ONLINE EDUCATION
EVERFI, Inc. | July 22, 2022
EVERFI, Inc., a leading Impact-as-a-Service™ education innovator, today announced that it will be bringing highly sought after crypto and web3 digital education to high school students across the United States at no-cost this fall.
With the continued rise in popularity and adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology, EVERFI is committed to building the missing learning layer around these new topics for its community of learners. By leveraging its infrastructure and strategic partner network, EVERFI seeks to bridge the crypto knowledge gap at scale – providing students with the education needed to understand these new concepts and to support better decision-making.
"The rapid advancement and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology have created an urgent need for an engaging and interactive education curriculum. "The stakes are high, the concepts are complex, and there is a demand for foundational crypto and web3 education nationwide. Given our vast network in K-12 education, we are the most trusted resource to deliver this critical education to students before they risk making a costly financial decision."
Tom Davidson, founder and CEO, EVERFI
EVERFI's digital education products are used by more than 25,000 schools nationwide, putting the company in a unique position to bring this critical education to millions of students each year. The company is set to launch an Intro to Crypto course for students this fall and will unveil it to more than 6,500 teachers during today's LearnOn educator conference. The interactive course will provide students with a foundational understanding of digital assets, blockchain technology, and the evolving applications of these new technologies in everyday life.
"Our mission has always been to democratize education and ensure everyone has access to critical information that will equip them to make informed decisions as they prepare for their future," said Davidson. "We are continuing to build the missing learning layer and deliver next-generation learning topics to K-12 students nationwide, regardless of their zip code."
About EVERFI, Inc.
EVERFI from Blackbaud is an international technology company driving social impact through education to address the most challenging issues affecting society ranging from financial wellness to mental health to workplace conduct and other critical topics. Founded in 2008, EVERFI's Impact-as-a-ServiceTM solution and digital educational content have reached more than 45 million learners globally. In 2020, the company was recognized as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company and was featured on Fortune Magazine's Impact 20 List. The company was also named to the 2021 GSV EdTech 150, a list of the most transformative growth companies in digital learning. Blackbaud, the world's leading cloud software company powering social good, acquired EVERFI in December of 2021.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
California Virtual Academies | September 06, 2022
The California Virtual Academies (CAVA) chapter of the National Technical Honor Society (NTHS) has been named as one of the 2022 recipients of the Silver Star of Excellence Award. This award is presented annually to NTHS chapters who distinguish themselves through their consistent excellence in Career & Technical Education and is a reflection of their commitment to community service, chapter advancement, and active civic involvement. CAVA is a network of online public schools serving K-12 students throughout the state.“I got to experience first-hand how hard our student members worked to maintain the goals and pillars of the NTHS,” said CAVA history teacher and NTHS advisor, Brandi Berba. “I am so proud of them for winning this award especially since it was only our second year! I look forward to seeing what they do next.” During the past school year, CAVA’s NTHS chapter has participated in all 5 of the NTHS pillars – Skill and Scholarship, Citizenship and Service, Honesty and Responsibility, Leadership, and Growth and Development. In the Skill and Scholarship category alone, CAVA invited over 80 students to lead and participate in a Professor Panel at the Fresno State University Lyles College of Engineering. The professors promoted STEM education and engineering and encouraged students to investigate skill-based career paths giving them a direct connection between the technical education that CAVA offers and someone who is interested in a STEM or engineering job. The event also promoted project-based learning as well as getting a higher education degree in college.
“The NTHS is an incredible opportunity for students like me.It encouraged me to reach higher levels of achievement and gave me a chance to form relationships with like-minded and driven students who care about their future.”
CAVA NTHS student president Sadee Briones
About California Virtual Academies
California Virtual Academies are nine independent online public charter schools that use the curriculum and tools provided by K12, a Stride Company (NYSE: LRN). The California Virtual Academies are: CAVA @ Fresno, CAVA @ Kings, CAVA @ Los Angeles, CAVA @ Maricopa, CAVA @ San Diego, CAVA @ San Joaquin, CAVA @ San Mateo, CAVA @ Sonoma and CAVA @ Sutter. Families do not pay tuition for a student to attend an online public school. Common household items and office supplies like printer ink and paper are not provided. Our enrollment consultants can help address your technological and computer questions and needs. Stride offers learners of all ages a more effective way to learn and build skills for their future. For more information about CAVA, visit https://cava.k12.com/.
About the National Technical Honor Society
: NTHS was established in 1984 with the purpose of honoring student achievement and leadership in Career and Technical Education (CTE). Since 1984, NTHS has served over 1 million members. In 2005, the NTHS scholarship fund was launched, awarding over $2 million in scholarships since that time to enhance and enrich the career opportunities of their members. With chapters in both secondary and postsecondary schools across the country, NTHS is the national leader in providing recognition for excellence in CTE. NTHS serves over 100,000 student members annually throughout the U.S. and U.S. territories. The national headquarters is based in Flat Rock, NC.
About the Silver Star of Excellence Award
: The Silver Star of Excellence Award is national award presented to school chapters across the country who apply the seven character attributes of NTHS – Skill, Honesty, Service, Responsibility, Scholarship, Citizenship, and Leadership – to their planned activities, programs, classes, and community outreach. It’s designed to nationally recognize school chapters for their educational excellence and community involvement, and encourages them to promote NTHS values in both their school and their local community.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
rimini street | August 24, 2022
Rimini Street, Inc. a global provider of enterprise software products and services, the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products and a Salesforce partner, today announced that the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has switched from Oracle to Rimini Street for improved support and security of its Oracle database and technology platforms. In doing so, the University has slashed wait times for support requests, enjoyed improved service quality and innovative, advanced security to protect its database and application middleware. Rimini Street is also helping the University manage through the ongoing IT skills shortage by reducing the amount of IT labor required for support and instead, allowing resources to focus on the rapid transition to hybrid learning. UTS is one of Australia’s leading universities, with around 45,000 students and 4,000 staff. The IT department employs around 300 staff and is responsible for the digital experiences supporting the people, processes, and culture at the university. The University faced challenges during the pandemic including a massive shift to online learning and remote work, and a growing IT skills shortage. The large decline in the number of international students enrolling in Australia has also seen IT budgets shrink. Because of these limitations, UTS needed to refocus its strategic resources more efficiently.
“UTS, like all universities in Australia, has had to rapidly transition to a hybrid learning model that includes classroom and online service delivery. There are many innovations and technologies needed for the transition to hybrid learning; budgets are tightening across the board and the quality-of-service delivery expectations remain the same or higher, “Students can now log into their online classes from almost anywhere in the world which adds a new layer of complexity for the IT team. Fast, reliable, and secure systems are needed to keep up with the changing world and to remain a leading provider in the education market.”
Daniel Benad,group vice president and regional general manager,Australia,New Zealand and Oceania,Rimini Street
Focusing on the big issues with more time and money to spare Maintaining their Oracle database landscape was draining on the university’s IT budget and internal resources. Support tickets were often slow to be resolved by the software vendor, preventing IT staff from completing other system maintenance and responding quickly to new IT challenges. Staff were preoccupied with keeping databases operating properly in a rapidly scaling up environment and had little time to focus on university initiatives to support growth and innovation. “Skilled staff are only getting more expensive to hire and retaining these employees just to work on support and operational tasks for our enterprise software is no longer sustainable,” said Brian Kelly, Head of IT Operations at UTS. “We’ve had to really maximize the resources we have to keep our IT services growing, improving and meeting the needs of the university.” In addition, as UTS increasingly moved towards a hybrid learning model for its students, and a remote working environment for its staff, cost, capability, supportability, and flexibility were key to guaranteeing robust and reliable IT services. The rapid move into the remote workspace also opened new avenues and risks for cybersecurity attacks and breaches. As the number and location of users increased, so too did opportunities for unauthorized access. As such, the University was conscious it needed to increase the security of its Oracle software, particularly as routine patching was a costly and time-consuming endeavour for its IT team that did not necessarily provide the fastest protection model in the case of a discovered vulnerability. “UTS is relatively new to the hybrid working and learning space, and it’s important to be mindful of risks from such a rapid transformation,” said Kelly. The University began to look at ways to get improved support, better security and reduced operating costs for its Oracle Database landscape while also reducing the resource drain on its IT team. UTS turned to Rimini Street’s enterprise software support and security solutions. Lowering Costs and Response Times Each Rimini Street client benefits from the Company’s flexible, premium-level enterprise software support model, including its industry-leading Service Level Agreement of 10-minute response times for all critical Priority 1 cases. All clients are also assigned a Primary Support Engineer with an average of 20 years’ experience in enterprise software and backed by a team of functional and technical engineers. In addition, Rimini Street’s Database Management Services provide UTS with new expert skills from skilled and responsive engineers. Since partnering with Rimini Street, resolving support tickets is easier and quicker, with expert engineers available to respond to challenges at any time. “Being able to shrink how much time is spent on routine work has really allowed us to prioritise the bigger picture, and Rimini Street gives us time back in our day,” said Kelly. “The team is no longer worried about how long a patch or upgrade will take, how long it’ll take to get issues resolved, or how many hours they’ll have to dedicate to something routine. Rimini Street has taken care of that for us, and having such a quick turnaround for support has really eased up our workload. “Rimini Street gives us high-quality support for these business-as-usual activities without breaking our budget. Being able to be flexible with what senior ICT staff we hire means we’re putting a microscope on what our team actually needs, rather than allowing necessity to dictate it.” Rimini Street Protect - Proactive Security Having the time and resource availability enabled UTS to develop and deploy additional enterprise security enhancements. Further, Rimini Street’s security solutions gave UTS peace of mind that it would be secure and remain live while it implemented the additional security enhancements. “Completed security enhancements include secure identity management and access controls,” said Kelly. “Thanks to Rimini Street, we now have time and budget to spare and we are now looking at developing and deploying additional security measures utilizing a cloud-first strategy. We’re also working on automating service management and migrating to the cloud anything that improves the quality of user experience.” “UTS is yet another example of an institution that has benefited from Rimini Street’s comprehensive and effective database support and security,” said Benad. “As international borders continue to open and students choose Australia as an education destination, UTS’ improved service delivery and flexibility supporting a hybrid education model will play a huge part in improving the student learning experience.”
About Rimini Street, Inc.
Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a Russell 2000® Company, is a global provider of enterprise software products and services, the leading third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP software products and a Salesforce partner. The Company offers premium, ultra-responsive and integrated application management and support services that enable enterprise software licensees to save significant costs, free up resources for innovation and achieve better business outcomes. To date, more than 4,200 Fortune 500, Fortune Global 100, midmarket, public sector and other organizations from a broad range of industries have relied on Rimini Street as their trusted application enterprise software products and services provider.
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