to help people skill up during lockdown. You can find more about it here.
More advanced projects
For those who are already versed in the basics of Python, the Internet is full of interesting project ideas. You can get lost in for days. For instance, this edureka blog post contains precise instructions on how to complete a series of engaging intermediate and advanced projects. Among these, you can practice data visualization techniques and get acquainted with popular Python-supported libraries like Matplotlib. For more advanced projects, you can dive into machine learning and deep learning with TensorFlow and PyTorch.
Alternatively; if you are looking for already developed capabilities to use in your own code or apps; you can of course, always find thousands of Python-related repositories on Github. There are endless paths one can take with Python. From website crawlers to image processing modules or a Spotify playlist generator.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the tech news
story of the past few days has been the Apple-Google partnership against
COVID-19.
Announced last week, the unlikely union
between the two giants will focus on developing an app to help determine if a
person has been in close contact with an infected individual.
The system will let users opt-in, providing
anonymous and decentralised tracing. Much like a tool previously proposed by
MIT researchers, the app will theoretically ensure privacy by leveraging
Bluetooth connectivity.
Is anonymity really guaranteed? Should this
power be in the hands of private companies or controlled by public
institutions?
The two companies held a media call earlier this week to answer questions by reporters. Here’s TechCrunch’s account of what was discussed in that call.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the specifics, here’s a look at how these tracing tools work.
And they keep burning 5G towers…
Last week we touched on an ongoing phenomenon
that sounds surreal even in these strange times.
Some people in the UK are attacking 5G cell
towers, believing them to be linked to COVID-19.
Well — it looks like events keep escalating,
fueled by ludicrous conspiracy theories and social media claims that 5G is
behind the spread of the disease.
According to industry body Mobile UK, the country’s
network received more than
20 attacks over the weekend.
It turns out that one of the attacks was
directed at — wait for it — a 5G tower servicing a nearby hospital.
Genius.
Like the virus itself, this wave of disinformation seems to be spreading like wildfire, with incidents now being reported in the Netherlands.
Cybersecurity
Now more than ever, ensuring your network and
data security is critical for business success.
Remote
work has multiplied the number of potential points of entry for attackers,
while phishing attacks are easier to carry out thanks to greater use of social
media and email tools.
Just in
the US, a cybersecurity consultancy firm claims to have experienced a 500% increase in
attacks directly related to work-from-home individuals.
Now is the time to strengthen your IT security team, if you haven’t done so yet.
One more week equals one more look at the new
tech initiatives being launched to help fight the novel pandemic.
Speaking
of cybersecurity, Microsoft announced
that its
AccountGuard security service is now available for free for healthcare staff,
as well as for human rights and humanitarian organisations.
The
company has also released
a new
security patch addressing 113 bugs. Make sure to update your system.
Cloud provider DigitalOcean has created a hub where developers can share their projects aimed at tackling the crisis. The various initiatives go from hackathons to remote learning and quarantine support platforms.
A start-up called Thoughtful Human has partnered with BetterHelp to offer a free month of emotional support with licensed therapists.
Working on Mars — from home
Nothing better to remind you that you’re not
alone working from home.
NASA’s Curiosity team keeps operating the Mars rover from the comfort of their households. Inspiring to say the least.
If they can coordinate across time zones and different computing setups to drive a robot that’s millions of miles away, we can all weather this storm.
The Big Data engineer job consist of developing, maintaining, testing, and evaluating Big Data solutions.
Data Analyst is the go-to expert for all operations related to the company’s databases. They assemble and processes data in order to assess business activity and make appropriate recommendations. Their job allows them to “make the data speak” by interpreting them.
This relatively new digital profession is essential in all sectors: commerce, finance, banking, insurance…
Certainly, one of the first missions of the Data Analyst is to collect, process and study statistical data to produce business analysis and provide recommendations. That is to say, the analyst creates and models the various databases necessary to accomplish the tasks, ensuring proper functioning and the regular updating of the database.
Define segmentation criteria
The Data Analyst is also responsible for
defining segmentation. To do this, they must find relevant data sources that
allow them, for example, to define the target of marketing campaigns or
identify consumer trends.
Popularize data and make it accessible
For example, extracting and translating business data into statistical data makes it possible to synthesize and popularize information. This data processing allows company managers and teams to analyze the data and use it to improve performance.
Required skills of the Data Analyst
An appetite for numbers
Above all, to be a successful, you must first of all love statistics. Reports, tables, graphs… are the main working tools of the Data Analyst.
Knowledge in data analysis and statistical methodologies
An expert in Data Analysis musts also have mastery of statistical methodologies and associated mathematical models to set up efficient analysis systems.
Proficiency in IT tools, languages and databases
Then, Proficiency in the DB SQL computer language, as well as in web analytics tools and data mining tools is often essential for data analysts.
Extreme rigour
Moreover, as this is an activity requiring the manipulation of encrypted data, the Data Analyst must be endowed with extreme rigour, having developed and analytical mind and fool-proof organization skills. Concentration is also one of the skills needed to be a good analyst. They also must keep abreast of new legal and regulatory regulations for data management.
The Data Analyst is a more than buoyant function which is set to keep developing strongly. With the evolution of the IT landscape, companies face exponential growth in the number of data. Therefore, large companies in areas like finance, e-commerce, marketing, industry and medicine are the most likely businesses to recruit in this area.
Salary of the Data Analyst
The average daily rate is between €400 and €800.
Training of the Data Analyst
In conclusion, to become a Data Analyst, college-level training is required. Companies tend to favour candidates who have followed courses in engineering, statistics, or even computer science.
To go higher up in this function then, it is recommended to pursue a specialized master’s program. Several career paths are possible, including as consultant positions such as Data Scientist, Business Intelligence Engineer, Data Engineer or even Chief Data Officer.
