ACTV debuts with Pidgin channel, promises value to subscribers

DigitalSENSE Business News:

The African Cable Television (ACTV), a Direct-to-home service in Nigeria has made its debut with exclusive entertainment channel on Pidgin English tagged Area TV, just as the operator promises value to subscribers on its platform, DigitalSENSE Art & Fashion reports.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director, ACTV, Mr. Godfrey Orkeh, told DigitalSENSE Art & Fashion at Ibis Hotel venue of the product launch that they offer world class content that is both local and international. 

“Our desire to give quality TV entertainment at affordable price has led us to this day and we are glad to give millions of Nigerians what they have longed for over the year,” he said.

ACTV, according to him, is poised to offer to subscribers an enhanced consumer TV experience, providing them easy access to high definition channels featuring movies, music, sports, lifestyle, fashion, children entertainment, religion and whole lots more.

In addition, he told DigitalSENSE Art & Fashion “we have our own channels - Rana for house entertainment programming, Ibile for Yoruba entertainment programming, Oji for Igbo entertainment programming, GAT TV for Gospel music, and for the first time in Africa, an exclusive pidgin channel, Area TV.” 

Also he promises that they have something for everyone, hence they would declare to our customers, “it’s your world”, stressing they have no doubt subscribers will be delighted with the mix.

“Our vision is to be a Direct- to- Home TV operator that’s renowned for offering quality entertainment content and a broad spectrum of choice offering to our customers. With the launch of Africa Cable Television (ACTV) today, we are saying to Nigerians that we are committed to ensuring that we provide value to everyone and that we keep delivering value now and in the future,” Orkeh assured.

The Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Joseph Chitanta also told DigitalSENSE Art & Fashion that ACTV was incorporated in 2013 and ever since the team has been working very hard to see this day come to light

“A day, were we could announce to you distinguished gentlemen of the press the launch of a world-class digital TV satellite operator serving customers in Nigeria with multimedia entertainment that we undoubtedly believe our viewers in Nigeria will love,” he said.

From the onset of ACTV operations, he said, focuses on offering customers with quality content that is of a highest relevance to them

“We strongly believe that by providing our customers with exceptional customer service, decoders that integrate state-of-the-art technologies including high definition TV, PVR and pause- TV coupled with TV programming will not only increase their entertainment experience, but also significantly save them time by providing them with programs that address their needs,” Chitanta said.   

+Uju Nweke +Naija AgroNet +Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) 

ITREALMS ... delivering news for ICT4D

L-R: Miss Akpo Gordon, Director Media and Brand, Ken Hutton, Consultant, Godfrey Orken, CEO/MD ACTV, Jide Lawrence, Director of Content Development, Joseph Chitanta, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at a media launch of ACTV PayTV in Lagos.

Vanguard wins @HackAgainstEbola Editor's lab

PR@ITRealms:

The team from Vanguard, has won #HackAgainstEbola, organised by the Global Editors Network, Pan-Atlantic University and OSIWA (Open Society Initiative for West Africa) in partnership with ICFJ (International Center for Journalists) and sponsored by Google. 

Each team was composed of a journalist, a designer and a developer, and they had two days to build a prototype on a specific theme: ‘How to better cover and prevent Ebola’. It is part of a global programme called Editors Lab; a series of international hackdays.

The competition was won by the team from Vanguard, with a prototype called Ebola Go, information apps which gives the users all relevant information need on Ebola. Such information as news, write ups, photos, videos, data among others, which is web, mobile and SMS based. There is also a short code for Phone users where there is no internet. 

It also connects the users to doctors and doctors to users as well as hospitals. The apps 'draws information from all relevant site that have things to do with Ebola and other health issues.’

As one of the jury Evangeline de Bourgeoning explains ‘It is an extremely simple and efficient

system : without any internet connection and in just a few clicks the users have access to the

most important info about Ebola. This quick and cheap platform has the potential to become a

broadly used tool in West-African countries.’

The 2nd prize was given to Voice of Nigeria, with Hack Against Ebola and the 3rd prize to Unilag with Ebola Shield.

The audience choice went to Ebola Yarn, by TVC. The other teams participating were: The Nation Newspaper, News Agency of Nigeria, Channels Television, Yes International! Magazine, TELL Magazine, DigitalSENSE BusinessNews, Nigerian NewsDirect.

You can see all the projects on the GEN Community. Pictures of the event are available on our

Flickr account.

The winning team will be invited to participate in the Editors Lab Final, held in Barcelona during

the GEN Summit 2015, next June. They will compete against the other winners from the Editors

Lab.

The Jury was composed of Babatunde Akpeji, Knight International Journalism Fellow, ICFJ;  Mikang Longjan, Program Coordinator, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA); and Evangéline de Bourgoing, Programme Manager, Global Editors Network.

The next #HackAgainstEbola will be held in Dakar, mid-January.

 
+Remmy Nweke #HackAgainstEbola +VanguardNews 
ITREALMS ... delivering news for ICT4D

Ekeh, Zinox boss urges Nigerian women in ICT, be more ambitious

DigitalSENSE Business News:

Chairman of Zinox Group, Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh, has urged Nigerian women in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry in the 21^st Century to be more ambitious since they have all it takes to achieve that, , reports DigitalSENSE Business News.

He also said that with the right mix of innovation, business focus, accountability and ambition, women entrepreneurs could lead the on-going evolution of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry in the 21^st Century, reports DigitalSENSE Business News.

Ekeh who was speaking at the Women in ICT session hosted by Technology Distributions at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, told DigitalSENSE Business News that evolution of women in ICT at the top, would definitely relegate their male counterparts.

Dr. Ekeh who was the guest speaker at the meeting outlined a number of statistics which showed that IBM which now has Ginni Rometty, a female as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), citing the increasing role of women in the corporate sector, and enjoined them to play in the global arena by being more ambitious in growing their businesses with target of bigger ventures.

Women, he told DigitalSENSE Business News are naturally more structured, trustworthy, less greed and more prayerful than men.

“These innate qualities have strategically endowed women with the basic ingredients for leadership. As entrepreneurs, all you need to do is combine these innate qualities with absolute commitment, capacity for innovation, credibility and sound digital knowledge and very soon, the male folk will be struggling to keep pace with the women in the industry,” he said.

According to him, “ICT is a business of the future, one that you can bequeath to your children and unborn generations. It is an industry of constant innovation, requiring a sound business model and structure. Hence, I encourage you to enhance your knowledge in the digital business and build capacity which will in turn enable you accommodate the short term business shocks and eventually take charge of the digital economy.”

Dr. Ekeh also urged participants to leverage on the emerging force of electronic commerce (e-Commerce) and mobile commerce (m-Commerce) which has the potential of laying a foundation for women to control the wealth and leadership of nations in the third quarter of the century. 

While assuring the women ICT entrepreneurs of the utmost support from Technology Distributions in their respective roles as business partners, the Zinox Boss cautioned against excessive borrowing and emotional decisions which he says are two factors capable of negating business success.

Equally speaking, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Technology Distributions Limited, Mrs. Chioma Ekeh, counseled the women entrepreneurs to break out of the outdated stereotypes that have long held them back and take their rightful place in the scheme of things, especially with regards to driving the revolution in the ICT industry.

Noting that women are credible, balanced, emotionally intelligent beings, proven masters of crisis and opportunity management as well as great managers of resources; Mrs. Ekeh challenged the participants to borrow a leaf from Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer,  Sheryl Sandberg, who has urged women to seek leadership roles and own their success.

“It is no accident that women make up over half of the world’s population. Why then are there so few women occupying positions of authority?  It is high time for us to unleash our potential and begin to take charge of things happening around us. There is a growing trend of more women in ICT which is quite encouraging and despite the challenges in the system, we must capitalize on this to lead the revolutions in the industry,” she said.

DigitalSENSE Business News recalls that Technology Distributions, one of the largest ICT distribution companies in Africa with over 65 per cent spread of ICT products distribution in the West African sub-region and boasts of a strong gender-sensitive structure, with over 80 per cent of women occupying managerial positions in the company.

 
+Remmy Nweke +zinox technology
ITREALMS ... delivering news for ICT4D

pix: Zinox chairman, Leo-Stan Ekeh

Galaxy Backbone invested N2bn in ICT Infrastructure - Johnson

DigitalSENSE Business News:

The Federal Government has invested the sum of N2 billion on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, through the Galaxy Backbone Limited, reports DigitalSENSE Business News.

Disclosing this was the Honourable Minister for Communication Technology, Dr. Mrs. Omobola Johnson, at the formal launching of the unified email platform for the Federal Civil Service in Abuja.

She told DigitalSENSE Business News that the investment specifically focused on improving data centre environment, data computing and data storage resources.

According to her, the huge investment has resulted in the Galaxy network maintaining an uptime of over 96 per cent over the last 9 months and the Federal Government ICT company is driving to increase service reliability and availability of the platform to 99.999 per cent - known in the industry as “the Five Nines” where downtime is no more than 5.39 minutes in a year. 

She also commended the collaboration existing between Ministry of Communication Technology, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation and Galaxy Backbone Ltd on the “switch to .gov.ng” initiative, the Minister stated that the initiative was designed by her Ministry for adoption and penetration of the unified email platform for federal civil servants on grade levels 10 to 17 in the first instance, while workers on grade levels 9 and below will be scaled onto the platform in a gradual and phased manner. 

Mrs Johnson further commended the immediate past and present Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Bukar and Danladi Kifasi respectively, as well as the immediate past and present CEOs of Galaxy Backbone, Messrs Gerald Ilukwe and Yusuf Kazaure for the leadership and commitment demonstrated towards the successful implementation of the initiative.

She therefore, urged federal civil servants to embrace the unified email platform by keying into its objectives in order to improve internal productivity and quality service delivery to Nigerian citizens and foreigners.

“Collectively adopting this messaging and collaboration platform is an important pillar of our e-government strategy. The platform will improve the speed and efficiency of official communications and provide the means to share, store and gain access to official documents anytime, anywhere and on any computer or mobile device. Other features of the platform include the ability to send confidential (encrypted) email, schedule meetings on line, assign and track staff and colleagues on official tasks and assignments, send circulars service-wide at the touch of a button amongst others” she said.

The Minster further said that prior to this, the Ministry of Communication Technology with the strong support of the Council of ICT heads embarked on a similar initiative to not only standardize the look and feel of federal government websites but also to migrate all Ministry websites to the .gov.ng domain name. The migration of websites to the .gov.ng platform and this unfied email platform not only enables the delivery of government business over a more secure and robust technology platform, it also enhances our national cyber identity on the internet and improves confidence in citizens, businesses and foreigners as they seek Government information and services online. 

 
The Minister concluded by saying that Galaxy Backbone has also been recertified for the ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management System (ISMS) standards, which is the foremost global information security standard. In this regard, Galaxy is launching a Government website certification program that will ensure that all sites hosted on the Galaxy platform are kept secure and safe from hackers and malicious software. 

+Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS ... delivering news for ICT4D
Pix: Kazaure, MD Galaxy BB