Category: Science & Technology

Bamidele Adetayo and Suleiman Nadabo, have developed a free TV, movie streaming web app, Entertale to give TV audience in Africa and the world quality experiences.

According to Mr. Bamidele Adetayo:

“It allows users to watch multiple live TV stations for free. The story of Entertale begins due to lack for African valued TV contents to enable people connect with what are happenings and watch movies and TV shows with friends they are already connected with. The App which is set for launch later in the month does not require monthly subscription, and the live channels would comprise international and African TV stations.”

Also speaking, the co-founder, Mr. Suleiman Nadabo said that in the app is a feature called “Co-Play’’, which give users the options to watch movies they rented with friends irrespective of location.

In his statements:

“Using the App is like watching television in an alternate reality where you do not recognise any of the shows, while evolving a new space that has been lacking in the African entertainment industry. “Cord cutting” might be getting another kin but this time it is driven with a social experience – a free service that mimic the cable box with Internet channels instead of traditional ones and cinematic experience. The app is still in its web versions where much of the content comes from YouTube; in its movie model cases, Entertale also makes direct content deals with big independent studios to access their latest library.”

Mr. Nadabo stressed that the web service, which solely focused on TV, allow users to also rent movies that they were only interested to watch. He said that users would also get notifications on what their friends were watching, follow and chat with them.

A team of seven students, who represented Nigeria (Team Nigeria) in the maiden edition of the FIRST Global Robotics Olympiad (GRO) in Washington DC, U.S. have emerged victorious with their impressive performance.

The team sponsored by Faysal Jarmakani came third out of 41 African countries that participated in the competition and ranked 25th out of 162 countries. They also got two other awards.

FIRST is the acronym of ‘For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology’ and the goal of the competition is to expose students to collaborate on techniques to solve global problems.

Continue reading Team Nigeria Emerge Victorious At 2017 FIRST Global Robotics Olympiad

The Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, has secured approval to release three new high-yielding nutrient maize varieties for planting in Nigeria granted by the National Varietal Release Committee at the National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology in Ibadan.

The maize varieties were developed by IAR in collaboration with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan.

The maize varieties tagged: SAMMAZ 52, SAMMAZ 53 and SAMMAZ 54 were offshoots of extensive “on-station, multi-locational and on-farm’’ evaluations with strong farmer participation.

According to IAR:

“SAMMAZ 52 is an improvement over previously released varieties as a result of bio- fortification with pro Vitamin A.

This Vitamin A bio-fortified maize variety has yield potential of 6.0 ton/ha, about 24 per cent higher than earlier release varieties in the same category.

It has medium maturing of between 110 and 120 days, tolerant to maize streak virus, rust, leaf blight and curvularia leaf spot.

The SAMMAZ 53 and SAMMAZ 54 varieties are bred for high grain yields up to 7.6 t/ha and 7.2 t/ha. Both varieties are extra early maturity (80-85 days) and resistant to maize streak virus, rust, leaf blight and curvularia leaf spot.

They perform very well in northern Guinea and Sudan savannah environments where climate changes are manifesting in the form of droughts, dry spells and in ecologies where parasitic Striga hermonthica attacks are severe owing to declining soil nitrogen.”

The varieties were produced to strengthen farmers’ resilience in coping with the changing production environments in which irrigation water and rainfall had become increasingly scarce.

The commercialisation and adoption of the varieties is expected to significantly improve food and nutrition security as well as the livelihood of actors along the maize value chain.

The Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), has launched a CubeSat, with the code name NigeriaEdusat-1, into space from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, United States.

The Nigerian Cubesat is a component of the Birds 1 satellites, comprising of four other CubeSats belonging to Japan, Ghana, Mongolia and Bangladesh. They were launched from the SpaceX Falcon9 Rocket.

Mr. Ibukun Adebolu of FUTA’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is the representative of Nigeria on the project. It is the first ever university satellite to be launched in Nigeria.

According to a statement from the Head, Media and Protocol Unit of the university, Mr. Adegbenro Adebanjo;

“The Nigerian CubeSat is designed, built and owned by the Federal University of Technology, Akure in collaboration with the National Space Research and Development Agency, Nigeria, and the Kyushu Institute of Technology Japan.

The CubeSats will be launched and docked to the International Space Station where the satellites will be deployed into lower orbit during the last week of June 2017.

The satellite technology development in the long run shall have spillover effects on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education that is an essential tool for a country industrial development.’’

Five (5) Nigerian women; Carolyn Seaman, Damilola Anwo-Adehave, Olamide Ayeni-Babjide, Ijeoma Vincent-Akpu, and Petra Nnamani have been selected to participate in the 2017 TechWomen Exchange Program.

Carolyn Seaman is using technology to empower girls through her Girls Voices Initiative, while Damilola Anwo-Ade is mentoring the next generation of coders, including young women, through her initiative CodeIT.

TechWomen is a U.S. initiative empowering and connecting the next generation of women leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

The program will bring together 100 women leaders in technology fields for a five-week professional mentorship and exchange program at leading technology companies in California’s Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.