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Nairobi 2010 Conference Reoprt  Climate Change and Natural Resource Use in Eastern Africa: Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation Report of the 3rd Scientific Conference of the Ecological Society for Eastern Africa (ESEA) and co-hosted with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) at Multimedia University College, Nairobi, 19 - 21 May 2010 By Nicholas Oguge, Caroline Lumosi, Teddy Odindo, Joseph Ngondi and Philista Malaki October 4, 2010 Summary While the Earth's climate has changed throughout history, the current warming trend has been of particular concern because most of it is human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented.  One of the greatest concerns of this global warming is climate variability and change.  The risks associated with climate change add to development challenges such as food and water insecurity. Although climate change is only one of the many drivers negatively affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services, it certainly exacerbates the other factors such as land degradation and unsustainable natural resource use. There is general concern on the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources. This would widen poverty levels confronting eastern African countries and threaten gains made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Thus, the Ecological Society for Eastern African organised its 3rd annual scientific conference with a theme addressing this global challenge.  The idea was to bring together researchers, policy makers and the general public together to discuss the climate change phenomena, its impacts, mitigation strategies and adaptation measures with regard to natural resource use in Eastern Africa. In order to address above issues and to reach out to a wider audience, we designed the conference strategically on three tiers:   1. Plenary talks: to provide policy information and direction, science on climate change, ecological and socio-economic effects, how to commun

At Antwak, we interview Product Managers (PM) across the globe about their experiences and professional journey as Product Manager. How do they handle multiple tasks and responsibilities? What is a day in the life of a Product Manager like? Have you ever wondered what do Product Managers care about? And what Product managers need to know? Let's check out what these successful professionals say about their life as a Product Manager: Gretchen (Gretchen Rodriguez) - Sr Product Manager eBay: She shared the challenges she faced in this role while doing product management before moving to the US. During that period the job title Product Manager was not that popular and was wondering how to proceed and that's when she decided to wait for the opportunity to apply for this role to get this job title and role specifically to start officially. It was a challenge to wait to get this role after a long wait. But again it was worth waiting. Sr. Product Manager Abhishek (Abhishek Shukla) -Adobe, Ex- Flipkart shared the challenges he faced in setting up a new product in his first 30 days. He focused on learning about the product and market in the first 30 days to achieve success. Learning about the product is not simply knowing product details but the challenges and uncertainties attached to it. Knowing about your customers, vendors, marketers, competitors, stakeholders in the ecosystem as a whole. Strive to determine your place in the ecosystem and your competitor's strategies. Apart from these takeaways, one should also focus on the company's core competencies and product strategies. Product Manager-Preeti Sekar also speaks about the challenges an early professional might face in this role as a PM in the first 30 days. A person might be from a different domain, profile, and experience and new to this role facing all sorts of criticism and feedback from customers, stakeholders, etc, and eventually one can settle themselves with the roles and responsibilities of a Pr

5 Teacher's Challenges and The Best Educational Tools to Address Them At the beginning of the school year, for an educator is hard to untangle all the tasks falling under her attribution. Every teacher has to deal with paper work, class activities, new children and many more. That is why having a good educational toolkit with educational apps and educational resources will facilitate these tasks and help to spare time and energy. http://elearningindustry.com/5-common-challenges-facing-educators-at-school-beginning-and-tools-to-address-them

I'm a so-so fan of Skype. I've used it on an infrequent basis and have had more than a few dropped calls. Audio and video alike. However, it's a cheap way to make long distance calls and seems to work better over wi-fi and the video quality is improving on a regular basis. So therefore it's probably a great tool for the classroom. But how can you use Skype to do more than just make calls? Well, there's a pantload of interesting ways! Check out these fun ideas: Collaborate! Meet with other classrooms: One of the most common projects educators utilize Skype for is setting up exchanges with classrooms around the world, usually for cultural exchange purposes or working together on a common assignment. The program's official site provides some great opportunities to meet up with like-minded teachers and students sharing the same goals. Practice a foreign language: Connect with individual learners or classrooms hailing from a different native tongue can use a Skype collaboration to sharpen grammar and pronunciation skills through conversation. Peace One Day: Far beyond classroom collaborations, the Peace One Day initiative teamed up with Skype itself and educators across the globe to teach kids about the importance of ending violence, war, and other social ills. Around the World with 80 Schools: This challenge asks participating schools to hook up with 80 worldwide and report back what all they've learned about other cultures and languages. Talk about the weather: One popular Skype project sees participants from different regions make note of the weather patterns for a specified period of time, with students comparing and contrasting the results. Collaborative poetry: In this assignment, connected classrooms pen poetic pieces together and share them via video conferencing. Practice interviews: The education system frequently receives criticism for its failure to prepare students for the real world, but using Skype to help them run through mock-up

Why is prioritizing mental health so important for professionals, now more than ever? Professionals have been investing more 'work hours' than ever. This may be due to the changing essence of market goals and priorities, along with how integrated we are nowadays. The 'always-on' working community, which is particularly widespread in diverse industries, relies on inadequate sleep, high-pressure conditions, running around time zones, high burden associated with turnover, and more. It is not unusual for employees to worry about burnout, anxiety associated with employment, and depression. There is a strong connection between pressure and productivity in the workplace. To feel safe, content, and efficient, we all need to have a certain level of involvement and pressure in our working lives. But if there isn't enough strain or too much, there could be a risk. The accompanying diagram illustrates the distinct areas associated with job strain. Mental health at workplace The relation between pressure, performance, and mental health: Rust Out Zone: It doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have enough to do or anything at all but that you find yourself often wondering if your work is intriguing or challenging enough. This leaves you feeling extremely disassociated and disengaged. Emotional Wellbeing Zone: You will be motivated, concentrated and invested in what you're doing when you face a fair level of challenge and responsibility in your career. You are likely to feel more secure, satisfied and therefore more confident over time producing successful results. Burn Out Zone: When conditions are extreme and last for prolonged periods of time, you may be at risk of burn-out and, inevitably, anxiety. Your commitment, enthusiasm and efficiency decline dramatically as this happens. People often claim that "when they're stressed/ under pressure, they work well", but this is clearly not the case. When you are challenged, oriented and committed, you can

Our learners will never now a world where Digital Technologies are not the norm. Using solutions developed within this space and with this mindset is already their normal. Unless they are to be slaves to this technology we must also empower them to be creators of digital solutions. To do this we must begin with recognising the challenges that a curriculum built around mastery of Digital Technologies brings to our teachers and seek to understand the supports they require.

The shift away from teaching for the rote memorisation of prescribed methods requires teachers to rethink their approach to the discipline. With this new pedagogy comes a need to understand the processes of mathematical thinking in ways not previously required. When we require our students to be able to reason and problem-solve through unique challenges we also require our teachers to have an understanding of the mathematical moves that their learners are likely to call upon.

What will tomorrow bring? What will life be like in 2028 as our youngest students of today exit school? What occupations will they enter and what challenges will they face? These are not new questions but with the rate of change in society and the pace at which technology evolves they are questions without clear answers. How then do schools prepare students for this uncertain tomorrow? What shall we teach our children today such that are well prepared for the challenges and opportunities of their tomorrow?

Higher education faces a challenge. It may not now it yet, but it does. And the challenge is this - when learners have been accustomed to very facilitative, usable, personalisable and adaptive tools both for learning and socialising, why will they accept standardised, unintuitive, clumsy and out of date tools in formal education they are paying for? It won't be a dramatic revolution (students accept lower physical accommodation standards when they leave home for university after all), but instead there will be a quiet migration. The monolithic LMSs will be deserted, digital tumbleweed blowing down their forums. Students will abandon these in favour of their tools, the back channel will grow and it will be constituted from content and communication technologies that don't require a training course to understand and that come with a ready made community. This may seem like just a technological issue, but it runs deeper than this.

Teacher Challenge - Connecting teachers through free professional learning .

Think of a time when you were completely immersed in a learning challenge. A time when you became aware of the need to master a new skill or concept. A situation that took you outside of your comfort zone, when there were times that you became frustrated, when you thought of quitting, downed tools and walked away, but came back time and time again. Maybe it was a problem you had to solve. Maybe it was a challenge you wanted to overcome.

Challenges faced by institutions while adapting digital transformation and making things easier and fast and achieving goal for the businesses and increase their productivity of the company and value your business more. Read the blog and know more about digital improvisation for any business.

It is almost precisely eighteen years since Donald Rumsfeld uttered his now well-regarded commentary on the danger of "unknown unknowns". At the time his remarks brought more confusion than clarity and reinforced for many a belief that politicians use words to conceal the truth. Somehow though, Donald's words from 2002 seem to fit the world of today, and the challenges confronting educators all too well.

With the emerging threat of COVID19 and the closure of schools, teachers are scrambling to move to online learning environments. This will bring with it a myriad of challenges the short time frame is not going to help the situation. While we are fortunate that there are many technological solutions for the provision of remote learning, the more significant challenges will revolve around how we interact with our learners.

chool camps are a wonderful opportunity to observe how our students handle the challenge of a different learning setting. Away from the norms and familiar settings of the classroom, we see students in a different light. For the students, camps are an exciting and for some frightening challenge. For teachers, they are an outstanding assessment tool that should inform our practices long after camp is over. 

Product Management could be your key to move out of a stagnating career. At times many of us may feel that we are stuck in a profession, in a job role, or in an organization that is not for us. It may feel like it is not our true calling. Well, then why waste time? Make a career switch into a career of your choice. Muster the courage and make the move. If Product Management is your likely choice, then this is the right blog for you. If not, then why not explore what is it like to be a PM! (Product Manager not Prime Minister) So, what would you be doing as a PM? Wearing multiple hats. As a Product Manager, you have to wear different hats at different times. Be a Psychologist - Embark upon a journey to empathize and understand consumer needs and challenges Be a Consumer Behaviour expert - Leave no stone unturned to mine latent consumer insights Be a Marketeer - Use frameworks to gauge the perfect product-market fit Be a Diplomat - Negotiate with and influence relevant stakeholders to obtain desired results Be an Architect and an Interior Designer - Build and design products that address consumer pain-points effectively and transpires into a practical and scalable solution Be a co-ordinator - Guide and Direct cross-functional teams to deliver timely results in sync with the overarching objective Be a crisis manager - Diagnose the situation, identify hurdles and be agile in resolving them while the product is being tested in the market Be a Relationship Manager - The duty of a PM does not end as soon as the product is launched. It extends further to keep creating and nurturing a delightful experience for the customer. Now, you're aware of the roles you are likely to perform. What about the skills required to fulfil them efficiently? Well, most experienced PMs emphasize on soft skills being the differentiator between a good and a great PM. Let's have a look at the most essential hard and soft skills required to be a product manager: Com

Webit Congress gives startups the rare opportunity to showcase their projects in front of the largest number of potential investors/VCs from around the world