The Nation Newspaper

Tag: technology

  • Embrace technology, expert urges entrepreneurs

    An expert in entrepreneurial studies, Dr Henrietta Onwuegbuzie, has said technology can help entrepreneurs to start off a billion naira company with just N5,000.

    Onwuegbuzie made the assertion on Tuesday in Lagos when she spoke on ‘Technology Changing Business — Model Case  Studies’’ at the Society and Technology Conference (SOCTECH 2015).

    The annual conference was an initiative of the Institute for Work and Family Integration (IWFI) in collaboration with the Lagos Business School.

    She added that the penetration of technology into businesses had made it possible for start-ups to build empires without borrowing from the banks.

    Onwuegbuzie, who is director, Impact Investing Policy Initiative at the Lagos Business School (LBS), said entrepreneurs needed to create big business ideas and leverage on technology to attract online traffic in selling the idea.

    Stressing that technological adaptation was key to business growth, she advised entrepreneurs to leverage on it for wider market reach.

    “Technological adaptation is key to business growth; you need to start small and think big,’’ Onwuegbuzie said.

    She added that the penetration of e-commerce had enabled many small and medium entrepreneurs to have online platforms to sell their goods and services.

    She stressed that technology had given rise to the growth of micro entrepreneurs who use the e-commerce platform to grow their businesses.

    Welcoming participants, Chairman of IWFI, Mr. Charles Osezua, said SOCTECH 2015, with the theme: “Digital Age: Corporate Success and the Family”, was chosen for a robust integration of family and work.

    He said technology was impacting more on the way businesses are run and care must be taken to adapt it without neglecting core family values. “There is no doubt the digital technology has transformed our world and the way we do business. It has positively impacted on productivity and efficiency,” Osezua said.

  • ‘Technology-driven judiciary’ll boost economy’

    ‘Technology-driven judiciary’ll boost economy’

    The use of technology in judicial processes will lead to economic development, a firm, LawPavillion, has said.

    Its Managing Director  Mr. Opeyemi Olugasa said an efficient judiciary can attract foreign investment which can boost the economy.

    “As you may be aware, prompt dispute resolution and enforcement of judgments are areas of keen interest for any serious minded foreign investor.

    “By providing legal practitioners and judges with tools and products that help them perform efficiently, effectively and optimally, we are contributing immensely to national development and growth and supporting our government to achieve its goals and objectives,” he said.

    The firm, which designs legal software, was a Silver sponsor at the International Bar Association (IBA) Annual Conference in Vienna, Austria.

    On why the firm co-sponsered the conference, Olugasa  said: “Considering the percentage of Nigerian lawyers and judges who attend this foremost Conference,  we were  persuaded that it was high time the Nigerian legal industry be portrayed in a clearer focus and this influenced the company’s decision to be a part sponsor of the Annual Conference of the IBA, after being Headline sponsor to the IBA Investing in Africa Conference held in New York sometime in June 2015.

    “LawPavilion is very passionate about raising the bar in legal practice, which decision continues to influence the products and services rendered by the company.

    “Selling the Nigerian legal services industry story is very important to our corporate goal of being the undisputed partner to the 21st Century legal practitioner in Nigeria and Africa at large.”

    He stated that the value of such positioning is immeasurable to the company, but portends even more benefits to the Nigerian and African legal services industry.

    “By being a Silver Sponsor of the IBA 2015 Conference and exhibiting the company’s products, it has become apparent to the whole world that Nigerian jurisprudence is well developed and advanced, enough to allay any fears that might be entertained by intending investors. The rationale also influenced the nature of the company’s most recent product, which has so far received accolades and commendation from the legal industry.

    “It is also the company’s expectation that by showcasing the best of technologies in legal research and jurisprudence, the government at both state and federal levels would see the need to provide access to funds for small and medium sized businesses operating in Nigeria, but who have a global vision.”

    He stated that at LawPavilion, one of the driving forces behind the successes recorded so far by the company is the drive to export technology from Nigeria to the rest of the world, thereby demonstrating that indeed technology put to good use is a leveller and provides ample opportunities for all and sundry to be active in today’s global village.

    In terms of products, he revealed that the company recently re-launched and released a first-of-its-kind product, the Solicitors’ Toolkit (STK) into the market.

    He said: “The STK is a software targeted significantly at Legal Practitioners who work in commercial/corporate circles and contains updated Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Laws of States, Regulations, Guidelines and Policies from MDAs, Decided Commercial Cases of the Federal High Court, National Industrial Court, Tax Appeal Tribunal, High Court of Lagos State, High Court of the FCT, Abuja.

    “The software also contains Forms and Agreements in templates that are editable whilst keeping the original boilerplate.”

    Mr Olugasa reiterated that LawPavilion remains committed to churning out excellent products that enhance the professional work of legal practitioners and judges in Nigeria especially and Africa at large. He also intimated that the company is working on new products that will be revolutionary and ground-breaking in scope and capacity to facilitate extensive growth and improvement in the legal services industry.

    “We remain pioneers, never resting on our oars because the more we engage our subscribers and clients, the more we see their pain-points and we are resolute to find lasting solutions that will improve the justice delivery system in our great country.

    “Moreover, our vision is to provide superior legal technology support for the African Legal Community, promoting Nigerian youths’ ability to export technology and intellectual property. We think this is unique and would love all the support we can get to make it a reality. This is why we are not resting on our oars, and will continue to push the boundaries. We believe in the Nigerian dream and will consistently pursue it, not being discouraged nor deterred by the seeming lack of enabling environment. In doing so, at times, we experience disappointments, mistakes and failures, but we learn from them and strive on, always guided by the popular Michael Angelo saying: ‘The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it’ “

  • Technology ‘ll drive other sectors, says Ajumogobia

    Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Odein Ajumogobia has advised businesses wishing to optimise resources and increase production to embrace technology, adding that it is the force that sits at driving seat of economic development.

    Ajumogobia who has just joined the Board of Asseco Software Nigeria Ltd (Asseco Nigeria) as its chairman, said leveraging technology effectively will accelerate the development of the economy as it is an enabler to other sectors.

    Asseco Nigeria is a subsidiary of Asseco Poland S.A., one of the leading and fastest growing European software companies.

    The former Minister of State Petroleum Resources who reacted to his appointment as the chair Asseco board, said:  “I am delighted to represent Asseco Nigeria as its chairman. Technology is the driving force of many sectors and its effective use in Nigeria will elevate the country economically. Asseco is focused on building a sustainable software business in Nigeria by developing local talent to provide advanced technology solutions much needed in both private and public sectors across the country. I believe that Asseco’s presence and growth in Nigeria will be a significant contribution to the drive for increased transparency, automation, security and economic development through the use of technology.”

    Asseco has been present in Nigeria since 2013 and it is currently one of the largest Polish investors in Nigeria, focused on adding value locally in Nigeria.

    Its CEO in Nigeria, Simon Melchior, said: “Asseco’s success around the world has led it to become the fastest growing of the Top 10 European software companies for the past 3 consecutive years. This has been due to its strategy of international expansion and empowering its subsidiaries to add value locally.”

    To this end, Asseco Nigeria has focused on developing its local content by hiring a number of Nigerian software developers that are creating solutions specific for Nigerian entities.

    “Asseco Nigeria has the mandate and ability to customize, develop and implement integrated software solutions and to provide local support from Nigeria to its customers. This strategy is quite different from other international companies present in the country,” Melchior added.

    The Asseco Group is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the New York NASDAQ and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, employing about 20,000 people in over 40 countries, Nigeria being its hub for West Africa.

    Asseco Nigeria’s areas of activity include Financial Services (banking, insurance and capital markets), Enterprises (power & utilities, telecommunications, fast moving consumer goods) and Public Administration (with a special focus on eGovernment, taxes, land use, health, social security and defense). Of particular significance is the group’s track record of active participation in the automation of central and local government processes in Central & Eastern Europe, to make government more efficient and closer to its citizens as well as Asseco’s experience of providing complex software systems to Polish power distribution companies after the recent privatization of the Polish power sector. Being the only Central & Eastern European company to have completed over 30 defence projects directly for the European Union (EU) and for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Asseco also has proper credentials as well as facility and personnel clearances to provide advanced security solutions to the Nigerian government.

  • Rethinking the nexus between technology and education in Nigeria

    Education is an issue I am tremendously passionate about. The correlation between the theme of this conference, Learning Technologies, and my educational and work experiences is rather fortuitous. I can speak authoritatively about the virtues of open learning technologies having used the platform to successfully complete my Ph.D. degree despite work commitments. Also, I served as the Project Lead for the initiative that revived the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in 2001. This assignment entailed working with the World Bank and undertaking study visits to at least 6 Open Universities around the globe. It also involved working with the UNESCO Working Group on Distance Learning and attending international conferences that focused on open learning.

    Apart from the role it played in my personal and professional evolution, I have come to associate the underdevelopment of the Nigerian state with its inability to essentially facilitate the harnessing of the critical human mass that will backstop its development plans and objectives. In my little monograph, The Joy of Learning (2010), I had the opportunity to outline the critical connection between learning and national development. Someone once said that “’Knowledge is power’ is the finest idea ever put into words.” True. But then it is also the most tragic for any nation not to realize. We have toyed with that idea, but we have not yet unlocked its awesome possibilities. We have enormous human resources, but we have not fully tapped into them. Bill Gates once remarked that “A digital nervous system enables a company to do information work with far more efficiency, depth, and creativity.” We can say no less for the development of any nation too.

    My current role as the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology has also enriched my experience by giving me unique insights into information and communication technology (ICT) issues at both global and national levels particularly with respect to using ICTs to drive development in areas such as education. My presentation today is therefore partly informed by a combination of these experiences and antecedents.

    In the last 15 to 20 years, I have witnessed in amazement the remarkable transformations that have been brought about by ICT. We all daily live these changes which have greatly impacted different sectors of the world economies including financial systems, health care delivery, commerce and trade, weather and traffic management, airline reservations and travel, consumer electronic devices, etc. According to Nicholas Negroponte, a US writer, “Like a force of nature, the digital age cannot be denied or stopped. It has four very powerful qualities that will result in its ultimate triumph: decentralizing, globalizing, harmonizing, and empowering.” Today, over 3.2 billion in the world are internet users with over 6 billion cell phone users. In Nigeria alone, there are over 150 million active phone lines for a population of approximately 170 million people. In today’s world, the youths are not only the largest consumers of ICT contents but are also the leading creators of online contents some of which are educational in nature.

    In fact, the advent of the mobile devices such as smart phones, phablets, tablets, apps, drones and the rapid rise of the number of mobile phone users and the number of people with Internet access has thrown up more opportunities as well as challenges that affect us all. The advent of the Internet of Everything (IoE) has given rise to aggressive roll out plans by most major Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to ensure that within the next 10 years, every device being used by the human race will be connected to the Internet. With IoE, each device such as cars, microwave ovens, refrigerators, air conditioners, watches, etc. will be designed and built with Internet ready embedded smart chips and sensors. The IoE will clearly make for a much more connected world wherein distances will truly “no longer matter”.

    In the midst of all these developments, how is our education system stacking up or leveraging all of these digital technologies? To what extent are students using their expensive smart phones for learning? How many of the lecturers are using social media technologies to connect with these “digital generation” students as part of the teaching process? How will the role of lecturers change with respect to being teachers or facilitators? To what extent do the research projects in our tertiary institutions reflect the technology innovation taking place in Silicon Valley and education innovation taking place in the Boston Axis of the U.S.A?  How much of the terabytes of data being generated by these students (using their smart phones) are being captured, analyzed and used for decision making by their respective education institutions? How much of the aforementioned advances are we using as a nation to address the myriad of challenges we are facing in our education system today particularly with respect to insufficient capacity within traditional brick-and-mortar education institutions, shortage of teachers, examination malpractice, cultism and other social ills, historic insufficient funding and projected dwindling resources from falling oil revenues, exorbitant costs of printing and distributing hard copy textbooks, etc. Knowledge is the only meaningful resource today, so says Peter Drucker. And that knowledge is driven by technologies and channeled by nations into myriad of policies and development dynamics in a manner that make for national progress.

    There is abundant evidence that education is already taking advantage of some of the emerging digital technologies to support teaching and learning. We can see that from some of the exhibitions at this event. However, we would argue that to truly derive great benefits from the advancement of digital technologies, our education system cannot simply be “enabled” using existing digital technologies as an afterthought. ICT cannot simply be seen as a “support” function for operations such as student testing, managing accounts and finance, admission management, library management, etc. It is our firm belief that there is an urgent need to come up with new and sustainable education models designed for a digital era and the “digital generation” of students. Why? Simple reason: ICT contributes to the general IQ, or better still development quotient (DQ), of any nation through the adequate and appropriate technologizing of its educational frameworks. These new education models must be designed within the context of an increasingly connected world of digital technologies and social media addicted students. We cannot afford to simply adapt these digital technologies to the existing, and somewhat flawed, education models. In other words, the digital technologies mindset, world view and culture must be an integral part of the design of the new education models being proposed. These technologies, we can say, help facilitate a development-oriented educational system at the speed of thought, to borrow from Bill Gates.

    To underscore the importance of coming up with new education models within the context of a new digital world order, let us examine some of the challenges we currently face as a nation. First, there is the issue of insufficient capacity. For example, in 2014, of the over 1.7m students who sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), all the Nigerian universities have only a combined capacity to admit only 520,000 students of these students. Clearly for a country as large as Nigeria, the reality is that the traditional brick-and-mortar academic institutions cannot keep pace with the rate of growth of student populations seeking tertiary education. We need to be looking at alternative forms of offering education to our teeming youth population all yearning to gain admission into tertiary institutions particularly the over 1 m who fail to gain admission despite being qualified for it. A digital technology-based Open Distance Learning is such an alternative worth considering.

    Second, the high cost of traditional paper-based textbooks and limited access to learning materials is putting Nigerian students at a major disadvantage compared to their counterparts in other countries. The libraries are not only under-stocked but the few books they carry have to be shared between hundreds of students. This situation is even worse for the larger universities with populations of over 30,000 students per university. Third, there is the issue of inadequate and sometimes totally missing infrastructure such as classrooms, libraries, broadband Internet access, student accommodation, etc. In light of the fact that many of the schools still expect the students to physically attend classes, this state of affairs greatly impedes the quality of education the students get. Fourth, there are other issues such as mismatch between what the students are taught and the knowledge and skills demanded by employers in the market place, cultism and other social ills, cyber crimes, inadequate research output, exam malpractice, and lack of quality and timely data to aid planning and day-to-day decision-making.

    Despite all the above challenges, the good news is that advances in digital technologies provide tremendous opportunities for a country such as Nigeria to transform its educational system beyond what was possible just a decade ago. There are a number of factors that are playing to our favour in this regard. First, the culture of using technology for learning and teaching is gradually becoming a standard culture in most tertiary institutions around the world. In fact, there is a large population of Nigerians currently enrolled into long distance post-graduate programs in the United States and United Kingdom. Second, the gradual effort to roll out ICT infrastructure in many of the government owned Universities is helping to prepare the ground for a digital based education model. The increasing level of Internet penetration and the dropping prices of mobile devices especially tablets and phablets will tremendously help remove current infrastructure barriers.

    Third, the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology has focused the last 4 to 5 years driving the adoption of technology across different sectors of the economy, growing the local ICT industry and increasing the capacity of the industry to exploit domestic business opportunities. As part of this effort, the Ministry designed a number of programs all aimed at driving the growth of the local ICT industry. Some of these programs include the National ICT Policy, National Broadband Plan, Nigerian Local Content Development in ICT and the national e-Government Initiative. Also, the enactment of the Cyber security Law has gone a long way to create an enabling environment for cyber activities and engender confidence for Nigerians to increase the level of use of the Internet for productive purposes.

    We see these programs as preparing the stage for the innovative exploitation of ICT to drive education particularly Open Distance Learning in Nigeria with respect to learning, teaching,  administration and management, research and development, evidence-based policy formulation, augmenting teacher shortage, and fighting exam malpractice and cyber crimes within student communities. Digital technologies such as Social Networks, Mobile Technologies, Big Data Analytics and Cloud Infrastructure and Services (commonly known as SMAC) lend themselves quite well to the new education model proposed earlier.

    It is our belief that the above proposed model provides a number of significant advantages. First, it provides for an opportunity for us to incorporate best practices into our educational system, and create a seamless linkage between the knowledge and skills of graduates and expectations of employers in the market place. Second, it addresses the aforementioned challenges particularly with respect to providing alternatives for all those applicants that cannot gain admission into traditional brick-and-mortar institutions. It is our hope that the increased penetration of low cost devices and falling prices of Internet access and widening footprint of broadband Internet access will make it easier to bring high quality education and edutainment contents to many more Nigerian students. We also believe that this widening infrastructure footprint will provide opportunities to those who are already employed but are looking for educational opportunities that fit into their work schedule. Third, the availability of digital records about student population, learning activities, infrastructure statistics, and census type data will provide governments at different levels with education related statistics that has been largely missing in the past due to poor data gathering infrastructure and expensive data gathering culture. Fourth, the model will allow for integration to open market education platforms such as Khan Academy, Udemy, YouTube, etc.

    We believe the rich stack of learning contents already offered by the latter will make for a much richer experience for Nigerian learners. And finally, the restructuring of our educational system for a digital era and a digital generation will create tremendous business opportunities for forward looking Nigerian ICT companies. We expect the attendant benefits to also help the current administration achieve its broader goals of diversifying the economy, creating jobs, fighting insecurity and fighting corruption.

    If you are sitting in this room today, and you aren’t worried about how we make the marriage between Technology and Education work with a new digital era mindset, then there is a real cause to worry. But whether we are worried or not, we are already on a head-on collision course with a digital future we cannot escape. And the gap between today and that point in the near future may even appear shorter than my time here at UI seems to me. But it is only if we can creatively seize control of the forces that define our lives and define our society can we then truly be prepared to recreate that inevitable digital and developmental future on our own terms.

  • Oyewole to NCS: develop technology to fight graft, other vices

    Oyewole to NCS: develop technology to fight graft, other vices

    Justice Olubunmi Joseph  Oyewole of the Court of Appeal has  urged members of the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS) to come up with technology-driven solutions to fight graft and other crimes in the country.

    The judge who gave the Investiture Lecture of Prof Sola Adewumi, the 13th national president of NCS, in Lagos at the weekend, said since President Muhammadu Buhari’s election was determined solely by integrity and ability to fight graft, he would enjoin the NCS to create a disciplinary body within the group to correct its erring members.

    He said the accounting profession, legal profession have bodies that punish errant members, adding that NCS should borrow a leaf from that.

    The erudite judge said since crimes are now being committed through the use of technology, he charged Prof Aderounmu and his members to come up with solutions that will help fight crimes in the country.

    He said there is also the need for the nation to acknowledge, celebrate and recognise services done by citizens to the people, adding that if emphasis is shifted to the recognition of individual’s contribution to national development, it will spur people to want to do more.

    Justice Oyewole said: “We need to start respecting service; we need to start creating a new set of values and move away from crass materialism.”

    He challenged the NCS members to deploy their deep intellect to grow the nation.

    He said the NCS should close ranks and get bills that will enhance the prestige of the organisation passed into law, adding that the result will be win-win for all.

    Speaking on the occasion, Prof Aderounmu said the welfare of members of the group is central to his adminstration, adding that the executive arm, together with stakeholders in the industry, will work together to create platforms for capacity building, job and wealth creation.

    He praised President Buhari for appointing Babachir David Lawal, an engineer and member of the NCS as Secretary to the Federal Government.

    “This appointment is a welcome one and a furtherance of our belief that the much awaited era of change is  here. We wish to further bring it to the attention of the Mr President that the IT ministry with other IT agencies in Nigeria, if well harnesed, is able to resolve Nigeria job crises and further create wealth for the nation similar to the IT revolution going on in India. Hence, there is urgent need for the Federal Government, under the able leadership of President Buhari to consider the appointment of seasoned IT professionals to who are registered members of the NCS and Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN) to head the Ministry of Communications Technology and other IT agencies in the country similar to what is being done in the Ministries of Health and and Justice where a medical practioner and a lawyer are appointed respectively to head. We urge Mr President to give priority to the use of locally registered IT professionals and registered companies to execute IT jobs,” he said.

  • How technology can develop rural communities

    How technology can develop rural communities

    In spite of the benefits that information communication technology have brought to the country, many rural communities are either unserved or underseved. OLATUNDE ODEBIYI writes that initiatives, such as Samsung Digital Village, will help bridge the digital divide.

    Mama Bassey, 40, a petty trader, left her home for her shop beside the ever-busy main road in Oban town, Cross River State. She takes a bike with her wares. On her way, she received a call on her phone that her youngest son had come down with fever. She aborted her journey and quickly dashed home, picked her son and proceeded on a 10km journey to the nearest hospital.

    After consultation with the doctor, the boy was placed on malaria drugs but the hospital’s pharmacy was out of drugs. He was also supposed to receive a vaccine; unfortunately, the last batch, which the hospital received a few months ago, had been discarded because there was no power to preserve the vaccines.

    Mama Bassey and her family paid dearly for the illness in terms of time and money. It would have been worse had help not come on time.

    The global socio-economic landscape has welcomed many organisations that are changing the educational, healthcare and business terrain with innovative and exciting products and services that make life better and easier.

    In India, Educom is providing solutions that can support every level of the educational need from teachers, to large scale procurement for new educational projects, by working with schools, colleges, state bodies and teachers to provide advice and resource materials to improve learning. These smart schools are fostering opportunities for teaching and learning by integrating learning technology. People in this community and its environs, however, spend less on acquiring better education.

    Africa Indoor Residual Spraying programme (AIRS), since 2001, has also helped protect millions of people in Africa from malaria, by spraying insecticides on the walls, ceilings, and other indoor resting places of mosquitoes that transmit malaria. The group also ensure that spraying does not harm people or the environment. It is expected that Africans with the help of this programme will spend less on the treatment of malaria and will be at a lower risk of death caused by malaria.

    In Nigeria, Samsung Electronics West Africa came up with unique solutions in education, healthcare and electrification when it launched its digital village. The village uses one resource that Africa has in abundance – sunshine.

    In partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Samsung launched a solution, dubbed the Samsung Digital Village, in Oban, Cross River State. This is first of its kind in Nigeria and it is made up of various solar powered innovations, which altogether provide holistic solutions to rural infrastructure challenges, such as those faced by people like Mama Bassey. The Digital Village relies on solar energy to power its activities.

    Speaking during the inauguration of the facility, Managing Director, Samsung Electronics West Africa, Mr. Brovo Kim, said a sizeable proportion of rural communities across Africa do not have access to electricity, a situation that denies people in these areas access  to tools and resources to drive socio-economic development. “We are not only bridging the digital divide but also providing a facility that meets the most critical health and educational needs of the rural community,” he said.

    The Digital Village has various components that the beneficiaries can leverage on to enhance their livelihoods. For instance, the solar powered generators are the heart of the village and are designed to power classrooms, small businesses and community facilities.The generators can last for up to 25 years, compared to the normal traditional diesel generators which are not sustainable and require a lot of servicing. The batteries in the generators can last for up to eight years before they are replaced.

    Innovations such as the Digital Village, smart classroom and malaria management have been known to transform lives and communities. Just last year, a randomised control trial in a Ugandan community found that tea, when consumed once a week, was effective in preventing multiple malaria attacks in human beings. Smart classes, however, have changed the process of learning. In this new dispensation, learning is happening more through screens; be it television, laptop or films. Students are quick in learning new technologies, particularly when used in education.

    The Village is designed to help beneficiaries overcome socio-economic barriers that prevent rthem from accessing quality healthcare and education.The initiative will also contribute to the ICT sector, through the provision of transformative e-learning solutions.

    With these fetters lowered, the digital environment offers opportunities for people to take part in the wide spectrum of activities that makes learning sociable and fun.

    The thrust of this innovative initiative reveals an operational shared value approach, which is manifested in the fact that both Samsung and its consumers are expected to benefit from this innovative social investment to transform the lives of its beneficiaries.

    The Village has previously been launched in South Africa, Ghana and Gabon and has positively impacted on the lives of millions of people in these countries,  providing them with a cluster of connected health and education facilities, helping to fast track the development of these countries.

    With innovations such as this, it is expected that there will be less demand on the family purse and time.

     

     

  • Fed Govt urged to key into process technology

    The Federal Government’s efforts to overhaul the petroleum industry has been commended. Giving the commendation was the Principal Consultant, Lonadek Oil and Gas, Dr Ibilola Amao, who said process technology must be given  given urgent  attention to exploit the abundant natural resources including oil and gas, which the country is endowed with.

    Process technology is basically taking crude and putting it into a process whereby it is translated from its natural state to finished products. Amao said lack of process technology strategy was the end result of poverty, unemployment and lack of value creation ravaging the nation’s economy.

    She stated that the energy and power equation would be solved when gas is utilised appropriately to drive the Independent Power Projects (IPPs), adding this would ensure uninterrupted power supply in the country. According to her, with process technology in place, crude and other mineral resources would rather be refined in-country and be exported as finished products

    The oil and gas sector accounts for about 35 per cent of gross domestic product while petroleum export revenue represents over 90 per cent of total exports revenue. Economic analysts say Nigeria is losing so much money by exporting the crude to other countries and importing them as finished products. “According to them, when you export crude you are at the same time exporting other by-products” she said.

    Amao, who spoke with The Nation on telephone, said Nigeria is wasting money exporting crude oil blaming the development on lack of process technology strategy. “With process technology strategy in place, our refineries and the petrochemical plants would be working. We will be optimising our natural resources, and with this, the country would become an industrial and agro-based economy,” she said.

    She said the country does not have enough qualified personnel to understudy the experts and also lack  the zeal and passion to acquire knowledge. If this development is not checked, she noted, technology transfer would only be  a mirage, documented on paper with little or no result.

    “We really need to get carrier counseling in place, people with the right passion to acquire technology and deploy them with a strategic roadmap that will give the succession plan a minimum number of years,” she said.

    She also said there was the need to address the calibre and number of human resources in the regulatory arm of the hydrocarbon industry in the country. This, she said, would help to address some of the anomalies that currently plague the industry. She said some of the regulatory bodies such as the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR); Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB); Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) charged with the responsibility of developing, communicating and enforcing regulation as well as supervising compliance through monitoring and evaluation, are, however, do not focus on certification, competency and field development.

    According to her, some of the regulatory bodies do not have the right manpower to do their jobs effectively, which she said makes it possible for people to practise what they like and get away with it.

    “We really need to be focused on the development and socio-economic transformation of the nation, but if you and I go about soliciting for our own comfort and our private well-being, we will continue to be in economic decay in this country,” she said.

  • Camp exposes teenage girls to technology

    With skills such as video production, 3D design, and mobile app development, 27 teenage girls are ready to carve a niche in the world of business using technology.

    They impressed their parents with their new skills at a ceremony to close the 2015 Girls Technology Camp organised by Women in Technology (W.TEC).

    The programme also featured an exhibition of projects executed by the girls during the camp.

    Camped at the Laureates College in Mafoluku, Oshodi for two weeks, the girls, aged 11-17, also learnt about photography, self-defence, financial literacy and careers, and went on field visits to General Electric and MainOne Data Centre.

    The girls presented summaries of their skills, entertaining their parents and other guests present as they did.

    Highpoint of the event was the presentation of certificates to the girls and prizes to those who excelled in individual and group projects, as well as character-wise.

    Temitope Bolanle was crowned Ms W.TEC for being an all-rounder in academics, character, and camp life. She also won awards for the holiday resort she designed using 3-Dimension design technology.

    Parents were left in no doubt of the value of the training the girls received from the camp.

    Ms Kate Duru, whose niece, Stephney, won an award for creating the best mobile App, using MIT App Inventor, said the programme gave parents value for money as the teenagers gained skills they could use to earn a living.

    “I am glad to be here to watch my niece win this award. I learnt about this programme about two years ago when my colleague’s daughter attended the camp. She is now our web designer today. There is nothing like waste of money here. I know my niece will also come and join us,” she said.

    Mrs Monisola Balogun, an interior designer, said she was impressed about what she saw on the exhibition stand. She particularly praised  Temitope’s work.

    “I saw the exhibition stand. I am a professional interior designer. I was so overwhelmed. What she (Temitope) has done is great. She designed a resort. She is just in secondary school. Please keep up the good work,” she said.

    Mr Omotoso Bolanle, Temitope’s father, encouraged parents to expose their wards to various skills training to enable them find their feet early. He said early exposure to technology has helped Temitope to decide her course of study in the university which is Computer Science.

    Representatives of some of the corporate supporters of the programme also lauded the initiative.

    Mrs Adebisi Olukayode, Cloud and Data Centre Specialist, MainOne, which provided free internet service for the duration of the camp, said of its benefit to the girls: “They may not really realise the import of what is happening now. This can be a defining moment for some of them based on what they have done. It is a foundation. But they can actually build on it.”

    Babatunde Akinola, Corporate Affairs Manager, Intel Corporation for West Africa, added: “We accept it  because it is giving opportunity to the girls to learn new skills in technology. I feel it is going to be transformational because they are learning skills they can grow with.”

    Programme Manager for W.TEC, Ms Modupe Darabido, said beyond technology, a good take away from the camp was how to make money from each skill they learnt.

    “For all the ICT programmes they learnt, we tied it to them making money out of it – even starting small. We are helping them to open their minds to possibilities around them using ICT,” she said.

    A participant and recipient of the Mobile App Development Award for creating a game using Game Salad software, Tolulope Taiwo, said she would further develop her game beyond Level 4 after the camp.

    “I loved the camp. I learnt a lot. I hope to develop my game further, said the 13-year old pupil of White Dove Schools, Lekki.”

  • ‘How technology has expanded business space’

    ‘How technology has expanded business space’

    Omatsola Barrow is Acting Chief Enterprise Solutions Officer, MTN Nigeria with oversight function for MTN business to business arm that caters to corporate customers, small and medium scale enterprises, among others. In this interview with Bukola Aroloye he speaks about MTN Business plans to take SMEs to the next level.

    Could you take us through what project next level is all about?

    Project Next Level is really about how we enable and inspire businesses in our communities to grow using technology. This is a firm demonstration of MTN’s commitment to leading its customers in the delivery of a bold new digital world.

    What has necessitated the focus on small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs)?

    All over the world, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are regarded as the engine room for growth within the economy. In Nigeria, we have seen a renewed and increased attention being paid to this critical sector in the last couple of years. And for us at MTN, we just want to be fully aligned to the government-led initiative aimed at strengthening SMEs. We believe SMEs play a unique role within our economy as they provide employment opportunities to keep our people fully engaged.  Whether you are talking of the micro (small neighborhood shops) or to the next level of business, SMEs play a key role in our economy as they provide employment opportunities and opportunities to get people fully engaged.

    One of the things people at that level require is technology. What we currently see is that big technology decisions and processes required to drive businesses is well entrenched for the high value customers or for the big corporates, most of them have very well designed or established systems in place. Most of these companies have invested a lot of money in technology.

    However, there is a gap because down below are the SMEs who do not have huge finances to invest or opportunities to share best practice across continents like the big multinationals have. Because of their pivotal role in our economy, it is key that we use technology to enable them, to help them manage their rising costs, to help them manage and drive better efficiencies in the way they do business and to make them effective and take them to the next level where they can compete with other businesses across the world and that’s what MTN next level is about. It is how we inspire and enable SMEs to grow.

    Currently, there is a good feeling in the environment and it is a very optimistic feeling. There is no better time than now to compliment the optimism with a programme that further provides our SMEs much more hope going forward.

    Still on the Next Level, are there individual components to the plan? For example, are we looking at cloud on one hand, access to ERP on another hand?

    The foundation of the Next Level is built around the Y’ello Directory. The Y’ello Directory will be the platform by which all SMEs come on board the Next Level engagement, if we can get on board the over 17 million SMEs we are told are available in this country into the Y’ello Directory. The Y’ello Directory is a web-based page where we are able to create a community where SMEs are able to display their products, they get the right listing and they get visibility. We realise that one of the challenges SMEs face, unlike the big corporates, is that they are not able to advertise; marketing comes at a very high cost for them, creating the required awareness of their availability also comes at a high cost. The Y’ello Directory affords them an opportunity for visibility as well as awareness. It creates a community where people go to buy products and services from the SMEs. Beyond that, we begin to expose them to the cloud. Cloud is simply outsourcing various solutions whether payroll, inventory or HR solutions and gradually introduce them to other solutions such as CUGs, domain names or the internet. That is how the journey would be explored. In looking out for the SMEs, we are concerned about their profitability and sustainability. At the end of the day, we want to see SMEs that will outlive themselves, that can be passed from one generation to the other, enabled by technology with the sole purpose of being sustainable and making profit.

    Still along these lines, MTN data centre has just been granted the Tier-3 accreditation for design. Are SMEs going to benefit from the data centre also?

    Yes. We are confident that there are firms that can access this facility. In as much as we talk about small and micro, we also have middle sized SMEs who are at the borderline of being big. By the nature of their business, the data centre offers them the opportunities for co-hosting and co-location. Our data centre would be a big opportunity for SMEs who believe they have gotten to that size where they would require such services.

    What is your plan for the sustainability of the project Next Level?

    Next Level is just the beginning of our journey with SMEs. It is our bold attempt to strike the right chord with these growth drivers of our economy. It is our intention to make the SMEs aware that MTN as a very successful business understands their pain and would want to partner with them using technology as a platform for enabling their growth. That ultimately takes us to the different level because like I said, the next level is just a journey and beyond the next level, the relationship with the SMEs will keep unfolding. I want to assure you that this is not a short term quick fix; it is going to be a relationship that will be sustainable and we believe would grow from stage to stage.

    Talking about sustainability, the biggest challenges faced by SMEs is accessing finance. How affordable and pocket-friendly are the services you will be providing to SMEs?

    I think you hit it right on the head. For most SMEs, the biggest challenge they have is around funding. Thankfully, the government through a lot of intervention funds working with the Central Bank and other banks are making funding accessible to SMEs. The question is whether the SMEs are well placed to access these funds and this is where technology makes a difference.

    Working with organisations such as SMEDAN, NASMI and the other various governmental and non-governmental organisations, we want to use technology to position the SMEs to make them critically fit to access these funds. You will agree with me that whether we like it or not, government or organisations are very careful about who they give their funds to and one of the things we are doing is working with these agencies and banks to ensure that these organisations are structurally and technologically fit to meet the required criteria to access funds. It is not really about buying products for the sake of buying our services, it is really about how we partner because beyond the technology is also the opportunity for funding which they require to do business and how to give the donors or lenders that comfort. The lenders want to believe that these businesses are not just viable but are structured in such a way that they are sustainable and that they have the right systems and processes and they have the right enablers to do business which is very critical for any lender of money to any SMEs.

    And that is why MTN wants to make the difference by partnering, not just seeing the SMEs as customers who we want to sell to, but more of partnering and hand-holding them till they succeed and have become sustainability enterprises.  If all we set out to do is to just to sell a service to the SME and walk away, then we haven’t done the job. If you look at our model, it is built around strong association or partnerships with the enabling agencies that support SMEs. As long as the SME is growing and it is viable, our relationship with them will go beyond just doing business and it will go from being transactional to more of a relationship. The use of our products and services would be from a consumption perspective rather than do one deal and walk away.

    What kind of results have you seen in terms of your previous engagements with SMEs?

    It has been a big learning curve for us. We have had various interactions at different levels whether from a transactional or relationship perspective. We have been on this journey for quite some time and one of the things that has come out clearly is that SMEs are so diverse and fragmented. Their requirements differ from size to size. However, the two things that have come out very clearly are that SMEs require technology and access to funds to survive. If I may add, SMEs also require a lot of visibility to compete in the marketplace. We have engaged SMEs from different perspectives. What the project Next Level does is that it brings it all together. It takes a view from our past learning to position us as a critical enabler, true to our vision of how we want to inspire SMEs which we believe are the critical growth drivers in our economy.

    Are there any success stories you would like to share?

    I wouldn’t want to name organisations for the purpose of privacy. We have partnered with a range of SMEs some of which had almost even gone into extinction that we brought back to life and put a fresh breath of life into them. They are doing very well. In the next few weeks, we will run campaigns where we are going to get some of these SMEs to talk about their experience and how the relationship with MTN has been, and how MTN has partnered with them as well as the successes they have been able to achieve. I think they will be the true testimonials to make the story perfect going forward.

    What are your hopes and aspirations with this project?

    We have set some very lofty metrics for measuring how successful this initiative would be. From the commercial perspective, we look forward to see a lot of benefits in the second half of the year by which time we would begin to reap the benefits of this relationship. What we are going to be doing in the next 100 days is to establish the required relationships, get as many SMEs on board the Y’ello Directory and we’ll begin to see a lot of traction going forward. We have a very clear picture of what success would be in terms of revenue, number of customers, reduced churn and product listings.

    Lastly, if there is anything you’d want to say to players in the SME space, what would it be?

    I would say to them that in everything they do, they should be guided by the evolving changes in technology. As an SME, embrace technology, as a regulator, be guided by technology and as a provider of funds, always be guided by the opportunities that technology present. It really is about technology and an SME has no choice but to embrace technology to have a key competitive advantage in the market space. Even the people who sell food should embrace technology, like converting their websites into mobile applications to allow for a wider segment to reach them via their mobile phones. Everybody should embrace technology as it is really the key differentiator.

  • Call, ATM, other charges inhibiting technology adoption

    Call, ATM, other charges inhibiting technology adoption

    The adoption of ICT in Nigeria just as it is in other countries. Dr. Patience Akpan-Obong, an associate professor of Science, Technology and Society at Arizona State University speaks with OLATUNDE ODEBIYI  on how ICT can be used as a means of national development, among other issues.

    How would you assess the level of the deployment of Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools in Nigeria?

    In the private sector, the level is high, there is a lot of social use of ICT’s and also, there is innovative use in trying to get the technologies to create wealth. The Computer Village (Otigba Market, Ikeja)  people, all the computer peripherals’ that they sell and even the road side phone rechargers are also finding ways of making money out of ICT. Those who use text messages to tell people to subscribe for one thing or the other are also making extensive use of  ICT. I see a great social use than the economic use in the deployment of ICT among the civil society.

    In the private sector, the banking sector has always been at the fore front of ICT usage right from the beginning. The sector continues to use the technologies in innovative ways.

    In the public sector,  the level is still very basic, a lot of ministries have ICT department by policy but many of the departments are just basically desk-top support.

    There is still a lot of manual processing, which involves the analogue mode of transactions that are paper based, such as tracking a letter that you have submitted previously.

    The deployment of ICT is still very basic especially in the public sector. Nigeria has come a long way right from 15 years ago when I started doing research in the sector.

    What challenges  do you see in the sector?

    It is the issue of trust. We are still not at the point where we fully trust things that we can’t touch, feel or see.

    There is also the challenge of primary infrastructure. At one  level, we have all the infrastructure we need but, on the other level,  there is the primary infrastructure that is not available – electricity. You can have all the computers in the world and all the cell phone, if you do not have electricity to power them, these tools become useless.

    Another challenge is the cultural aspect of it, our attitude to technologies. This still fits into the issue of trust, where we have always done things in a particular way and we are not going to change. Some people refer to this as change management.

    Also, practice needs to match policy. We have got all the wonderful policies concerning ICT from the perspective of telecoms, information technology or in governance. Now we have an e-governance frame work; so we have all the wonderful policies but the problem is that in many cases, even the policy makers themselves are not practising or implementing the policy, so we need to match policy with practice, action and implementation.

    Some government leaders do not know how to operate their emails, they do not have official email address, and even those that have left it in the hands of their secretaries who do not know how to operate it. They check it only once in a month.

    What could the government and the private sector do in this respect?

    We need to take the burden of ICT off the people. The burden of the payment for internet connectivity, call charges and even the banking sector charges on ATM (automated teller machine) must be taken off the customers to facilitate widespread adoption of ICT in Nigeria.

    More than 10 years after the liberalisation of the telecoms sector, service quality remains an issue. What can be done to overcome these challenges?

    In Nigeria, the mobile network operators (MNOs) complain about the problem of lack of electricity. They say they spend a lot more in doing business here than they do in other countries. The quality of connectivity is very low, interconnectivity is still problematic. They should try to figure out how to make connectivity work better.

    There is need for more development in infrastructure and they should find a way of reducing the cost of telephone transactions, internet, data and all of that. It is true that they spend more in Nigeria in doing business than they would elsewhere but of course; they are making a whole lot of money from Nigerians than they would have made elsewhere too;  so stakeholders have to find a way of being fair and reduce the cost of transactions.

    Banking fraud is on the rise as the recent report of Nigeria Deposit Insurance (NDIC) has shown. Do you think the banks are not deploying enough ICT tools to stop it?

    Fraud in the banking sector is not unique to Nigeria alone; it happens elsewhere, but I guess it is more in Nigeria.

    There are two ways of using technologies in the banking sector. One is to prevent the fraud and then the other way is making sure that the technology we use is impenetrable . This could be done by upgrading the security technologies as frequently as possible and not being complacent because technology changes so often and so rapidly. The people who are hacking into the system are also changing and upgrading their own knowledge and skills. It is also said that people making the technologies are also the people who know how to hack into the technologies; so the banking sector could utilise the technologies to curb fraud because there are technologies that would help to curb fraud. For instance, even the surveillance camera is a technology that is useful for curbing fraud.

    Another aspect is making sure that they have sufficient security technologies to prevent fraud. They should invest in newer technologies and upgrading it frequently. They should use a lot of security technologies and not  just security technology that prevent people from entering the bank but also the technologies that make online transactions safe and fraud proof as much as possible. We will not have 100 per cent fraud-proof technologies because human beings make the technologies and they will also figure out how to circumvent them.

    Online transaction is the future. How prepared is Nigeria for this?

    Yes, I think it is prepared for it because it is doing a lot already, the trading websites such as Konga,com, Jumia and the rest of them. Trust could be an issue; online transactions must have the security certification and things that assure people that it is a safe website. We also have to have the kind of structure that protects both the online merchant and the customer who does business online. We need those protection and mechanism that makes online transactions safe, fraud-free and protection for both the customers and the people putting their businesses online. That is very important for the success role of any online transactions.

    Online transactions should be the solution to a whole lot of problems that we have in Nigeria, given the peculiarity of the environment, the bad road, the traffic, insecurity and all kinds of things.

    I think Nigeria is prepared for online transaction as the future because there is a lot going on; we can only get better by continuing to improve, close the loop holes especially, in the trust and security areas.

    Nigeria unveiled a National Broad band Plan setting ambitious targets of 30 per cent by 2018. With about 10 per cent said to be what is on ground now, and the level of efforts at realising the objectives, do you see the country getting there?

    Yes. We can, if we keep working on it. Based on what we have already achieved, back in 2000 when the national telecoms policy came up and the IT policy in 2001. When the Digital Mobile Licence (DML) that gave us the GSM (global system for mobile communication) were rolled out, there were all these targets that by the first one year, this is where we want to be and by the fifth year, this is what we want to have achieved. By the end of one year, we had exceeded the target of five years. So, based on that, if we put in the energy, the political will, we will be able to do this, we can even exceed that 30 per cent target which is just three years away; we can, it is possible. For us to even think of robust online transactions, we have to think about the national broadband, transfer to broadband and move over and expand our broadband resource.

    Even with the mobile phone, if you have broadband, a whole lot of places would be wireless or you have wireless access and with all of these, you can do a whole lot with your phone, using wireless connectivity.

    What is your scorecard of the adoption of ICT by the public and private sectors?

    Yes. The private sector has always been at the fore front of technology innovation and in Nigeria, it has not been different.  When it comes to ICT, the banking sector was there. The newspaper industry was also at the starting block of ICT adoption back in the ancient days of the 90’s. Just like in other countries, the private sector has always been taking the lead in technology adoption but the interesting thing is that it needs the public sector in formulating policies to drive the sector even further.  There is nothing so much the private sector can do by itself. Even though the private sector took the lead, in ICT adoption, utilisation and implementation, it was not until the public sector, (the government) came up with the policies– the telecoms and IT policy, that there was a lot of movement forward. The private sector did take  the lead but the government is needed to bring the policies to create the regulatory and institutional frame work to enhance and facilitate what the private sector and the civil society are doing in terms of technology adoption.

    How can ICT bridge the gap between the governors and the governed?

    There is an extensive use of ICT as social tools; there is the social media and a lot of young people are on face book, twitter and blogs which are insightful and innovative. But, there is the need to see more connection between the social use of ICT and economic activities.

    Leaders are now careful about their dresses and  actions in public, because they know anybody can now write anything about them and post online. We need to use technologies to hold public officials accountable and ask them questions to make them perform and fulfil their promises.

    We can use the Google search to remind them of their promises years back and what they have done. You can also use that to shame public officials who are behaving badly but most importantly, use the technology to hold public officials accountable and;  compel them to do the things they promised to do.

    It is about time government officials, political leaders not go into offices just to enrich them selves, but for them to start seeing public service as a service to the public and not service to their pockets. We can do that using ICT.

    We need to start looking at ways to use the ICT in more productive ways, economically and politically.  It is time to talk about whatever is not going right in government and post. You can also snap pictures of the bad roads yet to be repaired by government.  That way, you would use the pictures to challenge government on its inability to work and construct roads. It would get to them some day and they would be forced to perform their responsibility knowing that there are no hiding corners because the social media is constantly being used to expose their inadequacies in governance.

    In what ways can ICT be deployed to tackle Boko Haram insurgency?

    While that is possible, I cannot speak authoritatively on that because that is not my area of research or specialisation but what I can say is that we still have not yet exhausted the traditional ways of countering terrorism. Obviously, ICT can be used and the terrorists themselves are making good use of ICT in terms of their communication with their phone, posting things and using social media to communicate their messages, They are already using the technologies to facilitate their terrorism activities so it is also possible for the counter terrorism groups and forces to use the technologies as well. They could find ways of intersecting phone calls, and so in that process, they know the locations of these people. There is the  tracking technology in phones and there are certain apps that you put in somebody’s phone and another person would know where that person is. Sometimes, it might just be a phone conversation and then having the technology to keep that person on the phone for a bit so you can track the person. The use of satellite and other technologies can be used in combating terrorism. There is a whole lot of ways that ICT can be used as tool for counter-terrorism.

    How else can ICT be used to grow the economy?

    It is possible to use ICT to stimulate economic development. We have done a whole lot using the technologies, but there is still a whole lot more to be done. My argument is that there has to be the primary technologies like I mentioned earlier,, we have to have electricity.  People talk of all kinds of energy but they all begin with electricity. When  ICT is fully in place without hinderance, it would be easier to make money because all you have to do is to sit down in one place and do all you have to do online. Nigeria, to some extent, has done this but it still has its own peculiar problems and electricity is at its centre.  If you are in a country where  there is reliable electricity supply, you can use your phone and other devices to do what ever you want to do, life would be easier.

    You in Nigeria to research on ICT in government. What are your observations on the use of ICT by the three tiers of government?

    What I did was to look at the level of ICT usage in the sector and how their usage facilitates the delivery of services or the execution of their mandate. From what I have seen so far, at the federal ministries, because I visited each of the ministries, the usage is still very basic, there is a lot more that can still be done; the infrastructure is there, we just need people to start changing their mindset about the role of ICT in government. People are still not reconciling policy with practice at the federal level. The policies are there, they are rich enough and sufficient. There is the e-governance frame work that came up earlier this year; there are a lot of activities going on at the policy making level but at the implementation level, we are still set in our old analogue paper based ways. The website of the federal ministries are not as aesthetic, not updated  and not interactive. On the whole, there are a few of them that were basically surprising, like the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development. When I started the research I discovered that  the ministry was one of the most ICT  intensive website.

    Among the ICT directors, there are those who are really into the ICT and also want to see how the technologies can be used to deliver the mandate of their specific ministries and there are those that are just there because there is the policy that every ministry should have an ICT department. There is a kind of mixture there in terms of the expertise and knowledge of the individuals implementing the policies on ICT in the different ministries, but on the whole, the usage is very basic, practise is low, policies very high and hopefully a time would come when the gap between practice and policy would be very narrow.

    ‘We need to take the burden of ICT off the people. The burden of the payment for internet connectivity, call charges and even the banking sector charges on ATM (automated teller machine) must be taken off the customers to facilitate widespread adoption of ICT in Nigeria’