Business News

Students studying Business studies are very keen to keep up to date with current affairs and latest developments in the business world both at home and globally. This really adds to the richness of the subject and makes it very collaborative and informative as we have many interesting debates about the exciting opportunities available to budding entrepreneurs. Students have shared these latest stories that enhance their learning of concepts such as Business organisation, Enterprise and Business Growth and help them to apply their knowledge when answering examination questions.

The Bottle House

The bottle house is a house in Mozambique, Maputo that is only made of plastic bottles and glass bottles and some concrete and is almost blinding when standing next to it because of its glow and shine.

This house is a way of showing that recycling waste is not only a dream but a reality. The house is in Maputo’s beautiful hills and is a landmark for tourists. The environmentalist and entrepreneur who made this house is Carlos Serra. (Source: The East African newspaper).

This Mozambican environmental activist and lawyer, Carlos Serra Junior, visited the Aga Khan Academy Maputo to talk about his work on water pollution as well and hopes to visit Mombasa soon. We have been learning about scarcity of resources and how to make the best use of factors of production with innovation and risk taking being the key. This is a fabulous example of it.

Imani - Year 10

Facebook

Facebook owner Meta is going to cut 13% of its workforce. This means 11,000 employees will lose their jobs. They have decided to cut these jobs because they want to scale back on expenses and transform the business into a more digital competitive advertising market. The company wants to focus on high priority areas, such as AI. This will be the most significant job cut in the tech giant’s history. (Source: BBC news) 

This is really significant as we have been learning about Business structures and looking at how they change overtime and whether technology now is the most important factor of production? We have been studying the impact of job losses in a local area and the economic consequences that go with it. The Covid pandemic has had a huge role in changing the way in which many businesses operate.

Lilly-May - Year 10

Kenya-UK Partnership

Kenya and the UK have agreed a deal for the Mega Dam project. Following an agreement reached by President William Ruto and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday, a new multipurpose dam is to be built in the counties of Kitui and Tharaka Nithi which will cost Sh425 billion. (Source: Business Daily)

The construction of the dam, which is the second-most expensive infrastructure project in Kenya after the standard gauge railway, is one of six projects totalling Sh500 billion that would be expedited under a new UK agreement struck off-site from the COP27 climate conference taking place in Egypt. The dam was initially projected to cost around Sh220 billion ($2 billion).

The ambitious five-year UK-Kenya Strategic Partnership will use the green investment programs in energy, agriculture, and transportation as its centre-piece projects. The partnership's goal is to maximise advantages for both nations.

This is a great story which highlights different types of business which we have been learning and the idea of different business objectives. It also ties in very well in understanding the many different stakeholder groups involved in such a business partnership. It is fascinating to debate how politics and business are often intertwined.

Maxwell - Year 10

Crypto-Currency-good Business or just too risky?

It took fewer than eight days for Sam Bankman-Fried to go from being nicknamed the "King Of Crypto" to his company filing for bankruptcy and him stepping down as chief executive, potentially facing federal investigations into how he handled the company's finances.

When Sam got interviewed on how he got started into crypto he said the following:

“So I started with 10 million dollars and I noticed bitcoin was on 10 thousand dollars on a U.S exchange but 11 thousand dollars on a Japan exchange so I put my 10 million dollars into bitcoin at 10k and then sold it for a 1k profit on the Japanese exchange and I did this every week day making a million dollars a day”(Source: Time magazine)

The empire built by Mr. Bankman-Fried collapsed last week after a run on deposits left his crypto exchange, FTX, with an $8 billion shortfall, forcing the firm to file for bankruptcy.

Sam Bankman-Fried had 22 billion dollars but as of today he is worth exactly zero and is facing jail time for some unorthodox transactions.

Alex - Year 10