Airtel Nigeria CEO urges adoption of intelligent technology platforms to accelerate national growth - ITREALMS

The Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh, has called on corporate executives and business leaders to accelerate the country's digital trajectory by aggressively embracing intelligent technology platforms designed to spearhead innovation, maximize productivity, and anchor sustainable economic growth, reports ITREALMS.

Balsingh made the call while addressing a gathering of industry captains at the Lagos Business School (LBS) Breakfast Club, on the strategic theme, "From Telco to TechCo." The telecom boss asserted that the telecommunications industry is rapidly evolving beyond basic connectivity to serve as the foundational bedrock for enterprise transformation and the broader digital economy.

TD Africa hosts Checkpoint delegation, strengthens partnership to advance cyber security adoption across Nigeria - ITREALMS

Sponsored@ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

Tech powerhouse TD Africa, on Tuesday, 11th November, hosted senior delegates from Checkpoint, one of the world’s leading cybersecurity solutions providers, in a strategic meeting aimed at expanding the channel ecosystem and enabling more corporates and institutions across Nigeria to adopt Checkpoint as their preferred cybersecurity solution.

The high-level engagement underscored a central message: as digital transformation accelerates across industries, cybersecurity has become an indispensable foundation for every modern organisation. The discussions focused on strengthening market penetration, empowering partners, and driving greater awareness around proactive cyber defence in an era of evolving digital threats.

End-User Billing adoption: Telecoms gain, banks lose by Remmy Nweke - ITREALMS

Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

The shift to End-User Billing (EUB) for USSD in Nigeria signals a turning point in digital finance. Telecoms secure direct revenues, banks lose billing control, and customers confront new realities. In this week’s Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS, REMMY NWEKE, unpacks the winners, losers, and implications for financial inclusion.

Preamble:
The introduction of the End-User Billing (EUB) framework for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) in Nigeria represents one of the most significant policy shifts in the country’s digital finance ecosystem.

Generative AI: Closing adoption gap to boost benefits says data scientist - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

Closing the adoption gap on Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) would boost its benefits, says a data scientist and machine learning lecturer with the University of Lagos, Dr. Roselyn Isimeto, reports ITREALMS.

Gen AI is artificial intelligence capable of generating text, images, videos, or other data using generative models, often in response to prompts.

Methane Detection Technology: NNPC, TotalEnergies seal deal on adoption - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. (NNPC Ltd.) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with TotalEnergies for the adoption and deployment of a methane detection technology known as Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environmental Application (AUSEA) in all its upstream operations.

With the agreement, which is a direct benefit from the company’s participation at the recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference (also known as COP28) in Dubai, UAE, NNPC Ltd. will be able to deploy the TotalEnergies AUSEA technology on its upstream operations sites to ascertain the level of methane emissions from them, with a view to working out emission curtailment measures to help in combating global warming and climate change.

Agbata: Dearth of digital infrastructure, bane of tech adoption in South East - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

The governments of the five Southeastern states must begin to invest in digital infrastructure to boost the chances of effective digital adoption and open up myriads of tech opportunities in the region.

The managing director/ chief executive officer, Anambra State ICT Agency, Mr. Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata “CFA”, made the call when he appeared as a keynote speaker at last month’s conference of the International Igbo Professionals for Development (IIPD).

PIN welcomes DRC's adoption of digital rights laws - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

The Paradigm Initiative (PIN) has welcomed the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC’s) adoption of various regulatory laws relating to digital rights, reports ITREALMS.

These, ITREALMS gathered, include the Ordinance-Law N•23/008 of March 10 2023, authorising the ratification by the DRC of the African Union Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection (Malabo Convention), Ordinance-Law N•23/010 of March 13 on the Digital Code in the DRC, which addresses cyber security as well as the adoption at the National Assembly level of Law No. 23/009 of March 13 2023, laying down the modalities for exercising freedom of the press, freedom of information and broadcasting by radio and television, written press or any communication medium in the DRC.

RT $200bn: Polaris Bank sensitises non-oil exporters, urges adoption - ITREALMS

Sponsored@ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!


One of the leading Commercial Bank in Nigeria, Polaris Bank in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has urged exporters in the non-oil sector to embrace RT USD 200billion programme in a bid to boost the nation’s economy.

The financial institution made the appeal recently in Calabar during a one day Sensitisation programme for non-oil exporters on the need to key into the “Race to USD 200billion Foreign Exchange Programme”.

Kituyi tasks African leaders on eCommerce adoption – ITREALMS

ITREALMS: 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi has said that time is running out for African Union to do catch-up on electronic commerce (eCommerce), reports ITREALMS.

In his opening speech to the business and civil society session at the Africa eCommerce Week in Nairobi, Kituyi said this has become imperative for a sense of urgency, decrying that Africa was being left out of the discourse on e-commerce that had already taken place elsewhere.

He also said, “That’s why this meeting is important,” just as Rapid eTrade Readiness Assessments were unique products that had been much in demand by African governments.

“Faced with current global trade challenges, many countries are moving forward with e-commerce strategies, but it is important that governments include all stakeholders,” he said.

UNCTAD’s Rapid eTrade Readiness Assessments focus on practical steps that national governments, with the support of donor agencies, development banks and international organizations, can take to boost online trade.

The assessments show that vast reforms are needed to seize the development opportunities offered by e-commerce. But they also help African countries to identify opportunities, barriers and relevant policy measures required to improve their readiness to engage in and benefit from e-commerce.

The Africa eCommerce Week, which commenced on Monday would last till Friday, December 15, 2018 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Remmy Nweke in Nairobi/ED, Ops

*JOIN our alert's group | Share stories with us | Advert placement: WhatsApp | SMS: +2348033592762 *Twitter: @ITREALMS *Email: itrealms.dsa@gmail.com*

Fintech startup, Zoto, soars in customer adoption

ITREALMS:

Fintech startup, Zoto, has witnessed a soaring customer adoption through transacting user base and order volume in the last one year, reports ITRealms.

The transacting user base and order volume, ITRealms gathered, grew by 56 per cent and 200 per cent respectively, in the last financial year.

Zoto, which is a product of Hedonmark Management Services Limited and Nigeria’s fastest growing payment solution, promises to replicate an even higher growth curve in the financial year 2018 -19.

The fintech startup, ITRealms reports, processed 5 million orders in the last year which is expected to grow 300 per cent to 15 million orders in the financial year 2018-19 due to growing volume of electronic payments by Nigeria’s young and digitally savvy mobile users. Zoto has scaled quickly with over one million downloads and an app rating of 4.6. 

Nigeria has one of the fastest growing population in the world most of whom are mobile and digitally savvy due to prices of Android phones dropping by as much as 45% and data prices reducing by as much as 80%. The accessibility to mobile phones and data has led to an explosion in electronic payments, with 117 billion USD worth electronic transactions processed in Jan – Dec 2016. 

Reacting to this development, Oshone Ikazoboh, Co-Founder & COO of Zoto expressed delight at the rapid progress made by Zoto with a short time.

“These milestones will motivate us to work even harder and achieve the goal of becoming West Africa’s preferred digital payments solution. In near future we plan to expand vertically and horizontally by adding more categories and increasing the number of merchants in each category, this will help us provide better payment experience to our users and make us an indispensable channel for payments,” he said.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

IPv6: Zimbabwe tops in Africa with 4.2% adoption, Belgium leads globally

ITRealms:

The southern African nation of Zimbabwe has attained about 4.2 per cent and tops the continent on the adoption of Internet Protocol version Six (IPv6), according to the latest study by Akamai Technologies, reports ITRealms.

Akamai prides itself as the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, making the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its clients.

ITRealms also reports that Zimbabwe which ranked 28^th in the global top 30 ranking, is the only African country in this category by this study, just as Belgium came top in the ladder with 46.6 per cent adoption attained as at the time of this study.

Belgium is followed by Greece with 27.6 per cent,  Germany coming hard with 26.1 per cent, Switzerland trails with 25.6 per cent, India achieved 25.4 per cent, whereas USA with 23.6 per cent, Luxembourg having 23.4 per cent, Portugal attaining 18.3 per cent, while Estonia reached 16.4 per cent and United Kingdom realising 13.6 per cent.

ITRealms recalls that IPv6 is equally tagged as the newer version of the Internet Protocol which offers a gigantic address space when compared with the older version, the IPv4.

Experts at Akamai explained that while IPv4 has a 32-bit address spaces which is estimated at 4.3 billion IP addresses, IPv6 has a 128-bit address space which equals to 3.4 x 10^38 IP addresses.

In addition, ITRealms reports that IPv6 offers many security features which were not available with IPv4. And following the depletion of IPv4 formally in 2011, the IPv6 was formally launched on June 6, 2012.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

IPv6 Council advocates speedy adoption in Nigeria, visits Danbatta

ITRealms:

The Internet Protocol version Six (IPv6) Council Nigeria, has stressed the need for speedy adoption of the protocol in the country, reports ITRealms.

The Council Chairman, Mr. Muhammed Rudman made this call in Abuja during a courtesy visit to the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta at NCC Headquarters on Thursday the 15th of September, 2016.

According to him, the world of Internet is going out of Internet Protocol version Four (IPv4) addresses, this is a fact as Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has allocated the remaining eight IPv4 address blocks to each of the 5 Regional Internet Registries (RIR) namely AP-NIC, RIPE-NCC, AFRI-NIC, ARIN and LACNIC since 2011.

He explained that the new Internet Protocol (IPv6) will open a pool of Internet addresses that is a billion-trillion times larger than the total pool of IPv4 address which is about 4.3 billion, pointing out that this means the number of IPv6 addresses is virtually inexhaustible for the foreseeable future.

This, he noted would address the need of the ever expanding world population, the growth of the domain name system due to the opening of the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) and the emerging Internet of Things (IoT).

Rudman also said that IPv6 preserves everything good in today's Internet, and much more, such as stateless auto-configuration, seamless mobility, automated network management, end to end security and new optional service levels.

He equally said most of the developed world has already embraced IPv6, with countries competing for positions in the global ranking on IPv6 adoption, lamenting that Nigeria is lacking so far.

"Unfortunately, most of the African countries are late on this mass migration, with Nigeria particularly lagging behind even within Africa, this should not be taken lightly considering that we have the largest number of Internet users in Africa and the seventh in the world. For example, out of the 103 Autonomous System Numbers registered in Nigeria only 4 are live on IPv6, even the 4 are not propagating it properly on the net. It is noteworthy to mention that over 30 organisations have acquired IPv6 from AfriNIC but most of them are not using it," he said.

Rudman who is also the Chief Executive Officer, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) disclosed that major content producers such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft have all adapted IPv6 giving the opportunity to IPv6 networks access to their contents.

He listed some of the challenges identified for the lack of IPv6 adoption in Nigeria to include lack of the required technical skills, Core, Metro and Edge equipment compatibility issues,  lack of IPv6 upstream service providers most service providers do not understand the business case for the migration among others.

Rudman, who was accompanied by the council vice chairman, Mr. Chris Uwaje, Mrs. Mary Uduma, member and chairman of the Communications and Advocacy Committee (CAC) of the council, Mr. Remmy Nweke, said that to address some of these challenges, the IPv6 Council Nigeria has perfected plans to commence free regular trainings to organisations and individuals interested in IPv6, registration for such trainings have already commenced via the council’s website.

"We hope that these training would expose the participants with right set of skills to assist their various organisations migrate to IPv6 so that Nigeria can occupy its rightful position in the global IPv6 readiness," he said.

Rudman reiterated the Council's commitment to the advancement and promotion of IPv6 best practices and lessons learned in Nigeria, with a mission to provide technical leadership and innovative thought for the successful integration of IPv6 into all facets of networking and telecommunications infrastructure, present and future.

To promote IPv6 awareness, he said the Council recently inaugurated the Communications and Advocacy Committee, made up of veteran ICT journalists as its members.

In his remarks, EVC Danbatta assured the Council of NCC’s to encourage telcos to key into IPv6 deployment in the country and through facilitation of capacity building workshops, pointing that it may be difficult to identify all the challenges hindering IPv6 adoption in Nigeria.

Danbatta was optimistic that the Commission will work with the Council on strategic plans which must involve the stakeholders, stressing that the Council constitution is timely and will grow adoption as well as usage of IPv6 in the country, in addition to putting in place the legal guidelines to ensure companies in the sector and beyond buy into the initiative.

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!
Pix: Courtesy Visit: The EVC of NCC Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta (middle); to his right is member of the council, Mrs. Mary Uduma and his left, IPv6 Council Chairman, Mr. Muhammed Rudman, vice chairman, Chris Uwaje and chairman of Communications and Advocacy of the council, Mr. Remmy Nweke flanked by some management staff of NCC during a courtesy visit to EVC Danbatta in Abuja on Thursday, September 15, 2016.

Yoruba language now taught in Scandinavian schools

ITRealms:

Efforts at deepening the adoption of Yoruba language globally has received green light in the Scandinavian countries as it has been approved for teaching schools in the region, reports ITRealms.

A press statement from the Oodua Progressive Union (OPU) in Europe made available to ITRealms, showed that the Scandinavia, made up of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, granted the consent in late last year.

Confirming this development, Sweden-based newly elected deputy coordinator of Oodua Progressive Union, Mr. Victor Mobolaji Adewale, said at a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey that the approved was received following a formal launch of OPU in Sweden on November 29, 2014.

Adewale, who also emerged Deputy Coordinator of OPU Europe, told correspondent that the launch was attended by government officials from the Scandinavian countries who thereafter okayed the teaching of Yoruba language in their schools.

He said the Union also has the OPU radio functioning in the Scandinavian countries, using it as a medium of popularising the Yoruba language and reaching out to people of like minds.

"We are happy to report that the Yoruba language has got the approval of the authorities for it to e taught in schools in the Scandinavian countries. It’ is a major breakthrough for us in popularising our mother tongue. We look forward to doing more."

The Convener of the OPU and National Coordinator of the Oodua People’s Congress, Otunba Gani Adams, had expressed happiness at the development, pointing out that key reasons for the summit was capacity building.

Adams also advised the European chapter of the OPU to aggressively expand by building more chapters.

He equally said the duty and responsibility of the European chapter should be to cover 25 countries out of the 28 in Europe, stressing that OPU could use Europe as a base to mobilise others.

Adams further said that OPU was now present in 56 countries, noting that "Protecting the image of Nigeria is important. Liaise with the embassies, the Missions of Nigeria in all the countries where you are based. They are the representatives of Nigeria out here."

He implored OPU members to operate with singleness of purpose, stating "If there is no unity, nothing can be achieved. We are building the OPU for the benefit of the Yorubas. We will soon expand strongly in America.”

The publisher of Freedom Online, Gabriel Akinadewo who delivered a lecture on "Leadership and the Nigerian challenge" admonished OPU members to develop leadership capacity in order to run a truly strong organisation.

Among those who attended the meeting was the paramount ruler of Arigidi Akoko in Ekiti State, Oba Yisa Olanipekun, whereas one of the major highlights of the meeting was the emergence of the executive members of Europe chapter.

The Coordinator of the chapter is Akogun Banjo Ojo, while Mr. Victor Mobolaji Adewale became the Deputy Coordinator.

The Europe chapter also agreed to commence the construction of an estate in Ikorodu area of Lagos State at a subsidised rate. 


ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!