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Footwear Academy Wins Proudly Made in Aba Hackathon Challenge [2018]

Footwear Academy, a footwear training firm has won the maiden edition of the Proudly Made in Aba Hackathon Challenge, designed to proffer solutions to challenges currently faced by Aba entrepreneurs, especially in the finished leather, garment and steel fabricating clusters.

Using modern equipment and technology, Footwear Academy won the challenge by providing a solution to upgrading the skills of Aba shoemakers, to enable them to improve the quality of their products.

The Co-founder, Footwear Academy, Bentley Chukwuemeka, stated that their plan was to introduce Aba shoemakers to modern technology, to enable them to speed up production.

Bentley Chukwuemeka said Footwear Academy also intended to reduce its period of apprenticeship from five years to six months.

The hackathon challenge had the Footwear Academy coming first position with $50,000; Clintonel Technology, which came second, received a cash prize of $30,000; and Ogwugo Technologies, coming third, got $20,000.

Clintonel Technology introduced a solution to digitalise and automate the metal fabrication process in Aba, through Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacturing, while Ogwugo technologies introduced an online marketing platform, designed to handle trade activities between buyers and sellers in broad categories.

The technology, according to the Co-Founder, Clintonel Technology, Tochukwu Chukwueke, will help shoe manufacturers and metal fabricators in Aba reduce production cost, increase production speed, multiply production volume, improve finishing and generate more revenue.

The Co-founder, Ogwogo.com, Chima Abafor, explained that the firm was offering a dynamic platform built from scratch to adapt to modern e-commerce technology, as well as e-commerce problems.

According to the Programme Manager, West African Office, Ford Foundation, Professor Paul Nwulu, the Proudly Made in Aba Hackathon Challenge was organised to find ways of using technology and innovative ideas to help influence the lives of shoemakers, fabricators and garment makers in Aba.

Professor Nwulu explained that they received 400 entries, out of which 10 best ideas were selected for the final, and from which the judges further picked the best three as winners.

Nigeria Awarded 2018 Green Bonds Award In New Countries Taking Green Bonds Global Category

Nigeria has been awarded the 2018 Green Bonds Award under the category of New Countries Taking Green Bonds Global at the Annual Green Bonds Conference in London, UK.

The 2018 Green Bonds award was received by Ambassador Kabiru Bala, Deputy High Commissioner/Head of Mission, Nigeria High Commission, London.

According to the Ambassador on country’s award in the New Countries Taking Green Bonds Global category:

“The issuance of a green bond by Nigeria delivers on Programme 47 of its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), in addition to meeting the expectations of Article 2 of the Paris Agreement.”

Green Bonds are like regular bonds, but with a slight difference – they can only be used to fund projects that have been identified to have environmental benefits, with their contribution to emissions reduction clearly articulated.

In the words of the Environment Minister of State, Usman Jibril in Abuja:

“This further reinforces Nigeria’s re-emergence as a major player in the international climate regime and President Muhammadu Buhari’s strides in moving Nigeria to a low carbon economy.

Nigeria take pride in being the first African country to issue a Sovereign Green Bond and the fourth in the world. Today’s event marks a unique and historic day in the efforts of Nigeria in tackling climate change.”

Nigeria’s recent issuance of the Soveriegn Green Bond (or Climate Bond) apparently influenced its three-star rating in the monthly assessment of 20 countries (including the EU) with high emission levels.

In its Global Spotlight Project for March 2018, Climate Scorecard, a not-for-profit group, gave Nigeria a pass mark, saying that the West African nation was moving in the right direction towards the realisation of the Paris Agreement.

NIPOST Awarded 2018 WSIS Prize In E-Employment Category

The Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has been awarded the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2018 Prize in the category of e-Employment for the NIPOST Address Verification System (NIPOST AVS).

Post Master General Bisi Adegbuyi received the Award at the WSIS Forum 2018 in Geneva, marking the 15th anniversary of the World Summit on the Information Society Forum.

Continue reading NIPOST Awarded 2018 WSIS Prize In E-Employment Category

Juleit Chioma Wins The Inaugural Chefs Taste Challenge

Juleit Chioma, of Le Petit Square restaurant, located in Grand Square, Abuja, has emerged winner of the first Chefs Taste Challenge, an initiative of the Embassy of France, in Nigeria.

The initiative is run under the ‘Good France programme’ by the Embassy to further create cultural fusion between the two countries.

Juleit Chioma who spoke on her winning dish, “Out of the Pot Chicken”, said:

“It is very rewarding for a chef to win in a contest of this nature.

I felt since this was the era where people want to eat good cuisine and still look good, I decided to prepared the ‘Out of the Pot Chicken’.

This is a meal that I created with natural ingredients produce in Nigeria, which you can find around your neighbourhood and gives you a natural taste.”

Juleit Chioma commended the embassy of France for creating the awareness, which would enable Nigerian chefs’ showcase their expertise globally.

Mr. Denys Gauer, French Ambassador to Nigeria, said the initiative was created five years ago to celebrate gastronomy as an art of cooking. He said that four restaurants were participating in the programme to showcase different varieties of cuisine of Nigeria and France.

According to the Ambassador:

“This is the first year we are organising a contest of this nature and I hope it increases as time goes by.

The embassy’s aim was to create awareness in the culinary world for both Nigeria and Europe to come together to promote culture through gastronomy.”

Highlight of the Chefs Taste Challenge include the presentation of certificate of participation to the chefs, drawn from various food companies and restaurants in Nigeria.

Each chef was rewarded with a ‘Relais Café’ prepared duck, bread and mango dressing for their presentation which lasted 15 minutes.

Salisu Ali & David Ntekim-Rex Emerge Regional Winners Of The 2018 Master The Mainframe Competition

Two Nigerian students, Salisu Ali of Bayero University Kano and David Ntekim-Rex of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), have emerged regional winners in the annual Master the Mainframe competition, organised by AngelHack and IBM Z Academic Initiative.

A statement by IBM said 21-year-old Salisu Ali, and 19-year-old David Ntekim-Rex, emerged in the first and second positions, respectively in the Middle East and Africa region, and were named among the top 12 finalists globally.

Both students’ entries, according to the judges, showcased innovation and their clear understanding of software security and utility principles, which are the two key attributes of mainframe systems.

The other 10 finalists were from Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Nepal and the United States of America, the organisers stated.

According to the organisers of the 2018 Master The Mainframe Competition:

“More than 17,000 young people from around the world participated in this year’s Master the Mainframe contest, an introduction to programming and application development competition designed to teach students how to code and build new innovations using the mainframe.

Eighty per cent of registrants were new. Students were introduced to the enterprise systems behind their smartphone apps and gained hands-on experience to inspire interest in pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. By participating, students learnt, prepared for careers and could win prizes.”

According to the IBM Technical Solutions Manager, Brian Collins, and the General Manager, IBM Z Team, Ross Mauri, attracting participants from more than 120 countries across six continents, this year’s contest was truly a global contest and it drew the largest turnout since the contest began in 2005.

They observed that millennials were a perfect match for mainframes and that in a world where the focus often seemed on designing the latest app, these contestants entered the competition with the hope of getting jobs on the Mainframe, which was first introduced in the 1960s.

As part of the contest, IBM made all contestants to create their own applications that dealt with flour, oil and sugar with over 600 different companies worth of data that needed to be sorted and tracked.

Contestants needed to translate multiple flat files of data into dynamic applications that could run on the mainframe without error.

Dot Learn Wins $25,000 Edtech Prize [2018]

Dot Learn, an online video e-learning company located in Nigeria, has won $25,000 Edtech Prize in the ‘Next Billion’ Edtech Prize launched by The Varkey Foundation to recognise the most innovative technology destined to have a radical impact on education in low income and emerging world countries.

Nigerian-based Dot Learn, emerged a runner-up, which makes online video e-learning accessible on slow, expensive internet connections for users in low-income countries. TeachMeNow, also a runner-up, is a marketplace that connects teachers, experts, and mentors based in the UAE.

Dot Learn, co-founded by Tunde Alawode, Sam Bhattacharyya and Thomas Richmann, was among the three winners awarded $25,000 as well as the unique opportunity to pilot their technology in partner schools in Western Cape, South Africa.

According to the CEO and Co-founder of Dot Learn, Sam Bhattacharyya:

“We are very strong believers that education technology is the future and that more students when they see online video, they will be more prone to study online because learning now is about technology.”

The inaugural ‘Next Billion’ Edtech Prize was won by Chatterbox; an online solution – online language school, which gives refugees the chance to work both online and in-person as language tutors.

The prize is worth £18,900 and the winner gets an opportunity to pilot their technology in partner schools in Western Cape, South Africa.

The £18,900 prize will go towards Chatterbox’s target of reaching £350,000, which will help it expand its network beyond the UK to other countries with large refugee populations for whom there are few economic opportunities.