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IBL News | New York 

Joi Ito, the director of Media Lab and professor at MIT, resigned Saturday over his ties to convicted pedophile and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“After giving the matter a great deal of thought over the past several days and weeks, I think that it is best that I resign as director of the media lab and as a professor and employee of the Institute, effective immediately,” Ito wrote in an internal e-mail.

In a message to the M.I.T. community, Rafael Reif, the president of M.I.T., wrote, “Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough and independent investigation.” Rafael Reif announced that M.I.T.’s general counsel would engage an outside law firm to oversee that investigation.

“The acceptance of the Epstein gifts involved a mistake of judgment,” stated Reif.

According to a New Yorker investigation, the prestigious MIT Media Lab received at least $7.5 million from Jeffrey Epstein and Ito would allegedly ask that the donations were counted as anonymous. “New documents show that the M.I.T. Media Lab was aware of Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender and that Epstein directed contributions to the lab far exceeding the amounts M.I.T. has publicly admitted,” explained The New Yorker.

Emails reveal donations cover-up

Joi Ito [in the picture below] resigned just hours after The New Yorker published emails showing how he had attempted to conceal donations from Epstein.

The embattled director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab had previously apologized for accepting money from Epstein for the lab and for his own personal ventures.

The newly disclosed emails show he didn’t just make the wrong call in accepting the money, as he explained to lab members as recently as Wednesday: he also ordered that Epstein’s donations be listed as “anonymous” going back years, as Epstein had been disqualified as a donor following his 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. Epstein was facing additional charges before his death on a prison cell this summer.

“Top MIT officials knew of Epstein’s ties to Media Lab, e-mails show,” titled yesterday The Boston Globe.

Professor at Harvard, too

The New York Times reported that Ito also left the boards of the MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The New York Times Company, as well as a visiting professorship at Harvard University.

One of Ito’s emails reportedly says that Epstein directed a $2 million gift to the lab from the Bill Gates, but the Gates Foundation has denied any business connection to Epstein.

Brown University announced that it has placed its director of development for computer science and former MIT Media Lab director of development and strategy, Peter Cohen on administrative leave, The Providence Journal reported.

Peter Cohen forwarded a request from Epstein to another colleague at MIT with the note: “Jeffrey money needs to be anonymous. Thanks.”

“Like its parent university, the famed research center became far too comfortable selling its prestige. Even to Jeffrey Epstein,” writes Justin Peters in an article on Slate titled “The Moral Rot the MIT Media Lab”.

“Jeffrey Epstein used MIT to launder his image. It’s a lesson for the #MeToo era,” writes Vox. “Revelations about the sex offender’s connections to the MIT Media Lab are a reminder of the power of enablers.”

Mikel Amigot | New York

Proprietary software providers like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Blackboard have dominated the technology scene for years. Not anymore.

Publicly accessible open-source has transformed how software is developed and delivered in the last two decades. It is getting increasingly popular, with 30 million developers exchanging code and ideas and collaborating at GitHub.

In this new environment, the open-source services industry is set to exceed $17B in 2019, and expected to reach $33B by 2011, according to CB Insights.

An indication of the growth can be found on recent acquisitions (Red Hat by IBM for $34B, and GitHub by Microsoft for $7.5B), alongside large public market valuations like those of MongoDB ($7.9B) and Elastic ($7.3B).

An Alternative Which Started in the 1960s

Open-source began to offer alternatives to proprietary solutions in the 1960s when modifying and redistributing the source code became an established practice. Many manufacturers of proprietary software with proprietary hardware encouraged users to troubleshot and modify source code themselves, in order to limit the need for frequent, onsite visits. Universities began sharing bug fixes and even software enhancements with other universities and soon thereafter with the public.

Some of the most notable projects since the dot-com bubble include Mozilla’s Firefox in 2002 as well as Git (a source code version-control system created by Linus Torvalds) in 2005.

More recently, we’ve witnessed the growth of open-source databases like Redis, open-source infrastructure-as-a-service like OpenStack, and even open-source machine learning libraries like TensorFlow, Docker, Kubernetes, and Swift.

The Business Behind

In terms of monetization, the model of “commercial support” is one of the most established methods. Enterprises are willing to pay for software that is otherwise free because they want assurances. They want security flaws fixed, dedicated assistance, and software longevity. They don’t want to implement open-source software that has persistent vulnerabilities, complicates development, or may become obsolete.

An increasingly popular revenue model is referred to as “open-core,” which offers a blend of open-source and proprietary software. The core platform remains free and open-source by being feature limited. Companies can then choose to pay for add-on services or to unlock a proprietary, feature-rich platform.

Examples of open-core companies include Docker, Elastics, GitLab, MongoDB, and Redis.

The Case of Google and Tech Giants

The second type of monetization strategy is that of the corporate-sponsored project. For example, Google is the primary developer of Kubernetes, and while Google doesn’t monetize Kubernetes directly, the wide adoption of the service has brought awareness to the company’s cloud service, Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Another one of Google’s most successful open-source projects in recent years is machine learning (ML) library TensorFlow. Its widespread use has created a large, engaged community, resulting in contributions from many independent developers.

With thousands of developers contributing, Google and other tech giants such as Microsoft, IBM, Intel and Facebook — none of which are open-source companies — benefit from the free developer input and direct user feedback. This allows organizations to build better software faster.

In addition, these projects also act as an ongoing lead generation for the sponsoring organization.

• Research Report: Open-Source Software Has Changed The Way Software Is Developed. Here’s Where The $33B Industry Is Headed

Mikel Amigot | IBL News

Moving into a “digital-first” publishing house is, certainly, a bold move.

Pearson –the biggest education company in the world, with 24,000 employees operating in 70 countries– announced this week that all of its 1,500 U.S. titles will become digital, going further than any other textbook company.

Some analysts say that this shift can entirely change the textbook market, mostly because it is an attempt to control the distribution channels.

Pearson justified its big move away from print calling the new approach a “product as a service model and a generational business shift to be much more like apps, professional software or the gaming industry.”

This new development format will allow Pearson to update textbooks on an ongoing basis, taking into account new developments in the field of study, new technologies, data analytics, and efficacy research, the company said in a news announcement.

The switch to digital —which will go into effect next year— will also lower the cost for students:

“We will effectively have three price points. They will vary by discipline, but broadly speaking, the average ebook will be $40. You can still rent a physical textbook for $60. And a fully integrated digital product, like Revel, MyLab or Mastering, will be $65 to $80,” said John Fallon, CEO of Pearson, in a statement.

Many of their print textbooks are priced at $200 or $300 today. College students on average spend more than $1,200 on books and materials, according to The College Board.

“We’ve changed our business model to deliver affordable, convenient and personalized digital materials to students. Our digital-first model lowers prices for students and, over time, increases our revenues. By providing better value to students, they have less reason to turn to the secondary market. This will create a more predictable, visible revenue stream with a better quality of earnings that enables us to serve the needs of learners and customers more effectively,” added John Fallon.

With the print versions, Pearson is trying to discourage the second-hand rental market mostly through Amazon, Chegg, and college bookstores.

Additionally, Pearson will save on printing, packaging and other costs associated with making physical textbooks.

Phil Hill, an expert blogger, and partner at MindWires Consulting, said that going digital-first “makes plenty of sense on paper for textbook publishers, as it enables them to “re-establish control” over the distribution of their products and cut off the secondhand rental market.”

Pearson’s major announcement comes at a time when the textbook industry is seeing a number of deals and transactions on digital courseware. A year ago, Cengage launched a subscription with unlimited access to its digital materials. In addition, Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education announced a merger, and Wiley acquired two startups —Zyante and Knewton— to bolster its courseware offerings.

Mikel Amigot | IBL News

Amazon –with almost 300,000 employees in the U.S. and over 630,000 worldwide– is the latest example of a large employer committing to retrain workers. It will invest $700 million over six years to upskill 100,000 of its employees across the U.S.

Other companies that have concluded that they must coach existing staff to take on different types of work are Walmart, AT&T, JPMorgan Chase, and Accenture.

New automation and AI technologies are transforming the workplace and companies are struggling to recruit talent.

There is a revealing statistic from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): there are now more job openings (7.4 million) than there are unemployed Americans (6 million).

No doubt, this is one of the hottest job markets in decades.

And in looking at job growth over the next decade, the Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates that some of the fastest-growing jobs will increasingly be in more skilled areas. This includes medical assistants, statisticians, software developers, nurse practitioners, and wind turbine service technicians.

Investing in their own workforces seems to be a smart approach for corporations.

One caveat. Experts say that retraining programs boost employee morale and keep workers from leaving a company, but they are not for everybody. Not everyone has the capacity or will to prepare themselves for a new role.

According to the Association for Talent Development (ATD), large employers with 10,000+ workers spent an average of $500 per worker on training in 2017.

Amazon’s massive corporate retraining initiative worth $700 million breaks down into $7,000 per employee or $1,200 a year through 2025 in the U.S.

Marie I. Rose | IBL News

One of the most time-consuming tasks in instructional design is creating slides.

Slides are the backbone of any course. We usually outline the talking points, script the visuals and convey important information for the students.

Many times slides are accompanied by texts to be teleprompted by lecturers. This mostly depends on their personality and teaching style.

The dilemma is whether to bullet point the content or read scripts.

However, one requirement is certain: we need to create killer visuals. Layouts, texts, pictures, icons, videos, graphics, animations, colors, and fonts need to be compelling. And flipping through slides (Keynote or PowerPoint) should result in an engaging teaching experience.

Let us share some of our recommendations when designing slides:

• Choose wide-screen format 16:9.
  

• Use bullets or very short sentences. Do not add paragraphs of information on your slides: learners become distracted and stop listening. Use multiple slides for a topic if the content is too long.

• Pick sans serif fonts: they are easier to read and seem more friendly. Some of the classics are Arial, Geneva, Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, and Verdana.At IBL our favorites are Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Fira Sans, Libre Franklin, and Karla… Never Helvetica!
  
  Regarding size, use fonts larger than 22 points.
  
  The Fontsquirrel.com website includes many free fonts.

• Choose 2-3 colors to that work well together. Use the color palette combinations or pick your brand’s color if the course is an extension of your activities. Adobe has a good color picker. Coolors.co is another good generator.

• Stock Image Websites: We use a commercial one, Shutterstock, but there many free ones. Here is a list: Pexels, StockSnap, Unsplash, Gratisography, Finda.Photo.