Category: Science & Technology

Winners Of 2018 Africa Digital Awards (ADA)

Winners have emerged at the 2018 Africa Digital Awards (ADA), organized by the ICTWatch Network , which held in Lagos.

Digital Encode won two awards: Most Outstanding and the Most Innovative Cybersecurity Company of the Year 2018.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) was awarded the ‘Most Outstanding Government Agency of the Year’.

NIGCOMSAT Limited and Abimbola Alale (MD/CEO of NIGCOMSAT) respectively received; Most Outstanding Government Agency and ICT Woman of the Year.

Medallion Communications won two awards. The two awards are ‘Information Communications Technology Enterprenuer of the Year 2018’, which goes to the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Ikechukwu Nnamani and the ‘Information Communications Technology ClearingHouse of the Year 2018’, which goes to Medallion Communications Limited.

Receiving the awards on behalf of Medallion Communications Limited at the event that was done concurrently with the 2018 Nigeria ICT Impact CEO Forum at the Oriental Hotel, Mr. Nnamani said he is excited to be recognised for the efforts Medallion has made to contribute to the growth of the Nigerian telecom industry.

The awards, which he said are dedicated to the staff of Medallion for their resilience and innovative prowess in growing the company to where it is, will spur him and other staff to do more, saying to whom much is given, much is expected.

According to Tayo Adewusi, the award Coordinator, the awards is an outcome of a meticulous assessment by an Independent Screening Committee (ISC) of ADA, where the awardees were nominated.

Medallion Communications maintains over 83 service providers connected to its Lagos infrastructure including Mobile Service Providers, LTE Operators, Fixed Line Operators, Metro Fiber Service Providers, Long Distance service providers, VAS Providers, ISPs, OTT Operators, and major critical national infrastructure like the Nigerian Internet Exchange as well as the Nigerian Internet Registration Agency (Nira) – the managers of the .ng domain name for Nigeria.

The Africa Digital Awards (ADA), is an annual event since 2010. The award, which is part of Nigeria ICT Impact CEO Forum was coined out to appreciate industry’s stakeholders who have leveraged the potent power of Information and Communications Technology to scale in their various businesses.

Carrot Technologies Limited Develops App For Will Making

A team of young Nigerians have developed an app, Carrotng, to enable people securely create their wills, organise assets and secure their financial future.

The team lead, Odunayo Williams, said the Carrot mobile app and web platform was developed as parts of efforts to protect the rights of widows and family members of a deceased person.

He said the platform enables testators to appoint guardians for their children and aged parents, appoint trustees, witnesses and executors.

This, he said, will eliminate the falsification of wills and the struggle for a deceased person’s estate especially by family members.

In addition, another team member, Luqman Balogun, raised concerns over what he described as the low penetration of wills making in Nigeria.

According to him, less than five percent of Nigerians write their wills.

Luqman Balogun stated:

“One of the challenges faced by Nigerians today is that of inheritance and estate planning. It is generally believed that the making of wills is an exclusive preserve of the rich but this is a false assumption. A recent study carried out by our team revealed that more men are writing wills than women.

It also showed that people 60 years and above or people working with organisations that insist on staff wills making are those writing their wills in Nigeria. We are trying to remove all barriers that prevent most families from getting the kind of legal and financial protection they need and deserve.”

Luqman Balogun said their financial technology company comprises of experts who are lawyers, trust and estate practitioners, bankers, tax consultants and financial advisers.

Carrot Technlogies Limited, is a fintech company with special focus on helping families with innovative and affordable financial planning services.

Its partners include Leadway Insurance, Royal Exchange Assurance Group, SendBox and STEP – Society of Estate and Trust Practitioners UK.

LASPOTECH Wins Inaugural NSChE Engineering Quiz Competition

The Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH), Ikorodu, has won the maiden edition of the engineering quiz competition organized for higher institutions in Lagos and Ogun states by the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers (NSChE).

The Engineering Quiz Competition, which is a requirement from the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) for its different divisions to hold annual quiz, was organized to strengthen the study of engineering in the Nigeria, had four schools in participation. They include: University of Lagos (UNILAG); Lagos State University (LASU), Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) and Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH).

Although the Engineering Quiz Competition was organized by NSChE for tertiary institutions in Ogun and Lagos states, it is expected that it would soon be a nationwide event that would be organized regionally before the grand finale.

Kamilu Oyedeko, chairman of the Lagos/Ogun states chapter remarked that the aim of the competition is to produce competent future engineers for the country, by encouraging the students to be well grounded in the fundamentals of the profession while still at school.

While stating that chemical engineers are the catalysts for industrial growth in any nation, Oyedeko advised well-established professionals and operators of industries to support initiatives aimed at grooming budding engineers in the country.

According to Kamilu Oyedeko:

“This programme has advanced their knowledge of the field and provided a platform for participants to exchange ideas. We have seen from this event that the students have gone far in familiarizing with the basic knowledge of chemical engineering from the way the competition was keenly contended. The first place winner emerged with just a little point ahead of the second place winner.

We are highly impressed by their performances and have discovered how far they have been able to retain what they have learnt in their various institutions. Once you are good in the fundamentals of the profession, you will definitely go far in life. We appeal to the authorities to give opportunities to more chemical engineers at all levels to make meaningful contributions to the development of the country.”

Olusegun Shodeyibi, chairman of the intercollegiate quiz competition stated:

“We tested them in the core areas of: chemical reactions, process control, separation process, thermodynamics, environmental engineering, unit generation, system control, among others and they have really impressed everybody. This is one of the processes of grooming highly skilled engineers for Nigeria since it has been observed that chemical engineering is at its infancy stage here in the country. We have issues in the economy and most of the companies are not doing well, however, it is a challenge for the professionals to wake up.

The impact of the competition is that it will help them to improve on themselves. Some of them are in their National Diploma class and others in level four in the university and so the programme will promote better understanding of their studies so that they can become more experienced when they graduate from the university. I urge you all to work hard toward becoming job creators and entrepreneurs rather than job seekers.”

Accounteer Wins Inaugural MEST Africa Challenge

Accounteer has emerged winner of the inaugural MEST Africa Challenge, taking home the grand prize of $50,000 equity investment.

Accounteer is a SaaS company offering accounting and payroll management software tailored to the needs of African SMEs.

Hosted by the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) – which has now been active in Africa for 10 years – the first MEST Africa Challenge took place on June 20 [2018] at the MEST Africa Summit in Cape Town.

The MEST Africa Challenge was a highlight of the closing day of the MEST Africa Summit, which brought together stakeholders from Africa, Silicon Valley and Europe to network and discuss trends, challenges and opportunities affecting markets across the continent, under the theme “The Year of the African Scaleup?”

Four regional winners took to the stage to pitch live to an audience of leading global investors, entrepreneurs and executives, for the chance to win $50,000 investment.

Nigeria’s Accounteer was selected the winner – pipping to the post Ghana’s Cowtribe (a USSD-based technology that connects livestock farmers with veterinarians who can provide vaccinations); Kenya’s ​Data Integrated (a payment processing company for the public transport industry), and South Africa’s Swift Vee (a livestock and agricultural trading platform).

This was the first time the Summit has been held in Cape Town, following MEST’s expansion to South Africa in December, when it opened a new Cape Town incubator, as well as a new space in Lagos.

Data Science Nigeria (DSN) Opens Nigeria’s First Artificial Intelligence Hub

Data Science Nigeria (DSN) opens Nigeria’s first-ever Artificial Intelligence Hub in the University of Lagos towards repositioning Nigeria as Africa’s leader in Analytics, Research and Data-Driven solutions.

The opening of the Hub brought together the academia, industry players, experts and the technology community, with the  focus of fostering a strong synergy, that will drive innovation to address socio-economic challenges in the nation.

In his opening remarks the Founder of Data Science Nigeria, Mr. Bayo Adekanmbi described the Artificial Intelligence Hub as a strategic intervention, that will  boost research, innovation and information technology across the country.

Mr. Adekanmbi said the hub has a clear focus on local innovations mindset to solve local social/business problems with top  priority on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Strategies to be deployed in the hub according to Adekanmbi, include; Mentoring and Masterclass sessions facilitated by  global Artificial Intelligence experts and Bootcamps.

The Artificial Intelligence Hub will also serve as a key avenue for developing the Artificial Intelligence cycle in the country, focus on deep learning and encourage talent discovery in the innovation & data analytics space.

In his brief address the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) Professor O.T. Ogundipe lauded Data Science Nigeria for the AI Hub, assuring the Founder Mr. Adekanmbi and his team of the total support from the management.

Professor Ogundipe informed stakeholders that the Data Science Nigeria AI Hub initiative aligns with the University’s core focus on innovation, incubation and entrepreneurship.

The Director, Global Development Strategy, Data and Analytics of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Dr Uyi Stewart described the hub as a novel initiative for Nigeria’s advancement.

Dr. Stewart a Nigerian with 10 patents registered in the United States challenged stakeholders to explore the immense opportunities in the fourth industrial revolution, which is driven by cloud computing, digitization and artificial intelligence.

The Acting Director of the Centre for Information Technology, University of Lagos Dr. Victor Odumuyiwa believes the hub will address the gaps between the academic community and the industry.

The opening event also featured a special hackathon session on Artificial Intelligence and financial inclusion in Nigeria, facilitated by Dr. Uyi Stewart.

Data Science Nigeria is the vision of Bayo Adekanmbi, Chief Transformation Officer, MTN, a  hands-on data scientist and a doctoral researcher who uses data science algorithms to understand low-income customers. DSN has organised free bootcamps, industry summits, online free courses and provide internship/direct job placements for the Nigerian data science community.

Data Science Nigeria, a non-profit foundation, is driven by its vision to accelerate Nigeria’s development through a solution-oriented application of machine learning to solve social/business problems and galvanize data science knowledge revolution, which can position Nigeria to become the outsourcing hub for international Data Science/Advanced Analytics/Big Data projects, with opportunity to access at least 1% share of the global big data and analytics market, valued at $150 billion in 2017 ($203 billion in 2020).

Winners Of 9th Beacon of ICT (BoICT) Awards [2018]

Winners have emerged at the 9th Beacon of ICT (BoICT) Awards during the 2018 Beacon of ICT Awards Distinguished Lecture series and awards ceremony, which held at Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos.

The Beacon of ICT Awards Distinguished Lecture series and awards ceremony is organized yearly by Ken Nwogbo, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of NigeriaCommunicationsWeek, to appraise Nigeria’s information and communication technologies space, as well as reward outstanding contributions to the growth of the sector. The theme for this year’s awards was “Leveraging ICT Value for Building Institutions.”

Continue reading Winners Of 9th Beacon of ICT (BoICT) Awards [2018]

Risk Trading Engine, mTransfers & Social Lender Win $165,000 VentureClash 2018 Grant

Three technology startups – Risk Trading Engine, mTransfers and Social Lender have secured a $165,000 grant at the inaugural pitching event themed VentureClash 2018 organised by Connecticut Innovations, USA, in Lagos.

The startups: Risk Trading Engine, founded by Alexandre Aquereburu; mTransfers, by Segun Adeyemi and Maxwell Obi and Social Lender, by Faith Adesomowo and Mudiaga Ogboru have also got an opportunity to pitch for more investments at a larger event in Connecticut, USA later in the year.

Connecticut Innovations is a strategic investing arm for innovative growing companies.

12 Nigerian startups pitched in the competition before the emergence of the three.

The programme tagged: ‘VentureClash 2018’, began in March [2018] with the first round of applications. It will be concluded at a finalist pitch competition scheduled for October 18, in the USA.

VentureClash is Connecticut’s global ventures’ challenge for early-stage companies. It involves players in digital health, financial technology (fintech), the Internet of Things (IoT), and insurance technology (insurtech).

The Chief Executive Officer, etouches, Oni Chukwu, said the first-place winner would receive an investment award of $1.5 million. The remaining pool will be awarded to other finalists based on judges’ input. He added that winners would also receive mentoring and other assistance.

VentureClash is supported by Connecticut through its $5 million Global Venture Challenge for early-stage companies.

Chukwu, a tech investor with interest in startups, facilitated the programme in Nigeria.

Other competing startups at the VentureClash event were Solynta Mobile, Sattrak Services Limited, Kangpe Inc, Advancio Interactive, Beeptool Comm. & Integrated Services Limited.

Also included were Virtual Farm, SBSC, eMed Diaries, Peach Water Consulting, and FINT.