Prof. Akunyili bows to cancer at last, RIP!

ITRealms:

The Immediate past Minister of Information & Communications, Prof. Dora Nkem Akunyili, died this morning in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, losing a two-year battle against cancer. The sad event took place about 10am Nigerian time (3pm Indian time) four weeks after Prof. Akunyili was flown to India for further treatment on Sunday, May 11, 2014, having initially been treated in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

Late Professor Akunyili, it was gathered, died peacefully, surrounded by her husband, Dr. Chike Akunyili, and her brother, Dr. Francis Anayo Edemobi, both of whom travelled to India with her on May 11 and remained by her side until she drew her last breath.

Born on July 14, 1954, Prof. Akunyili would have turned 60 next month. She is survived by her husband, Dr. Chike Akunyili, her siblings, her children, grandchildren and a host of relatives.  

Popularly known as The Amazon, Prof. Dora Akunyili was a first class patriot who deeply loved Nigeria and served the country with all she had, irrespective of whatever risks was involved in doing so. 

She demonstrated this in all her assignments – from the classroom at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), to the Presidential (Special) Task Force (PTF), National Agency for Food & Drug Administration & Control (NAFDAC), Ministry of Information & Communications, Presidential Committee on Flood Relief and Rehabilitation, and the on-going National Conference in Abuja, of which she was a member until her death.

Below is the official statement of her death as issued on behalf of her family by immediate past Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, CON:

“PROF. (MRS.) DORA AKUNYILI IS DEAD

“On behalf of the Akunyili's family, I wish to officially confirm the death of Prof. (Mrs.) Dora Nkem Akunyili, OFR, in a Specialist Cancer Hospital in India this morning at 10 am, Nigerian Time, after a two-year battle with cancer.

“In spite her illness, Prof. Akunyili was unwavering in her belief in a better Nigeria. That was why she defied her condition and was part of Anambra State Handover Committee and the National Conference.

“The last time I visited her in India, even when she needed all the prayers herself, she was full of concern for the abducted Chibok girls, security and other challenges facing the country and told me that she remained prayerful for the release of those girls and for God to help President Goodluck Jonathan to overcome all the challenges facing the Nation. She therefore urged all Nigerians to remain prayerful and committed to building a better society for our children. We all prayed together and I promised to be visiting her every month.

“We thank all those who remain fervent in prayers for her recovery and urge them to remain prayerful for the peaceful repose of her soul.”

Outside headline and pix/Courtesy News Express

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•Pix late Prof. Dora Akunyili.

Different shapes of Cloud hinges on trust by Antony Cook

ITRealms:

The Assistant General Counsel, Microsoft Middle East and Africa, Antony Cook, who dwelt on Cloud Computing: Privacy and Security, asserting that trust is the key to cloud services, at an event in Lagos, reports ITRealms.

And for Cook, the numbers matters so much, stating that mobility checks has seen 1.1 billion global smartphone subscribers, yet 5 billion non-smartphone users still exist globally.

Cook also said that on mobility, there are over a billion users, Facebook users are now in the hands of 680 million mobile, just as 175 million tweets are generated daily.

On the big data, Cook pointed out that there was 2.4 billion global internet users in 2012, whereas total amount of digital information in the world is increasing 10x every 5 years, with the Cloud being the enabling force for all these trends.

Thus, for Cook, clouds come in different shapes, namely the public, private and public cum private clouds.

For the public clouds, Cook said this manages data centers by service provides within agile, cost effective and scalable.

Private clouds, the counsel said is on-premises or hosted by a third party which could be more secured, more customizable, greater control and more overhead.

Accordingly, the AGM at Microsoft says that public and private clouds has reputed for optimal mix of cost and control, while agile, scalable, more secure and cost effectiveness could be outlined as seeming advantages.

Some key benefits of the cloud include cost savings, security and performance.

Precisely, Antony said that for the cost savings, cloud services provide cost savings without compromising on quality.

On the security benefit, Antony said experience and scale enabled cloud service providers are known to offer more robust security.

Even as the performance gains involve cloud services which enable customers to innovate and operate at a faster pace.

However, across security, privacy and compliance, he pointed out that trust is key, stressing that people would like to know how safe are their data in the cloud, where will my data be stored and who can access it for  hat purposes, whilst on compliance, customers will like to know if the cloud will increase their regulatory risk?

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Airtel kick-off Rising Stars Season 4

ITRealms:

Airtel Nigeria, Wednesday in Lagos kicked off the 4th edition of Airtel Rising Stars (ARS) U-17 male and female tournament, a grass-root football talent search programme aimed at identifying and nurturing budding soccer talent from the grassroots onto a national stage, reports ITRealms.

This, ITRealms gathered is coming 10 months after a successful hosting of the 3rd edition of the ARS, an Africa-wide grassroots tournament that underscores the company’s avowed commitment to creating excitement for sports lovers as well as providing empowerment opportunities for Nigerian youth.

Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, noted that the soccer initiative is the company’s contribution to sports development and youth empowerment in Nigeria.

Ogunsanya who was accompanied by ex Super Eagles and Falcons Stars including Peter Rufai, Ann Chiejine, Chioma Ajunwa, Garba Lawal and Mutiu Adepoju said football in Nigeria elicits passion, creates fun and engenders unity.

“Airtel wants to be an integral part of local communities and our association with football has strong elements of creating positive change and engagement. ARS is our contribution to building and sustaining a rich pool of football talents for the Super Eagles and Falcons,” he said.

While highlighting the success of the Airtel Rising Starts intervention, the Airtel CEO also noted that the initiative has provided strong platforms for empowering exceptionally talented Nigerians.

"It is on record that the Airtel Rising Stars Football programme has produced exceptional talents some of whom are: Musa Mohammed Shehu- Captain Golden Eaglets U17- (ARS 2011); Zahradden Bello- U17- ARS (2012); AL Hassan Ibrahim Abdullahi- U17- ARS (2011); Muri Lawal- Sunshine Stars FC Akure- ARS (2011) and Josephine Mathias- Falconets, Pelican Stars FC Calabar- ARS (2011),” he said.

According to Ogunsanya, the fourth edition of the Airtel Rising Stars programme will be played in different regions across the country, culminating in the National Finals, a three-day soccer fiesta. Thereafter, the successful male and female teams will travel to Gabon to compete for continental glory in Africa’s biggest youth football tournament with participation from 17 countries.

With over 50,000 active participants over the last 3 seasons, ARS enjoys the endorsement and support of football bodies such as Lagos State Football Association (LSFA), Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON), Arsenal Football Club and Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF). This year, Airtel is partnering ex super eagles and falcons stars to offer technical support and advisory services to the youngsters.

Beginning with Open Screening Camps in five locations, where the participants will be screened for age compliance and given the opportunity to showcase their talents, the selected male and female teams in each camp will proceed to Lagos to challenge for honors at the National Finals.

The Airtel Rising Stars U-17 Tourney, a unique pan African initiative of Airtel Africa, is designed to provide support for the development of football talents across Nigeria. It aims at discovering talented students (male and female) of secondary school age and providing them the opportunity to gain football skills and develop into renowned stars.

The Airtel Rising Stars registration will kick-off from today, June 4th, 2014 to Friday, June 27th, 2014 and is expected to draw thousands of participants across the country. The registration forms will be available at Airtel Express shops nationwide.

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Apple’s OS X Yosemite debuts

ITRealms:

Apple Tuesday in the city of San Francisco in the United States unveiled its OS X Yosemite, a powerful new version of OS X redesigned and refined with a fresh, modern look, powerful new apps and amazing new continuity features that make working across Mac and iOS devices more fluid than ever, reports ITRealms.

The new Today view in Notification Center, ITRealms gathered, gives users a quick look at everything one needs to know, all in one place; iCloud Drive is located within the Finder and can store files of any type; and Safari has a new streamlined design that puts the most important controls at your fingertips.

While the Mail makes editing and sending attachments easier than ever; Handoff allows an activity on one device and pass it to the other; and Instant Hotspot makes using your iPhone’s hotspot as easy as connecting to a Wi-Fi network. Yosemite even gives you the ability to make iPhone calls on your Mac.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering  says Yosemite is the future of OS X with its incredible new design and amazing new apps, all engineered to work beautifully with iOS.

 “We engineer our platforms, services and devices together, so we are able to create a seamless experience for our users across all our products that is unparalleled in the industry. It’s something only Apple can deliver.”

With Yosemite, OS X has been redesigned and refined with a fresh modern look where controls are clearer, smarter and easier to understand, and streamlined toolbars put the focus on your content without compromising functionality. Translucent elements reveal additional content in your app window, provide a hint at what’s hidden behind and take on the look of your desktop. App icons have a clean, consistent design and an updated system font improves readability.

The new Today view in Notification Center gives you a quick look at everything you need to know with widgets for Calendar, Weather, Stocks, Reminders, World Clock and social networks. You can even download additional widgets from the Mac App Store to customize your Today view. Spotlight now appears front and center on your desktop and adds new categories of results, so you can view rich suggestions from Wikipedia, Maps, Bing, App Store, iTunes Store, iBooks Store, top websites, news and movie showtimes.

Built right into the Finder, iCloud Drive stores files of any type in iCloud. iCloud Drive works like any other folder on your Mac, so you can drag documents into it, organise them with folders and Tags and search for them using Spotlight. With iCloud Drive, you can access all your files in iCloud from your Mac, iPhone, iPad or even a Windows PC.

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Digital debate: UN assembles ICT regulators in Bahrain

ITRealms:

Bahrain on Tuesday welcomed over 650 high-level international delegates to the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) from the world’s information and communication technology (ICT) regulatory authorities, who will spend the week debating the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow’s increasingly interconnected digital environment, reports ITRealms.

The Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) event aim at stimulating debate, knowledge sharing and exchange of best practice among regulators, industry leaders, government policy analysts and other key ICT stakeholders.

ITRealms gathered that GSR is hosted by the Government of Bahrain under the patronage of Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the event is taking place at the Gulf Hotel Bahrain from 3-5 June.

Discussions, ITRealms also notes will focus around ‘Capitalizing on the Potential of the Digital World’, and feature key topics including Big Data; consumer empowerment; strategies to stimulate ICT market competition and meet growing demand for network capacity; emerging digital business models such as OTT and cloud services; and innovative radio spectrum management trends. 

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of Bahrain is partnering with ITU to host the symposium, which is officially chaired by TRA Chairman Dr Mohammed Ahmed Alamer.

The event which opening with distinguished guests, including HH Sheikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Deputy Premier of Bahrain, H.E. Sheikh Fawaz bin Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of State for Telecommunications Affairs, and ITU Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun I. Touré in attendance.

In his address to GSR-14 delegates, Dr Touré said the digital ecosystem has re-drawn the business boundaries and paved the way for a wealth of fresh and innovative ideas. 

“In this new business landscape, how can we ensure that both consumers and businesses benefit from the opportunities of living in a digital society? How can we respond to their need for a secure, reliable and trustworthy ecosystem, while fostering a positive investment climate that will ensure we can finance tomorrow’s infrastructure rollout?” he asked.

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Airtel introduces iPhone 5s in Nigeria

ITRealms:

Telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has announced a strategic partnership, leading to formal introduction of Apple’s latest in stock iPhone 5s into the Nigeria’s market, reports ITRealms.

Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya who was represented by the Director, Products and Innovations, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Nitin Anand, told ITRealms that the partnership offers telecoms consumers across the country an opportunity to purchase the iPhones in Airtel showrooms nationwide or from the outlets of its channel/retail partners including Slot.

He also described the partnership with Apple as the coming together of two great brands, maintaining the partnership is a demonstration of Apple’s trust in Airtel and indeed in Nigeria. 

Further, ITRealms gathered that the partnership underscores Airtel’s unwavering commitment to its vision of becoming Nigeria’s number 1 mobile Internet service provider.

“At Airtel Nigeria, we believe that the future of mobile telephony is mobile Internet and so we are repositioning to revolutionize this landscape with innovative value offerings and strategic partnerships,” he said.

Stressing that the partnership with Apple is a glowing testimony to our desire to lead with Internet. Our enviable track record also provides us a leverage to empower more Nigerians to enjoy super-fast Internet services on their devices and mobile phones on the Airtel network,” he said.

Ogunsanya further said that Airtel is currently embarking on a wide-scale expansion, modernization and transformation of its network.

“Our goal is to ensure that telecoms consumers enjoy the best experience on VOICE, VISUAL and VIDEO as they engage and connect with friends and family members as well as transact their businesses on the Airtel network,” he said.

The iPhone 5s is described by telecoms pundits as the most forward-thinking smartphone in the world. iPhone 5s sets a precedent, with an amazing amount of technology in a remarkably thin, light design. It builds on that achievement with Touch ID — a fingerprint identity sensor. An A7 chip with 64-bit architecture. An even more impressive iSight camera. And ultrafast LTE wireless.

Customers who wish to purchase the iPhone 5s can also buy the device from the retail outlets of Apple’s official distributor in Nigeria, Core Group Africa (CGA).

The launch of the iPhone 5s held at the Civic Centre in Victoria Island, Lagos and it attracted several telecoms consumers including prominent journalists, select youths, Airtel’s channel partners and other stakeholders within the telecoms value chain.

The launch was graced by the chief executive officer of Slot Nigeria Limited, Nnamdi Ezeigbo, Country Manager, iStore Africa, Mr. Sachin Verma, Director, Products and Innovations, Airtel Nigeria, Nitin Anand and Director, Marketing and Brands, Airtel Nigeria, Mr Obinna Anichie among others.

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Nigeria gets LOC on GiTEX Technology Show, Dubai

ITRealms:

In order to fully take advantage offered by the annual GiTEX Technology Show which holds in Dubai in October, Nigeria has set up the GiTEX Local Organising Committee (LOC) as the official country partner, reports ITRealms.

GiTEX Technology, ITRealms pride itself as the premier technology event in the Middle East Africa and South Asia (MEASA).

The technology trade show occupies over 78,000 sqm of space, and records over 145,530 trade visitors from 144 countries in 2013. Also, more than 35,000 visitors came from Africa in the 2013 edition of GITEX where Nigeria premiered its presence by setting up the Nigerian Pavilion which was promoted by the Nigerian Government through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

This year, ITRealms equally gathered that Nigeria is renew its 2013 presence as Official Country Partner to become the centre of thematic activities for the five day technology expo and conference in Dubai.

The LOC is tasked with ensuring Nigeria’s successful participation through pre-show work-plans. While inaugurating the LOC in Abuja last week, the Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr. Peter Jack, said NITDA has a new vision and the agency would genuinely pursue IT development aggressively to position Nigeria in the global society.

He said Nigeria’s presence at Gitex would offer the opportunity to explore international opportunities for collaborations and investments that would further advance Nigeria’s burgeoning IT sector.

“NITDA is determined to position Nigeria in that light, and would work through multilateral stakeholders approach to get everyone involved and achieve our core goals at NITDA,” he said, imploring the committee to do all they could to make Nigeria’s presence at GiTEX 2014 a success and assured of government’s support for IT development at all levels, while stressing the need for inter-agencies collaboration and synergy.

“It is in the spirit of partnership that NITDA has invited other agencies to be part of this preparation and we believe that this is imperative to achieve best results,” said Jack to the committee members.

According to ITRealms, the LOC members were drawn from different private and public sectors organizations including Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), Computer Professional Registration Council (CPN), Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), National Association of Computer Science Students (NACOSS), Nigeria Satellite Communications Limited (NigComSat), and Information Technology Industries Association of Nigeria (ITAN).

Others are Pinnacle Consult LLC and Knowhow Media International – both marketing and media consultants on Nigeria’s participation at Gitex 2014.

Members at the inauguration meeting of the LOC include Chairman of the LOC, Dr. Olatunji Vincent, NITDA; Mr. Yele Okeremi, ISPON; Mr. Mohammed Audu, NIPC; Segun Oruame, Knowhow Media, Mrs. Mary Uduma, NIRA; Tunde Bello, Federal Ministry of Agriculture; Mr. Yelwa Idris, NITDA; Mr. Mohammed Agbali, NITDA; Mrs. Hadiza Umar, NITDA; Mr. Abass Fufore, CPN; Mr. Jide Awe, NCS; Ms. Nwigbo Happiness, CPN; Mr.Abu Agbo Andrew NACOSS; Okafor Chukwuemeka, NACOSS; Olorogun James, ISPON; and Amalu Ikechukwu, NigComSat. 

Chairman of the LOC, Dr. Olatunji said it was important for all stakeholders to come together to drive Nigeria’s participation as the official country partner for Gitex 2014. He said there was a need for all stakeholders to strongly get everybody who has something innovating to showcase at Gitex to use it as a global platform to show the world what Nigerians are doing. 

For Mr. Oruame who later coordinated the meeting said preparations had begun already since Nigeria officially enlisted to be partner for Gitex 2014 and said there was need for the committee to expedite actions to meet up with the demands of the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), organisers of Gitex to ensure that deadlines for all preparatory items are met. 

The LOC stressed the importance of early marketing and publicity activities as the committee works on actualizing the necessary roadshows to engage local stakeholders in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Enugu where the NCS conference will be holding in July this year.

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NCC promises to partner NITRA on broadband penetration

ITRealms:

The Executive Vice Chairman and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah has promised to partner with the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) in the propagation of broadband for development and penetration, reports ITRealms.

Juwah made this promise while presenting a keynote at the inauguration of NITRA in Lagos Sheraton at the weekend.

ITRealms gathered that stressing on the importance of business development and broadband penetration, Dr. Juwah who was represented by an Assistant Director, Technical Services at NCC, Engr. Bako Wakil, expressed confidence that such a partnership will broaden the desire of NCC to improve services, especially on quality of service, pave the way for affordable broadband penetration across the country.

“… We hope that we can partner with NITRA to drive our broadband aspiration to provide quality, affordable pervasive broadband penetration in Nigeria to be able to achieve another revolution,” he declared.

He congratulated NITRA for successfully pulling its inauguration, which Juwah described as culmination of efforts in forming a better platform for effective coverage of the industry.

“It is also heart-warming that your vision is to drive ICT Development through your mission to ensure ethical, accurate, and robust reportage, and deepen collaborations with the industry players, regulators, and other key stakeholders for sustainable development of the ICT industry,” he said.

Pointing out that from the objective of NITRA, it already has a shared aspiration with NCC, hence the Commission is delighted to join NITRA at this special occasion.

On “Broadband Penetration and Its Importance for Business Development” Juwah noted that the catalytic role and contribution of broadband services to an economy is well documented.

The economic impact of broadband is positive as shown from studies of the World Bank which showed that every 10 per cent points increase in broadband penetration leads to a 1.38 per cent growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“The impact of broadband penetration on national development is immense. Some of the positive economic impact of broadband can be seen in entertainment, agriculture, commerce, education and energy management,” Juwah told ITRealms.

Citing broadband in entertainment, agriculture and education for instance, Juwah said that Nigeria’s Nollywood industry has been ranked third in size only behind the US’ Hollywood and India’s Bollywood, attributing that to the largest consumer demands for bandwidth which are coming from music, movies, videos, TV shows and Radio content downloads.

“The demand to download video content, such as a movie or TV show, within a short timeframe requires significant bandwidth. With the availability of broadband access, another means for entertainment businesses to distribute their content and provide access to users becomes possible. This greatly expands the reach for entertainment businesses and broadcasters to reach their target audiences anywhere in the world,” he said.

Specifically on agriculture, Juwah said that broadband access provide agriculture businesses the means to get relevant and timely information on weather updates, since the quality of crops and other tasks depend in large part on weather.

“The proper timing of planting activities in line with favourable weather conditions often promotes high yield,” he said.

Educational institutions, Juwah pointed out are making use of increased penetration of broadband access to push learning beyond the confines of physical classrooms, just as a student at home could participate in regular classes using interactive multimedia technology.

He stressed that unlike traditional school systems which require face-to-face encounters between teachers and students, broadband makes it possible to deliver distance learning and the sharing of educational resources.

Welcoming guest to the event chaired by the Executive Vice Chairman, Teledom International Group, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, the President, NITRA, Mr. Emma Okonji said they are the finest crop of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) journalists, who took a step forward towards the formal inauguration of the NITRA.

According to Okonji, NITRA was established in November 2013, as the umbrella body of all ICT journalists in Nigeria, cutting across the print, broadcast and online media, with a vision to drive ICT development, ensure accurate and robust reportage and deepen collaborations with industry stakeholders and the regulators for a sustainable development in the ICT industry.

“The decision to inaugurate NITRA was borne out of the need to create an industry-wide awareness about the association and to formally unveil its activities to industry stakeholders,” he said

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AFRINIC Board Election 2014 underway

ITRealms:

The Nominations Committee (NomCom) for the 2014 AfriNIC board election has announced the final candidates’ slate for the Indian Ocean, Central Africa and Non-Geographical seats on the AFRINIC Board, reports ITRealms.

Also, ITRealms gathered the public has been invited to submit any comments regarding the candidate's suitability or any other query on the relevant candidate pages.

For the Indian Ocean, there are three candidates namely Kris Seeburn, Subramanian Moonesamy, while Andrinirina Joël Randrianasolo, reportedly withdrew an earlier nomination.

Contestants for the Central Africa include Antoine Joseph Junior Tonye; Bope, Domilongo Christian and Ngnoulaye Janvier.

And for the Independent cum non-geographic region, there are four contestants namely Andrew Kenningale Alston; Boubakar Barry; Hajanirina Ramboasalama; and Ilunga Kabwika Serge.

The voting pattern is such that commenced on May 27 and to last till June 5, 2014.

In addition, the Electronic Voting (eVoting) process is only available to members in good standing.

While the proxy appointment forms usage stipulates that it would be only generated from the member's MyAFRINIC portal once the e-voting platform is open.

A member will be able to opt to either appoint a proxy, or cast an e-vote, but not both.

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