PositiveNaija

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.

Michael Friday Invents ‘Mobile Intercom’ [2018]

Engineer Michael Friday, has come up with an invention called Mobile Intercom aimed at relieving subscribers of telecommunications services of the need to buy recharge cards.

According to Michael Friday on Mobile Intercom:

“The source of Internet we depend on is in foreign hands. Even our telecommunications companies depend on them. If you want to manufacture a mobile phone, until you buy the operating system chips and insert it on your system, it can never access any of these technologies.

WIFI and Bluetooth are minute ICs embedded in the PCV that makes them work.

Why don’t we have such a thing here? It is because there is no backing. Late last year, I came up with an application. I was at a function and the moment a bigwig came in, all mobile phones stopped working. And I said to myself, ‘If there is any security issue here, now, everybody is doomed.’

So, I coded an application that I can use to make calls, send SMS, do video calls and all of that without mobile spectrum, without Internet or network. We have completed it and it is working. Our chip sets can transmit up to 5000 metres, that is about 5 kilometres.”

Friday is a global award winner for developing the smallest storage micro chips in 2009, at a science competition in China. He emerged the overall best scientist in 2009.

He is also a two-time award winner of the most outstanding youth in Nigeria in 2009 and 2011.

Emmanuel Chuwang Wins 2018 NASCO Cycling Awareness Competition

Emmanuel Chuwang, an amateur cyclist in Jos, ran 9.6 kilometers in 14 minutes to emerge winner of the 2018 NASCO Cycling Awareness competition, which took off from Old Airport Junction, Jos and terminated at New Zaria Road Stadium.

The Cycling Awareness competition is sponsored by NASCO Group Nigeria Ltd.

On his victory, Emmanuel Chuwang declared:

“God is the giver of strength of mind and body; I dedicate this victory to him.”

Victor Lapang, Plateau Commissioner for Youths and Sports Development, said that the state government was passionate about promoting sports because it was crucial to peace, progress and development.

In the words of Victor Lapang:

“We are going to look into hockey, basketball, cycling and many other sports.

Cycling has been known as a major form of exercise; I am really delighted to see the kind of people who have come out because they constitute of both the old and the young.

For the young ones, you can aspire to take it as a profession and work hard for a better future ahead.

For the old ones, we cannot over emphasize the issue of body fitness. If you keep doing this, you can live a longer life.”

The commissioner commended NASCO group of companies for proving to be pacesetters by sponsorship the programme, and urged other multinational corporations in the state to emulate that.

Lapang also lauded Plateau Amateur Cycling Association, for partnering with NASCO to ensure the success of the competition.

Haroun Audu, NASCO Group’s Marketing Communication Advisor, said that the cycling awareness campaign was aimed at reviving and strengthening public interest and participation in cycling.

In the words of Haroun Audu:

“This effort by NASCO Group signals a deliberate intervention to support committed amateur cyclists in Plateau.”

Ablaze FC Emerge Winners Of FC Bayern Youth Cup Nigeria 2018

Ablaze FC of Lagos has emerged winners of the FC Bayern Youth Cup Tournament with a 1-0 victory over Sporting Dreams of Abuja in a tightly contested final played in Abuja.

The final zonal tournament of FC Bayern Youth Cup Nigeria, which held in Lagos in February, had 8 teams namely Bethel FC, Mission Soccer Academy, Ablaze Academy, Lekki Junior Striker, the Future Academy, Esperanza FC, Leo Football Academy and Young Stars, competing for Lagos. Winners here proceeded to Abuja to battle it out for the National Finals, in which emerged Ablaze FC as winners.

The StarTimes FC Bayern Youth Cup Nigeria 2018, a tournament for the U-16 boys commenced in January with games played in all 6 geo-political zones of the country. This is the first edition of the tournament in Africa, which has the best 10 players being selected from 6 teams to form the team who would represent Nigeria in the world finals in Munich, Germany in May 2018.

Speaking on the development, the Chief Executive Officer of StarTimes Nigeria, Justin Zhang hailed the tenacity of the boys who defied the blazing heat of the day to battle for the top spot in the keenly contested competition.

According to Zhang:

“StarTimes is proud to be a part of the competition and it makes us pleased to be supporting the dreams and aspirations of these players to play international football.”