A stable macro-economic environment is key to attracting investment in any country. According to United States Businessman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Astria Learning, Dr. Jeff Bordes who is working in the EdTech sector to provide educational opportunities across the globe through his business, there is much to be done to achieve more investment in Zambia.
Dr. Bordes shared his journey with Financial Insight Zambia where he stated that emerging in the country was not an easy journey around the time Astria Learning entered the scenes in 2012. This was due to the new concept of E-Learning (using a computer to study) at the time in the Education sector.
He lamented that from his standpoint, only little information was made available and that that evaluated a sense of high risk-an exposure to factors that might lower its profits or lead it to fail or anything that threatens a company’s ability to meet its target or achieve its financial goals.
Dr. Jeff Bordes describes the Zambian investment environment as a unique one where despite high-interest rates, it has been a lucrative avenue to put in money as it is easy to expect easy returns on the investments made especially on Government securities fixed-income assets.
“From an investor’s standpoint, the Zambian Investment environment is a bit tricky due to the little information given to make decisions which creates a lot of risks but yet transforms into higher reward, making Zambia a great place for investing in ”, he said during a sit-down interview with the author.
The young businessman stressed the need for more data to be made available to support the prospect investor community. “This gives investors, like myself, a sense of comfort as you enter and invest in the market”. Dr. Bordes said his company made a bleeding edge of 26% Profit on the total revenue for 2019. In comparison, this was unexpected considering various comparative advantages available across the globe, noting the recent opening in the Middle East-Philippine and in Central Europe- Poland.
Astria Learning has championed the rolling out of E-learning and E-libraries across the country and this has made attaining the Higher Learning Education accreditation very easy. With a background that spans over 8 years in operation in Zambia, his company sees Moodle as its near rival.
His company continues to offer a quality and full-scale implementation and hosting of enterprise-level learning environments that make it easy for institutions to manage courses, track student progress and easily deliver engaging content to learners, anytime and anywhere.
The Florida-based company has in its client base, the top Higher Learning Institution, the University of Zambia, Evelyn Hone, Copperbelt University, Mulungushi University, Lusaka Business and Technical College (LBTC ) and Kwame Nkhuruma University. It recently signed an agreement with Stephen Gary Wozniak, Apple Co-Founder and is yet to provide their unique service to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
With a strategy that sees it seeking expansion, the company will look to further develop and focus into content creation and transformation going forward. They are without a doubt a game changer in the academic services arena.
