Wesley Girls to fly Nigeria's flag @Stockholm Junior Water Prize contest - ITREALMS

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The Wesley Girls Senior Secondary School, Yaba, which falls under Education District IV of Lagos State, will be representing Nigeria at the 2023 Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP) competition in Sweden.

The competition brings together the world's brightest young scientists to encourage their continued interest in water-related issues.

Taidob College cart away 4 prizes @FBN sponsored contest - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Taidob College Abeokuta, winners of the 2019 National Company of the Year Competition (NCOY) organized by Junior Achievement Nigeria and sponsored by First Bank of Nigeria Limited on Friday 6 December 2019, represented Nigeria in Ghana at the 2019 African Company of the Year competition.

Taidob College left Ghana with four awards in the keenly contested competition, comprising representatives from 10 other Junior Achievement member countries in Africa, notably from the Kingdom of Eswatini (Swaziland), Ghana, Zambia, Gabon, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Botswana, Kenya and South Africa. Team Nigeria (represented by Taidob College) won the most awards of any other country present. The awards include; Client Focus Award, Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, Facilitator of the Year Award and was second runner up, Company of the Year Award.

The African stage of the Company of the Year competition is the sequel to the national event featuring 12 student companies who are zonal winners from across the country, including the eventual winner Taidob College Abeokuta. Terra Kulture, Lagos played host to the event on 3 October 2019.

Speaking on their performance, Folake Ani-Mumuney, Group Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications, First Bank of Nigeria Limited said “the youngsters from Taidob College have indeed made Nigeria and Nigerians proud. Winning four various awards is a recognition of the viability of the innovative solutions designed to save lives. The impact of their innovation – the Gas Leakage Detector – would go a very long way at solving the problem of fire outbreaks due to gas leakages in homes, offices, and industries. We congratulate Junior Achievement Nigeria on the strides achieved in Ghana”.

Last year, Inventive Explorers, from Caro Favored College Ajegunle, emerged the grand winners at the Africa Company of the Year competition in Ghana. Their rechargeable handheld LED traffic lights has solved a real problem in various congested communities and reduced traffic accidents, especially in areas with school children crossing busy streets. Over the years, FirstBank has been at the forefront of partnering with Junior Achievement Nigeria in Company of the year program and competition.

The National Company of the Year Competition (NCOY) is an annual flagship event by Junior Achievement Nigeria’s (JAN), which convenes the winners of the JA Company Program Regional Competitions across Nigeria together to compete for the National Company of the Year Award. The national winner then proceeds to represent Nigeria against other JA Africa member-nation companies. 

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AUDA-NEPAD introduces youth essay contest on ‘Africa We Want’ – ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The African Union Development Agency/NEPAD (AUDA/NEPAD) has introduced youth essay contest on ‘Africa We Want’ for the continent, reports ITREALMS.
According to the Senior Communications Officer, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Mwanja Ng'anjo, the African youths are invited to participate in a short essay contest on #TheAfricaWeWant.

ITREALMS reports that entries will be judged on the originality of ideas or proposals that could potentially have positive societal impact currently or those that could transform the African continent in years to come through needy actions to be taken now in Agenda 2063, the continent’s vision for transformation.

Also, ITREALMS gathered that the deadline for submission is 28 February 2019, just as winners will be unveiled at an award ceremony in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The entries, ITREALMS further gathered could be submitted in both English and French.

Uj. N. Dominic/Editor

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Communications Minister, Shittu, resigns to contest Oyo governor - ITREALMS

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The Minister of Communications, Alhaji Abdur-Raheem Adebayo Shittu, has resigned, ITREALMS can authoritatively report.

His letter of resignation, ITREALMS gathered, was received at the Presidency on Monday, August 27, 2018, entitled “Request for Mr. President’s Approval to Contest for the Governorship of Oyo State During the 2019 Gubernatorial Election.”

In his reply Mr. President, Muhammadu Buhari acknowledged the letter same day and thanked him on behalf of the Federal Executive Council and Nigerians for his services as Minister under his administration.

“I note with passion your past contributions to our great party APC during and after the 2015 elections,” he said, in the reply delivered to Shittu's office on Tuesday, 28 August, 2018.

Buhari in a personally signed-response, reminded Shittu of his commitment to free and fair elections.

“Our policy is to support all APC candidates,” he declared.

He further wished Shittu well in his ambition to be the governor of his state, insisting that INEC has been directed alongside security agencies to conduct free, fair and transparent elections in 2019.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Double registration mess: Nwannenna wants Gov. Bello to contest INEC claims

ITREALMS:

The former president of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) Dr. Chris Nwannenna, has urged the Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello to contest the claims of double registrations by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), reports ITRealms.

Reacting to the weekend reports of INEC confirmation of Gov. Bello’s double registration, which INEC said he would be prosecuted in a law court, Dr. Nwannenna, who is also the chief executive of Condata Systems, a software engineering firm, advised Gov. Bello to contest this allegation especially if he is sure that he did not commit this electoral infringement.

According to Nwannenna, a fellow of NCS, a number of biometrics systems deployed in the country have made it easy to fake double registration of innocent people.

“That is why, even with biometrics, we still have ghost workers, ghost voters, ghost pensioners, etc,” he said.

Pointing out that for the records, this has absolutely nothing to do with ‘Harmonisation’ but with the technologies with which the biometrics system is built.

“With more people getting more knowledge of biometrics it is easier now to detect when a biometrics system has been abused,” he said.

Therefore, Dr. Nwannenna earnestly advised Governor Bello to challenge this allegation which could be a sophisticated blackmail.

“I am sure that a number of people are available to assist him to do this, even for free. It might turn out to be the beginning of the end of this frequent fraudulent activity in Nigeria,” Nwannenna said.

He insisted that onus is on INEC to substantiate the fact, stressing that Bello is seen twice in the voters' register does not mean that he actually registered twice.

“One or both of them could be ‘spoof’. It is in the effort to stop this kind of fraud in Nigeria that led Condata into biometrics development. In my era of consultancy in this area I came face to face with this evil,” he said.

ITRealms recalled that INEC last weekend, confirmed that Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, engaged in double registration during the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise in his state, thus effectively violating the Electoral Act.

Also, the commission’s National Commissioner & Member, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mrs. May Agbamuche-Mbu, said following reports of alleged double registration by the governor of Kogi State in the on-going CVR exercise, and set up a panel of investigation into the involvement of staff in the matter.

INEC explained that the initial report submitted by the panel was referred to the Appointment, Promotion and Disciplinary Committee, which made recommendations to the commission.

However, the commission said that it was constrained from acting on Bello’s culpability because he currently enjoys “immunity from prosecution”, but had ordered the dismissal of two of its personnel involved in the matter for gross misconduct.

It also ordered the compulsory retirement of an electoral officer involved in the illegal act for gross misconduct.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Pix: Dr Nwannenna and Gov. Bello of Kogi.

Abdulmalik Ibrahim wins CS2 HackBoss contest 2017 top prize

ITRealms:

The result of the 2017 HackBoss Nigeria competition held in Abuja emerged at the weekend with Abdulmalik Ibrahim coming top, reports ITRealms.

Ibrahim was followed by Shehu Awwal and Salawu Muhammed in the top three positions.

Confirming this, the organisers of the hacking competition, Consultancy Support Services (CS2) Limited, through its Executive Chairman, Alhaji Abdul-Hakeem Ajijola, told ITRealms, they were excited that the company took this bold step which has led to discovery of talent bound young Nigerians in this field.

According to him, there were about 35 hackers who took part in the two-day session.

While congratulating all participants, Ajijola declared they were impressive.

“Above all we thank the Almighty for his mercy, guidance, protection and support for ensuring the successful fruition of our plans and aspirations,” he said.

The competition, ITRealms gathered, had a total of N1,450.000.00 for the top three finalists.

Ajijola explained that the first prize went home with the sum of N1,000,000; the first-runner up got N300,000 reward, even as the second-runner up received the sum of N150,000.

Prizes, ITRealms reports, were letter presented to the winners.

“They impressed me. They are motivated beyond money. They are clearly capable. They manifested great hope for Nigeria,” Ajijola asserted.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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Aguegboh Stephen wins DigitalSENSE students’ essay 2012

Aguegboh Stephen (The author of the winning essay)

A final year student of Economics at the Faculty of Social Sciences in the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Aguegboh Stephen Ekene, has won the first-ever DigitalSENSE Africa Media Students Essay Contest 2012.

The essay which centred on the theme: Internet Governance and Mobile Economy in Nigeria; witnessed several entries from many Nigerian students between the ages of 18 and 30 across the country.

The chairperson of the panel of judges, and PhD candidate with the LINK centre, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, Mrs. Titi Akinsanmi described Ekene’s essay as “well written.”

She noted though that it may not be in the best of terminologies, but certainly demonstrated the grasps of the issues and dealt with the topic adequately.

Also commenting, one of the panellist, and Diplo Lecturer on Internet Governance, Mr. Emmanuel Edet said Ekene’s essay was an excellent one that appreciated the relationship between Internet Governance and a Mobile Economy.

Equally, another panellist and Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN), Mr. Gbenga Sesan, simply said Ekene had a good conclusion in the contest.

Receiving the result of the essay according to the aggregated scores from the panel of judges, the Executive Director, Operations, DigitalSENSE Africa Media, organisers of the competition, Mrs. Nkemdilim Nweke, said that it was exciting to note that all the judges have similar opinion about the essay that eventually emerged the winning essay.

This, she said was a mark of hardwork both on the part of the student contestants and the judges who devoted their times going through all the entries and scoring them.

She also said that two other students made it to the top three, Adeyanju Abiodun and Ngwoke Ifeoma.

According to Mrs. Nweke, the winner, Stephen Ekene would be attending the West Africa Internet Governance (WAIGF) coming up in July this year on scholarship, courtesy, WAIGF and DigitalSENSE Africa Media.

WAIGF has been scheduled for July 2 through 4 in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

With the pronouncement of the result, Mrs. Nweke said that Stephen Ekene has become an ambassador of DigitalSENSE Africa on Internet Governance for Development (IG4D).

She assured that relevant information relating to how to redeem the scholarship has been communicated to the winner, just as the winning essay would be published in the internationally award-winning ITRealms Online, alongside his profile.

DigitalSENSE Africa Media Limited is the organisers of the annual Nigeria DigitalSENSE forum on Internet Governance for Development (IG4D) and Nigeria IPv6 Roundtable; to enlighten Nigerians on issues of interest in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.

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