Financial Services Sector at a Crossroad, Wittenborg Lecturer's Research Shows

https://www.wittenborg.eu/wittenborg-lecturer-presents-paper-cambridge-university.htm

Wittenborg lecturer, Dr Muhammad Ashfaq, was recently at Cambridge University in the UK, where he participated in the Gulf Research Meeting Conference. As one of the participants he presented a research paper on “Knowledge, Attitude and Perceptions of Financial Industry Employees Toward AI in the GCC (Gulf) Region”.  

Ashfaq said the financial services industry worldwide is at a crossroads due to successive waves of innovation from mainframes, databases, desktop, and personal computing, business software, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). His paper highlights the knowledge, attitude and perceptions of professionals working in the financial services industry in various countries in the GCC region...

"No One Should Add Sugar to their Coffee"

https://www.wittenborg.eu/student-column-how-win-true-friends.htm

Wittenborg graduate Ilya Kupris chose such an interesting topic for his graduation assignment that the results of his research have been picked up by a regional Dutch newspaper, de Stentor.  Kupris (20) looked at how the so-called "third wave of coffee" has impacted Apeldoorn. Naturally, this meant visiting several coffee houses in the city, interviewing baristas as well as owners and drinking a whole lot of coffee.  

The third wave of coffee is a movement to produce high-quality coffee. It considers coffee an artisanal food, like wine, rather than a commodity. This involves improvements at all stages of production, from improving coffee plant growing, harvesting, and processing, to stronger relationships between coffee growers, traders, and roasters, to higher quality and fresh ...

Be Patient when Confronted with Affliction and Trial

https://www.wittenborg.eu/student-column-when-problems-become-blessings-disguise.htm

Conquering problems in life and solving complicated issues is never easy, but they are inevitable.  No matter how much we try to avoid problems or make our lives uncomplicated, problems never fail to knock on our doors.  A few take the easy way to eliminate these problems from their lives, legally or illegally, ethically or unethically, while the rest of us learn how to cope with the problem looming over us.  It is tough to eliminate completely the issues that bedevil our lives.   

The majority of our trials and tribulations in life remain unresolved, no matter how diligently we try to work on them or avoid them.  Some of us go through many years of therapy or watch or listen to motivational videos and speeches or buy self-help books, but still the problem ...

Chinese and Indian Students in Particular Called

The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) has warned international students against a new scam whereby they are called and either asked to provide private information like bank details. or threatened outright into transferring money. Even Wittenborg CEO, Maggie Feng, who is of Chinese origin, was targeted recently.

According to Wittenborg's chair of the executive board, Peter Birdsall, Feng received a call on a Saturday. "She was called by someone on her mobile phone who identified himself as someone from the Chinese embassy calling to tell her an important document was expiring and that she should provide him with information. Of course Maggie was immediately suspicious, as the embassy would never work like that. She eventually hung up," Birdsall said.

In its ...

10 Wittenborg Students Graduated at Brighton Ceremony

https://www.wittenborg.eu/wittenborg-students-elation-awards-ceremony-brighton-uk.htm

There was a wonderful feeling of hope and elation in the air when 10 students from Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences graduated along with about 3,000 others from the University of Brighton, UK, last weekend. Brighton is Wittenborg's main education partner, offering joint bachelor's and master's programmes to Wittenborg students. All-in-all 18 Wittenborg students graduated from Brighton this semester, but only 8 managed to attend the ceremony.

The group consisted of graduates from both Wittenborg's Amsterdam and Apeldoorn campuses. They are Nadia Zaman (MSc in Event Management), Nathaniel Ukachukwu (HBA) and 8 BSc top-up double-degree students from Amsterdam - Rosemarijn van Reenen, Brisi Dimova, Olivia Kawuma, Nichola Addo, Andrii Chaban, Angelica ...

There is no Better Time to Learn a New Skill than the Present

Summer’s finally here!  After all those exams, research papers and group projects, it’s finally time for a well-deserved, long break.  I’m sure you have already made plans to fill up your time during this vacation.  That’s great.  Have some sun and fun travelling to interesting places and doing your favourite things.  You owe it to your body and mind to let your hair down, relax and be happy.

In the midst of all those activities, why not take up some useful hobbies?  Now is the perfect time for you to expand your horizons and learn something new.  I know, for most of us, one of our hobbies is watching movies or playing computer games.  But why not do something different? Something more enriching and beneficial that can boost your portfolio and expand the list of competencies in ...

Key Address Identifies Financial Tools to Uplift Poor

https://www.wittenborg.eu/impact-green-revolution-economy.htm

The vital impact of the green revolution on the economy was highlighted by Wittenborg lecturer, Dr Muhammad Ashfaq, when he recently participated in the 10th Interdisciplinary Conference “Nature – Human and Culture” organised by the Pedagogical University of Cracow in Crakow, Poland.

The green revolution has increased the productivity of the land and, as productivity increases and technology brings efficiency in sowing and harvesting processes, the income of the farmer rises, Ashfaq argued. "This increase in production and decrease in prices has spillover effects on other sectors of the economy, since many agriculture products are the raw materials for many industries, as cotton and jute are the raw material for the textile industry.

"On the other hand, as the income of a farmer ...

"Companies Need to Create More Ethical Environments"

https://www.wittenborg.eu/student-column-ethics-school-and-work.htm

Many years ago, I worked in a company where the employees needed to key in their ID numbers into a clock-in machine to register their arrival and departure times at work.  It was an easy and accurate system to monitor staff attendance and tardiness.  An office clerk would then print out a daily report and submit to the supervisor for acknowledgment.  On one of the days, this clerk noticed a female employee, let’s say Jane, clocking into the machine twice.  She didn’t think anything of it until she saw the same thing happened every day.  She decided to do a check on all the print-outs from previous weeks and noticed that Jane’s name always appeared with another employee’s name, let’s say Sarah, and the clock-in times for both of them were always a few seconds apart.  She ...

Wittenborg 'Alarmed' by Draconian Measures Allegedly Proposed to Curb International Students

https://www.wittenborg.eu/dutch-stem-tide-international-students-research-universities-report.htm

The Dutch government is taking some serious steps to curb the number of international students coming to the country, which includes raising the minimum tuition fee for students from outside the European Economic Area and compelling them to take Dutch lessons, ScienceGuide reported this week.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Education, Michiel Hendrikx, told Wittenborg News that the Minister, Ingrid van Engelshoven, will release a full statement in September after the summer holiday. Hendriksx refused to dispel or confirm the content of the story.

Wittenborg’s chair of the executive board, Peter Birdsall, has said: “We are alarmed by these draconian measures as they seem to avoid any mention of private higher ...