For the teams that remained, the challenge became maintaining the same pace of delivery with fewer people supporting engineering behind the scenes. Functions such as QA, developer enablement, documentation and Developer Relations came under increased pressure because their impact was often less directly connected to shipping new features.

Yet these teams play a critical role in helping engineers build, test and deliver software efficiently. They reduce friction, improve knowledge sharing and enable developers to focus on solving complex product challenges.

For engineering leaders, this has created a new challenge: how do you maintain speed and quality when the teams responsible for supporting development are no longer growing alongside the products they support? The answer is focused on leverage; finding ways to help existing engineering teams achieve more by improving the systems, processes and tools they rely on every day.

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Optimising Software Delivery

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One of the areas now facing closer scrutiny is the infrastructure that supports software delivery itself. Testing platforms, CI/CD pipelines, developer tooling and automated testing environments have become essential components of modern tech companies but they also represent a continuously growing cost.

Unlike many engineering investments, the cost of test infrastructure often scales directly with development activity. More commits mean more pipeline runs, more automated tests, increased compute usage and greater storage requirements. Such costs can quickly become significant budget items.

During the rapid growth period of the past few years, many organisations have been willing to accept this trade-off. Speed and expansion have been the priority, with companies investing heavily in developer tooling, cloud infrastructure and automation to help engineering teams deliver faster. However, as the tech sector moves into a new era focused on profitability and efficiency, testing infrastructure has become a natural focus for optimisation.

This trend reflects a broader change happening across the industry. Companies are reassessing their operations, reducing costs and prioritising investments that deliver the greatest impact. While much of the public conversation focuses on layoffs, another transformation is happening inside tech companies: companies are examining the systems, processes and tools that support developers.

The goal should be to increase engineering leverage and help teams deliver the same level of quality and speed with fewer resources. This means identifying areas where automation can remove repetitive work, improving developer workflows and ensuring that engineers spend more time building products rather than maintaining inefficient processes.

As companies look for ways to adapt to this new reality, many are turning to technology and workforce transformation strategies to help teams become more efficient. Beamery, a London-based HR technology unicorn focused on helping organisations develop, retain and move talent internally, is also experiencing these challenges from within.

Dmitrii Kriaklin, a Senior Frontend Engineer at Beamery shares insights into how engineering teams can improve productivity, streamline workflows and support developers in an environment where resources are under increasing pressure.

“When a team becomes smaller, every engineering hour becomes significantly more valuable. In this environment, the teams that succeed are not necessarily those that simply work longer hours, but those that systematically remove unnecessary work and make knowledge more accessible across the organisation. At Beamery, I have been focused on solving these challenges through two key initiatives: optimising integration test execution and automating design system documentation.

One example is a GitHub Actions pipeline I developed that compares compiled artefacts across two branches, identifies the components affected by a change and runs tests only for those areas. This reduced test execution time from around 20 minutes to 3–5 minutes per commit and resulted in estimated annual infrastructure savings of more than £25,000, based on reduced Cypress Dashboard usage and compute costs; a figure expected to grow as the design system scales. For teams operating under tighter constraints, approaches like this make it possible to maintain high product quality without spending unnecessary time and budget on redundant testing.This solution now runs across the shared component library used by 8 product teams and around 30 frontend engineers, so the impact compounds with every commit made against the design system.”

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Automating Documentation

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Another area where tech companies are looking for efficiency gains is documentation, particularly around design systems, developer resources and internal knowledge sharing.

As companies grow, documentation becomes a critical part of enabling engineering teams to move quickly. Design systems, component libraries and technical guidelines provide a shared foundation for how products are built, helping teams avoid duplicated work, maintain consistency and make decisions faster.

For engineering teams working across multiple products or services, a design system is a source of shared knowledge. It allows developers to understand how interfaces should be implemented, what patterns already exist and how new features can be built without reinventing solutions that have already been created elsewhere.

However, maintaining this information manually becomes increasingly difficult as products and teams scale. Every new component, API change, dependency update or design decision creates additional documentation work. Without a reliable connection between the codebase and documentation, information quickly becomes outdated, creating uncertainty for developers who rely on it.

When enablement and support teams are reduced, or when they do not grow at the same pace as the product, keeping documentation accurate becomes a significant challenge. Engineers then spend more time validating information, asking colleagues for clarification or rebuilding existing solutions. The result is a familiar problem: documentation either becomes outdated or requires dedicated resources that companies no longer have available.

Dmitrii talks about how businesses should approach this challenge:

“In an environment shaped by team reductions and limited expertise, documentation stops being an abstract concern. Every outdated page can translate into additional hours spent rechecking components, resolving inconsistencies and fixing errors. I saw this challenge clearly: multiple product teams were building on top of a shared design system, and any gap between implementation and documentation could lead to interface regressions affecting thousands of users.

In this environment, maintaining documentation manually becomes unsustainable, it either falls behind the codebase or requires a dedicated role that can be difficult to justify when teams are operating with fewer resources.

I addressed this challenge through automation by building a documentation system that reads component types directly from TypeScript code and generates live documentation pages with props and interactive examples. As a result, documentation stopped being a separate artefact that needed constant maintenance and became a by-product of the design system’s codebase itself.

For teams operating under tighter constraints, this approach helps preserve access to product knowledge without requiring a dedicated documentation team.”

Supporting Engineers

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While optimising processes and automating repetitive work can significantly improve engineering efficiency, technology alone is only part of the solution. As teams become leaner, companies also need to focus on the engineers responsible for building and maintaining these systems. Another challenge facing tech companies is improving developer productivity and helping existing engineers adapt to a more efficiency-focused way of working.

As businesses shift towards leaner operating models, engineering teams are being asked to take on broader responsibilities without the same level of headcount growth. This makes upskilling a critical part of maintaining productivity, whether through internal knowledge-sharing sessions, mentoring, technical workshops or creating opportunities for engineers to learn from different teams.

Upskilling has become a key part of this process. Engineers are now often expected to understand not only their own codebases, but also areas such as automation, cloud infrastructure, internal platforms and modern development workflows. The challenge for companies is enabling this knowledge transfer without relying on additional support teams or extensive manual guidance.

However, improving engineering capability is not only about technical skills. During periods of change, maintaining strong communication and team connection also becomes essential. Open discussions about challenges, clearer ownership and a culture where engineers can share knowledge openly help teams avoid silos and make better decisions with fewer resources.

Developer experience is therefore becoming a technical priority rather than simply a people initiative. Better tooling, self-service platforms, automated workflows and clearer engineering practices can help teams reduce friction and allow engineers to spend more time solving product problems instead of navigating internal processes.

For tech companies operating with fewer “hands”, improving efficiency is not only about reducing costs but about enabling existing engineers to have a greater impact.

The post While Tech Cut Jobs It Quietly Rewired How Engineers Work appeared first on 91̽��.

Just because. Just for fun. For no big reward other than feeling good and getting some fresh air.

And now? Oh, we don’t do anything just because. I always joke about switching my smartwatch on when I go for a stroll to record an activity, saying that “I don’t do steps for free”. Of course, I’m being totally facetious and I get nothing out of doing this other than the deep satisfaction of ending the day with the precise knowledge of how many steps my little body has taken since I woke up. And of course, this is fascinating in itself from a psychological perspective for many different reasons, but it’s not the point we’re focusing on today.

The point here is, we seem to have taken things a whole lot further. Now, it’s not just about recording physical activities, but providing incentives for doing them in the first place that are not only instant, but monetary too.

I guess we can track the idea back to the Pokémon GO craze from a few years back, but things have become a whole lot weirder and more extreme recently, and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on.

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Have We Finally Gamified Health Enough?

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For years, health apps have tried to make exercise feel less like exercise. We got badges, streaks, leaderboards and push notifications reminding us that we’d spent most of the day sitting down. Being told by your watch to “Move!” or, to the contrary, that you need to “recover” still feels very much health and fitness related.

But Steppa takes the concept one step further. Why settle for digital rewards when you could risk actual money?

The app sits at the intersection of two enormous trends: society’s growing obsession with health tracking and our increasing willingness to turn absolutely everything in life into a game.

According to the logic behind the platform, putting money on the line creates accountability. If missing your daily walk costs you financially, you’re supposedly more likely to get moving. Because if there’s nothing on the line, it’s just way too easy to stay indoors, curl up on the couch and make an excuse for why you’re not doing your steps.

And sure, it’s difficult to argue with the psychology, nor am I trying to. Humans are notoriously motivated by the prospect of losing money, and that’s not something worth denying – I mean, I’m certainly motivated by money (in certain contexts, calm down). The question in this situation, however, is whether that’s necessarily a healthy foundation for building long-term habits.

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Is It Betting, Fitness Or Something In Between?

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Steppa’s central argument is that it isn’t really gambling because users are betting on themselves. And sure, to a point, that’s true – you are essentially betting on yourself, and in many respects, you’re in control of the outcome. Indeed, unlike a casino game or sports bet, the outcome is largely within the participant’s control. If you want to win, all you have to do is walk. Easy, right?

But the idea still feels oddly familiar. After all, the core mechanic remains the same. You put money in, take a risk and hope to get more money back.

The difference here, however, is that instead of relying on luck, you’re relying on your own discipline. And at first thought, yes, that’s something we have control over. But in reality, do we? Surely if we had complete control over our own sense of discipline, we wouldn’t need to bet on it in the first place – we’d just walk, right…?

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The Monetisation Of Literally Everything

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Perhaps the most interesting question is whether apps like Steppa reveal something larger about modern life – something a little weird and maybe even a little icky.

For years, technology companies have searched for ways to monetise our attention. And then they monetised our social interactions, our hobbies and our spare time.

Now, we’re monetising our walks.��What used to be a simple health habit has become something measurable, trackable and potentially profitable.

There’s something slightly absurd about needing a financial incentive to take a stroll around the block. But, at the same time, plenty of people already spend money on gym memberships, fitness coaches and wellness programmes. Steppa simply repackages the same motivation in a different format. Why walk for free if you can get paid to do it?

So perhaps the app isn’t creating the trend so much as reflecting it.

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When Walking Becomes A Side Hustle

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Perhaps the strangest reports surrounding the concept are stories that some employers have allegedly become frustrated by workers spending large chunks of the day pacing around to hit their targets, and I think that’s kind of hilarious.

It’s not difficult to imagine. A century ago, employers worried workers weren’t moving enough. Now they may have the opposite problem – employees aggressively marching laps around the office car park because they’re 1,500 steps short and there’s money at stake. They’re walking so much that some employees have had to implement absurd rules specifying things like “the number of laps” you’re allowed to walk around the office per hour.

And the image is funny because it captures the contradiction at the heart of the idea.��Health is supposed to improve our lives, but when optimisation becomes the goal, even something as simple as walking can start to feel like work.

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So Is This Healthy?

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The honest answer is that it probably depends on the person. If a financial incentive helps someone become more active, there are certainly worse habits to encourage. Walking more is unlikely to feature on many lists of society’s greatest problems.

But, there’s something fascinating about the fact that we’ve reached a point where exercise, finance and gamification have merged into a single product. Steppa may be a clever accountability tool, it may be a fitness app with a gambling twist or, it may simply be the latest example of our inability to leave any part of life unoptimised, untracked or unmonetised.

Either way, it says something about the moment we’re living in. Because apparently, getting your steps in isn’t enough anymore – now your walk needs a business model too.

The post Everybody’s Talking About Steppa: Finally, A Way To Lose Weight And Money At The Same Time appeared first on 91̽��.

Cloud computing, artificial intelligence and globally distributed workforces have fundamentally altered how modern companies operate. A software platform developed in one country can be sold worldwide from day one, with employees collaborating across multiple time zones and customers rarely caring where the business is physically based.

Increasing numbers of entrepreneurs are no longer asking where they should launch their next company. Instead, they are asking where they should build the next phase of their lives.

For founders whose wealth is increasingly international, the choice of jurisdiction now influences taxation, investment opportunities, global mobility, succession planning and personal lifestyle just as much as business operations.

Where they choose to become tax resident may ultimately influence personal wealth far more than where the company was originally established. As a result, entrepreneurs are beginning to reassess jurisdictions that previously received relatively little attention within the technology sector.

Turkey is one of them.

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A Different Kind Of Competitive Advantage

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The technology sector has always rewarded those willing to identify opportunities before they become obvious. The same principle increasingly applies to international relocation.

Countries are no longer competing solely to attract multinational corporations. They are competing for founders, investors, innovators and internationally mobile professionals who bring experience, capital and global business networks with them.

Turkey is complementing its strategic location, transport infrastructure and commercial strengths with reforms designed to attract internationally mobile wealth.

Perhaps the most significant development is the proposed 20-year exemption on qualifying foreign-source income for eligible new tax residents. While specialist advice is essential before making any relocation decision, the proposal has attracted growing attention because it signals a long-term commitment to competing for international entrepreneurs rather than simply overseas investment.

For entrepreneurs with internationally diversified assets, investment portfolios or overseas income streams, the proposal has encouraged a broader discussion about long-term wealth structuring. Importantly, the proposed regime relates to qualifying foreign-source income and should not be interpreted as creating automatic tax advantages for business activities carried out in Turkey, where separate corporate tax, source-of-income and permanent establishment rules may apply.

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Beyond Tax: Building An International Base

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Entrepreneurs typically evaluate taxation alongside connectivity, infrastructure, market access, political stability and quality of life. Turkey offers an increasingly compelling combination of these factors.

Istanbul, in particular, has developed into one of the region’s leading commercial centres. The city continues to attract technology businesses, financial institutions, international investors and ambitious start-ups seeking access to markets spanning Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

For many internationally mobile entrepreneurs, establishing a long-term presence also means investing beyond their operating company. Residential property has become part of that broader wealth strategy, providing both geographic flexibility and exposure to a market that continues to evolve alongside major infrastructure and regeneration projects.

Some investors may also explore Turkish citizenship by investment as part of a wider international mobility strategy, although it is generally considered alongside business planning, tax residency and long-term wealth preservation rather than as an isolated investment decision.

Relocation itself requires careful preparation. Understanding the available before making any long-term move helps founders coordinate immigration planning with wider personal, investment and tax considerations.

Entrepreneurs should also consider whether could form part of their wider international wealth planning before establishing tax residency overseas.

It should not be assumed that relocating a business, or carrying out its activities from Turkey, automatically creates a more tax-efficient structure. Professional advice remains essential before changing tax residency or business operations.

The Global Competition For Entrepreneurs Is Intensifying

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The shift taking place in Turkey reflects a much broader international trend. Governments increasingly recognise that attracting internationally mobile entrepreneurs can generate economic benefits that extend well beyond taxation.

Governments are increasingly competing to attract internationally mobile talent, investment and private wealth through a combination of innovation, infrastructure and fiscal policy.

Its new foreign-income regime is only one part of a broader proposition that also includes access to a sizeable domestic economy, a young and increasingly skilled workforce, expanding transport infrastructure and a location connecting three continents.

For internationally mobile entrepreneurs, these advantages may complement long-term relocation planning. However, the exemption applies only to qualifying foreign-source personal income and should not be interpreted as extending to business profits or income arising from activities carried out in Turkey, where separate tax rules apply.

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Thinking Beyond The Next Funding Round

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Successful founders are accustomed to making decisions with a long-term horizon, and that increasingly extends to personal wealth planning.

As businesses mature, tax residency, succession planning, international investment and geographic diversification often become just as important as commercial growth. The conversation is no longer simply about low taxes, but about creating a stable long-term framework for international mobility and wealth preservation.

Turkey’s recent reforms have encouraged exactly that conversation.

For some, the attraction lies in the treatment of qualifying foreign-source personal income rather than the taxation of an operating business, which requires separate analysis. Others may be attracted by Turkey’s expanding property market or consider Turkish citizenship by investment as part of a wider international mobility strategy.

The important point is that Turkey has become part of the shortlist.

Technology has transformed how companies operate. Artificial intelligence, remote collaboration and cloud infrastructure have made businesses less dependent on geography than at any point in modern history.

Choosing where to live and establish tax residency has become a strategic decision that can influence both personal wealth and wider business planning.

Turkey’s ambition to attract internationally mobile entrepreneurs reflects that reality. Whether through proposed tax reforms, continued investment in infrastructure, an expanding innovation ecosystem or growing international connectivity, the country is signalling that it intends to compete for globally mobile talent as well as global capital.

As technology continues removing barriers to international business, founders will increasingly look beyond traditional locations when planning their personal and financial futures.

For an increasing number of internationally minded entrepreneurs, it is becoming a conversation worth having.

The post Why Are Tech Entrepreneurs Choosing Turkey As their Next Business Base? appeared first on 91̽��.

Nigeria has demonstrated a remarkable ability to produce scalable, globally relevant technology companies from a market that presents some of the most significant infrastructure and regulatory challenges in the world. Despite fierce competition from Kenya, Egypt, South Africa and a rising wave of smaller but ambitious tech ecosystems across the continent, Nigeria has maintained its position at the top of the African tech tree.

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What Makes Nigeria Africa’s Leading Tech Ecosystem?

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Due to a potent combination of enormous market size, outstanding entrepreneurial potential and a booming digital finance sector, Nigeria is Africa’s top IT ecosystem. Nigeria’s tech leadership is largely driven by:

• Massive market scale: Nigeria offers new businesses a sizable domestic addressable market from the outset, enabling them to grow considerably before going global.
• Driven talent pool: The ecosystem was mostly created from the bottom up by young, creative entrepreneurs who use technology to address common local problems in e-commerce, finance and logistics.
• Venture capital and infrastructure growth: A significant portion of all venture capital investments in Africa is drawn to the region, which is bolstered by growing digital infrastructure, such as local data centres established by multinational IT behemoths like Microsoft.
• Expanding innovation hubs: Local digital talent and startup growth are still supported by important physical and digital incubation places and new regional hubs in Abuja, Ibadan and Ilorin.��

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How Big Is Nigeria’s Tech Startup Scene?

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Nigeria’s tech startup scene is the largest and most active on the African continent by virtually every meaningful measure. The country consistently attracts the highest share of venture capital flowing into African tech, leads the continent in the number of active startups and has produced more unicorns than any other African nation.��

Beyond the headline names, Nigeria has a deep and growing pipeline of early and growth-stage startups operating across fintech, healthtech, edtech, logistics and e-commerce, demonstrating that the ecosystem’s strength goes well beyond a handful of well-known success stories and reflects a genuinely broad and maturing innovation culture.

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Which Sectors Are Nigeria’s Tech Startups Dominating?

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Nigeria’s tech startup activity spans a remarkably broad range of sectors, reflecting both the scale of the country’s consumer market and the depth of its entrepreneurial talent pool.

While fintech has historically attracted the most attention and investment, a new generation of startups is building world-class companies across multiple industries. The sectors where Nigerian tech startups are making the biggest impact include:

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• Fintech: Nigeria is Africa’s undisputed fintech capital, home to some of the continent’s most valuable and internationally recognised financial technology companies, building solutions across payments and cross-border transfers for both consumers and businesses.
• E-Commerce: Platforms connecting merchants and consumers across Nigeria’s vast and complex retail landscape, tackling the unique logistics, payments and last-mile delivery challenges of operating in one of Africa’s largest consumer markets.
• HealthTech: Startups addressing critical gaps in healthcare access and delivery across Nigeria’s underserved population, from telemedicine and digital pharmacy platforms to health data management and diagnostic tools.
• Logistics and mobility: Startups digitising and optimising supply chains, last-mile delivery and urban mobility across a country where infrastructure constraints have historically made logistics one of the biggest barriers to commercial growth.
• Energy: Startups tackling Nigeria’s chronic electricity supply challenges through solar energy, off-grid power solutions and energy management technology for both businesses and households.
• Future of Work: Platforms supporting talent management, payroll and remote work infrastructure for Nigeria’s growing pool of digital workers and the international companies increasingly hiring from the Nigerian talent market.

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Why Nigeria Continues To Dominate African Tech

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Nigeria’s continued dominance of African tech is not simply a function of its size; it is the product of a uniquely powerful combination of market scale, entrepreneurial culture, diaspora capital and a startup ecosystem that has had long enough to develop the network effects that make dominant tech hubs self-reinforcing. At its most fundamental level, Nigeria offers what every technology investor and entrepreneur is looking for: a large, young, digitally engaged population with significant unmet needs across financial services, healthcare, education, logistics and retail.��

The country’s people represent by far the largest single domestic market on the African continent, giving Nigerian startups a home market big enough to build genuinely scalable businesses before they need to think about cross-border expansion.��

While the country’s regulatory and infrastructure challenges are real and significant, they have also served as a forcing function for innovation, pushing Nigerian entrepreneurs to develop creative, resilient and highly adaptable business models that are often better equipped to operate in complex emerging market environments than startups built in more comfortable conditions.

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Why Is Nigeria’s Large Population A Competitive Advantage for Tech?

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Nigeria’s population of more than 220 million people offers tech companies a significant competitive edge due to the size of the market, the country’s youthful, tech-savvy populace and its quickly growing talent pool.

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How Has Nigeria’s Regulatory Environment For Tech Evolved?

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Nigeria’s regulatory environment for tech has undergone significant evolution over the past decade, moving from a largely reactive and fragmented framework toward a more structured approach to governing a rapidly growing digital economy. The Central Bank of Nigeria has been the most consequential regulatory actor in the tech space, playing a defining role in shaping the fintech ecosystem through a combination of licensing frameworks, sandbox programmes and policies that have both enabled and at times constrained innovation.��

The introduction of payment service bank licences, the regulatory sandbox for fintech innovation, and frameworks governing mobile money, open banking and cross-border payments have collectively created a more defined operating environment for fintech startups, even as debates around foreign exchange restrictions, cryptocurrency regulation and the pace of licensing approvals have created periodic friction with the industry.��

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How Does Nigeria’s Tech Ecosystem Compare to South Africa’s?

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Nigeria and South Africa represent two very different models of tech ecosystem development, and comparing them directly reveals as much about their respective strengths as it does about the gaps each needs to close.

Nigeria leads on startup volume, venture capital attraction and the raw energy and scale of its entrepreneurial culture, driven by the sheer size of its market, the density of its Lagos-based startup community and the global recognition of its fintech champions. South Africa, by contrast, leads on institutional maturity, offering more developed financial markets, stronger legal and regulatory frameworks, better physical infrastructure and a more established venture capital industry that has been operating at scale for longer than Nigeria’s.��

The post Why Nigeria Continues To Dominate African Tech appeared first on 91̽��.

This is why business owners should��take broadband failover seriously, to minimise the risks that come with sudden disconnection.

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What Is A Broadband Failover?

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In the simplest terms, broadband failover is the process in which your primary internet connection fails and the secondary internet connection takes over. Your internet is rerouted to a backup line and it often goes unnoticed. Now that remote and hybrid working models are common, broadband has gone from being the nice-to-have to being essential.

Broadband is the medium through which calls, meetings, files and much more are transmitted. Cloud-based phone systems and VoIP are especially sensitive to this because they rely on the internet for call transmission.

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What About the PSTN Switch-Off?

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The 2027 PSTN Switch-Off increases the need for an internet fail over plan for businesses because from 1 February 2027, broadband across the UK may become the most important and fundamental part of all business communications infrastructure. Businesses should now be investing in the right broadband provider as it is crucial in ensuring a smooth transition to a strong digital foundation.

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What Causes Internet Outages?

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Before deciding on a failover framework, it’s important to understand what typically leads to business broadband failures. Likely options include:

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Physical Fault in the Infrastructure

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Damaged cables or a flooded cabinet; construction workers breaking a cable in the street outside your business.

All Faults on the ISP Side

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A congested network, maintenance or broken equipment at the exchange.

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Router or Hardware Failures

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An old router or faulty modem configuration can sever your connection without the ISP

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Power Failure

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If your router, along with all of the other networking equipment, goes totally dark without power, it doesn’t matter if the ISP line is still completely unbroken

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Cyberattack or DDoS

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A cyber attack or DDoS in attack that can lead to equipment failure or an overload connection, interrupting your businesses connectivity.

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A well-designed failover setup addresses several of these simultaneously. It provides an independent path to the internet, removes the single point of failure represented by a single line and a single provider and ��if combined with appropriate UPS (uninterruptible power supply) hardware, maintains connectivity even through a short power cut.

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Key Aspects of a Broadband Failover Configuration

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For reliable failover, a separate internet connection should be added. This failsafe must be from another provider and follow a completely different infrastructure. If one connection is a fiber-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), a leased line from another provider or a 4G or 5G network, would work for failover. For most small and medium-sized organisations, the simplest and most affordable option is a 4G or 5G failover router. Mobile network infrastructure is entirely different from that of fixed-line broadband, making failover connections independent.

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Importance of Dual-WAN Router

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A dual-WAN router is the device that makes failover automatic rather than manual. It monitors the health of both connections simultaneously and when it detects that the primary line has failed, switches traffic to the backup within seconds.

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VoIP-Specific Considerations

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Most cloud-based VoIP platforms will reconnect automatically once an internet connection is restored, but the quality of the failover connection matters. VoIP calls require relatively low bandwidth but are sensitive to latency and packet loss. Ensure your backup connection prioritises voice traffic and test call quality over the failover line before you need to rely on it.

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How to Build Your Failover Strategy

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Building broadband failover does not require an IT department or a large budget. The following steps apply to most small and medium businesses:

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Analyse Your Current Setup

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Identify your ISP and the type of connection you use along with the hardware you have. Check if your router supports dual-WAN.

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Choose Your Backup Connection

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The optimal and most affordable option for SMEs is a dual SIM 4G or 5G router from a trusted telecommunications provider. Assess the ground and coverage and then decide what will work best.

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Purchase a Dual-WAN Router��

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If your current router cannot accommodate for dual-WAN inputs, replacing it is the most valuable investment you can make. Routers from known companies can be purchased for just below £100 and business-grade options can be purchased from £300 to £400.

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Set Automatic Failover

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Work through your router’s administration interface to set the primary and backup connections and define the failover trigger conditions.

The post How to Build Broadband Failover Before An Outage Happens appeared first on 91̽��.

We’ve had digital transformation, Web3, the metaverse, AI agents and probably a dozen others that sounded like they were about to change the world before most of them quietly disappeared from LinkedIn posts.

But one term that’s popping up more frequently is superconvergence. It sounds a bit like something a Marvel villain would threaten humanity with, but it’s actually a useful way of describing what’s happening across the technology industry right now.

The crux of it is that technologies aren’t just evolving anymore; they’re actually colliding.

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What Does Superconvergence Actually Mean?

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The term “superconvergence” doesn’t have one universally accepted definition, but it’s generally used to describe a period where multiple breakthrough technologies mature and combine at the same time, accelerating innovation much faster than normal. It’s kind of like technological convergence on steroids.

According to the World Economic Forum, technology convergence occurs when different technologies combine to create new forms of value, new business models and entirely new industries. And rather than existing separately, technologies begin working together as part of larger systems.

Superconvergence takes this another step further. Instead of one or two technologies merging, several major advances happen simultaneously.

AI, robotics, biotechnology, quantum computing, cloud infrastructure, advanced semiconductors and automation are all developing at the same time. And the theory is that when these technologies start interacting with one another, progress happens exponentially faster.

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Why Do We Care About Superconvergence Right Now?��

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Because for the first time, many of these technologies appear to be reaching maturity together.��A decade ago, AI was impressive but still limited; robotics struggled with flexibility; quantum computing felt largely theoretical; and biotechnology was advancing steadily but often in isolation.

Now, however, those barriers are starting to blur.��AI is helping scientists design new drugs, robotics is becoming smarter through machine learning, cloud infrastructure provides the computing power needed to train advanced models and new chip designs are making all of it faster and more affordable.

According to the OECD, technological convergence has increasingly been associated with the combination of fields such as biotechnology, information technology, cognitive sciences and advanced engineering, leading to entirely new products and industries.

So in other words, the next breakthrough might not come from a single technology. It could emerge from the overlap between several.

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The Smartphone Was An Early Example

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If you’re struggling to picture convergence, just look at your pocket (or in your handbag or, honestly, in your hand). Smartphones are often considered to be one of the clearest examples of technological convergence. They combined devices that were once completely separate, including cameras, telephones, GPS units, music players and internet browsers.

What used to require a backpack full of gadgets now fits into a single device. Now, superconvergence applies the same principle on a much bigger scale.

Imagine AI, biotech, sensors, automation and quantum computing all feeding into the same healthcare system. Or autonomous factories where robotics, predictive AI and digital twins work together continuously.��That’s the type of future people are referring to when they talk about superconvergence.

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How Does This Affect Startups?

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For startups, superconvergence creates opportunities that didn’t exist before. Historically, founders often built companies around a single technology. Today, some of the most interesting startups are sitting at the intersection of multiple fields.

Healthtech companies are combining AI and genomics; climate startups are bringing together sensors, machine learning and advanced materials; and fintech businesses increasingly blend AI, cloud computing and automation.

The challenge is that building in a world of superconvergence requires broader expertise, because it’s no longer enough to understand one technology in isolation.

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Will “Superconvergence” Fade From Memory Too?��

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Well, maybe. After all, the tech industry has never met a catchy phrase it didn’t like.

But the underlying idea is difficult to ignore and the reality is even more difficult to get away from. The biggest shifts in technology rarely happen because of one breakthrough. They happen when several breakthroughs arrive at the same time and start reinforcing one another.

Whether “superconvergence” becomes the next defining tech term or quietly fades away, the trend behind it is already visible.

Because the future of innovation may not belong to individual technologies, but rather��what happens when they all start working together.

The post What Is Super Convergence In Tech? appeared first on 91̽��.

This is the motivation behind the UK government’s latest £62 million investment in homegrown space technology. Announced at the Farnborough International Airshow, the funding is going into satellite communications and new space projects that ministers hope will help British businesses turn research into products people can actually use.

This all brings up this question: can the UK build a space sector that grows at home and develops technology that lasts for the long term?

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What Is The Government Paying For?

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The biggest share of the funding is £42 million through the Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit, or C LEO, programme. According to the government, the money will support businesses, universities and research organisations developing satellite communications technology.

The projects cover five areas:

1. Board satellite processing
2. Active antennas
3. Optical communication links
4. Networking and routing systems
5. User terminals

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The government says these technologies could improve broadband in remote communities as well as mobile connectivity on things like railway and services as well as ships. This latest round brings total C LEO funding to as much as £77 million.

Another £20 million is going into the National Space Innovation Programme which supports new space technologies through two funding routes. Kick Starter is for early stage concepts and Major Projects is for businesses bringing products closer to commercial markets. About 40% of the available funding goes into Space Domain Awareness and In Space Assembly and Manufacturing, helping the UK monitor activity in orbit and develop products in space.

Space Minister Liz Lloyd said, “Space is not just a scientific frontier, it is a strategic one. If we do not build national capabilities at home, we become overly dependent on others for technologies we cannot afford to be without.

“That is why today we are announcing £62 million for satellite communications and space innovation, investing in the British businesses and researchers who will make that capability real. This funding will help develop new satellite communications technologies to keep remote communities connected, capture a growing market for on orbit manufactured products and strengthen our ability to monitor and protect assets in orbit, while supporting the next generation of space innovators turning early stage ideas into commercial products.

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“Strengthening domestic capability in these areas, alongside working with international partners, will help ensure the UK remains secure, resilient and a leader on the world stage.”

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Is The UK Building A Space Business As Well As Space Tech?

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The investment comes with new data from the UK Space Agency that shows how its Accelerator programme has grown since launching in 2021.

According to the agency, the programme has backed 289 founders, helped those businesses raise more than £102.2 million in investment and contributed to the creation of 209 jobs. It also says 89% of participating businesses are continuing to trade.

So, instead of stopping at funding research, the Accelerator helps entrepreneurs develop leadership skills while trying to bring in investment, win customers and connect with regional networks in the UK which means new companies could have support long after the first funding application has been approved.

The government also announced that organisations can register interest for the next Space Clusters Infrastructure Fund competition. The programme is expected to award £37 million in grants by 2030 following an earlier pilot that supported 13 projects around the UK.

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Could This Help The UK Leas In Sustainable Space Tech?

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Many of the projects being backed are designed to make satellite services more capable and more useful. Better communications satellites can connect remote places without laying miles of physical cables, and in space manufacturing could open new commercial opportunities using equipment already in orbit.

There is also the more practical side to the investment; Space Domain Awareness technology helps monitor activity around satellites and gives operators more information about what is happening in orbit which all becomes more important as more satellites are launched around the world.

The UK already has universities, researchers, startups as well as established businesses working across the space sector. The latest funding gives many of them an opportunity to develop products here, instead of relying on technology developed elsewhere. This goes hand in hand with the latest EU/UK ambitions that are trying to bring reliance on tech back home.

Whether that is enough to make the UK a leading name in sustainable space tech will depend on what these projects deliver over the next few years. The government has put £62 million behind that ambition and so what’s next is for the businesses and researchers to turn those ideas into working technologies.

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Nowadays, cybercrime isn’t just installing viruses onto your device to crash the system. It has evolved to sophisticated operations from phishing scams to social engineering and everything in between. And the most concerning part of it all is that these attacks can bypass traditional antivirus software with a fair amount of ease.

So the next logical question to ask is, can your antivirus software alone be enough to protect you and your data? Or is it just one part that forms part of your overall cybersecurity effort?

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Why Antivirus Software May No Longer Be Enough

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At its core, antivirus software is designed to work in the background to check for any suspicious activity. While you continue to use your device, it’s constantly scanning every website you visit or file that you download. And if it finds something that it doesn’t quite like, the software will flag it and notify you.

But how can the antivirus differentiate between normal and malicious activity? It works with a database of known threats so all links and files are compared to them. If there’s a match, the threat is isolated and removed.

The thing is, cybercriminals are usually working one step ahead and are constantly producing new forms of malware. These aren’t yet in the database so your antivirus may not immediately recognise it as a threat. These are often referred to as zero-day attacks because your antivirus is usually unprepared for them.

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Cybersecurity Efforts Beyond Antivirus

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Users today are exposed to far more threats, with the UK Government’s 2025 Cyber Security Breaches Survey reporting 8.58 million cyber crimes so far this year. It’s a jaw-dropping number, given that the year isn’t even over yet.

Since full cyber protection requires a multi-layer approach, having an antivirus is just one part of it. If one of these layers misses a threat, another one can step in to catch it.

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Firewalls

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Firewalls are responsible for watching the traffic that attempts to come in and out of your network. It then decides what to allow through and what is deemed sceptical. If you don’t have one, malware could enter your system without you even realising it until the damage has been done.

There are two types of firewalls, hardware-based which are built into your router or software-based which needs to be installed onto the device.

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Password Managers

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It’s tempting to reuse the same password for every account you have or a very weak one because these are easier to remember. But hackers know this and it makes it much easier for them to get into multiple accounts.

Password managers can generate unique passwords for you and you can access them through authentication even if you can’t remember them all. Essentially, you need to just remember one master password to access all of your strong passwords.

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Regular Software Updates

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One thing that cybercriminals love is software that is outdated because they are full of vulnerabilities, making it easier to access. Your antivirus service provider will regularly release new updates with security patches but the responsibility falls on you to install them.

It’s one of the most simplest ways to stay protected yet so often, it’s overlooked and leaves devices wide open.

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Email Security

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Phishing still remains one of the most common forms of cybercrimes because for the hackers, it’s so easy to do. They impersonate someone that their victim knows personally or a company they trust and trick them into handing over personal information such as passwords or bank details.

Most email accounts now come with advanced AI settings which will automatically flag suspicious messages. These are usually removed before they even get to your inbox.

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Multi-Factor Authentication

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Even if you have a strong, unique password, it’s not always enough. They aren’t foolproof and if hackers are motivated enough, they can eventually crack it or even buy it on the dark web.

Multi-factor authentication adds an additional step to your login, either through a fingerprint or notification to another device. So even if a hacker had your password, they wouldn’t be able to get in without this second step. For things like online banking, it offers peace of mind that your most important data is protected.

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Is Antivirus Alone Sufficient For Total Cybersecurity?

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It’s not recommended to rely solely on antivirus software to protect you and your device. With that said, it is definitely worthwhile to have and offers security in its own way. If you want to maximise your protection, you can also look into paid antivirus software rather than using free options.

However, it does work best with other cybersecurity efforts to offer you a more comprehensive safety plan. And since cybercrime is showing no signs of slowing down, it’s necessary more than ever to prioritise cybersecurity for both individuals and businesses.

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91̽�� spoke with Ivan Montik, the Founder of SOFTSWISS, who reflected on just how far the company has travelled since those early days. “Today, SOFTSWISS is a large-scale global business that stands firmly on its own feet. Over the years, we’ve built an entire ecosystem of products, developed strong leadership teams, and grown into a mature company operating on a global scale. It’s obviously no longer a startup,” he said.

In its first years, SOFTSWISS provided generalist software development services before pivoting decisively toward specializing in iGaming in 2012. This move would define its trajectory. Thanks to the founding team’s willingness to embrace innovation while keeping their commitment to building best-in-class tech, the company was able to earn a reputation for ensuring stability and reliability of tech solutions in an industry that has often been plagued by outages and performance issues.

The company’s reputation for dependable, innovative iGaming technology was underscored in 2013, when SOFTSWISS became the first platform provider in the world to integrate crypto payments directly into gaming environments. That same ability to move quickly and decisively into new areas defines how the company still operates today, as evidenced in SOFTSWISS’s recent rollout of its Prediction Markets solution. “We saw an opportunity, made decisions quickly, and launched the product in just two months,” Montik said, underscoring the idea that to outperform the market, you need to move quickly and “innovate, launch new products, enter new geographies, and create opportunities that weren’t there before.’’

SOFTSWISS offers a wide product suite that includes the Casino Platform, Game Aggregator, Sportsbook, Jackpot Aggregator and affiliate management software platform Affilka. Crucially, it ensures that all SOFTSWISS ecosystem products are compliant across geographies that are subject to vastly different regulatory regimes. As governments from Latin America to Europe tighten oversight of online gaming, regulatory compliance has become a competitive differentiator for SOFTSWISS, helping the company cement its reputation as a trusted partner for operators who want to enter new jurisdictions quickly.

The impact of this strategy is visible across the company’s markets of operation, including Brazil, where SOFTSWISS was the first provider to secure certification for its Game Aggregator and later extended that compliance to other key products. As a result, SOFTSWISS now offers a fully certified product ecosystem in the country, enabling operators to launch and scale their businesses in full alignment with local regulations. Brazil is just one example, as the same approach is used when the company expands into any new geography.

For Montik, this kind of company growth and expansion is inseparable from the success of the operators SOFTSWISS supports. “If our clients are entering new jurisdictions, building stronger businesses, and succeeding with us as their long term technology partner, we’ll grow more together. That’s the kind of growth that matters most to me,” he said.

Looking ahead, key priorities for SOFTSWISS include expanding across regulated markets, further advancing their product suite and technical performance, accelerating delivery for partners and scaling innovation with a stronger focus on AI-enabled workflows. As such, SOFTSWISS elevated its artificial intelligence strategy to the C-suite with the appointment of Denis Romanovskiy to its newly established Chief AI Officer position. Romanovskiy took the helm as SOFTSWISS moved from experimentation with AI to implementation and execution.

All of these initiatives are key building blocks of fueling the company’s growth and profitability. “For me, growth starts with business results. Revenue and profit are still the clearest indicators that a company is developing in the right direction,’’ Montik said. “My view has always been that a healthy company should aim to grow faster than the market. For SOFTSWISS, that means targeting at least 20% annual growth in profit, and ideally around 30%. That’s the difference between simply participating in the market and actively shaping it.’’

SOFTSWISS is able to achieve its targets because the company understands that its growth is closely tied to its clients’ success. Over the years, the company built more than a portfolio of products; it built an ecosystem of technology, expertise, and services designed to help operators launch, grow, and scale in regulated markets, according to Montik.
“For me, one of the most important principles is simple: do things in a way that you’ll be proud of later. That applies to our products. It applies to our service. It applies to the way we work with clients and partners,’’ he said. “So if someone takes a closer look at SOFTSWISS today, I hope that’s what they’ll see – a company full of professionals who genuinely care about what they build and take pride in doing it well.’’

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NVIDIA is one of the more recent and well-known examples of a chip company that now has AI models and software platforms. Google, which most people know for search, Gemini and cloud software, is working on new AI chips. Meta has built its own AI models but is also designing its own AI accelerators – and Anthropic is doing the same.

The old line between hardware and software is becoming less obvious. AI has turned them into two sides of the same product. Building the model is only one element. Running that model quickly and cheaply has become just as important.

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Why Are Software Companies Suddenly Designing Chips?

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Google has spent years building its own Tensor Processing Units, known as TPUs. Now, according to The Information, it is also working on a new server chip called Frozen v2 that is designed specifically for Gemini. The report says the chip could launch in 2028.

The hardware is separate from Google’s existing TPUs. According to the report, Frozen v2 could run six to 10 times more efficiently than Google’s current custom chips and answer queries more quickly. Alphabet has been developing both semiconductor hardware and AI models as it builds a fully integrated AI system.

Meta is also designing its own route into AI chips and reports say Samsung Foundry is in talks to manufacture Meta’s third generation Meta Training and Inference Accelerator chips using its 2 nanometre process. Meta wants AI data centres with a combined capacity of 5GW before 2030. The company also wants to rely less on AI accelerators from AMD and Nvidia and intends to release a new generation of AI chips every six months.

Anthropic has much the same plans as reports are saying the Claude developer is looking at Samsung’s 2 nanometre manufacturing process for its own AI accelerator chips. The company reportedly wants AI data centres with a total capacity of 1GW and expects investments of around $50 billion. Around half of that spending would go into hardware such as custom AI chips, DRAM and NAND flash memory.

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What Makes AI Different From Previous Software?

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Vinod Jethwani, SEO strategist and AI search visibility expert at SearchTides, believes this has been building for quite a while rather than appearing overnight.

He said, “This is being seen as a sudden change whereas in reality the economy has been going on this path for some time. Demand for AI has grown far faster than traditional cloud applications, and companies building AI based products cannot always rely on others.”

Jethwani said AI asks far more from computers than traditional search ever did. He said, “AI search has redefined the equation. In the past, search primarily involved searching previously stored data. The Generative AI process generates a new response every time a question is asked, and it involves a lot of computing power in the background. Hardware makes a difference in performance, cost, and scalability.

“This is far from being just a matter of engineering. Training large AI models is expensive, and specialised chips will help organisations achieve greater predictability of expenses, better efficiency, and freedom to plan their products without restrictions due to hardware constraints.”

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Why Are Custom AI Chips Becoming So Valuable?

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Juan Mathews Rebello Santos, cybersecurity researcher, ethical hacker and founder of BNVD.org, said cost is one of the biggest reasons companies want their own silicon.

He said, “The race to design custom AI chips is driven by three forces that off the shelf hardware cant solve. First is cost. Every token a company serves through an Nvidia GPU carries Nvidias margin on top. At BNVD we track inference costs across cloud providers and the markup on third party silicon is 40 to 60 percent versus custom TPUs or Trainium chips. At Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta scale, that difference is billions per year.

“Second is control over the security boundary. When you design your own silicon you define the trusted execution environment from the transistor up. Nvidias GPUs have had multiple vulnerabilities in their virtual memory manager and driver stack that allowed tenant escape in multi tenant AI workloads. Google and Amazon building their own chips means they can bake hardware level isolation for customer inference data directly into the architecture rather than relying on Nvidias patch cycle.

“The strategic layer is the real story though. AI chip design lets these companies own the full technology chain from silicon to API. When Google controls the TPU, the compiler, the framework, and the model, they can optimise across every layer without asking a vendor for permission. That vertical integration is the moat. If you are a cloud provider and you depend on Nvidia for chips, Nvidia is the one setting your roadmap and your margins. Designing your own chip is the only way to escape that dependency.”

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Does Hardware Alone Win The AI Race?

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AMD’s new Helios AI system shows that building chips is no longer enough on its own. The rack system brings together AMD’s GPUs, CPUs, networking technology and software into one package.

Forrest Norrod, head of AMD’s data centre business, told CNBC, “We’re very focused on providing the best total cost of ownership, the lowest cost per token, all in. And our customers are telling us that we’re achieving that.”

Counterpoint Research analyst Neil Shah believes software is equally important. He said AMD’s Helios chips are “on par” with Nvidia GPUs and CPUs, but “the secret sauce is in the software and optimisation.”

AI rewards those who can control every element of the system, from the silicon inside the server to the model answering your question. The old labels of hardware company and software company no longer stand…

Vladimir Beskorovainyi, Enterprise AI Architect and CTO commented as well, saying, “Custom silicon is what happens when your inference bill exceeds the cost of a chip design team. For Big Tech the dominant AI cost is no longer training, it is serving billions of requests, and the constraint inside that cost is not raw compute but memory capacity and bandwidth.

“I run production inference myself, and the operator’s truth is simple: the GPU runs out of memory long before it runs out of arithmetic. General-purpose GPUs make you pay for arithmetic you cannot feed.

“Designing your own chip is vertical integration against your own inference bill. It lets a company tune memory, interconnect and precision to its actual workloads instead of renting a one-size-fits-all card at premium margins. Add supply security in a market where GPU allocation is a boardroom topic, and the surprising thing is not that Google and its peers design chips. It is that anyone at their scale still does not.”

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