Introduction to Futures & Options

We are on a mission to transform technologists into world-class experts, and business people into tech-savvy leaders.

It's that simple!

We are a technology and media company that delivers a completely new, immersive, addictive and connected education experience online for technology and business pros.

We help you develop habits and skills that kick your talent into a star-level of performance!

We deliver superlative, hands-on and practical professional development and education focused on several key domains:

1. Data Science, including big data, machine learning, data visualization, data analytics...

2. Cloud Computing, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform / Firebase, IoT, Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Services, Software as a Service...

3. Full Stack, including from front end (customer or user-facing) to the back end (the "behind-the-scenes" technology such as databases and internal architecture) including http, CSS, JavaScript, MongoDB, NodeJS, Angular, React...

4. Agility & Stability, including a broad group of frameworks and techniques involving Agile, Scrum, Kanban, TOGAF, ITIL, cybersecurity...

5. Business domains, including a strong emphasis on banking, finance, securities, and insurance (e.g., derivatives, credit risk management, corporate finance, financial modelling...)...

Our business is designed to boost your knowledge and skills so that you can apply what you gain immediately in your job, or that next great job you are looking to start. We address, largely, more advanced, or complex subjects and convert those into rational, understandable, and usable information you can employ right away. If you want to take a great leap forward in your career, we are here to make that happen.

Our instructors are seasoned practitioners who have worked in the fields their cover and relate the subjects covered to real work situations you will encounter in your job. So, the concepts are real, the coverage is at the right level of depth, and the material is straightforward.

Who trusts us with their training requirements? The world's preeminent companies, organizations, and agencies. Specifically? Check out our website and you will see that these are the best of the best.

About me

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT

Since I was 15, I have been involved in starting, building, expanding, or growing entrepreneurial ventures. Some ventures began in my backyard; others in someone's basement or apartment; and still others within a huge national or global enterprise. In all cases, what has driven me is taking an idea (or problem) and helping spawn that into a reality.

Whether the venture created is in business, science, the arts, education, or any other humane field of endeavor, invention and discovery drives me. I am also very committed to contribute to my family, friends, colleagues, community, and world.

I have been in so many different ventures in my life that my mother wondered out loud when I was 'going to get a job.' But my job has always been creating jobs. That is the work of an entrepreneur. In the early 1990s, I began my career in technology investment banking, advising software and hardware companies on business and financing strategies, and raising funds for those businesses. At that same time, I took a strong interest in publishing. As we all know, both information publishing companies and technology companies in the 1990s saw their World crash together head on. Each learned they could not survive or thrive if they were not strong in their command of both technology and information.

Not every venture I have been involved in succeeded. Anyone who tell you have a perfect business track record is simply lying. But the failures inform how you do the next one better ..., assuming you are willing to learn and grow by the mistakes you make.

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ENTRY INTO THE BUSINESS OF EDUCATION

In 2002, I landed in the education arena when we rescued and then resuscitated a globally well-regarded live, in person training and publishing company that had jumped into e-learning in the late 1990s, way before anyone even knew how that might work online. I ran that business for about 16 years and travelled the World to manage training initiatives for many of the largest global financial institutions, and many 100s of 1000s of individual students (over 10x the number of students I now have on Udemy).

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THE BACKDROP | A PASSION FOR LEARNING | PERSISTENCE

As a child, I struggled to read and felt a great deal of embarrassment and frustration because of that. But I refused to let that prevent me from learning. I kept many hundreds of English language words with definitions and their usages on file cards, and daily reviewed and read their meanings and usage. I felt embarrassed, humbled and (rather) angry that I had difficulty learning. But I PERSISTED AND WOULD NOT GIVE UP.

By high school was enrolled in many advanced placement classes, and then was fortunate to end up at an Ivy League school (the University of Pennsylvania) where I majored in Economics and had dual minors in Mathematics and English. I also participated in courses in the UPenn's venerated Benjamin Franklin Scholars program, which was intended to be limited to the most intellectually gifted kids at school (which I was certainly not). So, how did I get to take courses in this program? I demonstrated that I wanted to learn everything and would not compromise on the normal boundaries. I also showed up and would not take no for an answer. I SIMPLY

PERSISTED AND WOULD NOT GIVE UP.

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MY TAKEAWAY AND ADVICE FOR YOU

If you want to build your dreams, you can but you must persist. You must set your eye on an ambition and never give up. You must learn to pivot and change as circumstances change, of course, and you must always learn and learn to learn.

My mission is to help you learn and to help you achieve your dreams. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if I can support your ambitions in any way.

Stay healthy. Stay happy. Keep growing. Always be learning.

~ Paul