Media Coverage

Mukesh Patel, of Rutgers Business School, was there with some of his entrepreneurship students. We got talking about Sahil Patel, who is a Rutgers University and Stevens Institute of Technology alumnus and the CEO of BettorFantasy, a startup based in Stewartsville that seems to be going places. The team wasn’t at Propelify, because they were among the five startups that qualified for the prestigious pitch competition at the Global Gaming Expo, which was taking place in Las Vegas on the same day.

When two New Jersey entrepreneurs and computer engineers looked back over the early part of their careers, they decided the biggest obstacle to the success of their small businesses was basic bookkeeping.

Profit and loss statements, tracking cancelled checks, receipts and other papers to qualify for bank loans and prepare annual tax returns were all worrisome details. They wished they had a helping hand.

So Vin Montes, 41, and Frantz Romain, 30, launched PROFIT Business Bank, an all-in-one online bank that targets upstart minority-owned businesses. It offers checking accounts that include bookkeeping software, Visa debit cards, free financial advice and eventually business loans.

Rutgers Business School Professor Lyneir Richardson, executive director of a program for urban entrepreneurs, said PROFIT’s free bookkeeping was a “value-added service that makes access to capital easier” because businesses have the paperwork to apply for e-loans.

“Fintech takes a lot of bias out of the decision-making,” he said. “Anything that can make access to capital easier is a welcome development.”

Richardson said minority business formation is up 40% nationally in the past year, but many of the new entrepreneurs face economic, market, sociocultural and institutional barriers. He said only a handful of new Black-owned businesses survive the start-up stage, even though 20% of Black Americans start businesses at some point in their lifetime.

Mind Your Business focuses on business and marketing strategies for success. Tune in every Sunday evening for this intriguing radio show as Yitzchok Saftlas interviews Fortune 500 executives, business leaders, and marketing gurus from a wide variety of business industries.

Saftlas speaks with Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Gary Minkoff about serial entrepreneurship starting at approximately 35:15 into the podcast.

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Noa Gafni.

Noa Gafni is the Executive Director of the Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation. Her career focuses on the intersection of social impact, entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion.) She is a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and New York Times, and a Social Innovation Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

You may not love your job, but mostly, days are at least tolerable. But an OK day at the office can get much worse when you have a colleague who won’t stop complaining about how bad it is.

And working from home isn’t a barrier to the spread of negativity.

“If you go to a meeting in person, and you see half the people pulling out their laptops and doing all kinds of other work during the meeting – that’s a symbol for disengagement,” says Terri Kurtzberg, professor of business at Rutgers University, US. Likewise, “if you’re on a Zoom call, and people just don’t bother turning their camera on, and don’t really answer questions and you don’t even really know if they’re really there – you’re going to take that as a sign of disengagement” – and will be more likely to osmose that feeling of disengagement in your own behavior.

So, how can we stamp out the spread? If you’re in a situation in which you’re relatively happy, there are strategies you can implement to try and shut out other people’s complaints: classic tips include aligning yourself with positive people, creating boundaries with others and redirecting the conversation toward positivity. “Focus your energy on those who are engaged, which will be much more satisfying,” says Kurtzberg.

It’s important to remind yourself that you don’t know the full context to your colleagues’ griping, adds Kurtzberg. “Maybe the complaining that someone else is doing is based on all kinds of complicating factors in the way their job – or other parts of their life – are playing out, that are different from your own,” she says.

Cryptocurrencies were categorically dismissed by the financial establishment until quite recently, when market forces demanded they be taken seriously. Now, major Wall Street financial institutions are furiously developing strategies to make this novel asset class more available to retail investors. Created through the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies are non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital collectibles ranging from high-tech baseball cards to fine art — even real estate.

Merav Ozair, Ph.D. is a member of Rutgers Business School’s faculty and a leading authority on blockchain technology’s myriad applications. She suggests the best way to think of blockchain, in simplistic terms, is as a ledger or database that cannot be altered or forged, and is decentralized (i.e., everybody has a copy), transparent and pseudo-anonymous. Despite its current volatility, Ozair is confident that Bitcoin, the largest and most widely followed cryptocurrency, is no fleeting trend, and suggests, “It will survive because it’s built on blockchain and that technology will survive.”

Warren Cohen, assistant professor of professional practice in the Department of Supply Chain Management, said that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for the global supply chain that will affect the upcoming holiday season and likely extend well into the next calendar year.

“These disruptions are affecting consumer goods, manufacturing capabilities and raw materials, ultimately raising prices on goods and services along with increasing inflation globally,” he said. “If other (COVID-19) variants develop along with the current delta surge, we could experience even greater shortages of supply and increased disruptions.”

David Dreyfus, assistant professor in the Department of Supply Chain Management, said the pandemic has also caused a gap in the workforce. One reason for this is because people who were ill or caring for family members were unable to work, often for weeks at a time.

“Many businesses have been unable to hire enough employees to meet demand, thus orders have (been) delayed or not accepted due to the inability to ramp up production any further,” he said.

First, we couldn’t find toilet paper. Then we waited for home gym equipment or desks or schoolroom supplies. Now the interruptions bedeviling the delivery of goods around the world are about to disrupt the holidays too.

There is no historical precedent, said David Dreyfus, an assistant professor in the Department of Supply Chain Management at Rutgers Business School in Newark, New Jersey. During the 1918 flu pandemic, the world was not globalized in the way it is today. More recently, even the pharmaceutical shortages the country experienced after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico’s manufacturing sector lasted only months, he noted.

“The entire world experienced the same disruption, this pandemic,” Dreyfus said. “So instead of it being isolated to a natural disaster like a hurricane or a tsunami where it’s just one area of the world, the entire world closed down.”

Manufacturers might cut back on the number of products they are making until the backlog clears. Or ships could be redirected to ports in Mexico to ease congestion, said Warren Cohen, an assistant professor of professional practice in the Department of Supply Chain Management at Rutgers Business School.

More long-term would be to add workers at the ports, even if that means a trade-off between fewer backups but higher costs, he said.

Airbnb has worked to make improvements in recent years to better serve travelers with disabilities after a 2017 RUTGERS UNIVERSITY STUDY found that hosts often turned away people with disabilities even in cases where they listed rentals as accessible.

Ameri, M., Rogers, S., Schur, L., & Kruse, D. 2020. "No room at the inn? Disability access in the new sharing economy." Academy of Management Discoveries, 6: 176-205. • Link: doi.org/10.5465/amd.2018.0054

Kejia Hu, assistant professor of operations management, worked with two researchers investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply and demand in long-term older adult care operations. The comprehensive review is the first study of its kind, including interviews with leaders of care organizations, a review of 10-K financial disclosure reports from public care organizations and an examination of published industry articles and media reports.

The article, “Caring for an Aging Population in a Post-Pandemic World: Emerging Trends in the U.S. Older Adult Care Industry” was published in the journal Service Science on Nov. 2.

Lu Kong, assistant professor at the Muma College of Business at the University of South Florida, and Matthew Walsman, assistant professor at Rutgers Business School at Rutgers University, co-authored this study.

Indeed! At the present time more than a billion people, several hundred million in Africa and India alone, live in poverty thanks to a lack of reliable energy. As an economist, I believe that the imposition of “green mandates” on developing countries is no different from economic tariffs. It must inevitably retard their development, as well as their ability to export their natural resources to the rest of the world.

What makes it unconscionable is that the richer countries cloak their intentions under a toga of morality. If the planet is to be saved, then that saving must begin at home rather than forcing developing countries into an existence that not even the poorest of the own poor in rich countries would accept.

Mark Castelino
Newark

The writer is an associate professor of finance at Rutgers Business School.

Insurance company Lemonade requires customers making claims to upload a video explaining their loss. But when the upstart insurer earlier this year said on Twitter that artificial intelligence analyzes these videos for “non-verbal cues” that may suggest fraud, the company received a barrage of angry messages on social media.

Analyzing voice, eyes, or computer mouse motion to make decisions regarding loans, insurance claims, or other business transactions could also create image or legal problems, says Danielle Warren, a Rutgers Business School professor who has studied insurance fraud.

“I can imagine the backlash from consumers if they’re being denied loans because of some unproven technology, suggesting that they could be deceptive. That sounds like an ethical nightmare, like a lawsuit waiting to happen,” she says. “In a courtroom, you’re not going to say: ‘I rejected their application for a loan because of the quickness of their clicking of the mouse.’”

At the beginning of the trend, indeed. It’s a sentiment echoed by Dr. Merav Ozair, leading blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School, who also sees the untapped potential inherent in the tokenization of digital assets as well as physical products. She, too, points to the powerful authentication capabilities of NFTs as the most dynamic and purposeful qualities they offer, suggesting that their applications within the retail setting are immense. And, considering when their use might be more widely utilized across the industry, she says that their impact is imminent.

“We don’t need to think too far out when it comes to the use of NFTs throughout industries, particularly when it comes to physical products within the retail ecosystem,” she asserts. “In fact, there are already use cases. Just recently, BlockBar was launched, which is a marketplace for liquor and luxury spirits that’s backed by the blockchain. And, it’s not the first, either. Purveyors of liquor have been selling their products as NFTs for some time now on various platforms. The ability to authenticate product as legitimate with tokenized certification is what’s driving current interest in the notion of NFTs, and it’s interest that is only going to increase going forward.”

They say they will save the planet—but for whom?
“Solar and Wind Force Poverty on Africa” (op-ed by Yoweri K. Museveni, Oct. 25)—and all under the guise of saving the planet. But saving it for whom? Several hundred million Africans live in poverty, thanks partly to a lack of reliable energy. The imposition on the Third World of green mandates, like tariffs, must inevitably hamper poor nations’ ability to produce goods and services.
Professor Mark Castelino
Rutgers Business School
Newark, NJ

If there’s one thing Rutgers University professor Kevin Lyons is sure of, it’s this: People might have an image in their heads of the spinning blades of offshore wind turbines …

From end to end, just one of these turbines’ blades can match or even surpass the size of a football field. Pieced together, these megastructures are far bigger than you might expect — giving, in the view of Lyons, their local manufacturing and assembly an outsized importance in this new industry’s success.

As the expert in the Supply Chain Management Department at Rutgers Business School describes it, their transport wouldn’t be a breeze. Just one massive blade may have to be loaded onto a series of heavy-duty trucks. Maneuvering those blade components through towns on a path from the Midwest to the East Coast could take a week or more. Shipping from Europe wouldn’t be any quicker.

Now, Lyons said, multiply that by the thousands of turbine blades needed for an effective offshore wind farm.

“I always joke with my colleagues, ‘With that model, it’s going to take 10,000 years to get this built,’” he said.

Lyons, who was also named to Gov. Phil Murphy’s New Jersey Council on the Green Economy, is a supply chain person. That means he’s interested in taking the big-picture renewable energy ideas and putting them under a logistics microscope: How do you move parts around? Where are supplies coming from? Who manufactured those parts?

He’s hoping a lot of that will have Garden State answers.

“Not having a strong local sourcing strategy, to me, at least, is not very wise,” he said. “Shipping all these needed components from here, there and everywhere would take forever. That’s why something like what New Jersey is doing with its Salem County site is critically important.”

Serial entrepreneur and Newark startup activist Anthony Frasier has hitched his wagon to the skyrocketing podcasting industry. His podcast network is producing cutting-edge work that connects him to his roots and his community.

Going back to his beginnings in podcasting, Frasier noted that, when he started out, he had nothing. He didn’t even have production equipment or content, he only knew that he wanted to tell stories. But Lyneir Richardson, executive director of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development at Rutgers Business School, gave him a chance when he pitched a podcast that would feature interviews with venture capitalists. Frasier admits he didn’t know much about what he was doing, but the podcast, called “VC Cheat Sheet,” turned out well.

“It really put the name of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship out there,” and it was a very successful podcast for Rutgers, he said.

Rudolf Leuschner, associate professor of supply chain management at Rutgers Business School in New Jersey, agrees that Covid has raised the profile of global supply chains, mostly because of failures. He says that the field had been neglected and the dominant strategies had grown rigid, so a fresh focus was long overdue.

“The lack of suitable literature has been a known topic for decades, but it wasn’t yet bad enough to cause large-scale delays as they do now,” he says. “More companies have realized that they need to become more serious about supply chain talent than before.”

Corporations have started placing more focus on their supply chain managers, who once toiled in relative obscurity before global threats started intensifying. As their status is elevated, the job prospects for MBA students in this once specialist field are increasing.

Rutgers runs a course for working professionals. “A couple of years ago 20-30 percent of students might have been promoted or received a raise while in the program,” says Leuschner. “Now more than half have been promoted or received a raise before graduation. This shows how much demand there is for supply chain management talent.”

MBA students, who might once have focused more on finance, are now keener to explore supply chain management. About 10-20 percent more MBA students are taking supply chain management courses at Rutgers than before Covid. “I think some of that is driven by the strong labor market, but there is also increased interest from professionals in the field,” Leuschner says.

Many students don’t give significant thought to the CPA Exam or licensure until later in their college careers. Perhaps the CPA license becomes a blip on their radar during senior year. After all, most candidates can’t sit for the Exam until post-graduation. However, giving thought to the process in the early stages of education is crucial. A basic awareness of the requirements for the CPA Exam and licensure in the sophomore or junior year (as opposed to a first exposure in the senior year) can make a meaningful difference for students.

Planning is key for several reasons. As educators and employers, we can encourage our future CPAs to begin this journey as early as possible. Here are some general guidelines for students to follow:

To find the best car insurance in New Jersey for different types of drivers, WalletHub’s editors compared coverage options and rates from local, regional and national auto insurance providers. You can find the top options listed below.

Ask the experts.
Francisco J. QuevedoBA, MBA, CAGSB, DPS, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, Marketing Department, Rutgers Business School, The State University of New Jersey
Why are car insurance prices so different from state to state?

Driving conditions differ from state to state, some are flat some mountainous, some have snow others do not, and so do speed limits (Illinois=70 mph for instance), tax and legal frameworks, urban and population profiles. I am sure the loss ratio in Idaho is different than that of New York, and then with each state, city vs. countryside results will also differ.

Are car insurance companies really able to save drivers as much as they advertise?

Yes, if they restructure their rate schedules according to the appropriate profile. Some drivers are more prone to accidents, some models are also more prone to accidents and particularly to theft.

What are the most important things to look for when shopping for car insurance?

Reputation matters (company image), coverage and premiums, of course, response speeds reflect a service orientation, and the PPO is crucial when accidents happen.

Supply chain problems may hamper getting items to stores for gift giving, but retailers forecast record breaking sales as some consumers started shopping before Halloween.

It also depends on what they’re willing to pay. But the supply chain is putting pressure on consumers to start shopping early.

“It creates demand, hopefully not on the level of toilet paper (shortages during the pandemic),” said Assistant Professor John R. Impellizzeri, Director Rutgers Center for Supply Chain Management. “If you see something you want, you buy it. You don’t shop around for the best price. You’re just glad to get it.”

In 2013, a new cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, was minted as a joke making fun of the speculative frenzy surrounding Bitcoin. Then last August, an anonymous developer created the Shiba Inu coin, the canine mascot for Dogecoin, riffing off the previous prank. Somewhere along the way, the internet gags became very real.

The two “meme coins,” as they are called, are now the ninth and tenth most valuable cryptocurrencies by market capitalization worth a collective $79 billion. On Oct. 27, Shiba Inu, briefly surpassed the eight-year-old dogecoin in value for the first time. The coin soared on speculation that it might be listed on the exchange Robinhood.

Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School, fears that this could have serious consequences for the entire crypto space. “I’m afraid it will break down, it will blow up in the face of people who took the risk, then it will give a bad name to everything that has to do with blockchain and cryptocurrency,” she said. “People are not paying attention to the real use cases.”

During Filene Research Institute's 2021 big.bright.minds. Conference, Marketing + Communications Director for Filene Research Institute Holly Fearing joined us at the end of the day to provide a big.bright.minds day 1 wrap-up.

Here are some of the items we discussed in our wrap up:
How good it is to be back in person again
Takeaways from Dr. Jeffrey Robinson, Rutgers Business School, keynote: "How Can Credit Unions Grow by Fostering an Entrepreneurial Culture?" (5:30 into the broadcast)
Takeaways from Dr. Lisa Servon, University of Pennsylvania, presentation: "How Becoming More Inclusive will Lead to Growth"
Takeaways from Samantha Paxson, CO-OP Financial Services, presentation: "Rapid Market Shifts: Three Urgent Calls to Action for Financial Institutions"
Filene Foundry: Growth through Innovation
Crashers' program and its continued evolution in guiding future leaders

“Sometimes [the Winkleviosses] claim that they got into Bitcoin because of the philosophy,” said Merav Ozair, a financial technology professor at Rutgers Business School. “But I think they got into it because they could make money. The [original] premise of cryptocurrency was ‘for the people by the people,’ but greed got in the way and it all became lurid.”

“At the end of the day, the biggest hurdle is around authenticity,” Sam Falic notes. When a bottle is passed from a buyer to seller, “there’s no way to prove it unless the next person tests the liquid, which kind of ruins the whole thing.”

To pre-empt that issue, BlockBar takes the bottles direct from the producer and tucks them away in a storage facility in Singapore. A buyer can redeem the bottle to drink (the site facilitates compliance information for the import process and shipping, similar to an online e-commerce platform) or hold it in the Singapore facility indefinitely.

But, odds are, many will trade the NFT, as they might any other commodity, flipping it over and over again for profit, as they did this past Tuesday. All the while, the bottle never leaves the climate-controlled warehouse in Singapore. All transactions are listed on the Ethereum blockchain, so it can be traced back to the brand. That traceability is the primary advantage of an NFT marketplace, experts say.

“An NFT is a certificate of authentication,” says Dr. Merav Ozair, a leading blockchain expert and financial technology professor at Rutgers Business School. “It’s harder to scam with NFTs. Because it’s on the blockchain, eventually you have to show the physical good, that it really exists.” That accountability has led to an increase in NFTs—and secondary markets to sell those NFTs—across an array of luxury goods spaces, she notes, from retailers like Dolce & Gabbana to real estate.

John M. Longo, a professor at Rutgers Business School and Chief Investment Officer for the Beacon Trust, said Harvard’s endowment surpassed the return rate of the standard 60-40 stock and bond portfolio benchmark.

“Harvard outperformed by about 9.7 percent, so on that simple measure over a one-year period, I think it did a very good job,” Longo said.

Longo said it is difficult to directly compare the performance of Harvard’s endowment with those of peer institutions since HMC and its counterparts do not typically provide a detailed account of their strategy behind risk-taking.

“You can’t make a strong comparison unless you know what risk the other endowments are taking,” Longo said.

The best ways to lower your car insurance premiums are to compare prices among insurers, take advantage of all the discounts you can, and adjust your coverage to fit your budget. Drivers can save an average of 64% by switching from full coverage to minimum coverage, for example.

How often should drivers shop around for lower car insurance rates?

A common misconception is that drivers have to wait for the end of their current agreements to switch. They may switch insurers anytime. Unfortunately, when it comes to car insurance, long-term loyalty does not pay off, and there is cost creep. Given the time cost of shopping around, I would suggest settling into a routine. For example, drivers could seek 2-3 alternative quotes for the same agreement terms annually or conduct a comprehensive search every 2-3 years.

Can (John) UslayPh.D., Vice-Dean, Academic Programs and Innovations, Professor of Marketing, Chair, Entrepreneurial Marketing SIG, AMA, Rutgers Business School at Newark and New Brunswick

Research led by Daniel Levin from Rutgers Business School examined the benefits of reaching out to dormant ties. The researchers asked people to make a list of 10 current connections and 10 people that they haven’t reached out to in two or three years. Participants were then asked to reach out to those people for advice or help with a project. Levin and his colleagues found that dormant ties were extraordinarily powerful in that they provided their connections with more creative ideas, and more surprisingly, the trust within those relationships had endured.

Health insurance premiums and medical expenses are tax deductible only if you pay for them out-of-pocket. Furthermore, your financial situation, along with where you receive health insurance from, will play a large part in determining if the costs will be eligible for tax deductions.

Expert Insights to Help You Make Smarter Financial Decisions

Jay Soled
Professor and Director of Master of Accountancy in Taxation, Rutgers University

In your opinion, which has more perceived value: a partial reimbursement after making a large payment or paying the correct amount upon time of service? Why?

Ideally, a taxpayer should owe money on April 15. Why? If the taxpayer anticipates a refund, the taxpayer has essentially given a tax-free loan to the government.

At what point does itemizing tax deductions become more worthwhile than taking the standard deduction? What tips do you have to make itemizing deductions less intimidating?

Opting to itemize only makes sense if doing so yields tax savings. By utilizing prepackaged software, securing such deductions is a breeze.

Therapy and travel costs associated with medical care are examples of purchases that are eligible for tax deductions. What advice would you give for consumers to better track tax-deductible purchases throughout the year?

There are many self-help books and articles that provide checklists of deductible expenses. Capitalize upon these resources and keep excellent records. You will be richly rewarded.

As President Joseph Biden announces a “90-day sprint” of around-the-clock operating hours at ports on the West Coast to get goods moving – a plan also intended to avoid shortages and continued price increases – we asked Rudi Leuschner, a supply chain professor at Rutgers Business School – Newark and New Brunswick, to explain the reasons for the supply chain problems and how they may impact the holiday season for U.S. consumers.

Why are ships backing up at the ports, preventing them from being unloaded?

It’s a simple capacity issue. Each port has a certain level of throughput that they can manage per day and per week. What’s been happening in the last six months or so is that there are more ships showing up at each port then can be processed. That is for a variety of reasons. Some of them had to do with shortages of key items and port closures in key areas that depressed the supply of items. Now, we have the opposite problem, everyone’s trying to catch up, everyone’s not just ordering what they need but they’re trying to build up their inventory that was depleted due to supply shortages that we saw during the pandemic.

Rutgers University Business for Youth (RUBY) is a pre-college program for high school students in underserved communities that exists to introduce them to college and different career paths in the business field through various activities and guidance.

Ronald Richter, an assistant professor of professional practice in the Department of Finance and Economics and director of RUBY’s summer program, said the curriculum for the program is designed to improve students’ skills related to business acumen as well as soft skills such as resume writing and public speaking.

Students are eligible to register for RUBY in their sophomore year of high school and remain in the program until their senior year, he said.

“The goal is to get students thinking about their longer-term life as opposed to their shorter-term life, both from a business perspective ... but also from a soft skill perspective,” Richter said. “We try to bring in people so that the students have interactions with more than just their college mentor, but with other people outside the role in the real world ... we also bring professors to talk them about different disciplines.”

Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund with approximately $150 billion in assets under management, has partnered with New York’s Barnard College, a private women’s college, to fund a grant that will financially support women studying economics, math, statistics and computer science, provide mentorship support and offer an opportunity for students to pursue an internship at the hedge fund after their junior year.

Early intervention to inform women about careers in the industry is key, and partnerships are a good step, said Lisa Kaplowitz, assistant professor of professional practice in finance and executive director of the Rutgers Center for Women in Business, who has conducted research on the pipeline problem.
“When I hear mentoring, that’s absolutely important. When I hear internships after sophomore and junior year, that’s absolutely vital,” she said.

Men are almost twice as likely as women to understand specific careers and job titles in investment management, Kaplowitz said, citing her research in the recently published book Undiversified: The Big Gender Short in Investment Management. It’s also important for women to be able to see themselves in the industry, she added, noting that women who know high-profile female investors reported being twice as confident they would be able to find a job in investment management compared with women who did not.

What advice would you give to someone interested in investing in blockchain technology?

Dr. Merav Ozair, who is a leading blockchain expert and a FinTech Professor at Rutgers Business School.
Blockchain technology is definitely the future. There is no escaping that. However, it is difficult to predict which projects will last and which will fail and be forgotten.

Most blockchain technology companies are in their early, if not very early stages. Hence, investing in companies utilizing blockchain technologies has all the same risks as investing in a start-up. And like in any start-up, the risk-reward ratio is high.

Therefore, learn about blockchain technology, do a thorough due diligence on any project -- from its technology to business model to execution. Learn about the "problem" it is trying to solve and what solution it's offering -- both from a technological perspective and a business perspective.

There's a lot of potential with blockchain technology, but the execution is in the details.

Gas prices in the United States have surged to a seven-year high as demand for fuel continues to outstrip supply, placing an unwelcome financial strain on consumers that threatens to undermine the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If the winter is bad in Europe and the U.S. and there’s a shortage of gas and other fuels, countries around the world are going to start rethinking their renewable targets,” said Victor Glass, director of the Center for Research in Regulated Industries at Rutgers Business School.

Noa Gafni is the executive director of the Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation. She said,” Too often, we treat diversity, equity, and inclusion as a ‘tick the box’ exercise and not as a source of organizational strength.

“Crises are often a result of blindspots. Whether it's racial, gender, or unseen characteristics like socioeconomic status, listening to diverse talent at all levels of the organization can not only help executives manage crises more effectively but avoid them in the future,” she recommended.

Global supply chains are currently facing historic disruptions, with more than 70 cargo ships recently getting stuck off the California coast and ports in key export markets like China facing numerous shutdowns.

Warren Cohen, assistant professor of professional practice in the Department of Supply Chain Management, said that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for the global supply chain that will affect the upcoming holiday season and likely extend well into the next calendar year.

“These disruptions are affecting consumer goods, manufacturing capabilities and raw materials, ultimately raising prices on goods and services along with increasing inflation globally,” he said. “If other (COVID-19) variants develop along with the current delta surge, we could experience even greater shortages of supply and increased disruptions.”

Check out the conclusion of Jason’s conversation with Lisa Kaplowitz, an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Business School and founder of the school’s Center for Women in Business. In part two, Lisa discusses why in-person interaction is a key aspect of developing the allies needed to thrive, why she began her professional career in investment banking, and the importance of surrounding yourself with smart friends.

With growing interest in cryptocurrency and NFTs, do you believe blockchain-based DeFi is the future of finance? Why or why not?

Dr. Merav Ozair, a FinTech Professor at Rutgers Business School.
Exciting times ahead! In the foreseeable future, financial and economic services will run on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) -- a decentralized database managed by multiple participants, with no central administrator. In other words, DLT will be the "rails" of financial and economic systems, and applications.

I wholeheartedly believe that all banks and financial and economic activities will be automated, run by codes and algorithms, with no human interactions at any stage of the process -- i.e., "self-driving banks" -- like self-driving cars. In the age of Economy-of-Things, where machines can "talk" to each-other, DeFi will enable every product or service to become self-driving. The concept of Embedded Finance -- integrating financial services with a traditionally non-financial, service or product -- will be significantly enhanced.

The biggest tech story of the week was the Propelify Innovation Festival, which took place this year on October 6, once again on the Hoboken waterfront overlooking New York.

Not only was the event successful, with optimal weather, great speakers and booths filled with enthusiastic vendors, the day was also filled with tangible and intangible benefits for those who attended.

As one of the first tech and entrepreneurship networking events to happen in person after the intense COVID-related lockdowns, and a year and a half of Zoom meetings, Propelify had an atmosphere that was indescribable.

Here are just some of the people I encountered Wednesday, in no particular order:

Mukesh Patel, of Rutgers Business School, was there with some of his entrepreneurship students. We got talking about Sahil Patel, who is a Rutgers and Stevens Institute of Technology alumnus and the CEO of BettorFantasy, a startup based in Stewartsville that seems to be going places. The team wasn’t at Propelify because they were among the five startups that qualified for the prestigious pitch competition at the Global Gaming Expo, which was taking place in Las Vegas on the same day.

What are NFTs and how could they expand beyond the world of digital art?
Merav Ozair is a data scientist and blockchain expert at Rutgers University.

OZAIR: The business use case are boundless because the power of NFTs is there is in the authentication. And every transaction that you have in the economy starts with authentication. You authenticate the asset, you authenticate the person, you authenticate the process every step of the way, you have to authenticate.

So even though the popularity of NFTs in digital art is a little unpredictable right now, Ozair says the technology isn’t going anywhere.

OZAIR: Yeah, we’ll have maybe still the art and other applications. But eventually, the business use cases, the economic use case will evolve and come to the front.

She predicts it will be like the internet: At first, a crazy idea that only a handful of uber nerds used. Now, such a part of life most of us couldn’t survive without it.

Jason Randall welcomes Lisa Kaplowitz to the podcast this week. Lisa is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Business School, but her expansive career includes her time as an investment banker, treasurer of Bed Bath & Beyond, and CFO of various private equity-backed start-ups. In part one, Lisa talks about the landmark gender equality lawsuit she was involved with in college, her battles with imposter syndrome, and the inspiration for founding Rutgers’ Center for Women in Business.

“These prices are not surprising,” said Nick Jushchyshyn, program director for Virtual Reality and Immersive Media at Drexel University.“You have world-renowned designers creating something absolutely unique, with attention to detail — it is beyond what you expect to see in a typical digital rendering — and it’s a one of one. It makes perfect sense that there would be an NFT collector in the world who would value it.”

Merav Ozair, a leading expert on blockchain and FinTech professor at Rutgers Business School, concurred. “In fact, I thought it would come sooner,” Dr. Ozair said. “We are moving toward a virtual reality world, and when we get to that state — sooner than we think, in a matter of years — luxury goods will be part of that world.”

“While work can impart meaning and a sense of purpose in life, leisure, such as time with family and friends, hobbies and exercise, is what makes our lives happy and healthy,” Dr. Gabriela Tonietto, assistant professor of marketing at Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick and author of the study said in a press release.

But as it turns out, not everyone sees the value in doing something for enjoyment. “Many hold a general belief that these activities are an unproductive use of time — at the cost of their own happiness,” Tonietto explains. “We find that believing leisure is wasteful causes time spent on leisure to be less enjoyable.”

Higher education is being impacted by the enormous amount of data the COVID-19 pandemic has created, allowing researchers and providers to analyze trends, monitor patient populations, and begin rectifying longstanding issues in the healthcare industry. Because of this, Rutgers Business School has seen a 60% increase in its revamped The Master of Health Care Analytics and Intelligence program. 40% of those admitted to the program shared that the pandemic has impacted them and pursued their interest.

Program Director Xin (David) Ding says, “With over 2,000 exabytes of new healthcare data generated in 2020, the ability to extract, analyze, and interpret the tremendous amount of information holds the key to the future of healthcare. During the pandemic, industry leaders set an exemplary case of how healthcare analytics capabilities can be leveraged to address various issues in supply chain, capitation and heath disparity.”

The climate action plan was developed by the President’s Task Force on Carbon Neutrality and Climate Resilience, a universitywide committee co-chaired by Rutgers climate scientist Bob Kopp and supply chain sustainability expert Kevin Lyons. The plan – the culmination of 21 months of effort – outlines a strategy that will guide Rutgers through the next three decades.

“Rutgers is a national leader in linking climate research to community needs and was also an early pioneer of on-campus renewable energy,” said Lyons, associate professor of professional practice at Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick and associate director of the Rutgers Energy Institute. He noted the university’s decision to divest from fossil fuels was a clear signal of its commitment to climate action, public health and social justice.

However, the climate action plan also acknowledges that the university is both part of the problem and the solution, Lyons said. Annually, the university emits greenhouse gases equivalent to about 470,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, enough to cause about $24 million of damage to global society each year. It also plays a key role in developing technologies to avoid emissions and helps communities in New Jersey respond to climate change.

"Why do people collect baseball cards? Why do people collect wine? Why do they collect art? You can collect [NFTs] because it's a hobby, and you can collect because some people look at it as an investment," said Dr. Merav Ozair, a FinTech professor at Rutgers Business School and Blockchain expert.

"The uses of NFTs go above and beyond the hype," she added. "Will everything be worth millions of dollars? Probably not. But I think the trend will be that everything is going to be NFTed [one day], because that's the power of authentication... We are moving to the digital world in everything that we do."

Looking at auction prices for some of today's biggest NFT sales can feel pretty distancing for most. But Ozair stresses that the NFTs should be approachable for everyone.

"There are NFTs that are not that expensive. You just have to look for them," she said. "You can [create] NFTs yourself and sell something, and I hope that NFTs will eventually have the power to democratize society... [For example] if you're taking a video and posting it on Facebook or Instagram, you can NFT it and immediately monetize it. And maybe it will not be worth thousands of dollars, but you can make a little bit of an income."

Do you consider downsizing a good money-saving strategy for residents of big metros?

Potentially. Money saved from downsizing can come from (a) lower property taxes, (b) lower depreciation/maintenance expenditures, and (c) lower interest expenses on a mortgage (or, lower opportunity costs of holding funds in home equity).

The average property tax rate is about 1%, the average mortgage rate on new mortgages is about 3%, and the average depreciation rate is about 2%. So, on average, every $100,000 reduction in house price is associated with a savings of interest (or opportunity cost), taxes and depreciation of about $6,000 per year - although obviously this can and does vary a lot.

There is a large cost to downsizing from realtor fees and taxes of all sorts. There is some variation, but let's say these fees and taxes are about 8% on the value of the property. So, if you see a $1,000,000 home, you would pay $80,000 in fees and taxes. Moving from a $1,000,000 home to an $800,000 home - a 20% reduction, which is not small - saves about $12,000 per year in interest, taxes and depreciation on average but costs about $80,000 in fees and taxes. The payback period for that move is 6.7 years.

Dr. Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and professor of financial technology at Rutgers University, said NFTs are a way to show someone is the owner of an authentic version of a digital file like a meme.

“You go to the museum and see the Mona Lisa, but only the museum owns it,” she said. “Only they have the original. And they have documents in their offices which can prove that this is really the original.”

Ozair said collecting NFTs is like collecting anything else. People might do it because they expect the item to increase in value, or they might just enjoy collecting.

"It's not just one thing," said Rudi Leuschner, a professor of supply chain management at Rutgers Business School in Newark.

"When you think about any product that will end up in a retail store or at a contractor, that product until it gets there changes through a number of hands," he said. "And at each point in that process there's a chance that it gets delayed, or there's a chance that it just gets stuck somewhere. And then all of these little things add up to bigger delays and bigger outages and so on."

Dr. Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School, finds it “amusing” when people think criminals would flock to the blockchain.
A recent NFT scandal illustrates why.
“Every transaction, once it’s recorded on the blockchain, nothing can be changed or deleted. It just lives there forever,” Ozair told The Hustle.
Because NFTs are minted on Ethereum, a public blockchain, transactions related to particular NFTs can be tracked, too.
“You can be scammed on any platform… but finding the scammers on the blockchain is much easier, so you shouldn’t fear too much,” Ozair said.

Soft Skills Don’t Help Job Seekers with Disabilities in Early Interviews

A new study by Rutgers University researchers finds that job candidates with disabilities are more likely to make a positive first impression on prospective employers when they promote technical skills rather than soft skills, such as their ability to lead others. The findings, published in the International Journal of Conflict Management, contrast this with the results for candidates without disabilities who were positively evaluated when they highlighted either hard or soft skills during initial job interviews.

“Job interviews are challenging for everyone, but particularly so for people with disabilities who have always had difficulties presenting themselves favorably to gain employment,” said Rutgers Business School professor and study coauthor Mason Ameri. “[They] encounter an implicit bias that they will not be as productive as their non-disabled peers. Knowing how to navigate the conversation with potential employers is critical for leveling the playing field.”