Access Bank Wins Women Market Champion Award 2015

Access Bank Plc has received the Global Banking Alliance for Women Market Champion 2015 Award in recognition for its innovative approach to banking women across the shores of the country.

The bank also restated that its W Awards, the first of its kind in Nigeria,
seeks to recognise and celebrate Nigerian women, home and in the Diaspora, who have impacted the Nigerian economy and their immediate environment positively.

During the 14th Annual Summit of the Global Banking Alliance (GBA) for Women in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Access Bank bagged the award for the Women’s Market Champion 2015 alongside banks across the world which had implemented successful women market programmes.

This award is coming on the heels of the one-year anniversary of the bank’s W
initiative which was launched in Nigeria and subsequently in the Bank’s
subsidiaries.

Attahiru Jega Receives 2015 Charles Manatt Democracy Award

Professor Attahiru Jega has been awarded the 2015 Charles Manatt democracy award by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in Washington.

He was also given the Integrity Award by the Nigerian Higher Education Foundation in New York.

Continue reading Attahiru Jega Receives 2015 Charles Manatt Democracy Award

2015 Clinton Global Citizen Awards & African Business Awards

President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has been honored with the 2015 Clinton Global Citizen Award for leadership in private sector. Dangote Cement also won the Business of the Year Award at the African Business Awards ceremony.

Aliko Dangote is the founder, president, and CEO of Dangote Group. Founded over 30 years ago, the group’s interests include the production and distribution of cement, sugar, flour, and oil, as well as real estate development. Dangote set up the Dangote Foundation in 1993 to drive his corporate social responsibility initiatives, endowing it with $1.35 billion in 2014.

In 2015, Dangote donated $1 million to Nepal to provide relief to the victims of Nepal’s earthquakes and $153 million to boost Nigeria’s fight against Ebola in 2014. He has been named Forbes Africa Person of the Year (2014), Forbes Most Powerful Man in Africa (2013), and listed on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World (2014). He is a member of the World Economic Forum, the Honorary International Investor Council, and the McKinsey Advisory Council.

In 2013, Dangote was appointed to the steering committee of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative. In addition, he collaborates with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight polio.

The 2015 Clinton Global Citizen Award for leadership in private sector is in recognition of Dangote’s unparalleled contributions to the development of the human society in Africa and the world over.

The CGI said it recognised the Dangote’s exemplary and selfless dedication to a better life by positively impacting the lives of people globally through numerous philanthropic initiatives implemented through the Dangote Foundation.

Bill Clinton, who presented the Clinton Global Citizen award to the daughter of the business magnate, Halima, who represented him, said Aliko had raised the bar of philanthropy by an African, which is worthy of emulation.

In the words of Halima:

“This award is coming at a time we are expanding both business and philanthropic footprints globally and we are optimistic about creating value that transcends borders, while improving the quality of lives of people globally.

I must say that we are humbled by this recognition and we are encouraged to double our efforts as we work towards promoting Africa’s economic renaissance.

While we celebrate Africa’s impressive progress, many of these gains rest on a delicate foundation of extreme poverty, insecurity, hunger, disease and poor education and we are proud of the effort of Dangote Foundation overseeing the implementation of our intervention initiatives along key areas of health, education, empowerment and humanitarian aid to victims of natural disasters to bring about sustainable growth.”

Ogbonnaya Bassey Wins ITU Telecom World 2015 Young Innovators Competition

Ogbonnaya Bassey has won the young innovators competition in the ITU Telecom World 2015 Young Innovators competition sponsored by Intel.
The Young Innovators Competition is an integral part of ITU Telecom World events and seeks gifted young entrepreneurs with ideas for innovative social enterprises, in response to a series of development challenges. The event brings together policy makers, regulators, industry leaders, SMEs and entrepreneurs to explore accelerating ICT innovations for social and economic development.
The winning entries, which were selected from 124 applications across 34 countries, will see Bassey attend the Telecom World 2015 event, a global ICT innovation platform for government, corporates and SMEs to be held between Monday, October 12 and Thursday, October 15 in Budapest, Hungary.
Bassey’s entry SolarKobo is an innovation that will provide solar power systems with zero-upfront financing in Nigeria as a cheaper, more reliable and cleaner electricity source than the private gasoline generators which are widely used to supplement the insufficient public electricity supply. The innovation will also allow small businesses and families to benefit from solar systems for relatively low monthly fees and will use single board devices for remote monitoring and customer payment systems.
With excitement, Ogbonnaya Bassey stated that:

Bobai Ephraim Kato Builds AI Robot

A Nigerian Software Engineering student, Bobai Ephraim Kato, has built a functional Artificial Intelligence robot as his final year project at the International College of Business and Technology (ICBT), Sri Lanka.

Bobai Ephraim Kato, a 24-year old personally built the robot and developed the algorithm that enabled it solved the famous Rubik cube puzzle in a manner of minutes.  But it was not an easy journey to success because he had to deal with an unimpressed supervisor and a lot of failures in the course of the project.

According to him:

“My first 5 tests were a failure. The robot always shot a scanning error, and this was a week to my final submission. All I could do was pray. I didn’t know what to do again. I was confused and restless. I kept grinding and it finally started working. At that stage, the robot wasn’t intelligent enough and I had to train it to solve many puzzles to get more skills to save in the database.

It was very hard for me because I can’t even solve the Rubik cube myself. The robot is smarter than me in that aspect.

My focus now is on Forensic computing, Cyber Security and Digital Investigation. This is the path I will love to follow for my career and education. I’m happy to return back to Nigeria as a Cyber Security and Digital forensic Tech. If anything, that’s what Nigeria needs more. We need people who are savvy and sincere in Digital Investigation, Cyber Security and Forensic computing. The world today is bent on technology, the corruption in the world today is bent on it too.

I don’t get how a country will say they can’t locate the terrorist living in the country, and I don’t get how a country will say they don’t know the sponsors on this terrorist group. They make calls, they send emails, they use the internet for many reasons, they upload videos etc. Just one amongst this list is enough to get whoever is responsible. We only need savvy and honest people to do this.”