Archive for October 17, 2018

Over Half Of Female-led Small Businesses In Canada Younger Than 5 Years: Salesforce

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 17, 2018 by itnerd

In celebration of Small Business Week (Oct 14-20), Salesforce launches a new report today called The New Canadian Entrepreneurial Experience: Women and the Future of Small Business in Canada. The report shows that tech innovation, changing economic trends and shifting career priorities are transforming the country’s SMB landscape, with entrepreneurs increasingly female, younger and college educated.

The report, commissioned in partnership with The Gandalf Group, comes as part of a larger Small Business initiative by Salesforce called FemaleForce: a platform to celebrate and support Canadian women business owners in their small business journeys, including a free event series at local WeWork spaces in Toronto and Vancouver. With small businesses at the heart of the Canadian economy, and one third of those businesses run by women, Salesforce believes that women’s economic empowerment is not only right, but vital to helping position Canada as a leader on the global stage.

Key highlights from the data include: 

  • Overwhelmingly, female-led businesses tend to be much newer than male-led businesses. More than half (53%) of female-led businesses have been in business for five years or less, compared to 34% of male-led businesses, showing that women are starting businesses at a far greater rate.
  • 75% of women own a business in the services sector vs. men who are twice as likely as women to own a business in the STEM sector. 
  • Women business owners in the STEM sector experience significantly greater challenges than their male counterparts:
  • 65% of women surveyed struggle to achieve work-life balance (compared to 48% of men)
  • 63% of women surveyed reported obstacles accessing capital (compared to 40% of male entrepreneurs)
  • 61% of women surveyed feel that their services are undervalued by customers (compared to 41% of male entrepreneurs)
  • Women tend to be more motivated by work-life balance (79%), whereas men tend to be more motivated by financial considerations (78%).
  • While women stated work-life balance as the top reason for starting their business (79%), it is also one of the biggest challenges they face as entrepreneurs (52%).
  • Both men and women business owners identified acquiring new customers as the third largest challenge.
  • When it comes to technology adoption, the data showed few gender differences, yet displayed stark generational disparities, suggesting that technology may be a factor contributing to the growing trend of younger, female entrepreneurs and levelling the playing field between women and men business owners in Canada.
  • Female entrepreneurship is gaining momentum, especially for those under the age of 45 (59%) versus males under 45 (42%)
  • 27% female entrepreneurs are younger than 35!

This report comes on the heels of last week’s announcement from the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion, that three more women-led companies will receive investments under BDC Capital’s Women in Technology (WIT) Venture Fund. Women might currently comprise one third of entrepreneurs nationwide, but with a federal government that recognizes the full and equal participation of women in the economy as critical to economic success, current and future generations of female business owners are poised to alter the face of Canadian entrepreneurship. Salesforce recognizes this and is actively doing its part to support the country’s women business owners through the FemaleForce initiative.

More details can be found here: https://www.salesforce.com/ca/campaign/femaleforce2018/

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CompTIA Cyberprovinces Report Details Growth of Nearly 45,000 Net New Technology Jobs Across Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 17, 2018 by itnerd

Tech employment in Canada expanded by nearly 45,000 jobs in 2017, to an estimated 1.2 million workers, according to Cyberprovinces™ 2018, published today by CompTIA, the leading technology industry trade association.

Net tech employment accounted for approximately 8.4 percent of the overall Canadian workforce in 2017

The outlook for technology employment points to a continuation of the growth trend, which has seen tech jobs increase by about 32,000 each year since 2010. Projections from Statistics Canada indicate the base of tech occupations is projected to increase by nearly 8 percent between 2018 and 2026.

The growth projections for many technology occupation categories exceed the national benchmark, and in some cases, by a significant amount. For example, database analysts and administrator roles are projected to grow at three times the rate as the national average. Software, systems analysts, which includes cybersecurity roles, and user support technicians will also experience notable gains through 2026.

Beyond the raw numbers of new jobs, many of these positions have salaries well above those in other industries. According to Cyberprovinces 2018, the average annual wage in the tech industry is $76,200; 51 percent higher than the average annual wage for all jobs ($50,400).

Among other key findings from Cyberprovinces 2018:

  • The top provinces when it comes to Net Tech Employment are Ontario and Quebec. The greatest number of jobs were also added in these provinces when compared to 2016.  Tech employment also represents about 10% of the total employment in these provinces.
  • When compared to the other provinces Ontario stands apart for the number of jobs in tech with 44.6 percent of Canadian net tech employment coming from this province. This is consistent with Ontario’s population ratio (about 37 percent of the country), and economic impact (about 39 percent). Anchored by Canada’s most populous city, Toronto, the province of Ontario also accounted for a significant portion of tech employment gains during 2017.
  • Tech business establishments tend to be concentrated in population centers and in locations that are close to the customers they serve. Combined, Ontario and Quebec account for nearly two-thirds of the total tech business establishments with payroll in the country.
  • There are approximately 69,000 tech business enterprises with payroll located throughout Canada. This is supplemented by self-employed tech workers, which are classified separately by Canadian government sources.
  • According to data from Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights, the number of job postings by Canadian employers for tech occupations reached nearly 114,000 during 2017. This figure was roughly in line with the rate from the previous year.

Cyberprovinces 2018 is based on CompTIA’s analysis of data from Statistics Canada, EMSI, Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights, and other sources. Estimates for 2017 are subject to change as government data is revised and updated. The complete Cyberprovinces 2018 report, with complete national and province level data, is available at https://www.comptia.org/resources/cyberprovinces-2018.

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Facebook Admits That Portal WILL Collect Data To Serve Up Ads

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 17, 2018 by itnerd

Last week I posted a story on Portal which is a smart speaker from Facebook. At the time I said this:

Sounds great right? What could go wrong? Well, this is Facebook we are talking about who can’t be trusted with your data. Why let them see into your home? After all, that sounds like a horrible idea. 

However Recode is reporting that well they are collecting data to serve up ads:

Last Monday, we wrote: “No data collected through Portal — even call log data or app usage data, like the fact that you listened to Spotify — will be used to target users with ads on Facebook.” We wrote that because that’s what we were told by Facebook executives.

But the company has since reached out to change its answer: Facebook Portal doesn’t have ads, but data about who you call and data about which apps you use on Portal can be used to target you with ads on other Facebook-owned properties.

“Portal voice calling is built on the Messenger infrastructure, so when you make a video call on Portal, we collect the same types of information (i.e. usage data such as length of calls, frequency of calls) that we collect on other Messenger-enabled devices. We may use this information to inform the ads we show you across our platforms. Other general usage data, such as aggregate usage of apps, etc., may also feed into the information that we use to serve ads,” a spokesperson said in an email to Recode.

At least they corrected the record. But this illustrates why you cannot trust Facebook. It also illustrates why these devices should go nowhere near your home. You’d think that with the issues that this company have had over the last year or so that they would have got their act together prior to the launch of these devices. But clearly not.

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Darktrace Partners With EndaceProbe Analytics Platforms To Advance Their Cybersecurity Offering

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 17, 2018 by itnerd

Darktrace and Endace have announced a partnership that combines Darktrace’s cyber AI with Endace’s unparalleled forensic capabilities. This combined solution empowers organizations to discover in-progress attacks anywhere on the digital infrastructure with Darktrace’s AI, and investigate them with industry-leading speed, scale and accuracy using Endace’s packet-level network history.

The EndaceProbe Analytics Platform arms organizations with the ability to record network traffic and conduct in-depth investigations by rapidly searching across petabytes of data for packets of interest. In addition to hosting Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System on the same hardware platform, organizations can now also host a wide range of security and performance monitoring analytics solutions, including other Endace Fusion Partner offerings, open-source or custom applications.

The world leader in cyber AI, Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System learns the ‘pattern of life’ for every device and user across the digital infrastructure, and uses this evolving understanding of ‘normal’ to detect and respond to emerging cyber-threats in real time.

The combined solution is available immediately. Contact Endace (sales@endace.com) or Darktrace (info@darktrace.com) for a demo. More information on the partnership and related products can be found at www.endace.com/darktrace.

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