The Nation Newspaper

Tag: technologies

  • Accenture to CEOs: deploy intelligent technologies or die

    Accenture to CEOs: deploy intelligent technologies or die

    Businesses risk missing major growth opportunities unless their chief executive officers (CEOs) take immediate steps to pivot their workers and equip them to work with intelligent technologies, Accenture has warned.

    A new Accenture Strategy report titled: Reworking the revolution: Are you ready to compete as intelligent technology meets human ingenuity to create the future workforce? estimates that if businesses invest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human-machine collaboration at the same rate as top performing companies, they could boost revenue by 38 per cent by 2022 and raise employment levels by 10 per cent.

    Collectively, this would lift profits by $4.8 trillion globally over the same period. For the average S&P500 company, this equates to $7.5 billion of revenue and a $880 million lift to profitability.

    Impact of greater AI spending on revenue and employment growth, 2018-2022

    Both leaders and workers are optimistic about the potential of AI on business results and on work experiences, according to the study. Seventy-two per cent of the 1,200 senior executives surveyed said intelligent technology will be critical to their organisation’s market differentiation and 61 percent think the share of roles requiring collaboration with AI will rise in the next three years. More than two-thirds (69 per cent) of the 14,000 workers surveyed said it is important to develop skills to work with intelligent machines.

    Yet, disconnect between workers’ embrace of AI and their employers’efforts to prepare workers puts potential growth at risk. While a majority (54 per cent) of business leaders say that human-machine collaboration is important to their strategic priorities, only three percent say their organisation plans to significantly increase its investment in re-skilling their workers in the next three years.

    Group Chief Executive, Accenture Strategy, Mark Knickrehm, said: “To achieve higher rates of growth in the age of AI, companies need to invest more in equipping their people to work with machines in new ways. “Increasingly, businesses will be judged on their commitment to what we call Applied Intelligence – the ability to rapidly implement intelligent technology and human ingenuity across all parts of their core business to secure this growth.”

    The research suggests that there is a strong foundation on which to boost AI skills investment. Sixty-three per cent of senior executives think that their company will create net job gains in the next three years through AI. Meanwhile, the majority of workers (62 per cent) believe AI will have a positive impact on their work.

    The report shows how pioneers are using human-machine collaboration not just to improve efficiencies, but to drive growth through new customer experiences. An online clothing retailer’s AI helps its stylists learn more about customers’preferences so that they can offer a unique and highly personalsed service. And a sports shoe brand set a new bar in customisation and speed-to-market by aligning highly skilled tailors and process engineers with intelligent robots to design and manufacture in local markets.

    “Business leaders must take immediate steps to pivot their workforce to enter an entirely new world where human ingenuity meets intelligent technology to unlock new forms of growth,” said Ellyn Shook, Chief Leadership and Human Resources Officer, Accenture. “Workers are impatient to collaborate with AI, giving leaders the opportunity to demonstrate true Applied Intelligence within their organisation.”

    To help leaders shape the future workforce in the age of AI, Accenture urges CEOs to re-imagine work by reconfiguring work from the bottom up. Assess tasks, not jobs; then allocate tasks to machines and people, balancing the need to automate work and to elevate people’s capabilities. Nearly half (46 per cent) of business leaders agree that job descriptions are already obsolete; 29 per cent say they have redesigned jobs extensively.

    It seeks the pivot of the workforce to areas that unlock new forms of value. “Go beyond process efficiencies and prepare the workforce to create new customer experiences. Fuel new growth models by reinvesting the savings derived from automation into the future workforce. Foster a new leadership DNA that underpins the mindset, acumen and agility required to seize longer-term, transformational opportunities,” Accenture said.

    Scale up ‘new skilling.’ Measure the workforce’s level of skills and willingness to learn to work with AI. Using digital platforms, target programmes at these different segments of the workforce and personalise them to improve new skills adoption, it added. Accenture has developed a ‘new skilling’ framework based on a progression of skill level and using a suite of innovative digital learning methods that maximises training investment at speed and scale.

    Accenture combined quantitative and qualitative research techniques to analyse the attitudes and readiness of workers and business leaders with regards to collaborating with intelligent technologies. The research programme included a survey of 14,078 workers across skill levels and generations and a survey of 1,201 senior executives. These were carried out between September and November 2017 in 11 countries (Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, UK and the USA) and the following industry sectors: Automotive, Consumer Goods & Services; Health& Life Sciences; Infrastructure & Transportation; Energy; Media & Entertainment; Software & Platforms; Banking (Retail & Investment); Insurance; retail; telecoms; utilities.

    The research also included economic modelling to determine the correlation between AI investment.

  • Three institutes develop fisheries technologies

    Three institutes develop fisheries technologies

    Three institutes have developed new technologies to increase fish production. The Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research (NIOMR), Victoria Island, Lagos, the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), Ilorin, Kwara State and the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research, New Bussa, Niger State (NIFFR)), with the new methods, plan a fish processing technology to produce healthier fish to meet local and international standards.

    Small fishing communities are to be equipped with tools and know-how to dry and smoke fish on a simple rack. The technologies include catfish crossbreeding, post-harvest processing and marketing, and sourcing local contents to substitute imported raw materials in fish feeds, among others.

    During presentation of reports to the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP, Executive Director of NIOMR and Team Leader, Dr Gbola Akande, said: “The kiln is capable of offering advanced processing technique that provides processors with better working conditions and also enables them to produce good quality and highly competitive smoked dried fish for local and international markets.”

    He said the new technology transfer was to support the fisheries sector, especially the small and medium scale fisheries in enhancing their profitability, poverty reduction and contribution to the sustainable development goals.

    Similarly, the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), which product was presented by Dr Foluso Olayemi, showcased a detachable fish smoking kiln capable of using electricity, gas or charcoal. And fish processor automatically has the three sources once he purchases the kiln.

    The three models of the smoking kilns developed for WAAPPP are effective in drying catfish to safe moisture content, as well as in fish oil collection.

    The electrically powered kiln has the highest drying rate due to a stable temperature profile in the dryer. It also developed a solar dryer tent for stock fish, which output can compete favourably with the imported stockfish in terms of nutritional and sensory qualities.

    Also, NSPRI developed packaging materials for  marketing of processed fish.

    Olayemi,who is also the  team leader, said: “the study aims at developing effective packaging for shelf life extension in processed fish through the development of vacuum and composite packaging materials using locally sourced materials. However, the triple laminated packaging materials have been found most effective but at a higher cost.

    He said: “They provided the correct environmental conditions for the fish right from the time it was packed till now (four months).”

    Also, the composite packaging materials have light weight which only added negligible weight to the weight of product being packaged.

    The materials provide a barrier against dirt and other contaminants, thus keeping the product clean, preventing losses and protecting food against physical and chemical damage from harmful effects of air, light and insects.

    NIFFR Unit Project Team Leader, Dr Moses Yisa, also presented the newly developed catfish strains, saying the objective the research was to monitor survival and growth performance of the parental and progeny from intra-specific mating combinations so as to to produce fast-growing fingerlings of Clarias anguillaris for fish farmers. This was done in collaborating with NIOMR), Lagos and Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi (FUAM), Benue State.

    The fish strains from different ecological zones used for the study were successfully hybridised artificially and the Onitsha strain hybridised with Maiduguri strain showed superiority in growth performance in both indoor and outdoor experiment. He therefore, recommended the mating combination for propagation to produce fingerlings for farmers.

  • Centre targets domestic manufacturing of space technologies

    The Director, Centre for Satellite Technology Development, (CSTD), Dr. Spencer Onuh, has given assurance that the centre will facilitate local manufacturing of satellites and other space technologies soonest.

    He stated this in an interview in Abuja to mark the CSTD week.

    According to him: “CSTD is ready to indigenously design and manufacture satellites in Nigeria if challenged with the right climate of operations.

    “Some engineers and scientists from other countries that were trained in SSTL along with our engineers and scientists have successfully designed and manufacture satellites in their own countries.”

    This, he said, was possible because they were provided with a functional Design Centre, Assembly Integrated and Testing facilities (DC/AIT).

    He added: “Space technology remains the driving force behind most developed economies. It is the driving force for terrestrial technology and it provides security, telecommunications and urban planning.”

    Also, the Director General of the National Space Research and Development Agency(NASRDA), Seidu Mohammed, has stated that Nigeria must embrace the potentials of space technology to increase her Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

    Mohammed, who was represented by the agency’s director of Engineering and Space Systems, Olufemi Agboola, explained that space technology will help remove the over dependence on oil.

    He noted that Nigeria needs to develop space technology to manufacture quality products.

    Mohammed spoke in Abuja at the Centre for Satellite Technology Development conference with the theme: “achieving the benefits of space technology through corporate partnership.”

    He noted that Nigeria needs to start developing space technology because other developed countries have adopted it.

    According to him: “If you look at the GDP of other countries, there is something that comes out: their manufacturing capabilities. 40 percent of their GDP comes from their manufacturing capabilities.

    “If Nigeria can just have 25 percent in manufacturing everything will change.”

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Embrace new technologies, don tells teachers

    A computer engineer and lecturer at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Mr Edafogho Dennis, has advised teachers and school operators to embrace new technologies that can help teachers and students teach and learn better.

    He said this at a press conference to introduce an ICT tool, a whiteboard that has been improved by a United Kingdom-based company, Sahara Presentation Systems Plc, to do what other whiteboards cannot do.

    He said: “The 21st century teacher should have a pen that is clever enough that when you make mistakes while writing the pen will correct you. A 21st century educator should be a high level educator.”

    Dennis said of all electronic boards, clever board is the best and easy to use since it makes one read, hear, see, say, write, and remember 90 to 100 per cent when reading.

    The board, which is called clever board 4, is said to be made to be convenient for Nigeria’s hot environment.

    The press conference, held at Oxbridge Tutorial College, GRA, Ikeja, attracted the attention of school administrators from over 50 Nigerian schools.

    Speaking at the event, the Export Sales Officer, Mr Jack Wilson, said the board is far better than those that came before it like the touchlite 3.

    Also speaking at the event, Louis Ijenwa, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Foresight Computer Technology, the firm partnering with Sahara Presentation Systems in Nigeria, said many boards have been introduced but the clever board 4 will offer more services.

    He said:”The new board has flexibility of being used either as an ordinary whiteboard with the use of marker pen or as a fully functional interactive touch screen board, and that the preinstalled lynx educational software on the board comes with over 25,000 educational software and can be used on all interactive whiteboards.”